Drivers’ Hours and Tachographs (Amendment) Regulations 2020

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Drivers’ Hours and Tachographs (Amendment) Regulations 2020.

Relevant document: 41st Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, these regulations are the first to be made under the powers conferred by Section 31 of the European Union (Future Relationship) Act 2020. By reason of urgency, it was necessary to make these regulations without a draft being laid and approved by both Houses of Parliament. The urgency was that these regulations needed to be made and to come into force before the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020, to ensure that the rules relating to drivers’ hours and tachographs could continue to be enforced in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in respect of vehicles engaged in commercial road transport, under the terms of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, or TCA.

Drivers’ hours rules are central to keeping our roads safe and protecting driver welfare. They set maximum driving times and minimum break and rest times for most commercial drivers of both lorries and coaches. For example, the rules mean that after 4.5 hours driving, a driver must take a 45-minute break, and daily driving time is normally limited to nine hours. The consequences of driving any vehicle when fatigued can, of course, be catastrophic, and the potential risks associated with heavy commercial vehicles are particularly severe.

These rules are enforced by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency at targeted roadside checks, but also by visiting operators’ premises. The principal tool used by enforcement officers is the record generated by the tachograph, a device installed in relevant vehicles that records the driving, rest and break times of individual vehicles and drivers. The regulations amend domestic legislation to ensure that the roads chapter of the TCA, which covers the drivers’ hours and tachograph rules applicable to journeys between the UK and EU from 1 January 2021, can be enforced. They do this by providing that the EU drivers’ hours regulation and the EU tachographs regulation, which are retained in domestic legislation by the EU withdrawal Act, will apply to journeys between the UK and the EU, as well as domestic journeys in the UK. The regulations also clarify that the AETR rules apply to journeys between the UK and countries that are not EU member states.

As I said, the drivers’ hours and tachograph rules are important to public safety, and this instrument is required to ensure that such rules can continue to be enforced effectively. The policy area of drivers’ hours is devolved with respect to Northern Ireland. While, for the sake of efficiency, this SI makes amendments to the retained EU regulations on a UK-wide basis, this does not affect the devolved nature of the policy.

To conclude, keeping these regulations in force is essential for ensuring that the drivers’ hours and the tachograph rules applicable to journeys between the UK and EU member states under the TCA are enforceable. These rules are at the heart of the road safety regime for commercial vehicles. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, we have a small but perfectly formed group considering these regulations today and I am grateful for all contributions. I shall endeavour to answer as many questions as I can in the time available.

On the point raised by my noble friend Lady Gardner, the roads chapter of the TCA specifies that the drivers’ hours and tachograph rules applicable between the UK and the EU are consistent with those set out in the EU drivers’ hours regulation and the EU tachographs regulation, which have been retained from EU law. As I am sure my noble friend will appreciate, this means that the flow of drivers and their trucks either way between the UK and EU is facilitated by the work that noble Lords are doing today. Therefore, she should feel reassured that no delays at the border are caused by tachograph issues. I am pleased to say that, at the moment, there are very few delays at the border anyway. That is because we have seen greater trader and haulier readiness than, certainly, I was expecting, which is positive. That is even in the context of the slight curveball that the French and, latterly, the Dutch threw by requiring testing for hauliers as well. While it was a difficult time after the testing regime was implemented, it has all calmed down significantly now. I am pleasantly surprised at the amount of readiness out there, which just goes to show that, sometimes, when the Government encourage people to do something, they really do it.

I also reassure noble Lords that the TCA means that a new generation of tachographs will be installed in UK vehicles used internationally when they are ready. Drivers’ hours and tachograph rules will also be applied to some light goods vehicles, which we think will help road safety too. So, there is a lot of co-operation between the UK and the EU particularly in respect of these international movements, drivers’ hours and tachographs.

I turn briefly to fines, non-compliance and enforcement. We take this incredibly seriously. I think that it was the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who asked whether there was an army of enforcement officers waiting at the roadside to catch recalcitrant hauliers. Yes, there is; that is exactly what we have. Data for 2019-20 from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, the DVSA, show that officers stopped more than 66,000 vehicles on the road. From those encounters, they issued more than 12,000 fixed penalty notices for drivers’ hours and tachograph offences. One driver might have got several of those, so it is not necessarily the case that a high proportion of people are doing wrong. However, I am afraid that it was foreign drivers who picked up most of those fixed penalties—77.2% went to non-UK drivers. That is why the regulations are so important.

