Draft Passenger and Goods Vehicles (Tachographs) (amendment) Regulations 2016

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Wednesday 10th February 2016 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Passenger and Goods Vehicles (Tachographs) (Amendment) Regulations 2016.

These draft regulations are being made in order to update the existing domestic legislative and enforcement regime to comply with EU regulation No. 165/2014 on tachographs. For the benefit of Members who may not be aware, tachographs monitor and record the amount of time that a commercial driver has spent driving. They are used in heavy goods vehicles, passenger service vehicles and some light goods vehicles. Tachographs allow the enforcement of drivers’ hours rules, thereby creating a level playing field for vehicle operators. They also play a crucial role in keeping our roads safe, by ensuring that professional drivers’ working hours are not excessive and reducing the risk of accidents as a result of fatigue.

The EU regulation also paves the way for the introduction of new “smart” tachographs that will periodically record a vehicle’s location via satellite technology. Those will be more resistant to tampering and allow for easier enforcement. They will also make life easier for drivers by no longer requiring them to record their location manually, meaning a small reduction in business administration.

By updating our domestic legislation in the light of this new European measure, these domestic regulations will ensure that the enforcement of EU drivers’ hours and tachograph rules can continue. If we do not make those changes, the UK enforcement agencies—the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and the police—risk no longer being able to enforce against tachograph offences. That would not be acceptable; it would compromise road safety and driver welfare.

To ensure effective implementation of the EU regulation, my Department undertook a formal consultation in March 2015. There were two areas of flexibility in the legislation that we have opted to take up, following support from industry. First, we are amending the legislation to continue to take up certain national derogations to drivers’ hours rules, thereby potentially reducing the administrative burden on the industry. Secondly, we are allowing the DVSA to authorise field tests of non-type-approved tachographs.

There was broad support for these proposals across the industry, and they are not gold-plating. The consultation supported the view that the impact of the regulations on drivers and operators will be negligible. Drivers’ responsibilities will remain the same and the regulations will extend certain exemptions we have. The changes are low cost—an assessment that the Regulatory Policy Committee has confirmed—and there are likely to be zero net costs to industry and Government as a result of the changes to the domestic framework.

The draft regulations are important for the continued enforcement of important road safety rules and for the future of the commercial driving sector by anticipating the introduction of a new generation of tachograph. They have the support of the industry, which we should remember is an important sector that underpins much of our UK economy.

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[Andrew Jones]

There were many questions there. Let me start with the consultation, to which we received 13 responses. I am aware of concerns, but also the broader welcome for the proposals, which I want to put in context. In March 2014, the regulations changed across Europe, so that the exemption was either 100 km or zero. That automatically increased the radius of operation for certain drivers’ hours.

These derogations are common sense and limited. They are limited in distance to 100 km, but they are also limited to the type of vehicle they apply to. They would apply to Royal Mail vehicles, vehicles transporting live animals, and light goods vehicles that are propelled by gas or electricity. This is not a wholesale change to all drivers’ rules. If we had not made the change to 100 km and it was zero—we had a choice of either zero or 100—we would have brought into play thousands of vehicles that are currently outside the scope of the regulations, which would have been disproportionate.

I will write to the hon. Gentleman with information about the number of prosecutions. The number of fixed penalty notices has gone up in the last few years. Some 22,494 fixed penalty notices were issued last year, raising £3.8 million, which is the highest figure for some years. To put that in context, 17,000 fixed penalty notices were issued two years ago, raising £1.9 million—the amount of money raised has doubled in two years. He asked what proportion of that is tachograph-related, and I will have to do some further investigation, but obviously I will write to him.

[Richard Burden]

If I could take the Minister back to what he said before—this makes the point about why we need a review—if he is right that the EU regulation allows zero exemptions or 100 km exemptions, why is none of that mentioned in any of the paperwork that I have seen so far? How does that work? As I understand it, the whole point of the exemptions is to set out not what the regulation requires, but where there can be national derogations, so how on earth can the regulation say that we can either have zero or 100 km? It allows up to 100 km, but where does it say that we cannot have 50 km?

