Heavy Commercial Vehicles in Kent (No. 2) Order 2019

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 General Committees

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Ryan. This is the second order in the trilogy of heavy commercial vehicles in Kent, and I look forward to debating the third in due course. This order is about the movement of HGVs through Kent and highlights the exemptions that are to be applied to order No. 1, which was debated this morning. The Committee will be pleased to hear that I will not repeat much of what I said this morning, but I wish to make a number of points.

If traffic officers announce severe disruption and heavy traffic is already travelling along the non-designated route within a two-hour period of the announcement, vehicles will be exempt from any fines. Can the Minister confirm, however, that hauliers will not receive a penalty if, when making their way to the designated route, the traffic is so bad that it takes longer than the two-hour set period?

Lorries will be allowed to travel to make local connections and deliveries and for the purposes of refuelling as provided for by their documentation. How can that documentation be made available? Can it be electronic or does it have to be written documentation, particularly as local HGVs will be making assignments to local companies so they would not have the particular permits that are required under order No. 1?

If a cab is making its way to a port but does not carry any load, the legislation is silent about what restrictions will apply. Since the cab would be travelling to the port to collect an assigned load, it would not therefore have documentation to highlight the destination of the load. How will that matter be treated? Will the same restrictions apply and what documentation will be needed? The order is silent on that.

Again, on documentation, article 3(d) states that if an HGV is being driven on a local road network, the driver must produce

“information sufficient to satisfy the specified person”.

Will the Minister explain exactly what that means? There should be greater clarity in the order about what “sufficient to satisfy” means. That should be far more transparent, because it seems that it is down to the person’s discretion. Local lorries in Kent will be required to get a haulier’s permit from Kent County Council. I wonder how widely information about that additional requirement has been spread.

I have a further question about the welfare of drivers who need to use local routes. The conditions of those working in the haulage industry who have to park at the side of a motorway or on an airfield will still be unacceptable. I heard what the Minister said this morning about there being facilities—internet access, printers and other facilities—at Manston airfield, but drivers could be expected to wait for hours, possibly a day, or even more at the roadside, where suitable conditions are not available, without a decent resting place apart from their cab. If they need a shower or healthcare, how are they meant to access that?

The physical and mental health of drivers must be a priority but, sadly, it has not been. It is not clear from article 3(e)(i) whether there are any restrictions on what happens if drivers move themselves from the main carriageway to address, say, their personal health concerns or needs. I am particularly concerned about the mental wellbeing of drivers. Being away from home for extended periods, being late for family or community events and being isolated already take their toll, and prolonging such situations will have a profound impact. How is the Minister considering that? It seems that not all scenarios have been planned for. It is regrettable that the order was rushed out without consideration being given to these important matters. How will they be accommodated?

How would road repairs or a road closure due to a road traffic accident on the M20 or some other designated route be accommodated? Are contingency arrangements in place? We could end up with a combination of events, such as congestion at the ports leading to the full Operation Brock being put in place, followed by a severe weather event. These measures could be trialled from 31 January or 1 February, when we know the weather conditions may not be that pleasant, so how would such a combination of events be accommodated?

Finally, I wish to make a point about the cost of this whole operation, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham touched on. Can the Minister tell the Committee, and therefore the taxpayer, how much these measures will cost? We have heard about the recruitment of additional staff. Are taxpayers aware that these measures, let alone all the other costs that will be incurred, all add to the escalating cost of a no-deal Brexit? I look forward to the Minister’s response on these important matters.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I somehow guessed, Ms Ryan, that you would pull us back to the subject. It is a wise thing to do. I do not want to get too excited about that issue, because I really want to answer the points that the hon. Member for York Central made and stress how important it is to everybody in Kent that we get this exactly right. My hon. Friend the Member for Dover makes some very sensible, straightforward political points, and we can have a battle about them another time. I just want to make sure this item is scrutinised correctly.

The hon. Member for York Central asked me a number of questions—nine, I think—and I shall try to answer them all. What happens to lorries travelling down the route or trying to get back on to the route when the two-hour window applies? Well, I am always told that the first rule of policing is common sense. Common sense will apply, and we would like to think that police officers and those enforcing will use it in that time period.

What sort of paperwork would be required to demonstrate that people are driving on local routes? The production of a delivery notice for an address in the local area with the appropriate goods on board will absolutely demonstrate that. That is a relatively straight- forward, “as things are now” answer.

