Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 22nd March 2018 Grand Committee

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 15 would require the Secretary of State to provide for compulsory registration of certain trailers. These requirements were suggested in the impact assessment by the Government as a possible registration scheme. We are simply suggesting that those requirements should be in the Bill. There is a number of reasons: first, as a general principle, this is an opportunity to flesh out this very thin Bill a bit in a meaningful way. It is, after all, a trailer registration scheme, and that is one of the two purposes of the Bill. If this amendment were on the face of the Bill, the Government would not be able to provide for a compulsory registration scheme for all trailers; in other words, this would narrow the scope.

The amendment would also give more clarity about the status of certain vehicles. On Second Reading and in our previous Committee sitting, several examples were raised regarding the uncertainty surrounding what categories would be applied to which trailers.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

The amendment refers to trailers weighing over 750 kilograms. Is that gross weight or net weight?

[Baroness Randerson]

It is, I gather, but that is the instruction from the Minister. We are working to the Government’s definitions.

This is a good opportunity to raise the issue of the voluntary registration scheme currently provided by the National Caravan Council, not to be confused with the Caravan Club. The council is an industry body which operates a very well-established scheme of registration. It is concerned that the Bill should not muddy the waters on registration. I am sure that it would like its own scheme to continue, but I am concerned that we do not end up with two different registration schemes with slightly different requirements and criteria. This will already add complexity to the existing situation, and we need to be careful that it does not become confusing as well as slightly more bureaucratic. How will the Government’s proposed scheme fit with the National Caravan Council scheme? Have she or her officials had discussions with the council, because it remains concerned about the issue?

Our other amendment in this group, Amendment 17, was drafted simply to help provide clarity to travellers who may, as a result of us not being a party to the community licence any more, be subject to different trailer registration requirements in different EU countries. The point has been made in debate here that Germany, for example, is quite stringent in its requirements on trailers. We are seeking to take the opportunity of this Bill to raise public awareness of the variation in the attitude between different EU member states to trailer registration. I very much hope that the Minister can give us some information to allay concerns.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee of an interest that I have: I own one very large commercial trailer. However, it is extremely unlikely that I will be taking it on to the continent, and therefore it is not in scope of the Bill.

I have some sympathy for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. The difficulty is that the burden on individuals and the cost of implementing it probably would not outweigh the benefits. However, his amendment as he describes it is about the need to test these trailers rather than register them. I share his concern about the safety of these trailers, particularly those under 3.5 tonnes that are used for transporting cars and goods. There is no requirement whatever for these vehicles to be tested; I myself have seen some in an absolutely terrible state. There is an issue, and the department needs to look closely at these smaller trailers because I have seen them involved in quite a few accidents.

We already test HGV trailers under the plating and testing regulations, but these trailers are not currently registered in the way that we are proposing. We will be registering some under the Bill in order for them to operate on the continent. Still, if the Government were minded to, they could bring these trailers under 3.5 tonnes in scope of testing by other means without using the Bill. So the noble Lord raises an important point; it is perfectly proper to use the Bill to raise the issue, but I do not think that this is the right vehicle—excuse the pun.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Could I ask some questions? First, have we an estimate of the number of trailers that fall under the various categories nationally that we might be able to talk about during the course of the Committee? Secondly, do we have any information on the number of accidents that have taken place? If so, do we know what proportion of those accidents have entailed the trailer being overloaded in default of other law?

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

Is the Minister going to grasp the general subject of trailer safety under this group or the next?

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I welcome the proposed amendments. I hope I have offered noble Lords the necessary clarifications and that the noble Baroness is able to withdraw her amendment.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I did not hear an answer from the Minister to my question about the number of accidents.

[Baroness Sugg]

I apologise to the noble Lord for not addressing that point. We do have some figures, which will be discussed on the next amendment on safety, but I will look into the issue in detail and write to all noble Lords.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Is there any chance that we could have those figures before we get into the next amendment? The Minister’s reply will be at the end of the debate and we may not have an opportunity to hear them otherwise.

[Baroness Sugg]

I am afraid that we do not have the detailed figures on trailer accidents ahead of the next discussion.

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[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

My Lords, this amendment follows on from Amendment 16. Basically, I am asking the Government to introduce a scheme for mandatory safety standard requirements, which all registered trailers should then comply with. The amendment asks for these to be conducted on an annual basis.

Obviously, the amendment will not bring back Freddie Hussey but it might prevent deaths such as his occurring in the future. This was a terrible and tragic case. Mrs Hussey was with Freddie on a footpath and he was crushed by a huge trailer that came loose. They were simply doing what most parents and children do every day—walking along a footpath—and he was cut down by a 2-tonne trailer. His parents ask simply: how can vehicles more than 1 tonne in weight which travel at speed—and, if they come loose, will not stop—not need safety checks? It is madness. An MOT or safety check could have prevented this and picked up on the bent handbrake. It was the bent handbrake—obviously not properly serviced—that caused the problem.

A trailer can often—and in many circumstances will—weigh more than a car and other vehicles on the roads but obviously if trailers are in the wrong hands and are not well maintained and have not been properly checked, they are lethal. As we know from recent terrorist attacks, vehicles are lethal weapons and they kill people—large numbers of people. The safety issue here is paramount.

Paragraph 58 of the DfT’s own impact assessment says, under “Indirect benefits”:

“Trailer registration may also bring about safety improvements by facilitating enforcement of existing regimes related to trailer roadworthiness … the act of completing registration may prompt owners to check and address any roadworthiness issues”.


That is blindingly obvious but, as the impact assessment says, if road safety improvements can be made, the modest reductions in accidents could result in significant societal changes and improvements. Mr and Mrs Hussey might argue that young people—always more vulnerable on or near roads—would be less likely to be the victims of other people’s negligence.

There is a powerful argument behind this safety requirement on trailers. I think the department and the Minister ought to seize the opportunity to make some progress on it. While in general this piece of legislation is there only because of the disaster of Brexit, it would be nice if we could take the opportunity to make use of it to improve safety standards. As I said at the outset, the Husseys are not the only ones who have suffered a loss as a result of poor maintenance, inadequate inspection and the lack of a more rigorous testing regime. I have not seen hard data in terms of numbers but they have a lot of anecdotal evidence and copies of cases reported in local newspapers of young people in particular ending up the victims of poor trailer maintenance. It is something we should take seriously. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, made that point rather well earlier. It is a concern. Because this is an underregulated sector, we have to use the opportunity to better regulate it, secure long-term improvements and reduce the number of deaths on or off the roads that are caused directly or indirectly by trailer malfunction and poor maintenance.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I am in a little difficulty on aspects of this, as I was saying to my colleagues before coming to this meeting today. I shall delicately go through my reservations. I accept that trailer safety is very important. As my noble friend has pointed out, in the Hussey case the trailer concerned weighed 2 tonnes. That is a pretty big trailer. I can understand that where big trailers are involved there is a need for some sort of regulatory arrangement. What troubles me is in Amendments 16 and 18. Amendment 16 says:

“Regulations must provide for the compulsory registration of trailers weighing under 3.5 tonnes kept or used on roads, whether the trailer is being used internationally or only in the United Kingdom”—


in other words, effectively all trailers. Amendment 18 says,

“with inspections of such trailers to be undertaken on an annual basis”.

In other words, a little trailer—one of these aluminium boxes that you buy in Halfords for a couple of hundred quid—would have to go in to some sort of MOT-type station for an annual test. I have to say to my noble friend that I have great difficulty in going down that route. Big trailers can of course do a lot of damage.

The answer to this is to make it mandatory, where you have the clipping mechanism for the trailer, to put a lock and chain on as well. That would give an extra element of safety over and above the mechanism in the male and female, they call them; I do not know the actual term. If you had some sort of chain and lock arrangement on smaller trailers, in my view that would be quite sufficient.

