Clause 5
Local Transport Bill [Lords]
4:45 pm
Stephen Hammond (Shadow Minister, Transport; Wimbledon, Conservative)
I want to probe the Minister with a few questions on the clause. Clause 5(1) states:
“Any existing traffic commissioner for a traffic area in England and Wales—
(a) on the relevant commencement, becomes... a traffic commissioner for England and Wales”.
In the explanatory notes it says that traffic commissioners already in post will remain in post on their existing terms and conditions of employment except that they will be subject to revised conditions of dismissal. That is not quite right, is it? Traffic commissioners who were previously attached to traffic areas, on commencement of becoming traffic commissioners for England and Wales, have revised responsibilities.
I would like to know what the Government have anticipated they might do in circumstances where traffic commissioners who were carrying out the functions once attached to those old areas but then potentially look to become a traffic commissioner for the whole of England and Wales, with new, upgraded responsibilities, are not competent to carry out those responsibilities. How will the Government deal with that? I can not see a transitional arrangement anywhere which states what will happens if a traffic commissioner currently in post is not competent to take on the new role. There is quite a big jump, for example, in some of the competencies that we are demanding of traffic commissioners in their new roles, as set out by the Bill.
I would like to be given some reassurance as to what happens to existing traffic commissioners who potentially do not have the skill set and the competency, which is desired from the new definition of a traffic commissioner.