Clause 4 - Powers to direct traffic officers
Traffic Management Bill
3:30 pm
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
I have been waiting ever since Second Reading to reach clause 4 because I was deeply wounded and mortified on that occasion. I intervened on the Secretary of State, who generously gave way. I said:
''The documents issued by the right hon. Gentleman say that the police will be in charge of the new officers. However, can he assure the House that if those traffic officers get to the scene first they will have to wait for the police to arrive, rather than act in their absence?''
Had the Secretary of State known the totality of what was going on my mind at that moment, he would not have replied:
''The police are not in charge of those officers, who are employed by the Highways Agency.''—[Official Report, 5 January 2004; Vol. 416, c. 36.]
That may or may not strike other members of this Committee as correct or incorrect, but I think that what I asked the Secretary of State was correct and justified, and his answer was, not to put too fine a point on it, in its totality, not all it should have been. I know that I cannot describe the point any more correctly than that, but I think that the Committee will get my drift. Clause 4 reads:
''A traffic officer shall, when carrying out his duties, comply with any direction of a constable.''
Perhaps I am a bit on the thick side, but I rather think that being told that one must comply with the directions of a constable means that one does what the constable says. That suggests that the constable is in charge of the traffic officer. I should be grateful if the Minister would say whether he supports the Secretary of State, who said that I was wrong, or his own Bill. He cannot support both.