Clause 1 - Traffic officers: introduction
Traffic Management Bill
9:45 am
Viscount John Thurso (Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland (And Transport), Scotland; Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, Liberal Democrat)
That is an interesting question, about which we could have a long debate. When I used to lecture on the difference between management and leadership at Cranfield and other places, we spent a great deal of time arguing about what management was. Many companies refer to health and safety management as something separate. The responsibilities of company directors for health and safety are clearly set out apart from their fiduciary and other duties. That is because successive Governments have rightly insisted that health and safety in the workplace is so important that it needs to be singled out from overall management. I should like to draw a parallel between that and the provisions in the clause. I do not seek to force the amendment, but wish to find a way of ensuring that a proper regard for safety is part of the overall duties of a traffic officer. I am grateful to the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety for having suggested the amendment, but I am aware that others may be possible.
Amendment No. 87 would add a new duty on traffic officers, after subsections (2)(a) and (2)(b), to liaise with local traffic authorities. The reason for that is that we are entering uncharted territory. We are going to have a new force of officers to deal with traffic, new traffic managers and, possibly, new traffic directors. Many in local government are worried that
if those in such posts are allowed to go their own sweet way without due regard to what local authorities try to do, we might end up with a dialogue of the deaf. Amendment No. 87 would therefore impose a duty to discuss what is going on with local traffic authorities. There is a feeling that the Bill does not anticipate the concerns of equivalent staff employed by local authorities. Amendment No. 87 makes it clear that there should be a relationship with the authority, because officers might not be aware of its traffic management pressures, including issues that arise from duties set out elsewhere in the Bill. The duty to liaise will therefore ensure that the two parties talk to each other.