Owen Paterson (Shadow Minister, Transport; North Shropshire, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 84, in clause 37, page 46, line 4, after ‘fit’, insert

‘and make public their representations.”’.

We want all the statements and declarations of the representative organisations, once they have been consulted, to be made public. We simply want to know the range of opinion and that the Government have not cherry-picked the opinions.

While the Minister is on his feet, will he also address our concerns about subsection (3), which says that the Secretary of State may prescribe, by regulation, the circumstances relating to “appropriate driving test”? As he knows, Opposition Members do not like   regulation or statutory instruments and would prefer much of the detail to be explained ideally in the Bill but certainly in Committee. Will the Minister go into that in more detail?

Stephen Ladyman (Minister of State, Department for Transport; South Thanet, Labour)

Once again, I encourage the Committee to resist the amendment. I cannot immediately provide the information that the hon. Gentleman seeks, but I am happy to write to him to clarify the situation. I hope that that will be sufficient reassurance to enable him to seek to withdraw what I am sure is only a probing amendment.

Owen Paterson (Shadow Minister, Transport; North Shropshire, Conservative)

It is a probing amendment, but that is a pretty unsatisfactory explanation. Given the hour, I shall graciously seek to withdraw the amendment, but I would like to get a detailed letter on the questions that I put to the Minister. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.