We should be very careful about introducing a system for smaller trailers with an annual inspection that could affect hundreds of thousands of people and put them to what I would call unnecessary expense. People are going to complain that it costs 30 quid to test your trailer every year, and that is after you have registered it as well, and it only cost you a couple of hundred. In my view, when it comes to small trailers the situation would be exactly the same as in Scotland over air rifles. The Scotland Office estimates that there are 500,000 air rifles in Scotland, but I am told that up till now only 15,000 people have taken out licences for them so, if those figures are correct, we have criminalised nearly half a million people in Scotland who have so far failed to take out a licence on air rifles. I am worried about systems where you impose on people responsibilities that, on reflection, we might think are really gold-plating what my noble friend has raised, which is an extremely important issue of safety. I apologise to him if I have in any way undermined his case, but I do so with the greatest of respect.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I apologise for starting to get worried that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, was not going to move his Amendment 18 so I have spoken substantially. However, this gives me the opportunity to raise another argument in support of the general thrust of the noble Lord’s amendment, while being quite sure that we should not put it into the Bill.

Not only is it a question of the tragic accidents and injuries that the noble Lord referred to, but quite often you see these relatively small trailers causing an accident and disruption on the strategic road network. That can be really expensive to the economy. I hope that my noble friend can write to us before the next stage to tell us how many incidents Highways England has recorded of small trailers causing an incident. Often, because they are badly maintained, because their wheel bearings are shot and because the person using the trailer does not realise that the wheel bearings are shot, you see these trailers littered on the strategic road network—the motorways—with a wheel fallen off or bearings collapsed. That causes an awful lot of inconvenience to other road users, so there may be an economic case, forgetting the tragic cost of the accidents.

One point on maintenance is that there is a safety check as well as an MoT. You could require the trailer to have an MoT or you could require it to have a safety check by going to a garage to give it the once-over, which might achieve an awful lot of what we want without all the bureaucracy that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, worries about. The judgment is, of course, a matter for the department.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Perhaps I could speak again, because I have been reflecting on what was said. There is another way to deal with this, which is why I intervene: we have gross weight figures. If we had a few more court cases about people using trailers that exceeded the gross weight, that might send out a message “pour encourager les autres” to comply with the law. That is one way to deal with it, along with the lock and chain. I am talking about the smaller trailers, which are worrying me, and which comprise the great volume of trailers.

I come to my second point. I do not have a trailer at the moment but until a few years ago I did. It was a small trailer, probably half the size of one of these desk tops here. We used it once or twice a year. If you are registering it, MoT-ing and all that, that is quite an expense if you use your trailer very rarely. As I say, unless they are in business, people do not drive around with their trailers all the time. They are for occasional use.

There are circumstances in which an MoT could be applied, and that is when a trailer has a brake. If it has a brake, it really is a different piece of machinery. All that most trailers have is a wire that connects the vehicle to the trailer to feed the lights—nothing more. However, where you have a trailer with a brake, my noble friend’s case holds water that there might well need to be some sort of system. I imagine that the two-tonne trailer that my noble friend referred to had a brake; I do not know.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

Since we are in declaring-interest mode, I, too, used to have a trailer a few years ago. It is the point about the brakes that interests me, because it seemed to have an automatic brake on the driveshaft when it connected to the car, so when the car was accelerating or driving normally the trailer was dragged, but when one put on the car brakes, the momentum of the trailer pushed forward on a hydraulic ram that automatically activated the rear brake. I have no idea what it was called, and I am sorry that I cannot describe the technology more accurately, but many trailers have these automatic brakes that come on when the vehicle brakes.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I did not know about that; I did not know it existed. Knowing the noble Lord’s former constituency well, he probably had a fairly substantial trailer. It was probably pretty large because he represented a very rugged area.

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, makes a good point about the size of the trailer. Trailers up to 3.5 tonnes can be operated by a brake system. The point referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, was that on the overrun brake system with a handbrake, the handbrake should be applied automatically in the case of trailer breakaway, but of course if it is not properly maintained that will not happen. A trailer with overrun brakes is much more complicated and there is much more to go wrong, whereas a tiny trailer of the sort that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is referring to has just two wheel bearings and a couple of tyres—that is basically it—and there is not that much to go wrong that a reasonably competent driver cannot detect. When the department looks at this, it may conclude that the bigger trailers with overrun brakes need to come in scope but that the economic and safety case has not been made for tests for the light, little ones that the noble Lord is referring to.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

The difference of course is that one is more likely to be a commercially operated trailer as against one which is owned by an individual using it for general purposes.

[Lord Snape]

Desperate though we are to hear from the noble Baroness, and I know that she is equally desperate to put us right on this amendment, I am concerned about the tone of the debate. My noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe has talked about the nanny state and not wishing to overregulate trailers. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said that this is about small trailers. He had one himself that he drove around the countryside and everything was fine. However, noble Lords ought to reflect on the fact that no matter how small they are, these trailers can travel at a fair old speed, depending on the mood of the driver. Even a small one breaking away on a motorway, for example, could cause an enormous amount of carnage.

I spent my working life in the railway industry, where the smallest wagon is inspected on a regular basis. That is probably the reason the railway industry has gone for a decade without killing a passenger in a moving train accident. The same does not apply on our road network. For my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe to talk about the nanny state ignores the fact that we are still killing a couple of thousand people and seriously injuring more than 10,000 on our roads. The smallest trailer, if badly maintained, could play its part in adding to that carnage.

My noble friend shakes his head, but he must be aware of the issues when he is driving on a motorway. Because of the lack of traffic police these days—we can play a game called “spot the traffic policeman”; the only time I see one is when I watch the television because I do not see any on our roads—I have been overtaken by people dragging those little trailers that my noble friend has just referred to. They drive in a cavalier way at 65 or 70 miles an hour, although strictly speaking they are supposed to be restricted to 50 miles an hour. If one of those trailers were to break away at 70 miles an hour, I do not care how small it is, it could cause a great deal of carnage on the road. I disagree with my noble friend’s view that the nanny state should keep out of legislation in this particular instance and I think that there is a proper case for inspection and regulation. I hope that the Minister will refer to it when the happy time comes and she is allowed to respond to the debate.

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[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

Absolutely, I have that information here. Trailer and caravan-related collisions accounted for 2% of the 1,787 total number of those killed or seriously injured in collisions in 2015.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

But that does not tell us what happened or give us the explanation for the accident. It may well have involved a large trailer that was overweight; small trailers might be excluded. In case there are amendments on Report, perhaps the Minister can give us some information on that matter.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

Yes, absolutely. We will look further into it and see what other data we can find.

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[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 19, I shall speak also to Amendment 20. These two amendments say in effect that if a trailer is registered, it must have a registration mark and that registration mark must be fixed to it. The Minister will probably call my attention to the Interpretation Act or something. Really, it is just a probing amendment to receive an assurance from the Minister that these “mays” will in practice be interpreted as “musts”. I beg to move.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

If it is about fixing the certificate to the trailer there will be a danger that that can be easily removed, particularly on small trailers. On timber trailers there will be a particular problem, so if the Government were to go down the route of smaller trailers, which obviously I hope they do not, they may have to find some way of burnishing it into the wood or people will simply steal certificates and put them on their own trailers. If it is an aluminium trailer, again, it could be unscrewed unless it was riveted on in some way. All I am arguing is that if we go down this route, let us have a system that works and does not allow people simply to—if I may use the term—nick a certificate from one trailer and put it on to their own trailer for a few days while they are using it and then return it to the original trailer.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am going to enjoy this because I am going to be extremely mischievous. A moment ago my noble friend the Minister mentioned abnormal load vehicles. Sometimes an abnormal load vehicle is a simple trailer—quite a big one, but relatively simple. However, other abnormal load trailers comprise modules of axles and various types of frames that are bolted together for different purposes. It is not exactly clear what the trailer is, and this could present a problem when such trailers travel on the continent. I do not expect my noble friend the Minister to come back to me on this right now, or even to write to me, but perhaps her officials could give some thought to abnormal load vehicles made up of modular components where there is not simply one trailer on to which a number plate or a ministry registration plate with the chassis number can be bolted, because they are outside the scope of plating and testing.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Have I missed something? Has an estimate been made of what the registration fees are going to be?

[Baroness Sugg]

We do not have an exact estimate for the registration of trailers at the moment, although obviously we will aim to keep the fees to a minimum and on a cost-recovery basis. We will use our existing systems to issue them.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Could we be given some idea of what the fees will be by Report? The figures will certainly influence the debate on smaller trailers.

