Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Earl Attlee

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I am not going to get involved in a debate about which of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, or my noble friend Lord Whitty was the better Transport Minister or Roads Minister: I think they were both good.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I was only a government spokesman. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was a policy-determining Minister; I was not.

[Lord Berkeley]

Well, maybe that will change someday.

To speak briefly to Amendment 4, I think the noble Baroness has tried hard to interpret the long debate we had in Committee about the method of allocation and we will have to see how it goes: I think we cannot go much further on it. However, I support my noble friend Lord Whitty’s Amendment 5 on these criteria, which Unite has quite rightly been proposing for the operators. As the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, mentioned, though, it is going to get even more unfair if foreign lorries coming here do not have to comply with the same criteria. We risk losing more traffic to foreign lorries: it is massively out of balance at the moment and will get worse. I am not sure how we do it, because the Minister said about a previous part of the Bill that we cannot legislate about anything to do with foreign lorries coming here. I hope she will reflect on the need not only to take into account my noble friend’s amendment but how to apply that to lorries that come to this country so that there is a fair balance.

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[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I have realised to my horror that I have not repeated the declaration of interest that I made at the earlier proceedings: I own or operate two very large trailers, one of which weighs 27,000 kilograms and the other 17,000 kilograms empty.

I am very concerned about light trailer safety, about which I spoke at greater length in Committee. I had discussions on the matter with my noble friend the Minister in private and was able to go a lot further than I went in public in frightening her a bit—I hope. It is a remaining weakness in our road safety regime and the condition of our vehicles, as the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, alluded to. It is not necessary to have a universal light trailer registration scheme to achieve testing of trailers, but the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, spoke about theft of trailers. She is absolutely on the money: this is a big problem. I suspect that it would be alleviated by general registration of trailers, because, to sell a stolen trailer, one needs an identity. Due to changes made to the write-off provisions for cars, for instance, it is much more difficult to acquire an identity of a written-off vehicle—for reasons with which I shall not bore the House. There may therefore be an argument for registering small trailers for reasons of deterring theft, but it would not be necessary if one wanted a testing regime.

I mentioned that I have had a private discussion with my noble friend the Minister. I have also secured a meeting, planned for 2 May, with my honourable friend the Minister for Transport, Jesse Norman. Other noble Lords are welcome to join me for this meeting: I think a meeting with the Minister, with the benefit of having the officials in front of us, where we can put these points and look at this in detail, has much to commend it in the short term. I think we would have a greater chance of convincing the Minister that we need to make some changes by that procedure than by agreeing an amendment to the Bill now that we know perfectly well will be overturned in the House of Commons. That will still not get us the objective we desire, whereas I suggest that at a meeting with the Minister, with officials, we will be able to drill down and ask rather more searching questions. I can be rather more frightening to the Minister on the issue in private than I can be in public.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I did not intend to speak on this amendment, but I was really rather surprised to hear the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, say that he was in favour of registering trailers against the risk of theft. I rather got the impression that he was not concerned about safety: after all, cars have MOT tests largely to ensure that they operate safely. Given the examples that my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe and the noble Baroness have given of things that have gone wrong with trailers, with some pretty disastrous results, it seems to me there is a very strong argument for having registration to cover safety as well. Whether that covers the same things as the MOT, we can debate, but it seems important. Not all trailers weigh 27 tonnes—I congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, on being able to pull 27 tonnes with something that goes down the road legally—but I think there is a very strong argument from a road safety point of view for having a registration scheme.

[Earl Attlee]

I think it was really good that we had the benefit of a pep talk from the noble Countess, Lady Mar, who is on the Woolsack as we speak, because I can correct the noble Lord on a material point: my point was that it is not essential to have a registration scheme if you want to have a testing scheme, even for light freight. Even now we have a testing scheme for HGV trailers but we do not have a registration scheme. It does not mean that I do not think it is important; it is just that it is not necessary to have a registration scheme.

Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Earl Attlee

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

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, regarding Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, I do not think we should tie the hands of government. If we set something in stone in primary legislation, it will be to our disadvantage and our opponents’ advantage. However, I very much hope that the negotiations will result in the absolute minimum of friction, for the reasons so well explained by all noble Lords who have spoken so far. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, observed that there are no draft regulations in sight and that this is a framework Bill. That is not surprising, because we do not know what the negotiated agreement will look like. However, the Committee will be aware that if the Bill is passed, it will strengthen the Government’s negotiating hand.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, raises an important point in his Amendment 7. I would like to see no restrictions on permits—more or less free issue—with one exception, which I am sure he will agree with. Is there any scope for denying permits to non-compliant operators if they are in trouble with the traffic commissioners or the Vehicle Inspectorate? I do not expect an answer from my noble friend the Minister this afternoon but perhaps she could write to me in due course. As I say, I am for no quantity restrictions but I do not think we should put this into the Bill because it would tie the hands of Ministers when they are negotiating Brexit.

[Lord Berkeley]

I understand the noble Earl’s comment in suggesting that Amendment 7 may not be a good thing to put into the Bill. But he will remember that when this was debated at Second Reading, there was much discussion of the allocation of permits. Does he not agree that there needs to be some wording to ensure that the allocation, if it has to happen—I share his views that it should not and that there should be enough for everyone—should be seen to be fair? Perhaps he has some other ideas to replace my proposed new clause in Amendment 7.

[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.

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[Baroness Sugg]

I certainly will. As I said, we currently use it in certain non-EU agreements, but this is obviously the first time we will be partially using it in an EU-UK agreement. Let us not forget that we are all hopeful that we will not need to include it, but if we do, it is incredibly important that we get it right in order that it is fair. I will take it away, discuss it further and see whether we can get across the same principle and ensure that we are not subject to legal challenge in a way that is more acceptable to noble Lords.

[Earl Attlee]

When my noble friend takes it away, can she also have a look at why we do not simply auction the permits? We auction all sorts of things: oil exploration rights, for instance. They are very valuable and they are auctioned. That seems a much more sensible way to allocate a scarce resource rather than first come, first served, which seems to have all sorts of difficulties alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, although he shakes his head vigorously.

[Lord Berkeley]

The noble Earl would prefer to see a lorry load of caviar coming in rather than basic food.

[Earl Attlee]

I made it quite clear that I do not think we should go anywhere close to being short on permits. We are talking about disaster if we are short on permits. As we know perfectly well, the Bill’s provision is just a long-stop measure, but I am glad that my noble friend will be taking it away.

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[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.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, the idea is that a lot of foreign trucks are going to be inspected. It does not happen at the moment very much, and if it is going to happen in future, there will have to be a very large increase in the number of inspectors and locations for inspection. The profit margin of most of these operators is very low, so the cost of a permit, which, as the noble Baroness said, may be only £50 to £85, may be quite a lot to some people. I am more concerned that it appears that EU lorries coming into our country will not have to pay anything because they already have a permit from their own country. Are we giving them an £85 advantage just to come here? I assumed that we would be able to charge them to give them a permit, but, as the noble Baroness said earlier, they already have a permit. There is something out of balance here. I do not know what the solution is, but I hope that the Minister can look at this. Perhaps we should have our own permit scheme, or else it should be free for everybody. It does not seem fair at the moment.

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[Lord Berkeley]

If a truck has to be checked statically in a car park somewhere, that will be quite expensive. The DVLA no longer has the system of excise duty licences on cars; that is checked by number plates. Is there a way of adopting a similar system for trucks—even for foreign ones? I know they have different number plates, but it would be much easier and would give a much more comprehensive range of checks.

[Earl Attlee]

What about the HGV levy system and the technology behind it? It uses ANPR to enforce it, so I should have thought that it would work automatically.

[Baroness Sugg]

The noble Lord and my noble friend make important points. Of course, we want to use IT systems whenever we can both to minimise the burden for hauliers and for Government to check on these things. The permit system may not be allocated to a specific truck; it could be allocated to a haulage company. That may be difficult, but we are exploring it. The current system is that the DVSA outside the port will pull over a truck and check it on the side of the road. That is one of the options that we are exploring. If there is a way to do it that is less expensive and more efficient, we will certainly do that.