Clause 57
Local Transport Bill [Lords]
5:45 pm
Stephen Hammond (Shadow Minister, Transport; Wimbledon, Conservative)
This string of amendments relates to the power of the traffic commissioner to attach conditions to operator licences. These conditions can be attached if the operator in question has failed to comply with the requirements and specifications of his licence. Such conditions can relate to the specific vehicles that can or cannot be used by the offending operator. Broadly, that is something that everybody will support, but the detail of clause 57 contains a much wider extension to the power of the traffic commissioner and I am not sure whether the Government meant that intentionally.
I am looking for some reassurance from the Minister regarding the Government’s intention, for the clause will enable the traffic commissioner to attach conditions not only to the licence of which the requirements have been breached, but to other licences held by that operator, and even to licences held by other operators connected with the offending operator. I am worried that those powers are excessive in the extreme, and that the punishment would be worse than the crime.
It seems wholly inappropriate that if an operator breaches the rules of its licence, another operator, even a related or subsidiary company, can be punished for the same offence, unless the traffic commissioner were going to attach conditions to all those licences as well. I cannot think of similar circumstances where such wide and varied penalties have been proposed.
Furthermore, if an operator holds several licences and one of them is breached, is it fair that every other licence could have conditions attached to it? The licences could relate to different types of service, for instance.
Obviously, the traffic commissioner needs the function to attach conditions to a licence if the licence is breached by the operator, but the powers that clause 57 gives him are much wider than that. Was that the Government’s intention, and, if so, in what circumstances does the Minister envisage those wide and excessive powers being used?