All 4 Lord Campbell-Savours contributions to the Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Act 2018

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Tue 27th Feb 2018
Tue 13th Mar 2018
Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]
Grand Committee

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thu 22nd Mar 2018
Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]
Grand Committee

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tue 17th Apr 2018

Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL] Debate

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Department: Department for Transport

Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts
2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 27th February 2018

(6 years, 1 month ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
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My Lords, I want to intervene only briefly. On 5 December last year, I spoke in a debate on trade and customs policy, in particular on the issue of the allocation of CEMT permits, and I expressed some concerns. Some noble Lords may well recall the debate. My experience goes back almost 50 years, when I was in business and I had trucks. We were running our goods abroad into markets in Europe and importing components into the United Kingdom. When I read this Bill, I was disturbed by one sentence, which is set out in Clause 2(2):

“The methods that may be specified under subsection (1)(d) include random selection and first come, first served”.


I can tell the Minister what that means, because I have seen it with my own eyes: corruption. The old permit system was corrupting. I know that because the hauliers used to tell us about it. The drivers told us how they would get through customs posts in various parts of Europe. At the Mont Blanc tunnel, customs officers were bribed, as they were at the Brenner Pass tunnel because very often the permits the hauliers were running on were illegal. I have some of those permits with me, which I found this morning, and they go back almost 35 years. Now I might get a phone call from the civil servants asking what I know about it, but I do not intend to tell them—it is their responsibility to find out how it was done. It was common practice throughout the allocation of permits. In his place behind the noble Baroness on the Front Bench is a former Minister of Transport who will recall what happened because I think he took over while the old permit system was still in operation, or perhaps I am wrong. I think that the old system was completely cleared out by the beginning of the 1990s, but I am not altogether clear on that.

All I am saying is that, if the system was capable of corruption then, given that the language used in this Bill is very similar to the language that must have been used in the legislation at that time, it will be corruptible in the future. Before we go into Committee, Ministers should be briefed on how the system was corrupted so that, when we start producing examples of what happened, at least they will be able to give us a sensible reply.

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Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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I believe that to be the case, and that therefore the Bill will not affect safety, but I will clarify that and write to my noble friend.

My noble friend Lord Attlee asked about penalty drafting within the Bill. We have drawn up the penalty levels from the original 1975 legislation so the offences are consistent with that. I am told that Clause 8 puts the offence in respect of a permit scheme in the Bill along with the penalties, which are summary only. Clause 17 enables regulations to be made which include the offences and penalties. Clause 17(6) restricts those regulations to include summary offences only, but perhaps I can write to my noble friend further on that.

On Ireland, the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, all rightly highlighted the importance of ensuring that we get the legislation right for the island of Ireland, and I should like to say a few more words about that. The Bill does not create a permit regime or a hard border on the island of Ireland. Again, the Government are committed to ensuring that there is no hard border. We want trade and everyday movements over the land border to continue as they do now. Half of the imports and exports by road are to and from Ireland and 89% of this trade is going between Northern Ireland and Ireland. There is no history of restrictions on road haulage, and that must remain the case.

To make clear the commitment not to create a hard border on the island of Ireland, we included Clause 1 explicitly to provide that permit regulations may not apply to journeys on the island of Ireland unless there is an agreement on the provision of permits between the UK Government and Irish Governments. To reiterate, trailers travelling between the UK and Ireland will not need to be registered. I very much agree that this is an important issue and something we need to keep in mind as the Bill progresses.

The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and many other noble Lords mentioned borders. The provision of a permit scheme, whatever its detailed design, is intended precisely to ensure that there will be no delays for UK hauliers at our borders or any other borders in relation to their permission to travel. The haulage permits part of the Bill relates to UK hauliers, but, as noble Lords mentioned, EU hauliers also benefit from hauling to and from the UK. The DVSA already carries out checks on vehicle operating standards on our road network rather than at the borders and we would expect that to continue and include checks for permits if those are required as part of the deal with the EU.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, raised an interesting point on corruption. It is certainly something we must avoid. I will make sure that I am fully briefed on previous issues with the system ahead of Committee so that we can avoid them.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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Perhaps I may make a suggestion: that the department bring in operators who were operating in the 1960s and 1970s. There will be some around and they will remember what happened.

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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If we can track them down, we will certainly get them in. I thank the noble Lord for that suggestion.

Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL] Debate

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Department: Department for Transport

Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts
Earl Attlee Portrait Earl Attlee
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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 Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
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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.

Lord Snape Portrait Lord Snape
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I do not doubt the situation outlined by my noble friend, but will it not be to the advantage of British hauliers, to a certain extent, if the system applies the other way around? If there are three times more lorries coming to the UK than going from the UK to Europe, will the British road haulage industry not benefit enormously? Judging by what he said, loads coming from the EU will have to be dropped in Dover or wherever.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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I do not know. That may well be, but I want a straightforward system. I want the number of permits to be sufficient to meet the demand and not have to fiddle around with whether we reciprocate or not. I want to avoid all that.

Finally, I turn to what the permits are. In the old days, we had quota and non-quota permits. If we get ourselves into trouble in this area of negotiation, we should try and widen the description of non-quota. Earlier in my contribution, I referred to non-quota covering exhibition goods—which is what we ran. Because the rules are set so tightly if we have to go down this route, we might well be able to widen the description of non-quota to cover what would otherwise come under quota. I do not know if the Minister is with me on that. That is because the regime for non-quota permits is different from the quota regime. On the quota regime there will be a lot more restriction, because non-quota permits are not as frequently used so, if we widen the non-quota permit arrangements, some of that trade may well be transferred over to non-quota. I am sorry if I have not made that altogether clear, but I am sure that in time it will ring correct.

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Earl Attlee Portrait Earl Attlee
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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 Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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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.

Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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My Lords, I did not read Hansard for last night’s debate; I was there. There is no doubt about the extent of the concern expressed by Committee Members last night about permits and trade and the impact on society. I therefore support Amendment 1. Having been a negotiator, I was alerted to the concern of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, so I looked at what it said—that:

“It is an objective of the Government, in negotiating a withdrawal agreement from the EU, to seek continued UK participation in the EU’s Community Licence arrangements”.


I have to say, as negotiating briefs go, I have rarely seen one less prescriptive. It simply expresses a direction of travel and, broadly speaking, I support it. Similarly, I support Amendment 7, which once again gives more guidance than anything seriously prescriptive from a negotiator’s point of view.

