Clause 51
Local Transport Bill [Lords]
4:30 pm
Norman Baker (Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Transport; Lewes, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 259, in clause 51, page 45, line 6, leave out ‘may’ and insert ‘shall’.
This simple amendment would change the word “may” to “shall”. In my view, a licensing authority ought to maintain a list of vehicles falling within subsection (2) of proposed new section 36A of the 1995 Act if it is serious about undertaking its responsibilities under that Act. It is important that it has an up-to-date picture of which vehicles are available in its area and which are not. If it only has the option of maintaining a list, there may be areas where that information is not available.
In addition, when an authority, either a different one or the same one, is proposing, say, a quality contract scheme it is important to understand the range of vehicles that are available in an area when it draws up conditions that it wishes to see under the quality contract. However, under these provisions, it may not have that information available, which is a gap that ought to be filled. Those are the reasons why I believe that the word “may” should be changed to “shall”.