[Baroness Sugg]

We will do our best. We have examples of existing similar schemes and we are talking about figures in the area of £10 or £20. We do not have fixed rates because we do not yet know the extent of the registration scheme, and therefore how many marks will need to be issued. However, I will produce as many details as I can and write to the noble Lord.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Finally, and more broadly on the same issue, the registration scheme will be a one-off registration, will it not? It will not be an annual registration scheme.

[Baroness Sugg]

It will be a one-off registration scheme unless the trailer is sold or subject to change of use. At that point the change of ownership would need to be registered. However, it will not be done on an annual basis.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

So effectively the trailer will have a form of log book. A log book is used to register changes of ownership.

[Earl Attlee]

Perhaps I may help my noble friend. I refer to the V5 registration document that presumably the trailer must have when it is sold. There is of course an advantage in that the buyer of the trailer would have more confidence that the vehicle had good title, so it is not a total loss.

[Baroness Sugg]

Yes, it would follow the same information that is contained in that log book, but in order to do the full registration, when ownership is changed it would have to go through the DVSA system so that we were informed of that and could issue the permit.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

The reason I am trying to get these things on the record is that they will influence the debate on smaller trailer units.

[Baroness Sugg]

I fully understand that and will send the noble Lord more details on it. To go back to the fee, as I said, it is very difficult to determine the exact cost but I understand that it is an important consideration. We are confident that the fee will be significantly less than the current vehicle registration fee, for example, which is £55, but we are not able to provide any more detail on that at this time. That also goes towards trying to ensure that we get the right balance when deciding which trailers need to be registered and which do not, why we have not included 750 kilogram trailers and why we do not think this should be mandatory for domestic use—it is a not insignificant cost for a family going on a camping holiday once a year.

I hope I have explained why, in this case, the legislation will not go unused, despite whatever agreement we reach with the European Union, in the case of either the permit scheme, which will be used for existing and future schemes with other countries, or the trailer registration scheme, which will come into effect anyway because of the earlier convention. In the light of that, I hope that this discussion has reassured the noble Lord to the extent that he feels able to withdraw his amendment.

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[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I will be brief on this amendment. The DPRRC report mentioned that the Government have given no examples of the regulations that they intend to make under the Bill. Given the wide-ranging consequences these could have—not just for industry but also for hobbies and leisure; indeed, for the whole of life—it is essential that there is full consultation before regulations are put before Parliament. We have suggested a range of organisations; some are obvious and some are less obvious, but I am absolutely sure that it is not a comprehensive list. However, it is presented here as an opportunity to ask the Minister about the details of how the consultation will take place, the nature of the consultation and which organisations will be consulted. I can see immediately that the list we have put forward—apologies come from my noble friend Lord Teverson who is at Defra discussing the marine safety audit—does not include, for example, trade unions, given that there are obviously employee interests in this as well as employer interests.

I do not need to delay the Committee any further. It is simply a question of whether we can have some details on the consultation process. I beg to move.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, to cut my contribution short, I shall quote from page 8 of the Explanatory Memorandum:

“A consequence of ratification is that unregistered trailers could be turned away at the borders of other countries who have ratified the 1968 Convention. Therefore, for operational reasons, a trailer registration scheme needs to be implemented”.


I would have thought that critical to the process of consultation was the AA, because at our borders that organisation is the last port of call for people who need advice on what is going to happen when they go abroad. The leaflets that it circulates are about subjects such as travelling abroad, insurance arrangements and health arrangements. You can pick them up in its kiosks at Dover, or I suppose at any port where you have a roll-on, roll-off ferry system. They should be made available. That is my case, and I hope the AA is consulted.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises an important point. I am not sure we should have a list in primary legislation because that gives the Government top cover if they have not consulted someone. However, just as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, suggested the AA, I would add the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. That is an extremely important point.

My point about negative instruments is that if interested parties have a problem, they can flag it up with us. However, if they are not consulted about it or if they are consulted but do not get anywhere at the official level, they can approach parliamentarians and we can take it up with the Government. We have a parliamentary toolkit that we can use. The noble Baroness makes an important point about consultation, but I am sure that the Minister will be able to reassure us.

Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 13th March 2018 Grand Committee

[Earl Attlee]

I assure the Committee that I will not be tabling amendments but I was alarmed by some of the history of permits that we looked at during Second Reading. That is something I do not want to see because it constrains the market and competition. I would much rather see permits issued more or less freely, with that one exception: that we could see it as an opportunity to make things more difficult for non-compliant operators.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, I might be the only person in the Room who has run on one of these permits, which was some 50 years ago. I have some permit documentation, going back 30 years, in front of me now. I want to talk about what happened then and what we should avoid happening in the future.

We were carrying our own goods, exporting them and importing components. When we were exporting goods, we had to run on either non-quota or quota—non-quota was a defined group of products that we carried if we were going to an exhibition. For example, I remember going to a clock exhibition in Switzerland, and we had to get a non-quota to carry to Basle there. If we showed at the Paris Porte de Versailles in France, again we would run on non-quota permits but if we were running goods of our own manufacture, we would have to carry a permit. The undersupply of permits was a real problem.

The Minister sent us out a letter during the week in which she talked about electronic management of these systems. To some extent, that might work but I will come to a problem that might arise. The problem in the late 1960s and 1970s, when I was involved in this business, was that there were a lot of forgeries out there. Many truckers who could not get permits would forge them and, when they got to customs frontiers in Europe, bribe customs officers to get passage into another country. As I said at Second Reading, I saw this happen myself. I remember that the customs officer would almost wink and people would drop notes in an old jar standing on the counter. People knew what was going on and it was widespread. I never got involved in it myself, but I observed it. People used to get quite angry about the attitude of some customs officers. They would ask you to open the back of your truck to see what you were carrying, as if they were checking against the bills of lading—the document which indicated what goods you were carrying—as if they were to be given a tip for the pleasure of having your truck opened. It was examined, not properly but in a very curious way, with nods and winks. That went on a lot and I am worried about it.

That was one of the abuses. The next one—it was not even an abuse, as people just turned a blind eye to it—was the selling of permits. Some companies had more permits than they needed whereas others were starved of them. Someone told me on the phone the other day that the going rate, even in the 1980s, was something like £250 for a permit, depending on where you were. When they were carrying expensive goods that was a minor cost to pay, because it was transferred on to the people whose goods they were. If there is electronic control, the chances of abuse in that form are very remote.

We come back to the number of permits. If there is a shortage—and the French, the Dutch and the Belgians may argue for one—it will mean that when you load your truck in the UK you will have to drop your load at Antwerp, Amsterdam, Ostend, Zeebrugge, Calais or wherever. A French lorry will come and pick it up and get the business. At the moment, many British hauliers are able to carry right across Europe. If we do not have the permits to run in Europe, the Europeans will get the trade and all our lorries will be doing is running them across the channel, dropping them, then taking the tractor unit home. In the real world, there could be many problems. I know that this is a skeletal Bill and it may not even happen, but if it does there is going to be a lot of trouble and people are going to be angry.

[Lord Snape]

I do not doubt the situation outlined by my noble friend, but will it not be to the advantage of British hauliers, to a certain extent, if the system applies the other way around? If there are three times more lorries coming to the UK than going from the UK to Europe, will the British road haulage industry not benefit enormously? Judging by what he said, loads coming from the EU will have to be dropped in Dover or wherever.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I do not know. That may well be, but I want a straightforward system. I want the number of permits to be sufficient to meet the demand and not have to fiddle around with whether we reciprocate or not. I want to avoid all that.

Finally, I turn to what the permits are. In the old days, we had quota and non-quota permits. If we get ourselves into trouble in this area of negotiation, we should try and widen the description of non-quota. Earlier in my contribution, I referred to non-quota covering exhibition goods—which is what we ran. Because the rules are set so tightly if we have to go down this route, we might well be able to widen the description of non-quota to cover what would otherwise come under quota. I do not know if the Minister is with me on that. That is because the regime for non-quota permits is different from the quota regime. On the quota regime there will be a lot more restriction, because non-quota permits are not as frequently used so, if we widen the non-quota permit arrangements, some of that trade may well be transferred over to non-quota. I am sorry if I have not made that altogether clear, but I am sure that in time it will ring correct.

