Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Campbell-Savours

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 22nd March 2018 Grand Committee

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee of an interest that I have: I own one very large commercial trailer. However, it is extremely unlikely that I will be taking it on to the continent, and therefore it is not in scope of the Bill.

I have some sympathy for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. The difficulty is that the burden on individuals and the cost of implementing it probably would not outweigh the benefits. However, his amendment as he describes it is about the need to test these trailers rather than register them. I share his concern about the safety of these trailers, particularly those under 3.5 tonnes that are used for transporting cars and goods. There is no requirement whatever for these vehicles to be tested; I myself have seen some in an absolutely terrible state. There is an issue, and the department needs to look closely at these smaller trailers because I have seen them involved in quite a few accidents.

We already test HGV trailers under the plating and testing regulations, but these trailers are not currently registered in the way that we are proposing. We will be registering some under the Bill in order for them to operate on the continent. Still, if the Government were minded to, they could bring these trailers under 3.5 tonnes in scope of testing by other means without using the Bill. So the noble Lord raises an important point; it is perfectly proper to use the Bill to raise the issue, but I do not think that this is the right vehicle—excuse the pun.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Could I ask some questions? First, have we an estimate of the number of trailers that fall under the various categories nationally that we might be able to talk about during the course of the Committee? Secondly, do we have any information on the number of accidents that have taken place? If so, do we know what proportion of those accidents have entailed the trailer being overloaded in default of other law?

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I am in a little difficulty on aspects of this, as I was saying to my colleagues before coming to this meeting today. I shall delicately go through my reservations. I accept that trailer safety is very important. As my noble friend has pointed out, in the Hussey case the trailer concerned weighed 2 tonnes. That is a pretty big trailer. I can understand that where big trailers are involved there is a need for some sort of regulatory arrangement. What troubles me is in Amendments 16 and 18. Amendment 16 says:

“Regulations must provide for the compulsory registration of trailers weighing under 3.5 tonnes kept or used on roads, whether the trailer is being used internationally or only in the United Kingdom”—


in other words, effectively all trailers. Amendment 18 says,

“with inspections of such trailers to be undertaken on an annual basis”.

In other words, a little trailer—one of these aluminium boxes that you buy in Halfords for a couple of hundred quid—would have to go in to some sort of MOT-type station for an annual test. I have to say to my noble friend that I have great difficulty in going down that route. Big trailers can of course do a lot of damage.

The answer to this is to make it mandatory, where you have the clipping mechanism for the trailer, to put a lock and chain on as well. That would give an extra element of safety over and above the mechanism in the male and female, they call them; I do not know the actual term. If you had some sort of chain and lock arrangement on smaller trailers, in my view that would be quite sufficient.

We should be very careful about introducing a system for smaller trailers with an annual inspection that could affect hundreds of thousands of people and put them to what I would call unnecessary expense. People are going to complain that it costs 30 quid to test your trailer every year, and that is after you have registered it as well, and it only cost you a couple of hundred. In my view, when it comes to small trailers the situation would be exactly the same as in Scotland over air rifles. The Scotland Office estimates that there are 500,000 air rifles in Scotland, but I am told that up till now only 15,000 people have taken out licences for them so, if those figures are correct, we have criminalised nearly half a million people in Scotland who have so far failed to take out a licence on air rifles. I am worried about systems where you impose on people responsibilities that, on reflection, we might think are really gold-plating what my noble friend has raised, which is an extremely important issue of safety. I apologise to him if I have in any way undermined his case, but I do so with the greatest of respect.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I apologise for starting to get worried that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, was not going to move his Amendment 18 so I have spoken substantially. However, this gives me the opportunity to raise another argument in support of the general thrust of the noble Lord’s amendment, while being quite sure that we should not put it into the Bill.

