Clause 8 - Powers to confer further special powers on traffic officers
Traffic Management Bill
4:15 pm
Viscount John Thurso (Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland (And Transport), Scotland; Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, Liberal Democrat)
This is by way of a probing amendment to discover what would be the Government's intention if the clause were to remain in the Bill: would there be any consultation on any further special powers given to traffic officers that might be brought in? If the Minister puts on record that there will be consultation, whom will it be with and what form will it take? I do not want to pre-empt what may be said in the clause stand part debate, but this is a clause that gives the Liberal Democrats considerable concern. If it were put to a vote we should certainly vote against it, given its wide-ranging powers. In the interim, and in the assumption that we might not be successful in striking out the clause from the Bill, I should like to know whether the Government envisage consultation, in what form they envisage it, and how it might take place.
I also ask the Minister to tell us why, for clause 2, it was appropriate for the wide powers of privatisation to be held back for ministerial diktat alone and not put into the clause? That would have been a sensible place in which to put them and would have allowed parliamentary scrutiny. However, the principal point is to ascertain how the clause might be acted on in future.