[Andrew Jones]

My understanding is that that choice was made in 2014, so we had no choice—that relates to previous amendments that were debated and discussed at the time. Our choice now, two years on, is different—it is a choice of either zero or 100. Let us remember that the choice applies to Royal Mail vehicles, vehicles transporting live animals and light goods vehicles propelled by gas or electricity, and only these categories.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

I would like some clarity. I have previously received a written answer from the Minister on PCVs—people-carrying vehicles—such as buses, which have exemptions for local services up to 50 km. Will that exemption fall or is it still in place?

[Andrew Jones]

I think the hon. Gentleman is referring to the question I answered on 10 December 2015. Basically, the exemption applies to small passenger-carrying vehicles—effectively people carriers, with eight passenger seats or fewer. These are effectively private vehicles. Such vehicles are exempt from EU drivers’ hours rules and the need to use a tachograph. The same applies to vehicles with between 10 and 17 seats used for non-commercial purposes, which is effectively a minibus carrying scouts or a club football team, and vehicles that are used to carry passengers along regular routes—effectively a local bus service. Such services will be caught up by the change to 100 km. That is my understanding. If I am not correct, I will of course write to the hon. Gentleman.

In Operation Stack, the M20 lorry park is used when there are blockages at the port of Dover or the port of Calais that mean that HGVs cannot pass through as smoothly as possible. The key has been to get the holding area off the highway, and we have had problems when the M20 was closed in both directions because of problems last summer, which brought much of the local economy to a standstill. There has been a consultation on replacing the holding area, and we do not yet have a date for publishing the results, but it is clear that we want to press on. This is a national issue, which is why the Government allocated £250 million to create the holding area in Kent, and we want to press on with that as quickly as possible.

The question about benefits for drivers is very important. The road haulage industry is hugely important to our country. If there were no road haulage, we would be running out of food within days. If we do not have the right numbers of drivers, we will struggle. However, there is a piece of work being carried out by the industry, in partnership with Government, on what we can do to increase the numbers of people joining the industry. The industry has reckoned that there are some significant gaps in driver numbers; however there is a very positive story in the numbers of people now applying to join the sector. To update the Committee, the data showed that 55,000 applicants joined the industry—took their tests—in the past year, which is a significant upgrade on previous years. My intention is to build on that.

There are initiatives to try to bring people into the industry, working with the Department for Work and Pensions and with the armed forces, bringing in people who are leaving our military, but as well as tackling the supply—people joining the industry—we also have keep people in the industry, which is the retention piece. That is where driver facilities come into play. Driver facilities are simply not good enough—that is clear. I am not sure, however, that we can say that that is the responsibility of Highways England; these facilities are largely delivered by private sector organisations and that should continue.

Timescales for introduction were also mentioned. Essentially, we are looking at 2019 for the introduction of smarter tachographs, but they would not have to be applied to domestic vehicles, I think, for another 15 years— therefore, they would not apply until 2034, which is some way away. I think I have answered all the questions that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield asked.

[Richard Burden]

There is one question the Minister has not answered and it is crucial to the way we respond today: will he review the operation of these regulations? In other words, will he change what he said in his explanatory memorandum?

[Andrew Jones]

I review all road safety issues on a rolling basis. I do not think we need to build in any kind of statutory position in legislation to do that. This is a regular feature of all policy development. Road safety is at the heart of what we are trying to do. Tachographs play a key role in ensuring that drivers are not abused by their employers and not driving when they are tired. They contribute to road safety as part of a broader road safety plan. The Government published our road safety plan in December and it has been widely welcomed by the industry. We do not need to have periods of statutory review, but whenever we look at the data, which are published on a quarterly basis for all road accidents, we of course try to look at the causes, and I obviously keep that under review.

[Richard Burden]

I am grateful to the Minister for that, but I go back to his explanatory memorandum, which says that review mechanisms should be built into secondary legislation unless there are exceptional reasons not to do so. What are the exceptional reasons for not building in a review mechanism in this case?

[Andrew Jones]

Let us remember that in this case we are dealing with a very small number of vehicles. The exact nature of the tachographs is still to be defined, so there is further round of legislation to follow, but we are not planning to make any changes, because only a very small number of vehicles are involved.

Question put.

Division 1

Ayes: 10

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Conservative: 9

Noes: 7

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Labour: 6
Scottish National Party: 1

Resolved,