Not only is it a question of the tragic accidents and injuries that the noble Lord referred to, but quite often you see these relatively small trailers causing an accident and disruption on the strategic road network. That can be really expensive to the economy. I hope that my noble friend can write to us before the next stage to tell us how many incidents Highways England has recorded of small trailers causing an incident. Often, because they are badly maintained, because their wheel bearings are shot and because the person using the trailer does not realise that the wheel bearings are shot, you see these trailers littered on the strategic road network—the motorways—with a wheel fallen off or bearings collapsed. That causes an awful lot of inconvenience to other road users, so there may be an economic case, forgetting the tragic cost of the accidents.

One point on maintenance is that there is a safety check as well as an MoT. You could require the trailer to have an MoT or you could require it to have a safety check by going to a garage to give it the once-over, which might achieve an awful lot of what we want without all the bureaucracy that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, worries about. The judgment is, of course, a matter for the department.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I did not know about that; I did not know it existed. Knowing the noble Lord’s former constituency well, he probably had a fairly substantial trailer. It was probably pretty large because he represented a very rugged area.

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, makes a good point about the size of the trailer. Trailers up to 3.5 tonnes can be operated by a brake system. The point referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, was that on the overrun brake system with a handbrake, the handbrake should be applied automatically in the case of trailer breakaway, but of course if it is not properly maintained that will not happen. A trailer with overrun brakes is much more complicated and there is much more to go wrong, whereas a tiny trailer of the sort that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is referring to has just two wheel bearings and a couple of tyres—that is basically it—and there is not that much to go wrong that a reasonably competent driver cannot detect. When the department looks at this, it may conclude that the bigger trailers with overrun brakes need to come in scope but that the economic and safety case has not been made for tests for the light, little ones that the noble Lord is referring to.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

If it is about fixing the certificate to the trailer there will be a danger that that can be easily removed, particularly on small trailers. On timber trailers there will be a particular problem, so if the Government were to go down the route of smaller trailers, which obviously I hope they do not, they may have to find some way of burnishing it into the wood or people will simply steal certificates and put them on their own trailers. If it is an aluminium trailer, again, it could be unscrewed unless it was riveted on in some way. All I am arguing is that if we go down this route, let us have a system that works and does not allow people simply to—if I may use the term—nick a certificate from one trailer and put it on to their own trailer for a few days while they are using it and then return it to the original trailer.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am going to enjoy this because I am going to be extremely mischievous. A moment ago my noble friend the Minister mentioned abnormal load vehicles. Sometimes an abnormal load vehicle is a simple trailer—quite a big one, but relatively simple. However, other abnormal load trailers comprise modules of axles and various types of frames that are bolted together for different purposes. It is not exactly clear what the trailer is, and this could present a problem when such trailers travel on the continent. I do not expect my noble friend the Minister to come back to me on this right now, or even to write to me, but perhaps her officials could give some thought to abnormal load vehicles made up of modular components where there is not simply one trailer on to which a number plate or a ministry registration plate with the chassis number can be bolted, because they are outside the scope of plating and testing.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

So effectively the trailer will have a form of log book. A log book is used to register changes of ownership.

[Earl Attlee]

Perhaps I may help my noble friend. I refer to the V5 registration document that presumably the trailer must have when it is sold. There is of course an advantage in that the buyer of the trailer would have more confidence that the vehicle had good title, so it is not a total loss.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, to cut my contribution short, I shall quote from page 8 of the Explanatory Memorandum:

“A consequence of ratification is that unregistered trailers could be turned away at the borders of other countries who have ratified the 1968 Convention. Therefore, for operational reasons, a trailer registration scheme needs to be implemented”.


I would have thought that critical to the process of consultation was the AA, because at our borders that organisation is the last port of call for people who need advice on what is going to happen when they go abroad. The leaflets that it circulates are about subjects such as travelling abroad, insurance arrangements and health arrangements. You can pick them up in its kiosks at Dover, or I suppose at any port where you have a roll-on, roll-off ferry system. They should be made available. That is my case, and I hope the AA is consulted.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises an important point. I am not sure we should have a list in primary legislation because that gives the Government top cover if they have not consulted someone. However, just as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, suggested the AA, I would add the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. That is an extremely important point.