I am grateful to read the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I think we have an amendment for every recommendation but I will check that before the next sitting. It would be easier if we had correspondence and the Government gave in in advance. We have here what one might call a contingency Bill—that is, a Bill to create an Act of Parliament against a contingency. All the committee is saying is that it is wrong to leave powers lying about. That relates specifically to Clauses 1 and 3. On Clause 1, the report states:

“Given that regulations under clause 1 might prove to be unnecessary, we recommend that the Bill should contain a sunset provision, extendable if necessary, to remove the regulation-making power in clause 1 if it does in fact prove to be unnecessary”.


In almost identical terms, Amendment 11 refers to Clause 3. In examining Clause 2, we could not see any reason why the same logic should not apply, so we have also proposed Amendment 10, which refers to Clause 2.

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Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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I will try my best, although I may not be as clear as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. As I said, the existing Community arrangement is currently only for EU members and EEA members. When we leave the EU, we will not be either of those. What is suggested is one option, but there may well be an equally satisfactory option, such as an unlimited permit system or, as I said, mutual recognition of operators’ licences. We want to be able to keep those options open and not to be sent down the road of agreeing to the Community licence. There is no reason why a permit that replaces the Community licence could not provide the same level of access as exists currently. That could well be our negotiation objective.

On the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, I take the opportunity to reassure him that of course the Secretary of State will take all reasonable steps to meet the demand for permits from UK hauliers. We regularly meet industry to understand its requirements and priorities, which will be reflected in our detailed negotiations with the European Union. While the amendment would not tie our hands in the negotiation, I hope that what I have said gives the noble Lord confidence that it is not necessary to include this aim in the Bill.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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I would like to press the question of how these will be allocated. Clause 2(2) says:

“The methods that may be specified under subsection (1)(d) include random selection and first come, first served”.


What does “random selection” mean? How can we randomly select? Is it like a lottery? What about “first come, first served”? Is it a postal arrangement? We need more detail. I do not like this sentence being in the Bill and I think that it should be removed. If you go into negotiations with that in the Bill and a civil servant in Europe reads it, I think that I would know what to do in those negotiations.

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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I understand the noble Lord’s concern. Later, we will discuss Amendment 8, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, which addresses these issues. There is an explanation and, with the noble Lord’s permission, we will address it then.

The amendments on a sunset clause suggest that, should recognition of Community licences be secured as part of our negotiations, Clauses 1 to 3 should cease to have effect. I understand the intention and I agree that we do not wish to create delegated powers if they are not going to be used at any point in the future in relation to EU exit, but I would like to set out why this Bill has a wider application than just to our road haulage access with the EU. It should also apply to the European Conference of Ministers of Transport multilateral permit scheme and our bilateral agreements with non-EU countries.

While these non-EU agreements have, until now, been dealt with under administrative powers, now that we are introducing this Bill we think that it is important that those agreements are brought in scope, so that there is compliance and consistency in the administration, allocation and enforcement of permits with whatever agreement we reach with the European Union. There would be problems with having different legislation covering similar permit schemes. We are keen to ensure that UK hauliers can use one online system to apply and get permits for the EU as well as non-EU countries, as that would reduce burdens on them.

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The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, raised the important issue of corruption. IT systems such as the vehicle operator’s licence system and supporting intelligence data will be used to identify any non-compliance for both UK and international vehicles. Our aim is to develop permits that are very difficult to copy, but of course that does not address the issue of bribery, which the noble Lord mentioned. We are speaking to hauliers who were in the previous permit system to learn from their experience in developing a system and are confident of delivering a better system than we had previously through that engagement. I will of course carefully consider the points that the noble Lord raised.
Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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Let us take the Mont Blanc or the Brenner Pass. A truck turns up with a permit which is handed over in the office. Will there be some sort of IT connection between that customs post on the Brenner with a central data point in the United Kingdom, so that it can check whether it is a valid or a forged permit? If so, we do not need particularly sophisticated documentation, because all along the line there will be an IT check on what is seen abroad. Can the Minister give us that assurance?

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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I understand the noble Lord’s point. Sadly, I cannot speak for what will happen in the EU until we have concluded the negotiations. Within the UK, that is absolutely the idea: there would be a system to check on these permits. The noble Lord makes a very good point: we will seek to minimise corruption in future, but that will be subject to negotiations.

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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Absolutely. I agree with the noble Lord that that has happened in the past. We are working with the DVSA on how to better enforce compliance, on both this and future licensing systems, and we will continue to do so.

My noble friend Lord Moynihan mentioned the tripartite agreement between the UK, France and Ireland. We have been looking at how best to ensure that the racing industry is not affected by this Bill and is protected. However, I will take away what he said and will look at it.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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Can I ask another question? I am sorry to keep coming back, but I will try to get all my questions out of the way at the beginning. What about the transfer of permits? Will there be some sort of mechanism to ensure that one haulier cannot sell a permit to another haulier? Perhaps we could have that assurance.

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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I am afraid that until we know the exact system of the permits, we will not be able to give the noble Lord that assurance. Obviously, we need to avoid there being a false market for these permits. We will look at how permits are allocated and if they are limited in any way, which we hope they will not be, we will certainly consider how to avoid that. Again, the allocation system should make sure that additional permits are not allocated to people who are not using them. It is certainly something we will consider.

I hope I have addressed the need for this legislation, regardless of the agreement reached with the EU. I understand the sentiments of noble Lords in proposing these amendments and welcome the discussion it has enabled. However, as I said, we do not believe that the Community licence system is the only way to proceed and therefore do not think the Bill is an appropriate place to set out that negotiation objective. On that basis, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

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Lord Bassam of Brighton Portrait Lord Bassam of Brighton
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My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe on this. Pretty much every year, I try to get tickets to go to Glastonbury. You go on the website at 9 am and are still there at 10.30 am, and you suddenly discover that your youngest daughter has got tickets but you have not. There is something clearly wrong about a system that does that in my family, let alone anywhere else. The notion that we might have some random process—first come, first served or whatever—is clearly something that we should not allow ourselves to sign up to.

