When the 1962 Act was going through the House, and was upstairs in Committee—I was a member of that Committee—my hon. Friends and I readily agreed to help the Minister in one or two experiments that he was making. We were very co-operative in the matter of road safety, and we also decided that the matter with which the Order now deals was a worthwhile experiment. If the Minister takes the trouble to read the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Committee's proceedings on that Measure he will find that we let the provision go through unopposed, with practically no debate.

But it so happens that this Order is introduced at a time when many of us have grievous doubts—and there are no party politics in this—about the abuses which are going on at the moment, especially about the keeping of records, not only by A and B licence holders, but, in many cases, by C licence holders. The Parliamentary Secretary has conceded that this was one reason why the Minister was loath to extend the permission over 16 cwt. He feared that abuse might follow.

If I understood him aright the Parliamentary Secretary said that this had been an experiment for two years and advice had been taken from licensing authorities which had no evidence that there had been any abuse. I do not see how those authorities could secure any evidence, because there are so few inspectors employed by the Ministry of Transport to check these vehicles. It is obvious that the situation has been hopeless for the last 18 months or two years and that there would not be sufficient evidence obtained to make a case.

What the hon. Gentleman is really saying is that there have been no prosecutions and that does not prove anything. It does not follow that because there have been no prosecutions there have been no abuses. Recently, the Minister started a "purge" among the heavy vehicles and he has been startled by what he has found. Reports about the conditions of vehicles and the way in which records are kept reveal that there is a serious state of affairs; at least, that is our opinion.

We should like to know how many C licences have been issued during the last two years. Last week, the Minister gave a figure of about 650,000 C licence holders, well over half a million. I do not know how many of these relate to 16 cwt. vehicles. The Minister did give some indication but I do not understand what he meant. Is it one-third which are 16 cwt. vehicles? Can the Minister tell us what owners are to be exempt from keeping records? If my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) were present he would have been surprised that the Minister is not continuing this as an experiment.

I am raising this matter in no carping spirit. My only concern is with safety and that the necessary records should be kept. There are many genuine C licence holders who ought not to be bothered about keeping records. We have reached a stage when the whole of the licensing system may well have to be changed in order to cater for the genuine C licence holder, the man with his own van who travels in a radius of 5 miles carrying goods from door to door. We are not referring to such people when we discuss the future of the transport industry. The Ministry has not a sufficient number of inspectors to carry out a proper inspection. It is an overworked Department and there should be more inspectors.

We do not intend to oppose this Order, but I have grievous doubts about the situation. I had hoped that the Minister would continue the present practice as an experiment. When we on this side of the House come to power, which, I think, will be in about two months' time, we shall look at this matter carefully, and, in consultation with the experts, we shall consider whether we can deal with the situation differently.