My point about negative instruments is that if interested parties have a problem, they can flag it up with us. However, if they are not consulted about it or if they are consulted but do not get anywhere at the official level, they can approach parliamentarians and we can take it up with the Government. We have a parliamentary toolkit that we can use. The noble Baroness makes an important point about consultation, but I am sure that the Minister will be able to reassure us.

Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Campbell-Savours

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 13th March 2018 Grand Committee

[Earl Attlee]

I assure the Committee that I will not be tabling amendments but I was alarmed by some of the history of permits that we looked at during Second Reading. That is something I do not want to see because it constrains the market and competition. I would much rather see permits issued more or less freely, with that one exception: that we could see it as an opportunity to make things more difficult for non-compliant operators.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, I might be the only person in the Room who has run on one of these permits, which was some 50 years ago. I have some permit documentation, going back 30 years, in front of me now. I want to talk about what happened then and what we should avoid happening in the future.

We were carrying our own goods, exporting them and importing components. When we were exporting goods, we had to run on either non-quota or quota—non-quota was a defined group of products that we carried if we were going to an exhibition. For example, I remember going to a clock exhibition in Switzerland, and we had to get a non-quota to carry to Basle there. If we showed at the Paris Porte de Versailles in France, again we would run on non-quota permits but if we were running goods of our own manufacture, we would have to carry a permit. The undersupply of permits was a real problem.

The Minister sent us out a letter during the week in which she talked about electronic management of these systems. To some extent, that might work but I will come to a problem that might arise. The problem in the late 1960s and 1970s, when I was involved in this business, was that there were a lot of forgeries out there. Many truckers who could not get permits would forge them and, when they got to customs frontiers in Europe, bribe customs officers to get passage into another country. As I said at Second Reading, I saw this happen myself. I remember that the customs officer would almost wink and people would drop notes in an old jar standing on the counter. People knew what was going on and it was widespread. I never got involved in it myself, but I observed it. People used to get quite angry about the attitude of some customs officers. They would ask you to open the back of your truck to see what you were carrying, as if they were checking against the bills of lading—the document which indicated what goods you were carrying—as if they were to be given a tip for the pleasure of having your truck opened. It was examined, not properly but in a very curious way, with nods and winks. That went on a lot and I am worried about it.

That was one of the abuses. The next one—it was not even an abuse, as people just turned a blind eye to it—was the selling of permits. Some companies had more permits than they needed whereas others were starved of them. Someone told me on the phone the other day that the going rate, even in the 1980s, was something like £250 for a permit, depending on where you were. When they were carrying expensive goods that was a minor cost to pay, because it was transferred on to the people whose goods they were. If there is electronic control, the chances of abuse in that form are very remote.

We come back to the number of permits. If there is a shortage—and the French, the Dutch and the Belgians may argue for one—it will mean that when you load your truck in the UK you will have to drop your load at Antwerp, Amsterdam, Ostend, Zeebrugge, Calais or wherever. A French lorry will come and pick it up and get the business. At the moment, many British hauliers are able to carry right across Europe. If we do not have the permits to run in Europe, the Europeans will get the trade and all our lorries will be doing is running them across the channel, dropping them, then taking the tractor unit home. In the real world, there could be many problems. I know that this is a skeletal Bill and it may not even happen, but if it does there is going to be a lot of trouble and people are going to be angry.

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[Earl Attlee]

Supposing that the Government lay some negative instruments to deal with the outcome of the negotiations, and that they are extremely disadvantageous to our road haulage industry, it would be open to the road haulage industry to get on to noble Lords like myself and the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley, Lord Snape and Lord Campbell-Savours, who could pray against the negative instrument in the first 40 days and say no to it.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I want to correct the record on something. I said that we ran on quota permits but we ran on non-quota permits. I just checked my notes.

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[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I see merit in some of the amendments. Clearly, we need to know the outcome of the negotiation and what the impact will be. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, mentioned demurrage, which is a good point. If you have a complex system, you can foul up. The problem for a small haulier is getting anyone to pay demurrage. It might be in the contract, but you try getting your customer to pay it for a small haulage business: you will struggle. It may be okay if you have a supertanker and your contract agreed on the Baltic Exchange, but for a little haulage deal? Forget it.