I want to hear on the record some reassuring words from the Minister. This may be a vague Bill, a schematic Bill, a framework Bill and all the rest, but this matter needs some clarification.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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My Lords, “first come, first served” implies immediately a limited number of permits, a shortage of permits and problems in the industry. I want to read the general conditions from one such permit issued nearly 35 years ago, which civil servants may find useful during the negotiations. It is quite short, but raises a number of issues. Under “General Conditions”, it states:

“This authorisation, together with the journey record mentioned below, must be carried on the vehicle and be produced at the request of any authorised inspecting officer. It authorises only the number of journeys indicated. It is not valid for national transport. It is not transferable. The carrier is required to comply, in the territory of each Member State, with the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of that State, and in particular with those concerning transport and traffic. This authorisation must be returned to the issuing agency within fifteen days of date of expiry. Before each transport operation, the holder of this authorisation is required to prepare any journey record provided for in bilateral agreements. Such journey record must be returned at the same time as this authorisation”.


So it is a fairly complicated process for the hauliers.

If it is not used within 15 days of the date of expiry, it is returned, but that permit has already been allocated to a specific journey—if that is what it says in the terms and conditions. Is that permit then written off? Does it affect the total number or permits that are allocated, or can we simply allocate a substitute permit, having declared that permit to be written off? I am asking this because, if a limited number of permits are allocated, there is going to be some argument about where they are going. I am trying to establish how we calculate the total numbers that are allocated.

I have been thinking about the earlier intervention by my noble friend Lord Snape. He talked about it being of benefit, in certain circumstances, to our haulage industry. There is a problem there, because we want to avoid that. If we are going into these negotiations on the basis that we want enough permits to supply all the demand, the last thing we want to do is starve the Irish of permits. If they need them, they should be given them, because that helps our case in the negotiations with the European Union.

Baroness Randerson Portrait Baroness Randerson
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In her reply, will the Minister clarify exactly what these permits will be? The background briefing that her department issued referred to single-journey permits and multiple-journey permits. It referred to the European Conference of Ministers of Transport permit system. Having researched this, I believe that the number of permits available under that system would be absolutely tiny. Where are these permits going to come from? What is going to regulate them? Are we going to dream it up ourselves or base it on the international system? We need a bit of clarity on this.

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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My Lords, I thank noble Lords again for their contributions to this debate. I assure noble Lords that this provision is not intended to allow these methods to be the only approach used, or for these to be used without the use of other criteria. We are in the process of negotiating with the EU on how UK hauliers will operate in the EU 27 after our withdrawal. As I said, we are confident we will secure an agreement which allows them to operate without restrictions on market access. If we do agree a permit system, “no restrictions” would mean unlimited permits. The exact nature of what will be in the permits will be down to the international agreement with the EU. We do not have details of that yet, but I imagine that it would follow the international information which is included on them. I will take back the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. I will look in detail in Hansard about what the exact restrictions on that permit are. I am not sure that we would repeat them in a future system.

In including this, we are attempting to be prudent in ensuring that the industry would be able to continue to operate under a range of different outcomes. It may be that, depending on our future partnership agreement, in some circumstances, the demand for permits may exceed the available number. As I said, that is not the aim of negotiations or what we are hoping for, but we have a duty to plan for that, as a contingency.

One of those outcomes could see the permit scheme we agree involving a set quota of permits. The Bill allows us to set criteria to allocate those permits, should we need to. The detail of the criteria will be setout in regulations and guidance. We have set out some examples in the scoping documents. In such a case, criteria such as the economic benefit the permit would bring would be reflected. Of course, a more sensible way of allocating permits would be the best outcome. However, if the use of those criteria—set out in the regulations—was not sufficient to balance demand versus supply, we may need to apply a further method such as random allocation to decide between applicants. For example, if we were able to clearly allocate 90% of applications because of the economic case, we could then use a first come, first served basis or random allocation to allocate the other 10%. As I said, and as noble Lords have made clear, we want to avoid a system with a limited number of permits, but we need the ability to allocate them should we find ourselves in the unfortunate situation of their being limited.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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Why does that sentence have to be in the Bill?

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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I was coming on to that. It might be appropriate and fairer to combine a number of criteria and approaches to different types of permits. For many of our current permit schemes with third-party countries, such as Morocco and Ukraine, the number of permits is significantly greater than the take-up and this is not expected to change. In these circumstances, the optimal approach is first come, first served, which we use at the moment.

It would of course still be possible for the Government to bring forward a proposal to use these specific approaches for the EU by putting them in regulations alongside other criteria and methods. As I said, we discussed that further in the policy scoping note.

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Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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I am sorry. The transmission on the audio equipment was very bad when you were answering the question I asked. It was impossible to hear because the audio went wrong, so I repeat my question: if that sentence were not in the Bill, would it make any difference? Why not just remove it?

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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As I said, we may use that system for current non-EU agreements and agreements with third countries, which we discussed before. That is the system we currently use because we have an excess of permits to demand. That could be on a random basis or on a first come, first served basis.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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That did not answer my question.

Lord Bassam of Brighton Portrait Lord Bassam of Brighton
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I am sorry. If we are in one of those desperate situations where there is a shortage of permits compared to what we need, retaining that subsection is extremely damaging because it means that, in most circumstances, we cannot allocate on a needs basis. I should have thought that there are certain things we need to import or export that have a high degree of priority. Having that clause drives a coach and horses through that, does it not?

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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Before the Minister answers, can I ask her to take this away and discuss it in the department? I think she may get different advice when there has been a full discussion.

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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I absolutely agree that we will need to put criteria in place in the unfortunate situation of there not being enough permits to go round. Of course we would do that; I hope I explained earlier that this would give us the ability to allocate the remainder of the permits if those criteria could not fairly decide what the allocations should be.

I entirely understand that noble Lords are concerned that the methods of allocation appear somewhat arbitrary when viewed in isolation. The intention is that when we bring forward the regulations—which will have all the criteria set out in the policy scoping notes—the industry will see that there is an objective and equitable approach. The option of including these criteria as part of the approach is an important contingency.

Lord Bassam of Brighton Portrait Lord Bassam of Brighton
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The thing about regulations is that they are unamendable. You either buy the package or you reject the lot. This provision does not terribly help, because it could end up contradicting the regulations. That is why my noble friend is suggesting that the Minister might want to take it away to give it a bit more thought. I am struggling to think of a set of circumstances where these two things will work.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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Can I add to that intervention? I can give the Minister another criterion. What about regional considerations, which might well be in our favour?

