Clause 5 - Goods vehicles operator licensing
Road Safety Bill
5:00 pm
Mr David Jamieson (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport; Plymouth, Devonport, Labour)
I beg to move, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr David Jamieson (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport; Plymouth, Devonport, Labour)
Clause 5 amends the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995 so that fixed penalty notices given to drivers, operators or their agents, and transport managers of heavy goods vehicles, are made notifiable to the traffic commissioners and are considered in the same way as convictions under the terms of the operator licensing rules.
The objective of the clause is for the traffic commissioners to continue to be able to take into account offences that would have been notifiable on conviction had they been dealt with by the courts. The commissioners will take those offences into account when considering the fitness of a person to hold a commercial vehicle operator's licence. Currently, operators must notify the traffic commissioners of any convictions, but the clause will ensure that they would not escape the requirement to notify the traffic commissioners of an offence by accepting a fixed penalty notice.
Clause 6 merely replicates the provisions of clause 5 for passenger-carrying vehicles by amending the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Further consideration adjourned.—[Gillian Merron.]
Adjourned accordingly at quarter past Five o'clock till Tuesday 25 January at twenty-five minutes past Nine o'clock.