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[Earl Attlee]

Supposing that the Government lay some negative instruments to deal with the outcome of the negotiations, and that they are extremely disadvantageous to our road haulage industry, it would be open to the road haulage industry to get on to noble Lords like myself and the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley, Lord Snape and Lord Campbell-Savours, who could pray against the negative instrument in the first 40 days and say no to it.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I want to correct the record on something. I said that we ran on quota permits but we ran on non-quota permits. I just checked my notes.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I did not read Hansard for last night’s debate; I was there. There is no doubt about the extent of the concern expressed by Committee Members last night about permits and trade and the impact on society. I therefore support Amendment 1. Having been a negotiator, I was alerted to the concern of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, so I looked at what it said—that:

“It is an objective of the Government, in negotiating a withdrawal agreement from the EU, to seek continued UK participation in the EU’s Community Licence arrangements”.


I have to say, as negotiating briefs go, I have rarely seen one less prescriptive. It simply expresses a direction of travel and, broadly speaking, I support it. Similarly, I support Amendment 7, which once again gives more guidance than anything seriously prescriptive from a negotiator’s point of view.

I am grateful to read the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I think we have an amendment for every recommendation but I will check that before the next sitting. It would be easier if we had correspondence and the Government gave in in advance. We have here what one might call a contingency Bill—that is, a Bill to create an Act of Parliament against a contingency. All the committee is saying is that it is wrong to leave powers lying about. That relates specifically to Clauses 1 and 3. On Clause 1, the report states:

“Given that regulations under clause 1 might prove to be unnecessary, we recommend that the Bill should contain a sunset provision, extendable if necessary, to remove the regulation-making power in clause 1 if it does in fact prove to be unnecessary”.


In almost identical terms, Amendment 11 refers to Clause 3. In examining Clause 2, we could not see any reason why the same logic should not apply, so we have also proposed Amendment 10, which refers to Clause 2.

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[Baroness Sugg]

I will try my best, although I may not be as clear as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. As I said, the existing Community arrangement is currently only for EU members and EEA members. When we leave the EU, we will not be either of those. What is suggested is one option, but there may well be an equally satisfactory option, such as an unlimited permit system or, as I said, mutual recognition of operators’ licences. We want to be able to keep those options open and not to be sent down the road of agreeing to the Community licence. There is no reason why a permit that replaces the Community licence could not provide the same level of access as exists currently. That could well be our negotiation objective.

On the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, I take the opportunity to reassure him that of course the Secretary of State will take all reasonable steps to meet the demand for permits from UK hauliers. We regularly meet industry to understand its requirements and priorities, which will be reflected in our detailed negotiations with the European Union. While the amendment would not tie our hands in the negotiation, I hope that what I have said gives the noble Lord confidence that it is not necessary to include this aim in the Bill.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I would like to press the question of how these will be allocated. Clause 2(2) says:

“The methods that may be specified under subsection (1)(d) include random selection and first come, first served”.


What does “random selection” mean? How can we randomly select? Is it like a lottery? What about “first come, first served”? Is it a postal arrangement? We need more detail. I do not like this sentence being in the Bill and I think that it should be removed. If you go into negotiations with that in the Bill and a civil servant in Europe reads it, I think that I would know what to do in those negotiations.

[Baroness Sugg]

I understand the noble Lord’s concern. Later, we will discuss Amendment 8, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, which addresses these issues. There is an explanation and, with the noble Lord’s permission, we will address it then.

The amendments on a sunset clause suggest that, should recognition of Community licences be secured as part of our negotiations, Clauses 1 to 3 should cease to have effect. I understand the intention and I agree that we do not wish to create delegated powers if they are not going to be used at any point in the future in relation to EU exit, but I would like to set out why this Bill has a wider application than just to our road haulage access with the EU. It should also apply to the European Conference of Ministers of Transport multilateral permit scheme and our bilateral agreements with non-EU countries.

While these non-EU agreements have, until now, been dealt with under administrative powers, now that we are introducing this Bill we think that it is important that those agreements are brought in scope, so that there is compliance and consistency in the administration, allocation and enforcement of permits with whatever agreement we reach with the European Union. There would be problems with having different legislation covering similar permit schemes. We are keen to ensure that UK hauliers can use one online system to apply and get permits for the EU as well as non-EU countries, as that would reduce burdens on them.

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The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, raised the important issue of corruption. IT systems such as the vehicle operator’s licence system and supporting intelligence data will be used to identify any non-compliance for both UK and international vehicles. Our aim is to develop permits that are very difficult to copy, but of course that does not address the issue of bribery, which the noble Lord mentioned. We are speaking to hauliers who were in the previous permit system to learn from their experience in developing a system and are confident of delivering a better system than we had previously through that engagement. I will of course carefully consider the points that the noble Lord raised.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Let us take the Mont Blanc or the Brenner Pass. A truck turns up with a permit which is handed over in the office. Will there be some sort of IT connection between that customs post on the Brenner with a central data point in the United Kingdom, so that it can check whether it is a valid or a forged permit? If so, we do not need particularly sophisticated documentation, because all along the line there will be an IT check on what is seen abroad. Can the Minister give us that assurance?

[Baroness Sugg]

I understand the noble Lord’s point. Sadly, I cannot speak for what will happen in the EU until we have concluded the negotiations. Within the UK, that is absolutely the idea: there would be a system to check on these permits. The noble Lord makes a very good point: we will seek to minimise corruption in future, but that will be subject to negotiations.

[Baroness Sugg]

Absolutely. I agree with the noble Lord that that has happened in the past. We are working with the DVSA on how to better enforce compliance, on both this and future licensing systems, and we will continue to do so.

My noble friend Lord Moynihan mentioned the tripartite agreement between the UK, France and Ireland. We have been looking at how best to ensure that the racing industry is not affected by this Bill and is protected. However, I will take away what he said and will look at it.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Can I ask another question? I am sorry to keep coming back, but I will try to get all my questions out of the way at the beginning. What about the transfer of permits? Will there be some sort of mechanism to ensure that one haulier cannot sell a permit to another haulier? Perhaps we could have that assurance.

[Baroness Sugg]

I am afraid that until we know the exact system of the permits, we will not be able to give the noble Lord that assurance. Obviously, we need to avoid there being a false market for these permits. We will look at how permits are allocated and if they are limited in any way, which we hope they will not be, we will certainly consider how to avoid that. Again, the allocation system should make sure that additional permits are not allocated to people who are not using them. It is certainly something we will consider.

I hope I have addressed the need for this legislation, regardless of the agreement reached with the EU. I understand the sentiments of noble Lords in proposing these amendments and welcome the discussion it has enabled. However, as I said, we do not believe that the Community licence system is the only way to proceed and therefore do not think the Bill is an appropriate place to set out that negotiation objective. On that basis, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe on this. Pretty much every year, I try to get tickets to go to Glastonbury. You go on the website at 9 am and are still there at 10.30 am, and you suddenly discover that your youngest daughter has got tickets but you have not. There is something clearly wrong about a system that does that in my family, let alone anywhere else. The notion that we might have some random process—first come, first served or whatever—is clearly something that we should not allow ourselves to sign up to.

I want to hear on the record some reassuring words from the Minister. This may be a vague Bill, a schematic Bill, a framework Bill and all the rest, but this matter needs some clarification.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, “first come, first served” implies immediately a limited number of permits, a shortage of permits and problems in the industry. I want to read the general conditions from one such permit issued nearly 35 years ago, which civil servants may find useful during the negotiations. It is quite short, but raises a number of issues. Under “General Conditions”, it states:

“This authorisation, together with the journey record mentioned below, must be carried on the vehicle and be produced at the request of any authorised inspecting officer. It authorises only the number of journeys indicated. It is not valid for national transport. It is not transferable. The carrier is required to comply, in the territory of each Member State, with the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of that State, and in particular with those concerning transport and traffic. This authorisation must be returned to the issuing agency within fifteen days of date of expiry. Before each transport operation, the holder of this authorisation is required to prepare any journey record provided for in bilateral agreements. Such journey record must be returned at the same time as this authorisation”.


So it is a fairly complicated process for the hauliers.

If it is not used within 15 days of the date of expiry, it is returned, but that permit has already been allocated to a specific journey—if that is what it says in the terms and conditions. Is that permit then written off? Does it affect the total number or permits that are allocated, or can we simply allocate a substitute permit, having declared that permit to be written off? I am asking this because, if a limited number of permits are allocated, there is going to be some argument about where they are going. I am trying to establish how we calculate the total numbers that are allocated.

