Drivers’ Hours and Tachographs (Temporary Exceptions) Regulations 2021
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Berkeley, for giving me the opportunity to explain the Government’s position. Of course, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions.
Let me start by saying that we are absolutely committed to ensuring the welfare of drivers and protecting road safety. This Government recognise the importance of the long-standing drivers’ hours rules to achieving both of those objectives. We therefore deploy these relaxations with care.
It is worth considering the landscape back in mid-January when these regulations were laid. New customs arrangements had recently been put in place, and both traders and hauliers were adjusting to the new environment. This was still the case in mid-January. Covid infection rates were high, at 376 per 100,000, which might well have caused localised disruption to the availability of drivers. The training and testing of new drivers had stopped, causing additional pressures on a tight labour market for HGV drivers, and we were seeing a changing pattern of domestic retail demand due to lockdown. Finally, there remained the potential for unilateral interventions from third parties, as noted by my noble friend Lady Foster. For example, we saw the French Government unilaterally requiring Covid testing for hauliers. Other interventions clearly could have happened too. That was the landscape with which we were faced when we took this decision.
Furthermore, we heard concerns from those in the supply chain that localised disruptions might occur, and possibly at very short notice. We heard the concerns of Unite the Union and tried to mitigate them as much as we possibly could to ensure that any action we took was limited. The Government concluded that there was significant evidence to suggest that disruption could occur; therefore, as a precaution, we took the decision to continue with the temporary, limited extension to drivers’ hours.
The 44th report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee published on 4 February also acknowledged that contingency measures were required to deal with these risks. I thank the committee for its work on this SI, and I apologise if there was information missing from the Explanatory Memorandum that should have been included. I will encourage the department to do slightly better next time.
Some of today’s debate has focused very much on international haulage, which a number of noble Lords have mentioned; the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, talked about fewer trucks going across via the short straits. However, this is not just about international haulage: the issues I have just outlined from the landscape that we were faced with also impacted domestic haulage, which is why it was so important that we put these changes in place. A couple of noble Lords have complained that Parliament was not able to scrutinise this SI, but this is a negative SI, which is a standard parliamentary procedure. We are scrutinising it today, but noble Lords will understand that we will have to follow parliamentary procedure, as we have in this case.
I turn to the actual implementation and the safety and welfare of drivers. It is important to remember that these changes are very limited in nature. In terms of the requirements in the rules, whether it be breaks during the day, daily or weekly rest periods or weekly and fortnightly driving limits, none of these have been removed. Some have been relaxed in a limited and controlled way, and I confirm that compensatory rest arrangements, which are all related to weekly rest, stay in place, and working-time rules for drivers are unaffected.
This previously unprecedented approach of relaxing drivers’ hours had already been used in the UK, in spring 2020, at the start of the pandemic. This approach was also taken by many parts of Europe at the time. The extent of the relaxations now in force is based on that experience, but it is even more limited, especially for domestic road transport. The guidance states that relaxation should be used “only where necessary” and not at the expense of driver or road safety. While we did not consult specific external parties on road safety, the Government are content that these measures are consistent with our ambitions for improved road safety.
Turning to the guidance that we published on 20 January, before the SI was laid, I note a number of concerns over the definition of “necessary”, when allowing the relaxations to be used. The guidance makes it very clear that any relaxation of these rules emphasises the necessity of the relaxation, particularly when other supply-chain management interventions may be available to alleviate issues. “Necessary” is not defined in the regulation itself, and it is liable to vary significantly case by case. Published guidance assists the consideration of what is and is not necessary, but the circumstances for each use will be different. Operators using domestic relaxation are required to indicate that they intend to use, or have used, the relaxation, which assists transparency and the later checking of compliance, including the context of necessity.
The guidance is material to whether the relaxations have been used correctly and reputably by operators and their transport managers—and, if they have not been, they can be held to account. The DVSA has extensive powers to investigate: it can investigate domestic and international hauliers and domestic operators, and it does this across the country, not just at the ports. Of course, it can issue penalties and refer operators and transport managers to the transport commissioners if there are infringements.
The guidance about relaxation explicitly confirms that
“employers remain responsible for the health and safety of their employees”.
It also confirms:
“Driver safety must not be compromised. Drivers should not be expected to drive while tired”.
It clearly states:
“The practical implementation of the temporary relaxation should be through agreement between employers and employees and driver representatives”,
such as Unite the Union. As noted, a requirement of the use of the current relaxations for domestic journeys is that the operator informs DfT that the relaxation will be used. Reported use of the current domestic relaxation has been very limited.
There are 16 haulage firms still using the relaxations that end on 31 March 2021—that is a total of 25 operating licences because, of course, one haulage company can have a couple of them. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked which sectors these companies are in. I do not have a detailed breakdown, and I am not entirely sure that, with 16 haulage firms, it would be useful, but most of them transport freight, and the rest supply fuel. As such, the information about the people using these relaxations is passed to the DVSA—obviously, its enforcement operators will be aware of who is using these relaxations, and they can check how they were used. It is also the case that drivers using them must note on the back of their tachograph charts or the printouts the reasons why they are exceeding the normally permitted limits.
There was also a comment in the SLSC report about the initial exceptions that the Government made in December, and I reassure noble Lords that, as with these regulations, we followed the agreed process. These were put in place administratively for up to 30 days—that is the process set out in the regulations.
The noble Lord, Lord Snape, returned to the subject of customs agents, and I am delighted to be able to return to it again. Noble Lords will be aware that the Government have set out a new timetable for introducing border control processes to enable UK businesses to focus on recovering from the pandemic. This will also give us time to ensure that the inland border facilities are fully functional. Full border control processes will now be introduced on 1 January 2022, six months later than originally planned.
The Government do not directly employ customs agents or customs intermediaries, and we do not have a target for the number of customs agents. However, traders and hauliers are responding to customs requirements in a wide variety of ways. Many in the sector have innovated and brought in IT solutions to automate the process. This has reduced the number of staff required. We have helped by making more than £80 million of support available, including flexible grants that can be used for IT and training, as well as for recruitment.
There is an alternative universe. For a moment, let us assume that the Government had not taken this precautionary action and that, for whatever reason, freight flows had been impacted—perhaps to the extent set out in the Government’s reasonable worst-case scenario. In such circumstances, I could quite understand being hauled before your Lordships’ House to explain why, if we saw the possibility of freight disruption coming, we did nothing about it and were negligent in not temporarily extending drivers’ hours. Hindsight is a truly marvellous thing—and there has been a fair dollop of it in today’s debate. I remain content that we made the right decision and I hope that I have been able to reassure noble Lords. I can confirm to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and to all noble Lords, that we will not be extending the relaxations beyond 31 March 2021, when this SI expires.
In summary, by enabling and extending the relaxations when we did, we reduced risk and enabled the supply chain to function. If there is a vote on the regret Motion, I respectfully ask noble Lords that they vote not content.