Orders of the Day — ROAD TRAFFIC BILL [Lords]

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 30 January 1974.

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Photo of Mr Leslie Huckfield Mr Leslie Huckfield , Nuneaton 12:00, 30 January 1974

Anybody looking at this Bill for the first time would certainly describe it as something like a ragbag, which is the title the Minister gave it, or a hotchpotch, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) referred to it. It seems to me like a 57 varieties assortment, except that I am glad that most of them have not been canned yet.

I find that many of the provisions in the Bill are piecemeal and not logically or coherently thought out, particularly in their effect on the important part of the industries which they are designed to improve or whose faults they are designed to cure.

Many of the measures contained therein will be far more far-reaching than some of the enactments which have stemmed from the Transport Act 1968. I am sure that the Minister and my hon. Friends will agree that whether one is walking, driving, riding or just standing on the pavement, there is something in this Bill affecting those activities. Consequently when its effects outside this House are seen to have worked their way through, many people will be surprised by what is in effect about ten Bills in one.

We are engaged in a major extension of the fixed penalty principle. I should have thought that there was at least scope for a thoroughgoing re-examination of the way in which the fixed-penalty principle is working in the country, but, without that we are proposing not only a major extension of it but also the addition of the most important principle of keeper liability. We are proposing these major extensions without examining how the system is working so far.

Then we have the introduction of that most important concept of type approval for the car industry. For those Members representing car workers or the car industry, I need not remind my hon. Friends and hon. Gentlemen opposite the significance of type approval, not only for British car makers but also for cars exported from and imported into this country. I hope that the Minister, in introducing this concept, has taken note of the way in which other car-manufacturing countries have been using their type approval systems in the past to keep down their imports of our cars. I hope that the Minister studied the implications of the use of our type approval system for possibly doing the same.

If one is to consider the introduction of a major new concept like type approval, the whole concept of the Ministry of Transport vehicle testing scheme ought at least to be thoroughly re-examined. I do not think we can have one without the other, but the Bill tries to do that.

Then there is the introduction of the new concept of driving licences for life—flying in the face of current proposals emanating from Brussels and contrary to all of the medical evidence and opinions expressed by the medical profession.

There is the introduction of more stringent limitations on the weighing of heavy goods vehicles without the bringing in of the equipment which the lorry driver particularly—and he will have to bear the brunt of these regulations—needs to put them properly into effect. There is the reduction of the driving age, both for heavy goods vehicles, which has the consent of the unions involved, and for public service vehicles, which does not have the consent of the unions involved.

The biggest overhaul which is proposed is the complete overhauling—and I think undermining—of all of the principles which were enshrined in the Road Traffic Act 1930, set up to end the kind of pirate buses to which the hon. and learned Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) referred. This is to be done without the consent of the operators and the unions. The Minister is proposing to do this without, I think, adequate reassurance about some of the insurance effects, certainly without knowledge of the ultimate effects of the relaxation which he is proposing, and, I am bound to say, completely in advance of the plans which the new county councils and local authorities will have to submit to his Department by 1st April this year. I should have thought that the Minister could at least have waited for the new plans from those local authorities.

There is the introduction of what I suppose the Minister will call very new concessions concerning the tachograph and lorry drivers' hours. I am bound to say that that, too, raises severe doubts in the mind of the Transport and General Workers' Union.

We have heard references on both sides of the House to the changing of the sentencing procedure in magistrates' courts and Crown courts without even waiting for the James Committee to report—the committee which was set up specifically to consider the distribution of work between the magistrates' and Crown courts.

A lot of not too coherently thought-out measures are introduced, I think, rather hurriedly, and I can certainly promise the Minister that we shall have a very invigorating Committee stage. I think I can promise him also that when people discover the way in which these various measures affect them, they will be very concerned as well.

When one re-examines the major extension of the fixed penalty principle, I accept what the Minister says about the Metropolitan Police having great difficulty in finding people and the serving of sentences. I accept the Metropolitan Police figure of only 64 per cent. of these people being followed through as regards paying their fines, and I accept particularly the hon. Lady's point about the diplomatic immunity and the extensions which we see in that. But one must consider the implications of extending the fixed penalty principle not only to the offences we already have but also to new offences and, on top of that, we add keeper liability.

I wonder whether the Minister has thought out the consequences of bringing in the offence of parking at junctions and the enforcement of bus lane discipline. I stand rather agog at the thought of traffic wardens jumping out along Park Lane, trying to fix a fixed-penalty sticker on somebody's windscreen when in a bus lane. But that is the kind of proposal in the Bill.

In view of the total effect which the extension of the principle, backed up by keeper-liability, will have, we ought to have had a major re-examination and, perhaps, a recodification of the way in which the fixed-penalty principle was going. I say this in the light of the innovations in police procedures which are bound to come about once the new vehicle licensing computer and the national police computer system are operating fully. Instead of the period of up to six months which the police will have, under the amendments made in another place, to find a person, it will be possible for a policeman standing at the top of Park Lane to radio to the control room that he has seen a car somewhere in the bus lane. He can then get on the radio to another policeman at the bottom of Park Lane. By the time the car has travelled the length of Park Lane, it will be possible, with the aid of the vehicle licensing computer and the national police computer, to find the name and address of the vehicle owner and all the details which the owner has to fill in on both the vehicle excise licence and the driving licence form.

Here we have a major extension of a principle which does not take sufficiently into account that police procedures will be vastly improved. I hope that the Minister will give some warning to the public. At the moment, much of the public acceptance rests on the assumption that the system is not efficient. It can be much more efficient, and I hope that the Minister will give more warning to the public.