I have been thinking about the earlier intervention by my noble friend Lord Snape. He talked about it being of benefit, in certain circumstances, to our haulage industry. There is a problem there, because we want to avoid that. If we are going into these negotiations on the basis that we want enough permits to supply all the demand, the last thing we want to do is starve the Irish of permits. If they need them, they should be given them, because that helps our case in the negotiations with the European Union.

[Baroness Randerson]

In her reply, will the Minister clarify exactly what these permits will be? The background briefing that her department issued referred to single-journey permits and multiple-journey permits. It referred to the European Conference of Ministers of Transport permit system. Having researched this, I believe that the number of permits available under that system would be absolutely tiny. Where are these permits going to come from? What is going to regulate them? Are we going to dream it up ourselves or base it on the international system? We need a bit of clarity on this.

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords again for their contributions to this debate. I assure noble Lords that this provision is not intended to allow these methods to be the only approach used, or for these to be used without the use of other criteria. We are in the process of negotiating with the EU on how UK hauliers will operate in the EU 27 after our withdrawal. As I said, we are confident we will secure an agreement which allows them to operate without restrictions on market access. If we do agree a permit system, “no restrictions” would mean unlimited permits. The exact nature of what will be in the permits will be down to the international agreement with the EU. We do not have details of that yet, but I imagine that it would follow the international information which is included on them. I will take back the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. I will look in detail in Hansard about what the exact restrictions on that permit are. I am not sure that we would repeat them in a future system.

In including this, we are attempting to be prudent in ensuring that the industry would be able to continue to operate under a range of different outcomes. It may be that, depending on our future partnership agreement, in some circumstances, the demand for permits may exceed the available number. As I said, that is not the aim of negotiations or what we are hoping for, but we have a duty to plan for that, as a contingency.

One of those outcomes could see the permit scheme we agree involving a set quota of permits. The Bill allows us to set criteria to allocate those permits, should we need to. The detail of the criteria will be setout in regulations and guidance. We have set out some examples in the scoping documents. In such a case, criteria such as the economic benefit the permit would bring would be reflected. Of course, a more sensible way of allocating permits would be the best outcome. However, if the use of those criteria—set out in the regulations—was not sufficient to balance demand versus supply, we may need to apply a further method such as random allocation to decide between applicants. For example, if we were able to clearly allocate 90% of applications because of the economic case, we could then use a first come, first served basis or random allocation to allocate the other 10%. As I said, and as noble Lords have made clear, we want to avoid a system with a limited number of permits, but we need the ability to allocate them should we find ourselves in the unfortunate situation of their being limited.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Why does that sentence have to be in the Bill?

[Baroness Sugg]

I was coming on to that. It might be appropriate and fairer to combine a number of criteria and approaches to different types of permits. For many of our current permit schemes with third-party countries, such as Morocco and Ukraine, the number of permits is significantly greater than the take-up and this is not expected to change. In these circumstances, the optimal approach is first come, first served, which we use at the moment.

It would of course still be possible for the Government to bring forward a proposal to use these specific approaches for the EU by putting them in regulations alongside other criteria and methods. As I said, we discussed that further in the policy scoping note.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I am sorry. The transmission on the audio equipment was very bad when you were answering the question I asked. It was impossible to hear because the audio went wrong, so I repeat my question: if that sentence were not in the Bill, would it make any difference? Why not just remove it?

[Baroness Sugg]

As I said, we may use that system for current non-EU agreements and agreements with third countries, which we discussed before. That is the system we currently use because we have an excess of permits to demand. That could be on a random basis or on a first come, first served basis.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

That did not answer my question.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

I am sorry. If we are in one of those desperate situations where there is a shortage of permits compared to what we need, retaining that subsection is extremely damaging because it means that, in most circumstances, we cannot allocate on a needs basis. I should have thought that there are certain things we need to import or export that have a high degree of priority. Having that clause drives a coach and horses through that, does it not?

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Before the Minister answers, can I ask her to take this away and discuss it in the department? I think she may get different advice when there has been a full discussion.

[Baroness Sugg]

I absolutely agree that we will need to put criteria in place in the unfortunate situation of there not being enough permits to go round. Of course we would do that; I hope I explained earlier that this would give us the ability to allocate the remainder of the permits if those criteria could not fairly decide what the allocations should be.

I entirely understand that noble Lords are concerned that the methods of allocation appear somewhat arbitrary when viewed in isolation. The intention is that when we bring forward the regulations—which will have all the criteria set out in the policy scoping notes—the industry will see that there is an objective and equitable approach. The option of including these criteria as part of the approach is an important contingency.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

The thing about regulations is that they are unamendable. You either buy the package or you reject the lot. This provision does not terribly help, because it could end up contradicting the regulations. That is why my noble friend is suggesting that the Minister might want to take it away to give it a bit more thought. I am struggling to think of a set of circumstances where these two things will work.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Can I add to that intervention? I can give the Minister another criterion. What about regional considerations, which might well be in our favour?

[Baroness Sugg]

The reason we put these two methods in the Bill and left other criteria and approaches for the regulations is based on legal advice. Perhaps the Committee would allow me to set it out.

Although there is no specific reference to the exercise of discretion in the Bill, all regulation-making powers and the regulations state that the Secretary of State “may make provision”, which obviously involves the exercise of discretion. Decisions on the allocation of permits will involve an element of discretion in both setting the criteria and applying them to determine which operator gets a permit. Discretion in the Secretary of State’s decision must be in accordance with public law principles, so it must be lawful, rational and procedurally fair, and decisions may be challenged by way of judicial review where they do not comply with those principles.

To be clear that the Secretary of State is able in certain circumstances to allow the use of first come, first served or random allocation, they have been included in the Bill. Where the criteria set out in regulations and guidance are not sufficient to allocate all the permits, the Secretary of State is able to use that discretion to allocate permits on a first come, first served basis. It is best included in the Bill in accordance with public law principles.

I understand the noble Lord’s point. We have had extensive discussion on this. It is based on very clear legal advice that if we were not to include it, we could not use it at any point. Although we do not want to use it for the allocation of permits, because I entirely agree that that would not be fair, I will take it back and discuss it further with the legal team to clarify. I understand why it standing alone in the Bill causes concern.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I want to concentrate on Amendment 14, which refers to cost. I will refer to documents that I have from 30 years ago, which deal with the costs at that time. What interests me is how the costs are split between various categories. Again, civil servants might find this useful. I have with me a non-quota permit for France and a non-quota permit for Italy. The price I refer to now is an indicator for one country, so obviously if a truck were passing through a number of countries the totals would be multiplied. On a single journey to France, 30 years ago, a permit was £2.80; a multiple-journey permit valid for two journeys was £3.40; a multiple-journey permit valid for three journeys was £5.10; a multiple-journey permit valid for four journeys was £6.80; and a period permit was £50. That is for one country; as I said, those figures have to be multiplied for permits for more than one country.

The office in the United Kingdom that received that money was in Westgate House, on Westgate Road in Newcastle upon Tyne. That is where everything was organised from, and as my origins are in the northern region and as that was my former constituency, I hope that if we go into this business again, which I hope we will not, permits will again be allocated from somewhere in the north of England, and in particular from Newcastle.

I have with me also the detail that is required for a permit. I want to go through it, because it is quite onerous and people should reflect on these matters before we go down this route. The form, which is from more than 30 years ago, asks for: the full name of applicant; address in full; British operator’s licence number, the traffic area in which it was issued and the date of expiry, and for Northern Ireland operators a freight operator’s licence number and the date of expiry; details of vehicle, including make, registration number and MOT plate; the maximum permissible laden weight; the unladen weight; the maximum permissible load; the date for departure from GB; countries to be traversed; date of entry into country, in this case Italy; the town and country where the goods were loaded; the town and country where the goods were unloaded; the nature of the goods to be carried; the weight of the goods to be carried; the estimated total length of journey on the continent; and whether the vehicle will cross the Italian frontier by rail or Kangarou service on the outward or return journey. That is a lot of information.

