Draft Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2022

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 General Committees

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. It was nice to hear the Minister’s speech and learn something about procedure in this place. We have batted between negative and positive procedures and so on, so I feel I have learned something today.

I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, who spoke from the Front Bench. I speak to people in my trade union, Unite—for the record, I should point out that Unite appears in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as having supported me in the past—and that union, which represents people in the road haulage sector, is crying out for fundamental change, whether in respect of members being forced to work longer and unsafe hours or the lack of support in terms of, for example, truck stops. I hope that part of the responsibility of the designated responsible person—the transport manager mentioned in the proposed regulations—will be to look after their employees in what is an arduous and difficult profession, with long hours spent on the road, away from home. People are driven—no pun intended—to work longer hours and do further miles, which has a real safety implication.

Has the Minister noticed the growing trend for decorative lighting on heavy goods vehicles, including blue decorative lighting, some of which flashes? I mention that because I am pretty sure that such lighting contravenes the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986. If we see blue lights in the rear-view mirror at night, we assume it is an emergency vehicle and try to get out of the way. Will the responsible people—the transport managers designated in the regulations—have responsibility for maintaining the road traffic standards on the construction and use of heavy goods vehicles so that drivers will no longer be confused at night by decorative lights that masquerade as emergency vehicles? The Minister might not respond directly to those points, because I am not sure that they fall wholly within the regulations, but I would be grateful if she could give them some consideration.