Motor Vehicles (Compulsory Insurance) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Grade of Yarmouth

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. We have all sat here very patiently. In the politest way that I can say it, the noble Lord is testing the House’s good will if he is not testing the Companion itself. I read pages 50, 51 and 52 before I came into the Chamber, anticipating this kind of filibustering. It is counterproductive to alienate the mood of the House in such a way. Straying from the Companion to the extent that the noble Lord has is testing the House’s good will. Will the noble Lord reconsider?

[Lord Adonis]

I completely refute the noble Lord’s remarks. My remarks have been relevant to the statutory instruments before the House. I have said nothing that is not. That was clearly a pre-prepared set of remarks that the noble Lord was intent on making. I think this is well below the standard that one would expect of a Member of this House in addressing another. If the noble Lord wishes to defend the Government’s policy, he should make a speech doing so, rather than attacking those who are doing their duty in this House by scrutinising it.

The noble Baroness set out the concerns about green cards and has done previously about international driving licences. Her point revealed that separate international licences are required for different countries in the EU because of the different rules. Regarding the green cards, my noble friend Lord Rosser has pointed out to me paragraph 3.10 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which says that the DfT estimates that,

“between two to four million individuals may need a Green Card”.

In response to the noble Lord who intervened, we have a duty to speak up for those 2 to 4 million people who will be put through a big, new bureaucratic process as a result of this one statutory instrument. It goes on to say:

“Green Cards are obtained free of charge from insurance providers; however, the DfT has explained that ‘insurance providers can decide to reflect production and handling costs in a small increase to their administration fees’”.


This is another point that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, made about the impact assessment: the Government say in paragraph 3.10 that they expect that insurance providers may pass costs associated with the requirement to hold these green cards on to motorists. This surely justifies an impact assessment to judge what those costs will be. The Government also ought to set out what they think is an acceptable level of costs.

I know exactly what will happen and the House can immediately envisage the circumstances. Those costs will pass through and may be quite substantial in many cases, because the insurance providers will claim that there has been a sudden change that they cannot quantify and they want to make proper provision for it. As always in these cases, there will then be a significant public controversy. When that happens, questions will be asked in this House and in the House of Commons about the acceptable level of costs that can be passed through. What does the Minister think would be an acceptable level of administration fees for insurance providers to pass on to motorists if they require green cards?

The point about Northern Ireland is not small but substantial. I see a noble Lord from Northern Ireland in the Chamber. If all motorists in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland who cross the border will be expected to carry a green card, because all those drivers will frequently cross borders, unlike drivers in Great Britain, this cost and requirement will effectively be imposed on a very substantial proportion of citizens and on all citizens in the border areas.

That is a straight cost that will be imposed on them and a big bureaucratic burden. Do the Government not think that, if they are imposing a cost that is pretty much a badge of citizenship on individuals—