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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The reason we put these two methods in the Bill and left other criteria and approaches for the regulations is based on legal advice. Perhaps the Committee would allow me to set it out.

Although there is no specific reference to the exercise of discretion in the Bill, all regulation-making powers and the regulations state that the Secretary of State “may make provision”, which obviously involves the exercise of discretion. Decisions on the allocation of permits will involve an element of discretion in both setting the criteria and applying them to determine which operator gets a permit. Discretion in the Secretary of State’s decision must be in accordance with public law principles, so it must be lawful, rational and procedurally fair, and decisions may be challenged by way of judicial review where they do not comply with those principles.

To be clear that the Secretary of State is able in certain circumstances to allow the use of first come, first served or random allocation, they have been included in the Bill. Where the criteria set out in regulations and guidance are not sufficient to allocate all the permits, the Secretary of State is able to use that discretion to allocate permits on a first come, first served basis. It is best included in the Bill in accordance with public law principles.

I understand the noble Lord’s point. We have had extensive discussion on this. It is based on very clear legal advice that if we were not to include it, we could not use it at any point. Although we do not want to use it for the allocation of permits, because I entirely agree that that would not be fair, I will take it back and discuss it further with the legal team to clarify. I understand why it standing alone in the Bill causes concern.

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Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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My Lords, I want to concentrate on Amendment 14, which refers to cost. I will refer to documents that I have from 30 years ago, which deal with the costs at that time. What interests me is how the costs are split between various categories. Again, civil servants might find this useful. I have with me a non-quota permit for France and a non-quota permit for Italy. The price I refer to now is an indicator for one country, so obviously if a truck were passing through a number of countries the totals would be multiplied. On a single journey to France, 30 years ago, a permit was £2.80; a multiple-journey permit valid for two journeys was £3.40; a multiple-journey permit valid for three journeys was £5.10; a multiple-journey permit valid for four journeys was £6.80; and a period permit was £50. That is for one country; as I said, those figures have to be multiplied for permits for more than one country.

The office in the United Kingdom that received that money was in Westgate House, on Westgate Road in Newcastle upon Tyne. That is where everything was organised from, and as my origins are in the northern region and as that was my former constituency, I hope that if we go into this business again, which I hope we will not, permits will again be allocated from somewhere in the north of England, and in particular from Newcastle.

I have with me also the detail that is required for a permit. I want to go through it, because it is quite onerous and people should reflect on these matters before we go down this route. The form, which is from more than 30 years ago, asks for: the full name of applicant; address in full; British operator’s licence number, the traffic area in which it was issued and the date of expiry, and for Northern Ireland operators a freight operator’s licence number and the date of expiry; details of vehicle, including make, registration number and MOT plate; the maximum permissible laden weight; the unladen weight; the maximum permissible load; the date for departure from GB; countries to be traversed; date of entry into country, in this case Italy; the town and country where the goods were loaded; the town and country where the goods were unloaded; the nature of the goods to be carried; the weight of the goods to be carried; the estimated total length of journey on the continent; and whether the vehicle will cross the Italian frontier by rail or Kangarou service on the outward or return journey. That is a lot of information.

When we are in these negotiations, we should try to minimise the amount of information that hauliers are required to provide, if possible. I have talked about what would happen with frontiers; I remember occasions when trucks were stopped because a mistake had been made in the permit allocation. Under the current arrangements, that would incur demurrage charges. The former Transport Minister will know all about demurrage charges; I think I remember a debate he was involved in some time ago. Those charges can be very high: the freight operators at Dover talk about a current rate of about £250 a day. So, a hold-up as a result of a mistake on an allocated permit can be very costly. Therefore, there is a need to minimise the amount of information required.

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Earl Attlee Portrait Earl Attlee
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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 Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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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 Portrait Earl Attlee
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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 Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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I wonder whether I can speak again.

Earl Attlee Portrait Earl Attlee
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It is Committee.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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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 Portrait Earl Attlee
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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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Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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I am afraid that the answer to that is that it is all subject to the negotiations. The noble Lord asked earlier whether we were doing this on an EU-wide or bilateral basis. We think that an EU-wide basis is the simplest way. Of course, we want to ensure that enough permits are allocated to countries, for example Northern Ireland and France, which we currently have a lot of dealings with. I go back to the point that we are hoping we will not need a permit system, but if we do it will be unlimited and allocation would therefore not be an issue. If it is limited, which it may be, then if the number of UK permits is limited, how the European Commission allocates them will be down to negotiation.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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It is very important that we do not have to negotiate bilaterally because we could be held to ransom by some of the northern European states, whereas others might be more generous. If we cannot get through France, Belgium or Holland, what is the point of them in the states lower down?

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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The noble Lord is quite right. We think it is best to negotiate this as an EU-wide agreement. Bilateral agreements remain an option should we need them, but we very much hope that we do not.

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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Our current agreement with Ukraine is negotiated through the EU. I believe that Ukraine has an unlimited number of permits. I will go back and look at specific examples. Most of these negotiations are done with the EU as a bloc, as I say, not bilaterally.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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Surely, the position is that if you are carrying your own goods it will come under one quota system and there should be no restriction whatever. If you are carrying other people’s goods, there might be a restriction. We should have that in mind when we negotiate.

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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I agree, as I do with the noble Lord’s point on using tonnage within the negotiations, which I will pass on.

I will explain to noble Lords how the regulation of foreign hauliers is being handled in legislation. It is currently carried out under the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995, which requires any operator, whether based in Great Britain or abroad, to carry a Great Britain operator’s licence, failure to do so being an offence subject to a level 5 fine on summary conviction. However, EU hauliers are currently exempt from carrying a GB operator’s licence because they carry a Community licence under EU law.

If EU community licences are no longer recognised when we leave the EU, we will remove the exemption for EU hauliers and regulate their access to the UK in the same way that we regulate access for non-EU hauliers. Obviously, how we do that will be subject to negotiations; again, I make the point that we hope we will not need to do this because of the open access. We will do that by setting out the conditions agreed in the international agreement concluded with each country or with the EU, including whether a permit is required.