The Committee needs to consider the position of our EU partners. It is not in their interest to have a complex system either. We have the Hams Hall engine plant making BMW engines that have to go to Germany. We know perfectly well that automotive components go backwards and forwards several times, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said. It is in no one’s interest to have a complex system.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I am not sure that is the case. If you are required to give your load to someone else, because you do not have a permit to run in Germany, you lose the business. A German tractor unit will take over your load and take it to its destination.

[Earl Attlee]

I agree with the noble Lord that the Government will have to negotiate the UK’s position effectively, but it is in no one’s interest—neither ours nor that of the other EU states—to have a complex system that harks back 50 years. The noble Lord has illustrated the problem very well: if you have a complex system, it will be horrendously expensive, and we do much more cross-channel trade now than we ever used to. I cannot see the driver of having a complex system. We may legally have to have a permit system, but it is up to the Government to negotiate as simple a system as possible, which I am confident they will do.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I wonder whether I can speak again.

[Earl Attlee]

It is Committee.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I have just seen something in a non-quota document which might be of interest to Ministers. It is an Italian document stating that a permit is required for the transport of goods by means of an unaccompanied trailer or semi-trailer as well as by means of a motor vehicle with or without trailer or semi-trailer. It says that “articulated vehicle” means a tractor hauling of semi-trailer. If we really get into hard territory, we should be arguing on the gross tonnage of vehicles, because that might be a way of getting more permits. Our vehicles are 24 tonnes, 32 tonnes, 15 tonnes and 10 tonnes—I am not a transport expert; my noble friend Lord Berkeley will correct me. We may get an exemption for lower-tonnage vehicles in the event that we find ourselves in a corner on the allocation.

[Earl Attlee]

Of course, the noble Lord is thinking about a complex system. One might need a permit just to run vehicle registration number XYZ in Europe; it might be as simple as that; we simply do not know. The Minister will not give the indication because she is negotiating. It need not be horrendously complicated.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I want to ask a very simple question, which is slightly tangential to the amendment, about fuel dipping. Fuel dipping is where the authorities decide, for whatever reason, to test tanks to see how much diesel they are carrying. Of course, these trucks carry a lot of diesel. I do not know where I heard it, but I heard that some countries on the outer periphery of Europe fuel dip in truck tanks so they can charge duty on diesel coming into their country. During the negotiations, we should be aware of any possibility of fuel dipping by member states and make sure that it is excluded and prohibited.

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, yet again makes an interesting and important point about fuel dipping. It is a burden on the industry. I have to confess that I made a suggestion to do with the problem of foreign trucks coming into the UK with very large tanks of fuel, running around the UK and then leaving with tanks that are practically empty so that the Treasury gets none of the benefit of the fuel. I suggested that every HGV, UK or foreign, should leave the UK with a nearly full tank of fuel, but that suggestion did not find favour because it was thought to be contrary to EU rules. However, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, raises an important point.

The noble Baroness asked why we should charge. I come back to the point that we simply do not know what the negotiations are going to give us. We again hope for a simple system, but if we end up with a more complex system, naturally there will have to be charges—presumably cost recovery only, as it should not be seen as a profit centre. We need to remember that the cost of running a maximum-weight articulated vehicle is quite considerable—I do not know the current figures—so the cost of a permit in the overall cost of the operation will not be that significant. Whether it is an SME or a large operator, the cost per mile of an HGV is very high.

I have what might be a slightly tricky question for the Minister. We are cost recovering, but are we going to use the UK fees that we raise from our own hauliers to cover the cost of inspecting foreign trucks over here to make sure that they have a permit? If there is a 75%/25% split for contingency—where the 25% is the UK operators—25% of operators will be paying a small amount of money in but spending a lot of money on ensuring the compliance of foreign operators. Some people might have something to say about UK operators paying for the policing of foreign operators.