18-year-olds will be allowed to drive trains amid concerns over driver shortages. The minimum age to take on the role in Britain is to be lowered from 20, the Department for Transport (DfT) has announced. Transport secretary Heidi Alexander welcomed the change, saying it will bring a more "reliable and punctual service for people".
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00:00So today the government is announcing that we're reducing the age at which
00:04people can train to be a train driver from 20 which is currently to 18. We
00:11know that we've got an aging workforce on the railways with nearly half of train
00:16drivers over the age of 50 and just 3% of trained drivers under the age of 30 so
00:22it's really important that we are able to train up the workforce of the future
00:28and to give young people opportunities and we know that the shortages of
00:33train drivers are a problem in terms of running the railways and so we want to
00:38have a more reliable more punctual service for people and having the right
00:42workforce in place is part of that