The recognition of EU Community licences in Great Britain will be removed using the power to correct deficiencies arising from the UK’s withdrawal from the EU under Clause 7 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which, as noble Lords know, we discussed in detail last night. When that comes into force, it will enable the Government to correct EU retained law and UK legislation where reciprocal arrangements between the UK and EU, such as the recognition of Community licences, no longer exist. The new conditions—if any are agreed in negotiations—placed on EU hauliers, including carrying a permit, may then be put in place by using existing powers under the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995, if the Government consider that this is required. The same approach will be taken in Northern Ireland legislation.

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Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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I am sorry to keep getting up, but it is not just about your own goods. Under the arrangements that I remember, it was own goods, works of art, fresh fruit and veg and exhibition goods. All that I am arguing is that it might be possible to widen those descriptions in the event that we get ourselves into difficulties.

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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The noble Lord makes a valid point. I will have to go back and look at that in detail and come back to the Committee in writing.

As was covered earlier when we were discussing the reporting requirements, I agree that we must consider the impacts of leaving the EU on the haulage sector. That should cover both UK and foreign hauliers. We need to come up with a form of reporting on this; I do not believe it needs to be in the Bill, but I will consider that and come back with a proposal ahead of Report. Once again, I welcome the discussion that this amendment has enabled, and I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment at this stage.

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Lord Bassam of Brighton Portrait Lord Bassam of Brighton
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Acronyms sometimes get the better of me. So, what will it look like? How will it feel? How will it operate? What additional burdens will it place on the businesses affected? Where will the inspections take place? I picked up the point made by the Minister that they will not necessarily be at ports, but ports may be the best place; I do not know. I have seen lorries subject to customs inspections at ports, which works very well for some operations. We need answers to all these questions.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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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 Portrait Earl Attlee
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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.

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Baroness Randerson Portrait Baroness Randerson
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Can the Minister clarify something? In their examples of existing permits where there are bilateral agreements, the Government refer to both single-journey and multiple-journey permits. Multiple-journey permits are clearly a lot less bureaucratic, but single-journey permits are a lot less expensive. Do the Government have an image of which way they are going on this or whether they are going to have single and multiple-journey permits if required?

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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I am flying blind now—I should really know the answer to this question. When a British haulier travels in France now, I presume they pay a fee on the motorway. French motorways are very expensive. When a French haulier arrives in the United Kingdom, do they pay any charges for the use of our roads? I think not. If that is the case then we might like to raise this issue if we have any trouble with the French—particularly with the hauliers—in the course of the negotiations. It might not only be France; it might be that some other countries in Europe like to charge for the use of their motorways, such as the Italians, and I am sure that there are others as well. The Swiss get their share too—whenever I go through Switzerland they take me for a ride for 40 francs for my car alone.

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. UK hauliers will pay a charge on a toll road in France in the same way as anyone else.

We are looking into the HGV levy and how to use it better. It may be a method of addressing this issue and I will certainly consider that. I think there is still a toll road on the M6, so obviously that has happened in one case in the UK. However, there are not currently plans for the Government to introduce tolling systems.

On the types of permits, which the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, raised, there will be many options, including, but not limited to, single journey, annual bilateral—ECMT have both of those—and annual multilateral. Exactly what permits we have will be subject to negotiations.

Returning to the HGV levy, foreign hauliers currently pay the levy and so make a contribution to the roads, but, as I said, we are looking at that in detail and I shall send noble Lords more information on it.

We have aimed for the clause to be clear on what fees may be charged for, which allows us to consolidate all the regulations on existing permit fees in one place rather than them being split across a number of regulations. This will give greater clarity to operators and hopefully will be simpler to follow and allow better scrutiny for Parliament.

We think we need to charge a small application fee to recover the cost of processing the application—that will be payable by all applicants—and an issuing fee to recover the administrative costs of issuing the permit will then be payable by successful applicants only. There should not be a single fee, either for application or issuing, because unsuccessful applicants would bear some of the cost for issuing permits or vice versa. Hauliers should pay for what they use rather than paying the same costs irrespective of whether or not they have a permit—should they be needed, which we all hope they will not.

We want to introduce separate application and issuing fees. There is a precedent within the haulage sector for charging fees in this way as its operator licensing regime has both the application and issuing fees made in the regulations under the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995.

I apologise because at this stage I am not able to provide the Committee with specific figures of what the fees for permits will be. It will depend on the number and types of permits required by hauliers, which journeys are exempt and the cost of administering a permits scheme—if there is a permit scheme, which of course will be subject to the negotiations. We want to keep fees as low as possible and in the region of the existing permit fees. The noble Baroness referred to a few examples. The annual ECMT permit which allows any numbers of journeys costs around £133 and a single journey bilateral permit costs £8. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, pointed out, we need to take into account how that will affect small and medium-sized hauliers.

On the capability for the checking of these permits within the UK, there will obviously be a need, should we have a permit system, for them to be checked. As part of the spending statement today, the DfT has received £75.8 million to deliver its EU exit programme. That will include reconfiguring DVSA and looking at that in detail. Again—I apologise for repeating myself—until we know the outcome of the negotiations we are not going to know by how much the capability of DVSA needs to increase and we will have to wait to see the exact costs.

The DfT is working with the Treasury to determine the appropriate level of fees. This will be included in the regulations to allow scrutiny by Parliament. As I say, we are doing everything we can to keep the cost low. It is a key consideration for UK hauliers and we are working closely with them as these plans develop. We will be working closely with small and medium-sized enterprises as well in order to keep these costs as low as possible. I hope that explanation demonstrates why we have a fees clause in the Bill and exactly what we will be using it for. I hope that the noble Baroness will agree that the clause should stand part of the Bill.

Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL] Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Department for Transport

Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts
Baroness Randerson Portrait Baroness Randerson (LD)
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My Lords, Amendment 15 would require the Secretary of State to provide for compulsory registration of certain trailers. These requirements were suggested in the impact assessment by the Government as a possible registration scheme. We are simply suggesting that those requirements should be in the Bill. There is a number of reasons: first, as a general principle, this is an opportunity to flesh out this very thin Bill a bit in a meaningful way. It is, after all, a trailer registration scheme, and that is one of the two purposes of the Bill. If this amendment were on the face of the Bill, the Government would not be able to provide for a compulsory registration scheme for all trailers; in other words, this would narrow the scope.

The amendment would also give more clarity about the status of certain vehicles. On Second Reading and in our previous Committee sitting, several examples were raised regarding the uncertainty surrounding what categories would be applied to which trailers.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
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The amendment refers to trailers weighing over 750 kilograms. Is that gross weight or net weight?