When we are in these negotiations, we should try to minimise the amount of information that hauliers are required to provide, if possible. I have talked about what would happen with frontiers; I remember occasions when trucks were stopped because a mistake had been made in the permit allocation. Under the current arrangements, that would incur demurrage charges. The former Transport Minister will know all about demurrage charges; I think I remember a debate he was involved in some time ago. Those charges can be very high: the freight operators at Dover talk about a current rate of about £250 a day. So, a hold-up as a result of a mistake on an allocated permit can be very costly. Therefore, there is a need to minimise the amount of information required.

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[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I see merit in some of the amendments. Clearly, we need to know the outcome of the negotiation and what the impact will be. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, mentioned demurrage, which is a good point. If you have a complex system, you can foul up. The problem for a small haulier is getting anyone to pay demurrage. It might be in the contract, but you try getting your customer to pay it for a small haulage business: you will struggle. It may be okay if you have a supertanker and your contract agreed on the Baltic Exchange, but for a little haulage deal? Forget it.

The Committee needs to consider the position of our EU partners. It is not in their interest to have a complex system either. We have the Hams Hall engine plant making BMW engines that have to go to Germany. We know perfectly well that automotive components go backwards and forwards several times, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said. It is in no one’s interest to have a complex system.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I am not sure that is the case. If you are required to give your load to someone else, because you do not have a permit to run in Germany, you lose the business. A German tractor unit will take over your load and take it to its destination.

[Earl Attlee]

I agree with the noble Lord that the Government will have to negotiate the UK’s position effectively, but it is in no one’s interest—neither ours nor that of the other EU states—to have a complex system that harks back 50 years. The noble Lord has illustrated the problem very well: if you have a complex system, it will be horrendously expensive, and we do much more cross-channel trade now than we ever used to. I cannot see the driver of having a complex system. We may legally have to have a permit system, but it is up to the Government to negotiate as simple a system as possible, which I am confident they will do.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I wonder whether I can speak again.

[Earl Attlee]

It is Committee.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I have just seen something in a non-quota document which might be of interest to Ministers. It is an Italian document stating that a permit is required for the transport of goods by means of an unaccompanied trailer or semi-trailer as well as by means of a motor vehicle with or without trailer or semi-trailer. It says that “articulated vehicle” means a tractor hauling of semi-trailer. If we really get into hard territory, we should be arguing on the gross tonnage of vehicles, because that might be a way of getting more permits. Our vehicles are 24 tonnes, 32 tonnes, 15 tonnes and 10 tonnes—I am not a transport expert; my noble friend Lord Berkeley will correct me. We may get an exemption for lower-tonnage vehicles in the event that we find ourselves in a corner on the allocation.

[Earl Attlee]

Of course, the noble Lord is thinking about a complex system. One might need a permit just to run vehicle registration number XYZ in Europe; it might be as simple as that; we simply do not know. The Minister will not give the indication because she is negotiating. It need not be horrendously complicated.

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[Baroness Sugg]

I am afraid that the answer to that is that it is all subject to the negotiations. The noble Lord asked earlier whether we were doing this on an EU-wide or bilateral basis. We think that an EU-wide basis is the simplest way. Of course, we want to ensure that enough permits are allocated to countries, for example Northern Ireland and France, which we currently have a lot of dealings with. I go back to the point that we are hoping we will not need a permit system, but if we do it will be unlimited and allocation would therefore not be an issue. If it is limited, which it may be, then if the number of UK permits is limited, how the European Commission allocates them will be down to negotiation.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

It is very important that we do not have to negotiate bilaterally because we could be held to ransom by some of the northern European states, whereas others might be more generous. If we cannot get through France, Belgium or Holland, what is the point of them in the states lower down?

[Baroness Sugg]

The noble Lord is quite right. We think it is best to negotiate this as an EU-wide agreement. Bilateral agreements remain an option should we need them, but we very much hope that we do not.

[Baroness Sugg]

Our current agreement with Ukraine is negotiated through the EU. I believe that Ukraine has an unlimited number of permits. I will go back and look at specific examples. Most of these negotiations are done with the EU as a bloc, as I say, not bilaterally.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Surely, the position is that if you are carrying your own goods it will come under one quota system and there should be no restriction whatever. If you are carrying other people’s goods, there might be a restriction. We should have that in mind when we negotiate.

[Baroness Sugg]

I agree, as I do with the noble Lord’s point on using tonnage within the negotiations, which I will pass on.

I will explain to noble Lords how the regulation of foreign hauliers is being handled in legislation. It is currently carried out under the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995, which requires any operator, whether based in Great Britain or abroad, to carry a Great Britain operator’s licence, failure to do so being an offence subject to a level 5 fine on summary conviction. However, EU hauliers are currently exempt from carrying a GB operator’s licence because they carry a Community licence under EU law.

If EU community licences are no longer recognised when we leave the EU, we will remove the exemption for EU hauliers and regulate their access to the UK in the same way that we regulate access for non-EU hauliers. Obviously, how we do that will be subject to negotiations; again, I make the point that we hope we will not need to do this because of the open access. We will do that by setting out the conditions agreed in the international agreement concluded with each country or with the EU, including whether a permit is required.

The recognition of EU Community licences in Great Britain will be removed using the power to correct deficiencies arising from the UK’s withdrawal from the EU under Clause 7 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which, as noble Lords know, we discussed in detail last night. When that comes into force, it will enable the Government to correct EU retained law and UK legislation where reciprocal arrangements between the UK and EU, such as the recognition of Community licences, no longer exist. The new conditions—if any are agreed in negotiations—placed on EU hauliers, including carrying a permit, may then be put in place by using existing powers under the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995, if the Government consider that this is required. The same approach will be taken in Northern Ireland legislation.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I am sorry to keep getting up, but it is not just about your own goods. Under the arrangements that I remember, it was own goods, works of art, fresh fruit and veg and exhibition goods. All that I am arguing is that it might be possible to widen those descriptions in the event that we get ourselves into difficulties.

[Baroness Sugg]

The noble Lord makes a valid point. I will have to go back and look at that in detail and come back to the Committee in writing.

As was covered earlier when we were discussing the reporting requirements, I agree that we must consider the impacts of leaving the EU on the haulage sector. That should cover both UK and foreign hauliers. We need to come up with a form of reporting on this; I do not believe it needs to be in the Bill, but I will consider that and come back with a proposal ahead of Report. Once again, I welcome the discussion that this amendment has enabled, and I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment at this stage.

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[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

Acronyms sometimes get the better of me. So, what will it look like? How will it feel? How will it operate? What additional burdens will it place on the businesses affected? Where will the inspections take place? I picked up the point made by the Minister that they will not necessarily be at ports, but ports may be the best place; I do not know. I have seen lorries subject to customs inspections at ports, which works very well for some operations. We need answers to all these questions.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I want to ask a very simple question, which is slightly tangential to the amendment, about fuel dipping. Fuel dipping is where the authorities decide, for whatever reason, to test tanks to see how much diesel they are carrying. Of course, these trucks carry a lot of diesel. I do not know where I heard it, but I heard that some countries on the outer periphery of Europe fuel dip in truck tanks so they can charge duty on diesel coming into their country. During the negotiations, we should be aware of any possibility of fuel dipping by member states and make sure that it is excluded and prohibited.

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, yet again makes an interesting and important point about fuel dipping. It is a burden on the industry. I have to confess that I made a suggestion to do with the problem of foreign trucks coming into the UK with very large tanks of fuel, running around the UK and then leaving with tanks that are practically empty so that the Treasury gets none of the benefit of the fuel. I suggested that every HGV, UK or foreign, should leave the UK with a nearly full tank of fuel, but that suggestion did not find favour because it was thought to be contrary to EU rules. However, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, raises an important point.

The noble Baroness asked why we should charge. I come back to the point that we simply do not know what the negotiations are going to give us. We again hope for a simple system, but if we end up with a more complex system, naturally there will have to be charges—presumably cost recovery only, as it should not be seen as a profit centre. We need to remember that the cost of running a maximum-weight articulated vehicle is quite considerable—I do not know the current figures—so the cost of a permit in the overall cost of the operation will not be that significant. Whether it is an SME or a large operator, the cost per mile of an HGV is very high.

I have what might be a slightly tricky question for the Minister. We are cost recovering, but are we going to use the UK fees that we raise from our own hauliers to cover the cost of inspecting foreign trucks over here to make sure that they have a permit? If there is a 75%/25% split for contingency—where the 25% is the UK operators—25% of operators will be paying a small amount of money in but spending a lot of money on ensuring the compliance of foreign operators. Some people might have something to say about UK operators paying for the policing of foreign operators.