A range of fines can be applied to the driver. For UK drivers, it is a fixed penalty notice; for non-UK drivers, financial penalty deposits also play an important part in the enforcement regime. That means that the driver has to pay the fine there and then, the DVSA being well versed in collecting the appropriate funds at the roadside to ensure effective enforcement for those who do not follow the rules.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, requested more information on the DVSA and its activities. It has a large group of enforcement officers out on the roadside. They go to motorway service areas, ports, venues and other places—anywhere where one would imagine there is a significant number of hauliers. Visits to operators are often done on a risk-based system. DVSA has some quite good computer software which looks for those who are likely not to be following the rules as much as others.

The noble Lord was worried about the number plate recognition system. I reassure him that the national NPR system works for registration numbers irrespective of where the vehicle originates. DVSA probably has a bit more information on UK vehicles than non-UK ones, but that does not mean that the NPR system does not work; we can identify those vehicles. Virtually all vehicles now have digital tachographs. The driver inserts their own card, which they then transfer from vehicle to vehicle, meaning that the DVSA can compare the two to see whether a driver has been driving without using a card. The noble Lord told the Committee about his pesky friend who seemed to be doing something that was not entirely within the law—I hope that he has ceased and desisted from doing that now. Drivers who use more than one card are usually easy to identify because the DVSA has the IT systems to check card validity.

On the issue of tachographs, we are always looking at how we can improve enforcement, particularly around tachograph falsification. The Department for Transport is preliminarily considering developing an additional range of sanctions, including in the context of non-UK operators’ responsibilities. We will take that work forward in due course.

The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned the lack of access to EU systems, but that is not the case here. The UK remains connected to the TACHOnet system, which is used by the DVLA—the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, which is different from the DVSA—when it processes tachograph card applications at the outset. Basically, this prevents a driver having more than one tachograph. It is also used by the DVSA when doing its roadside checks so that it can get access to the EU information.

The noble Baroness mentioned the EU mobility package changes, and I apologise for the state of the Explanatory Memorandum and its being unclear; I will take that back to the department, and perhaps we will be able to improve it for the next time. I reassure her that work is already under way on the mobility package amendments: a draft negative resolution was laid for sifting in Parliament in early January. Unlike this SI, the changes are not operation-critical.

There is currently a relaxation of drivers’ hours; indeed, we have had a number of these, as we have had discussions with the haulage industry and the freight sector about how they feel freight and goods are flowing, the impact of Covid-19 on staff absences and whether specific issues within the system are causing goods to back up. We feel that there is a risk of continued disruption to the supply chain, so we extended the relaxations until 31 March. However, the understanding is very clear: they can be withdrawn earlier if circumstances change—so we do keep it under review. We are very cognisant of driver welfare and road safety, and we are very clear that normal drivers’ hours rules are to be followed unless it is absolutely necessary not to do so.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, asked about reducing workers’ rights. This Government recognise the importance of drivers’ hours rules to driver welfare and road safety. I am not aware of any proposals in this area, so there has been no engagement or consultation, except for talk about temporary relaxations. The Government have no long-term plans to reduce workers’ rights.

In closing, I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about things that they may have read about the DVLA in the Observer. I say to them: do not believe everything that you read in the media. I speak to the CEO of the DVLA very frequently: I last spoke to her on Sunday, and we went through all the allegations in the Observer. There are some very interesting comments, and all I can say is that I do not recognise them.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, may be interested to know that the CEO, Julie Lennard, will be at the Transport Select Committee tomorrow. I believe that she will put his mind at rest: the DVLA has the very highest standards on staff welfare. It follows the guidance from Public Health Wales and the Welsh Government to the letter, has frequent conversations and discussions with Public Health Wales and shares its plans with it. As such, I am reassured that DVLA staff are being looked after as well as possible. We must also recognise that the services it provides are critical to the functioning of our economy, and to enabling people to get to medical appointments and undertake essential journeys. I am sure there will be more on that at the TSC tomorrow.

That was a slight diversion from the SI before the Committee, but I commend the regulations.

Motion agreed.