Baroness Randerson Portrait Baroness Randerson
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It is, I gather, but that is the instruction from the Minister. We are working to the Government’s definitions.

This is a good opportunity to raise the issue of the voluntary registration scheme currently provided by the National Caravan Council, not to be confused with the Caravan Club. The council is an industry body which operates a very well-established scheme of registration. It is concerned that the Bill should not muddy the waters on registration. I am sure that it would like its own scheme to continue, but I am concerned that we do not end up with two different registration schemes with slightly different requirements and criteria. This will already add complexity to the existing situation, and we need to be careful that it does not become confusing as well as slightly more bureaucratic. How will the Government’s proposed scheme fit with the National Caravan Council scheme? Have she or her officials had discussions with the council, because it remains concerned about the issue?

Our other amendment in this group, Amendment 17, was drafted simply to help provide clarity to travellers who may, as a result of us not being a party to the community licence any more, be subject to different trailer registration requirements in different EU countries. The point has been made in debate here that Germany, for example, is quite stringent in its requirements on trailers. We are seeking to take the opportunity of this Bill to raise public awareness of the variation in the attitude between different EU member states to trailer registration. I very much hope that the Minister can give us some information to allay concerns.

Earl Attlee Portrait Earl Attlee (Con)
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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 Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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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?

Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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Is the Minister going to grasp the general subject of trailer safety under this group or the next?

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I welcome the proposed amendments. I hope I have offered noble Lords the necessary clarifications and that the noble Baroness is able to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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I did not hear an answer from the Minister to my question about the number of accidents.

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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I apologise to the noble Lord for not addressing that point. We do have some figures, which will be discussed on the next amendment on safety, but I will look into the issue in detail and write to all noble Lords.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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Is there any chance that we could have those figures before we get into the next amendment? The Minister’s reply will be at the end of the debate and we may not have an opportunity to hear them otherwise.

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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I am afraid that we do not have the detailed figures on trailer accidents ahead of the next discussion.

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Lord Bassam of Brighton Portrait Lord Bassam of Brighton
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My Lords, this amendment follows on from Amendment 16. Basically, I am asking the Government to introduce a scheme for mandatory safety standard requirements, which all registered trailers should then comply with. The amendment asks for these to be conducted on an annual basis.

Obviously, the amendment will not bring back Freddie Hussey but it might prevent deaths such as his occurring in the future. This was a terrible and tragic case. Mrs Hussey was with Freddie on a footpath and he was crushed by a huge trailer that came loose. They were simply doing what most parents and children do every day—walking along a footpath—and he was cut down by a 2-tonne trailer. His parents ask simply: how can vehicles more than 1 tonne in weight which travel at speed—and, if they come loose, will not stop—not need safety checks? It is madness. An MOT or safety check could have prevented this and picked up on the bent handbrake. It was the bent handbrake—obviously not properly serviced—that caused the problem.

A trailer can often—and in many circumstances will—weigh more than a car and other vehicles on the roads but obviously if trailers are in the wrong hands and are not well maintained and have not been properly checked, they are lethal. As we know from recent terrorist attacks, vehicles are lethal weapons and they kill people—large numbers of people. The safety issue here is paramount.

Paragraph 58 of the DfT’s own impact assessment says, under “Indirect benefits”:

“Trailer registration may also bring about safety improvements by facilitating enforcement of existing regimes related to trailer roadworthiness … the act of completing registration may prompt owners to check and address any roadworthiness issues”.


That is blindingly obvious but, as the impact assessment says, if road safety improvements can be made, the modest reductions in accidents could result in significant societal changes and improvements. Mr and Mrs Hussey might argue that young people—always more vulnerable on or near roads—would be less likely to be the victims of other people’s negligence.

There is a powerful argument behind this safety requirement on trailers. I think the department and the Minister ought to seize the opportunity to make some progress on it. While in general this piece of legislation is there only because of the disaster of Brexit, it would be nice if we could take the opportunity to make use of it to improve safety standards. As I said at the outset, the Husseys are not the only ones who have suffered a loss as a result of poor maintenance, inadequate inspection and the lack of a more rigorous testing regime. I have not seen hard data in terms of numbers but they have a lot of anecdotal evidence and copies of cases reported in local newspapers of young people in particular ending up the victims of poor trailer maintenance. It is something we should take seriously. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, made that point rather well earlier. It is a concern. Because this is an underregulated sector, we have to use the opportunity to better regulate it, secure long-term improvements and reduce the number of deaths on or off the roads that are caused directly or indirectly by trailer malfunction and poor maintenance.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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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 Portrait Earl Attlee
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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 Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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Perhaps I could speak again, because I have been reflecting on what was said. There is another way to deal with this, which is why I intervene: we have gross weight figures. If we had a few more court cases about people using trailers that exceeded the gross weight, that might send out a message “pour encourager les autres” to comply with the law. That is one way to deal with it, along with the lock and chain. I am talking about the smaller trailers, which are worrying me, and which comprise the great volume of trailers.

I come to my second point. I do not have a trailer at the moment but until a few years ago I did. It was a small trailer, probably half the size of one of these desk tops here. We used it once or twice a year. If you are registering it, MoT-ing and all that, that is quite an expense if you use your trailer very rarely. As I say, unless they are in business, people do not drive around with their trailers all the time. They are for occasional use.

There are circumstances in which an MoT could be applied, and that is when a trailer has a brake. If it has a brake, it really is a different piece of machinery. All that most trailers have is a wire that connects the vehicle to the trailer to feed the lights—nothing more. However, where you have a trailer with a brake, my noble friend’s case holds water that there might well need to be some sort of system. I imagine that the two-tonne trailer that my noble friend referred to had a brake; I do not know.

Lord Blencathra Portrait Lord Blencathra (Con)
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Since we are in declaring-interest mode, I, too, used to have a trailer a few years ago. It is the point about the brakes that interests me, because it seemed to have an automatic brake on the driveshaft when it connected to the car, so when the car was accelerating or driving normally the trailer was dragged, but when one put on the car brakes, the momentum of the trailer pushed forward on a hydraulic ram that automatically activated the rear brake. I have no idea what it was called, and I am sorry that I cannot describe the technology more accurately, but many trailers have these automatic brakes that come on when the vehicle brakes.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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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 Portrait Earl Attlee
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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 Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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The difference of course is that one is more likely to be a commercially operated trailer as against one which is owned by an individual using it for general purposes.