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[Baroness Randerson]

Can the Minister clarify something? In their examples of existing permits where there are bilateral agreements, the Government refer to both single-journey and multiple-journey permits. Multiple-journey permits are clearly a lot less bureaucratic, but single-journey permits are a lot less expensive. Do the Government have an image of which way they are going on this or whether they are going to have single and multiple-journey permits if required?

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I am flying blind now—I should really know the answer to this question. When a British haulier travels in France now, I presume they pay a fee on the motorway. French motorways are very expensive. When a French haulier arrives in the United Kingdom, do they pay any charges for the use of our roads? I think not. If that is the case then we might like to raise this issue if we have any trouble with the French—particularly with the hauliers—in the course of the negotiations. It might not only be France; it might be that some other countries in Europe like to charge for the use of their motorways, such as the Italians, and I am sure that there are others as well. The Swiss get their share too—whenever I go through Switzerland they take me for a ride for 40 francs for my car alone.

[Baroness Sugg]

I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. UK hauliers will pay a charge on a toll road in France in the same way as anyone else.

We are looking into the HGV levy and how to use it better. It may be a method of addressing this issue and I will certainly consider that. I think there is still a toll road on the M6, so obviously that has happened in one case in the UK. However, there are not currently plans for the Government to introduce tolling systems.

On the types of permits, which the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, raised, there will be many options, including, but not limited to, single journey, annual bilateral—ECMT have both of those—and annual multilateral. Exactly what permits we have will be subject to negotiations.

Returning to the HGV levy, foreign hauliers currently pay the levy and so make a contribution to the roads, but, as I said, we are looking at that in detail and I shall send noble Lords more information on it.

We have aimed for the clause to be clear on what fees may be charged for, which allows us to consolidate all the regulations on existing permit fees in one place rather than them being split across a number of regulations. This will give greater clarity to operators and hopefully will be simpler to follow and allow better scrutiny for Parliament.

We think we need to charge a small application fee to recover the cost of processing the application—that will be payable by all applicants—and an issuing fee to recover the administrative costs of issuing the permit will then be payable by successful applicants only. There should not be a single fee, either for application or issuing, because unsuccessful applicants would bear some of the cost for issuing permits or vice versa. Hauliers should pay for what they use rather than paying the same costs irrespective of whether or not they have a permit—should they be needed, which we all hope they will not.

We want to introduce separate application and issuing fees. There is a precedent within the haulage sector for charging fees in this way as its operator licensing regime has both the application and issuing fees made in the regulations under the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995.

I apologise because at this stage I am not able to provide the Committee with specific figures of what the fees for permits will be. It will depend on the number and types of permits required by hauliers, which journeys are exempt and the cost of administering a permits scheme—if there is a permit scheme, which of course will be subject to the negotiations. We want to keep fees as low as possible and in the region of the existing permit fees. The noble Baroness referred to a few examples. The annual ECMT permit which allows any numbers of journeys costs around £133 and a single journey bilateral permit costs £8. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, pointed out, we need to take into account how that will affect small and medium-sized hauliers.

On the capability for the checking of these permits within the UK, there will obviously be a need, should we have a permit system, for them to be checked. As part of the spending statement today, the DfT has received £75.8 million to deliver its EU exit programme. That will include reconfiguring DVSA and looking at that in detail. Again—I apologise for repeating myself—until we know the outcome of the negotiations we are not going to know by how much the capability of DVSA needs to increase and we will have to wait to see the exact costs.

The DfT is working with the Treasury to determine the appropriate level of fees. This will be included in the regulations to allow scrutiny by Parliament. As I say, we are doing everything we can to keep the cost low. It is a key consideration for UK hauliers and we are working closely with them as these plans develop. We will be working closely with small and medium-sized enterprises as well in order to keep these costs as low as possible. I hope that explanation demonstrates why we have a fees clause in the Bill and exactly what we will be using it for. I hope that the noble Baroness will agree that the clause should stand part of the Bill.

Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 27th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to intervene only briefly. On 5 December last year, I spoke in a debate on trade and customs policy, in particular on the issue of the allocation of CEMT permits, and I expressed some concerns. Some noble Lords may well recall the debate. My experience goes back almost 50 years, when I was in business and I had trucks. We were running our goods abroad into markets in Europe and importing components into the United Kingdom. When I read this Bill, I was disturbed by one sentence, which is set out in Clause 2(2):

“The methods that may be specified under subsection (1)(d) include random selection and first come, first served”.


I can tell the Minister what that means, because I have seen it with my own eyes: corruption. The old permit system was corrupting. I know that because the hauliers used to tell us about it. The drivers told us how they would get through customs posts in various parts of Europe. At the Mont Blanc tunnel, customs officers were bribed, as they were at the Brenner Pass tunnel because very often the permits the hauliers were running on were illegal. I have some of those permits with me, which I found this morning, and they go back almost 35 years. Now I might get a phone call from the civil servants asking what I know about it, but I do not intend to tell them—it is their responsibility to find out how it was done. It was common practice throughout the allocation of permits. In his place behind the noble Baroness on the Front Bench is a former Minister of Transport who will recall what happened because I think he took over while the old permit system was still in operation, or perhaps I am wrong. I think that the old system was completely cleared out by the beginning of the 1990s, but I am not altogether clear on that.

All I am saying is that, if the system was capable of corruption then, given that the language used in this Bill is very similar to the language that must have been used in the legislation at that time, it will be corruptible in the future. Before we go into Committee, Ministers should be briefed on how the system was corrupted so that, when we start producing examples of what happened, at least they will be able to give us a sensible reply.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Sugg]

I believe that to be the case, and that therefore the Bill will not affect safety, but I will clarify that and write to my noble friend.

My noble friend Lord Attlee asked about penalty drafting within the Bill. We have drawn up the penalty levels from the original 1975 legislation so the offences are consistent with that. I am told that Clause 8 puts the offence in respect of a permit scheme in the Bill along with the penalties, which are summary only. Clause 17 enables regulations to be made which include the offences and penalties. Clause 17(6) restricts those regulations to include summary offences only, but perhaps I can write to my noble friend further on that.

On Ireland, the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, all rightly highlighted the importance of ensuring that we get the legislation right for the island of Ireland, and I should like to say a few more words about that. The Bill does not create a permit regime or a hard border on the island of Ireland. Again, the Government are committed to ensuring that there is no hard border. We want trade and everyday movements over the land border to continue as they do now. Half of the imports and exports by road are to and from Ireland and 89% of this trade is going between Northern Ireland and Ireland. There is no history of restrictions on road haulage, and that must remain the case.

To make clear the commitment not to create a hard border on the island of Ireland, we included Clause 1 explicitly to provide that permit regulations may not apply to journeys on the island of Ireland unless there is an agreement on the provision of permits between the UK Government and Irish Governments. To reiterate, trailers travelling between the UK and Ireland will not need to be registered. I very much agree that this is an important issue and something we need to keep in mind as the Bill progresses.

The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and many other noble Lords mentioned borders. The provision of a permit scheme, whatever its detailed design, is intended precisely to ensure that there will be no delays for UK hauliers at our borders or any other borders in relation to their permission to travel. The haulage permits part of the Bill relates to UK hauliers, but, as noble Lords mentioned, EU hauliers also benefit from hauling to and from the UK. The DVSA already carries out checks on vehicle operating standards on our road network rather than at the borders and we would expect that to continue and include checks for permits if those are required as part of the deal with the EU.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, raised an interesting point on corruption. It is certainly something we must avoid. I will make sure that I am fully briefed on previous issues with the system ahead of Committee so that we can avoid them.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Perhaps I may make a suggestion: that the department bring in operators who were operating in the 1960s and 1970s. There will be some around and they will remember what happened.

