Passenger and Goods Vehicles (Tachographs) (Amendment) Regulations 2016

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport and Home Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, these draft regulations are being made in order to update the existing domestic legislative and enforcement regime to comply with EU Regulation 165/2014 on tachographs. As noble Lords will be aware, tachographs monitor and record the amount of time that a commercial driver has spent driving. They are used in heavy goods vehicles, passenger service vehicles, and some light goods vehicles. Tachographs allow the enforcement of drivers’ hours rules, thereby creating a level playing field for vehicle operators. Tachographs also play a crucial role in keeping our roads safe by ensuring that professional drivers’ working hours are not excessive, and that the risk of accidents as a result of fatigue is reduced.

The directly applicable EU regulation makes small technical amendments in order to strengthen the standards that workshops must meet in order to install, check, inspect and repair tachographs. The EU regulation also paves the way for the introduction of new smart tachographs, which will periodically record a vehicle’s location via satellite technology. These will be more resistant to tampering and allow for easier enforcement. They will also make life easier for drivers by no longer requiring them to manually record their location.

By updating our domestic legislation in the light of this new European measure, these domestic regulations will ensure that the enforcement of EU drivers’ hours and tachograph rules can continue. If we do not make these changes, the UK enforcement agencies—the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and the police—risk no longer being able to enforce against tachograph offences. That would not be acceptable. It would compromise road safety and driver welfare.

To ensure the effective implementation of the EU regulation, my department, the Department for Transport, undertook a formal consultation in March 2015. There were two areas of flexibility in the legislation that we have opted to take up, following support from the industry. First, we are amending the legislation to continue to take up certain national derogations to drivers’ hours rules, thereby potentially reducing the administrative burden on industry. Secondly, we are allowing the DVSA to authorise field tests of non-type approved tachographs. There was broad support for these proposals across industry and I do not believe that this could be seen in any way as gold-plating. The consultation supported the view that the impact of the regulation on drivers and operators will be negligible. Drivers’ responsibilities will remain the same and the regulation extends certain exemptions. We remain confident that these changes are also low-cost, an assessment that the Regulatory Policy Committee has confirmed, and that they are likely to result in zero net costs to industry and the Government as a result of the changes to the domestic framework.

In conclusion, these draft regulations are important for the continued enforcement of important road safety rules, and for the future of the commercial driving sector by anticipating the introduction of a new generation of tachograph. They have support in the industry, which we should remember is a sector that underpins much of the UK economy. I therefore commend these regulations to the Committee.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation of the purpose and effect of the SI, which updates existing provisions in primary and secondary legislation to comply with EU Regulation 165/2014 on tachographs, which comes into effect from the beginning of next month. The EU regulation increases the requirements on member states for the audit and quality control processes for tachograph calibration centres. In light of the existing quality control processes that are already in place in the UK, the regulation would appear to require very little practical change in that regard.

We welcome the fact that operators who have made significant investment in establishing their own tachograph centres will not be barred under this regulation from testing their own vehicles. However, in that regard it appears—I am sure that the Minister will put me right if I am wrong—that the Department for Transport’s recent Motoring Services Strategy, which suggested examining possibilities for the delivery of the HGV annual test, including examination of the test by individuals in the private sector, appeared to contemplate this kind of constraint, which has been avoided in these regulations. Can the Minister give an assurance that discussions regarding the delivery of the HGV annual test in the future will be full and open, with nothing ruled out at this early stage?