Lord Snape Portrait Lord Snape
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Desperate though we are to hear from the noble Baroness, and I know that she is equally desperate to put us right on this amendment, I am concerned about the tone of the debate. My noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe has talked about the nanny state and not wishing to overregulate trailers. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said that this is about small trailers. He had one himself that he drove around the countryside and everything was fine. However, noble Lords ought to reflect on the fact that no matter how small they are, these trailers can travel at a fair old speed, depending on the mood of the driver. Even a small one breaking away on a motorway, for example, could cause an enormous amount of carnage.

I spent my working life in the railway industry, where the smallest wagon is inspected on a regular basis. That is probably the reason the railway industry has gone for a decade without killing a passenger in a moving train accident. The same does not apply on our road network. For my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe to talk about the nanny state ignores the fact that we are still killing a couple of thousand people and seriously injuring more than 10,000 on our roads. The smallest trailer, if badly maintained, could play its part in adding to that carnage.

My noble friend shakes his head, but he must be aware of the issues when he is driving on a motorway. Because of the lack of traffic police these days—we can play a game called “spot the traffic policeman”; the only time I see one is when I watch the television because I do not see any on our roads—I have been overtaken by people dragging those little trailers that my noble friend has just referred to. They drive in a cavalier way at 65 or 70 miles an hour, although strictly speaking they are supposed to be restricted to 50 miles an hour. If one of those trailers were to break away at 70 miles an hour, I do not care how small it is, it could cause a great deal of carnage on the road. I disagree with my noble friend’s view that the nanny state should keep out of legislation in this particular instance and I think that there is a proper case for inspection and regulation. I hope that the Minister will refer to it when the happy time comes and she is allowed to respond to the debate.

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Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen Portrait Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
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Absolutely, I have that information here. Trailer and caravan-related collisions accounted for 2% of the 1,787 total number of those killed or seriously injured in collisions in 2015.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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But that does not tell us what happened or give us the explanation for the accident. It may well have involved a large trailer that was overweight; small trailers might be excluded. In case there are amendments on Report, perhaps the Minister can give us some information on that matter.

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen Portrait Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
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Yes, absolutely. We will look further into it and see what other data we can find.

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Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe
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My Lords, in moving Amendment 19, I shall speak also to Amendment 20. These two amendments say in effect that if a trailer is registered, it must have a registration mark and that registration mark must be fixed to it. The Minister will probably call my attention to the Interpretation Act or something. Really, it is just a probing amendment to receive an assurance from the Minister that these “mays” will in practice be interpreted as “musts”. I beg to move.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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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 Portrait Earl Attlee
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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 Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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Have I missed something? Has an estimate been made of what the registration fees are going to be?

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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We do not have an exact estimate for the registration of trailers at the moment, although obviously we will aim to keep the fees to a minimum and on a cost-recovery basis. We will use our existing systems to issue them.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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Could we be given some idea of what the fees will be by Report? The figures will certainly influence the debate on smaller trailers.

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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We will do our best. We have examples of existing similar schemes and we are talking about figures in the area of £10 or £20. We do not have fixed rates because we do not yet know the extent of the registration scheme, and therefore how many marks will need to be issued. However, I will produce as many details as I can and write to the noble Lord.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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Finally, and more broadly on the same issue, the registration scheme will be a one-off registration, will it not? It will not be an annual registration scheme.

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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It will be a one-off registration scheme unless the trailer is sold or subject to change of use. At that point the change of ownership would need to be registered. However, it will not be done on an annual basis.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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So effectively the trailer will have a form of log book. A log book is used to register changes of ownership.

Earl Attlee Portrait Earl Attlee
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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.

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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Yes, it would follow the same information that is contained in that log book, but in order to do the full registration, when ownership is changed it would have to go through the DVSA system so that we were informed of that and could issue the permit.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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The reason I am trying to get these things on the record is that they will influence the debate on smaller trailer units.

Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg
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I fully understand that and will send the noble Lord more details on it. To go back to the fee, as I said, it is very difficult to determine the exact cost but I understand that it is an important consideration. We are confident that the fee will be significantly less than the current vehicle registration fee, for example, which is £55, but we are not able to provide any more detail on that at this time. That also goes towards trying to ensure that we get the right balance when deciding which trailers need to be registered and which do not, why we have not included 750 kilogram trailers and why we do not think this should be mandatory for domestic use—it is a not insignificant cost for a family going on a camping holiday once a year.

I hope I have explained why, in this case, the legislation will not go unused, despite whatever agreement we reach with the European Union, in the case of either the permit scheme, which will be used for existing and future schemes with other countries, or the trailer registration scheme, which will come into effect anyway because of the earlier convention. In the light of that, I hope that this discussion has reassured the noble Lord to the extent that he feels able to withdraw his amendment.

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Baroness Randerson Portrait Baroness Randerson
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My Lords, I will be brief on this amendment. The DPRRC report mentioned that the Government have given no examples of the regulations that they intend to make under the Bill. Given the wide-ranging consequences these could have—not just for industry but also for hobbies and leisure; indeed, for the whole of life—it is essential that there is full consultation before regulations are put before Parliament. We have suggested a range of organisations; some are obvious and some are less obvious, but I am absolutely sure that it is not a comprehensive list. However, it is presented here as an opportunity to ask the Minister about the details of how the consultation will take place, the nature of the consultation and which organisations will be consulted. I can see immediately that the list we have put forward—apologies come from my noble friend Lord Teverson who is at Defra discussing the marine safety audit—does not include, for example, trade unions, given that there are obviously employee interests in this as well as employer interests.

I do not need to delay the Committee any further. It is simply a question of whether we can have some details on the consultation process. I beg to move.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours
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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 Portrait Earl Attlee
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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

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Department for Transport

Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts
Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th April 2018

(5 years, 11 months ago)

Lords Chamber
Read Full debate Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Act 2018 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 84-R-I Marshalled list for Report (PDF, 80KB) - (13 Apr 2018)
Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe
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My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendment 17 in my name.

