Motor Vehicles (Tests) (Amendment) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Wednesday 13th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for raising this issue, but I think that the order is a sensible precaution. I believe that the Minister and her department are operating magnificently. For instance, last week she and her officials sorted out a problem I had raised about abnormal load movements within 24 hours from start to finish.

It is important to recognise that having an MoT testing regime is not just about the direct safety benefit of detecting vehicle faults but much more about keeping our vehicle fleet operating at a very high standard, without a race to the bottom under economic pressures. Also more important nowadays is minimising environmental harm by means of emission testing. The good news is that the standard of our private car and commercial vehicle fleet is far higher than it was a few decades ago. I have a somewhat technical interest to declare, in that I currently operate a heavy goods vehicle exclusively under an order made under Section 44 of RTA 1988, but might want to operate it under C&U rules. Lack of goods vehicle testing capacity may cause me some inconvenience at some point in the future.

In effect, the order extends an existing MoT certificate but does not allow a vehicle to be operated without a recent certificate at all. That is fine for cars, but not necessarily for goods vehicles. There may be sound reasons why it is necessary to bring a goods vehicle back into operation; for instance, after a significant overhaul or refurbishment. I understand that the Minister has the power to relax testing requirements for an individual vehicle, but officials are using it only sparingly, for vehicles involved in combating the coronavirus, but not generally, even for reliable operators. Before noble Lords get too excited about my suggestion, I point out that goods vehicle operators are already obliged to inspect their vehicles for safety about every six weeks, so my proposal would have a limited adverse effect on road safety.