I think the hon. Lady’s third question was: what happens to empty lorries? Some restrictions apply, and they will have to join the Brock queues. We know that 30% of containers on trucks heading back to France are empty, but those trucks will have to join the queue like anyone else, because it is very difficult to distinguish them from any other lorry.

[Rachael Maskell]

Often a lorry is a cab without a trailer. Will the same restrictions apply despite there being no load on board?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I will double-check, but I think the answer is yes. In Kent, that is a very rare occurrence, because the type of movements across the channel are roll-on roll-off movements, and so they take the container with them. My officials are scrawling away. I will lengthen my other replies, and hopefully I can get the definitive answer within the course of the debate, but I believe that what I have said is correct.

The hon. Lady asked what paperwork would be required to satisfy the specified person if an HGV driver was trying to say that they were going down a local route. As I said in my previous answer, they should have a delivery slip—that is not the correct word—or a delivery manifest that demonstrates that the load on their lorry, or part of it, is going to a local address. There is no real discretion; they should have something that demonstrates that what they say is the case.

The hon. Lady asked about local permits being issued by Kent County Council. I have been in meetings where I have been told that they have been very well publicised locally, so haulage companies in Kent absolutely know where to get them. After this Committee, I am going to a meeting with the gentleman who is in charge of these issues for Kent County Council, and I will ask him that exact question. If the answer is not as I have said, I will come back to the hon. Lady.

On welfare, strangely enough, I am with the hon. Lady. As I alluded to in the earlier debate, I used to import wholesale fruit and veg—hauliers were the lifeblood of that business. Without them, I would not have been able to do half the things I was able to do. The job has never been as valued as it should be. We have been working with the industry to determine what might be required for drivers’ health. She made the point about mental health; there is a whole industry focus on the mental health of drivers, because there is a recruitment and retention problem in the industry. It is really important that these things are addressed properly and professionally.

We do not want drivers to get stuck in Brock and, because of something else that is going on, to stay in Brock, when they can move on and get on with their lives. I mentioned earlier that we looked at all the different welfare things that we should and could provide, from printers to toilets to food and water. We do not want to make a community centre out of Manston airport, but we want it to be a functioning workplace where people are treated with the appropriate respect.

[Rachael Maskell]

I am grateful for the clarity that the Minister has given on many of my concerns. If lorries are parked along the motorway carriageway, could he say how frequent the spacing out of toilets will be?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Very frequent. I believe we know the designated spacing and the answer is coming to me. The toilets will be every kilometre. Going back to the point about the vehicle without the container, restrictions will apply to HGVs over 7.5 tonnes.

On the hon. Lady’s seventh question, this is a contingency plan for something that we do not want to happen. The reason we have a massive communications campaign up and down the country as we speak is to ensure that the drivers and traders who use haulage companies are ready. If they are ready, as I hope and believe they will be, there will be no issues with flow and Brock will not need to be stood up. There has been a huge amount of investment on the French side, at the ports of Calais, Coquelles and Boulogne, to ensure flow continues over there as long as we have drivers in a place where the paperwork is ready. Hopefully, this is a contingency that will not need to be stood up.

The hon. Lady asked about road traffic issues—what happens if there is a crash or unexpected emergency roadworks? It is very helpful that the Kent Resilience Forum leads on all that, which is a combination of local councils, the police and highways authorities—a whole host of different agencies and people. They are working together now and their lead police officer, Peter Ayling, is in charge of co-ordinating that. Nothing should happen that they are not prepared for, but they have extensive plans for everything including severe weather and other events that may be concurrent with problems with flow at the port. [Interruption.] I have just been corrected on the spacing of portable toilets—they are at one-mile intervals, not one-kilometre intervals. I will always be more imperial than metric.

Finally, the hon. Lady asked about costs. There is a political point to make here: if the hon. Lady and her political party had voted for the deal, there would not be the extra costs of planning for a no-deal Brexit. However, a responsible Government have to do exactly that. In 2018-19, the cost was £59.9 million, and in 2019-20 it will be about £40 million, although there are still some costs to come as and when Brock gets stood up. I hope that has answered all the hon. Lady’s questions. If I have missed any, I shall write to her, if that is okay. I hope I have answered everybody else’s points.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the Heavy Commercial Vehicles in Kent (No. 2) Order 2019.