The National Trailer and Towing Association has long campaigned for the periodic inspection and testing of light trailers. One of the main barriers to that is the lack of a trailer registration scheme that covers category O1 and O2 trailers. Noble Lords are aware of the tragic case of Donna and Scott Hussey’s very young son, Freddie, who was killed in 2014 when he was hit by a two-tonne trailer that had come loose from a Land Rover. The family and their MP, Karin Smyth, have been campaigning ever since for better trailer safety to try to prevent further serious injury and deaths. What is needed—and what Amendments 16 and 17 provide for—is the creation of clear evidence based around weights and categories of trailers in relation to their safety and the number and nature of trailer-related road accidents in the UK.

The Government need to take action on this, rather than making vague promises to consider this in the future. There is a strong argument for looking specifically at the safety of trailers in the O2 category, weighing between 750 kilograms and 3.5 tonnes. With a genuine data collection exercise and assessment of evidence, the Government would be in a position to make an informed and responsible decision, befitting Her Majesty’s Government, on whether trailers in that category should be registered and subject to stringent safety testing. The data presented in the Minister’s letter mostly conflates that of trailers below 3.5 tonnes and large—category O3 or O4—trailers above that weight. This is misleading because the data referring to these large trailers is irrelevant to the central issue. We are not questioning the safety of large trailers of this nature because, as has been highlighted, they are already subject to robust safety procedures and checks and subsequently have high pass rates. Those figures, and comparisons with non-GB countries, relate only to large tested vehicles over 3.5 tonnes, not the lower categories of trailer with which we are at present most concerned.

Crucially, any analysis of the Department for Transport data on the safety of trailers below 3.5 tonnes shows some major gaps in reported data. This makes it impossible to describe the best attempt of Ministers to argue on the Government’s behalf that we have a representative assessment of how safe or unsafe domestic users of trailers are on our roads.

The statistics presented in the letter on incidents involving light trailers do not represent all such incidents, but only those reported and recorded by police. Road traffic incidents reported to the police include only those involving a personal injury and that occur on public roads. The DfT therefore clearly states in its annual report on road casualties:

“These figures … do not represent the full range of all accidents or casualties”,


in Great Britain, and goes on to include details of other sources of statistics with vastly higher recorded accidents and road traffic injuries.

We would also like to draw a distinction between the current method of capturing data on trailer safety after an injury has occurred in an incident, and the DfT’s failure to lead any kind of initiative to collect data on the roadworthiness of smaller trailers using stop-and-search-type testing to prevent such accidents occurring in the first place. This has been highlighted by Avon and Somerset Police as an urgent priority. It argues that its own evidence of checks shows the unsafe condition of the majority of domestic trailers, which, despite being overwhelming, is still ignored.

The evidence presented by the National Trailer and Towing Association and others shows the shocking safety standards of many untested trailers under 3.5 tonnes. According to it, a large proportion of such trailers would fail any roadworthiness test. When the Secretary of State undertakes a data-collection exercise and collates comprehensive data on the number and nature of trailer-related road accidents in the United Kingdom, it is vital that this includes data gathered specifically on the safety of trailers in the O2 category.

The logic of the concept that trailers should be registered and tested seems at first sight overwhelming: 750 kilograms of trailer traveling at 70 mph out of control can do as much damage as a small car travelling at 70 mph. Clearly, the solution is that they should be registered and inspected. The Minister will tell us that this is unnecessarily bureaucratic, too complex and disproportionate. Indeed, that was exactly the position that I took in 1960, when I was told that I had to have an MOT test for my car, which, being seven years older than me, seemed to have shown through time that it would manage. We are a long way on from then, and we now accept the MOT test as part of our lives. In fact, MOT testing is one area where our requirements are significantly ahead of the EU’s. We are going to tighten the MOT test at, I think, the end of this month, which will have a significant impact on many car owners. We are willing to be quite brave in imposing this testing regime on vehicles, particularly private motor vehicles, and to some extent we have been rewarded in recent years through a reduction in the number of tragedies.

This is about people dying, and it is about Freddie. But, as I said, the Minister will argue that it is disproportionate. That is why our two amendments are so stunningly reasonable. I will go through them briefly. Amendment 16 would require the Secretary of State to do three things: to collate data, to then take a view of registration and say when they should be presented in a report. The key words are in proposed new subsection (2B): “or not”. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to collate data and make a decision based on them whether to register trailers. Amendment 17 is similar. It would require the report to decide whether it is necessary “or not”—this is at the discretion of the Secretary of State—to introduce a mandatory safety standards testing scheme. The last part of the amendment would enable and empower the Secretary of State to make regulations to introduce such a scheme.

While we believe that registration and examination will be a key improvement in safety and would have saved this little boy’s life and those of other people who die in events relating to trailers, we accept the charge of proportionality. Somebody must take an analytical approach to it and make a judgment on whether this would be grossly disproportionate to the benefits gained. That is why both amendments would allow the Secretary of State to make decisions based on evidence. We are insisting not on registration or a testing scheme in the amendments, but that the Secretary of State goes through an orderly, analytical process and comes to a decision. I beg to move.

Lord Campbell-Savours Portrait Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
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My Lords, I spoke at length in Committee on this matter. I do not intend to do so today. This is a very good compromise arrangement. The Government would ultimately take the decision. We would simply establish a framework on which basis a Government can take the decision. I hope the Government will accept the amendment.

Baroness Randerson Portrait Baroness Randerson
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My Lords, safety has to be taken extremely seriously in this context. Along with the Minister and, I suspect, most of the people here, I rather wish that there had been no need for this legislation, but since we have it we might as well use it in this situation to draw attention to, and give the Government the opportunity to draw some conclusions on, the issue of safety.

The National Caravan Council believes that the number of accidents connected to caravans and similar trailers are mainly not due to the design or condition of the caravan or trailer itself. Most are caused by bad driving, bad loading or bad hitching of the trailer. Therefore, there is a huge need for public education on this. I very much hope that the Government will use the opportunity of providing the report suggested in the amendment by looking at the need for widespread public education on this.

I do not know whether any noble Lords have witnessed an accident of this nature. I did, driving behind a caravan on a motorway. A small wobble rapidly becomes magnified until it becomes a huge sweep of the caravan. Eventually, it cuts back on itself. That motorway was closed for six hours and very serious injuries were sustained. It was a frightening experience which brought home to me how important it is that driving with a trailer is done moderately. In that case—there may have been other factors—it was clear to me that the driver with the caravan was going much too fast, hence the need for public education.