[Baroness Sugg]

If we can track them down, we will certainly get them in. I thank the noble Lord for that suggestion.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 20th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, this Bill is an important piece of the Government’s broad programme of work to ensure that the UK continues researching, developing, manufacturing and deploying innovation in order to harness improvements in vehicle technology. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I think it is fair to say that there is more concern from noble Lords on the measures related to automated vehicles than electric ones, so I will begin by addressing those.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, and my noble friend Lord Lucas raised the question of legitimate handover. Transferring control of an automated vehicle from a human driver to the automated system will, of course, require a handover process which ensures that the vehicle is always under the control of either the driver or the automated system. We envisage that vehicle manufacturers will design that system so that it provides prompts to the driver, making them aware when it is legitimate for them to hand over control. We will need to ensure that a driver does not undertake a non-legitimate handover and tries to force the vehicle to take control when it is inappropriate or operate the automated system when it is not designed to be operated. If they do so, they may ultimately be liable for the consequences of those actions.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, my noble friend Lord Lucas, the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and many other noble Lords raised the complex issue of software. It is not the policy intent or function of the Bill to provide the regulatory framework for safety and security standards of the software. That is being developed with international standards at the level of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and, domestically, as part of our ongoing regulatory programme. We are playing a key part in the United Nations Economic Commission and chair a number of its committees. Based on discussions with manufacturers, we expect that they will inform the owners of cars when a safety update to the vehicle software is needed. However, the overwhelming majority of these updates will be made automatically. The wording in the Bill places the onus on the manufacturer to communicate effectively about the need to install updates, but it is a complicated issue. As and when software updates are developed further, we will need to ensure that there is clear guidance on this for both manufacturers and vehicle owners so that it is clear where the responsibilities lie.

There are several factors which could influence the reason why a collision occurred. At this stage, we are keeping the process of determining liability as it is now, with the courts ultimately making judgments based on the facts. Under our proposals, the insurers will compensate the victim and be able to recover from the liable party, which could include the manufacturer or any other party. The three issues of legitimate handover, software and liability are examples of how complicated and complex this area is. I look forward to getting into the detail of it in Committee.

My noble friend Lord Goschen, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and other noble Lords raised the issue of ethics. There are many important questions to be asked about ethics when driving. One of these is how drivers respond when a collision appears unavoidable. Right now, we expect drivers to do the best they can. Given that, as many noble Lords have highlighted, the majority of road collisions involve some form of human error, the advent of automation promises to reduce the number of unavoidable collisions. However, it raises additional question about ethics. As my noble friend Lord Attlee highlighted, with automation we can avoid the risks of novice drivers or someone driving impaired through drink, drugs or tiredness, but reduction is not elimination and at some point automated vehicles will be involved in unavoidable collisions.

We expect the automated vehicle will be able to identify where there is a pedestrian present but may well not be able to identify any more details around the pedestrian’s age or gender. We do not yet know about these details. When faced with such a collision, we imagine that the automated vehicle will be programmed to maximise safety, but, again, this is still being developed. We must address these issues publicly and transparently. Ethical issues were an important focus of the Lords Science and Technology Committee’s report, which calls for further government-commissioned social research. We are taking forward several actions from that report to help in that discussion.

My noble friend Lord Goschen also asked about the wider regulatory framework. I spoke about the Law Commission in my opening remarks. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, also mentioned that. I will give a bit more detail on that which may address some of the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. The Law Commission is undertaking a three-year programme to review the regulatory framework for road-based automated vehicles with a view to enable their safe deployment. Its task is to provide recommendations for a legal framework which can remain effective in the face of vehicles that may no longer require a human driver, and its work will be part of a national conversation on this important future technology. The commission is likely to consider how automated vehicles could fit within the existing regulation of public transport frameworks and look at on-demand passenger transport provision, a point raised by my noble friend Lord Attlee. Again, where ethical considerations are relevant, the Law Commission will highlight the choices which need to be made regulation-wise. It will avoid judging what may or may not be desirable ethical outcomes but will set out possible approaches to promote consistency and transparency. The review is being undertaken to explore the law relating to the deployment of automated vehicles in the United Kingdom and will consider changes necessary to provide a robust and future-proof legal framework to support the deployment of the vehicles. It will also look at areas such as civil and criminal liability frameworks as they apply in the context of automated vehicles, product liability, sellers’ liability, the law of negligence and criminal sanctions et cetera.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked what data will be available from automated vehicles. My noble friend Lord Attlee highlighted the importance of ensuring that this data is available to all those who need it. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, rightly raised concerns about the safety of sharing this data from automated vehicles. These vehicles will generate a huge amount of data during their day-to-day operation. How this data is shared, and with whom, will have an impact on an individual’s privacy. This, of course, is an issue which the Government take very seriously. It is expected that the data recorders, like most new vehicle technologies, will be regulated at an international level. The international debate on what data needs to be collected beyond who or what was in control of the automated vehicle still needs to take place. As I said, we are actively engaged in the relevant discussions on that at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. We have also begun speaking to relevant parts of the industry to build our understanding of who will need to access the data, how it should be shared and how to manage concerns over privacy. We will continue this engagement as the technology develops. As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, pointed out, who actually owns that technology is an important question too.

Many noble Lords raised the issue of standards. I take this opportunity to reassure the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, and indeed all noble Lords, that the Government take very seriously the approval process which ensures that all vehicles on our roads are safe for use. As my noble friend Lord Attlee pointed out, the Government already have the power to make regulations under the Road Traffic Act 1988, which could be used for automated and electric vehicles, but we certainly anticipate the need to legislate further to safely facilitate the deployment of automated vehicles. It is too early to legislate for standards at this time. As many noble Lords have pointed out, the development of automated vehicles is in its infancy and legislating too early or unilaterally may hinder our development of the technology and constrain our ability to steer consensus on international standards.

On additional regulation-making powers to cover automated vehicles as suggested by my noble friends Lord Borwick and Lord Lucas, that would indeed allow more flexibility in the future and potentially future-proof this legislation. I am used to being much more defensive when I am asking for Secretary of State powers, so I am very happy to take that suggestion away and consider it further ahead of Committee.

The definitions of “monitoring” and “safely” were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, and my noble friends Lord Selborne and Lord Borwick. It is, of course, imperative that we get these words right and that we do our best to avoid complex legal arguments in the future. I will take that issue away for consideration. I am very happy to meet noble Lords to discuss this further ahead of Committee, but look forward to discussing it further then.

My noble friend Lord Lucas makes another convincing case for automated vehicles on rail lines. I was very interested to discuss this issue with him recently and look forward to discussing it further as plans develop.

I turn to electric vehicles and the electricity system. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, and several other noble Lords mentioned managing loads on the system. Of course, more electric vehicles on our roads means that we will need more electricity to power them. Unmanaged, this could add to the pressure on power generation in the grid. However, the measures in the Bill are designed to allow us to manage future demand and control the cost to customers. The national grid predicts only a 10% increase in demand by 2040 from electric vehicles, which is around 6 gigawatts, and is confident that it can cope. In July 2017, the Government launched their smart plan which set out how the system, including new sources of demand from electric vehicles, can be managed more efficiently. The measures in the Bill are designed to relieve the pressure on the grid from electric vehicles charging during peak time. When drivers arrive home in the evening, they will most likely need their car to be charged only for when they leave in the morning. It is not necessary for this charging to take place during the evening peak time. Ideally, it will be shifted to the early hour off-peak times.

As my noble friend Lord Attlee highlighted, smart charging will encourage electric vehicle users to charge their cars at a time when it is most beneficial for both them and the energy system. This should be cheaper for consumers as well as reducing peak loads on the energy system. This is an important area, and I look forward to finding the YouTube clip illustrating this mentioned by my noble friend Lord Goschen. The noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, made a compelling case for smart charging. Clause 3 contains powers to make new charge points capable of monitoring energy consumption and transmitting that data. Clause 12 contains the power to require this data to be sent and made available to relevant third parties, so there is a lot in the Bill on smart charging, but again I look forward to discussing that further.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked about freight. We want all road vehicles, not just cars, to be zero-emission vehicles. Personal use cars are perhaps more developed than haulage vehicles in this regard, but this is a key area which we want to support. We have funded £20 million-worth of innovation trials that have put around 500 low-emission vehicles into UK fleets of companies such as Waitrose, DHL and UPS. That funding has included supporting infrastructure. The measures in the Bill cover electric batteries and hydrogen fuel cell trucks as well as cars, but it will be interesting to see whether we can do more on that.

The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, spoke about the importance of extending the availability of charge points, as did many other noble Lords. The Bill provides powers to require the installation of public charging points only at motorway service areas and large fuel retailers. The idea behind that is that these strategic locations are particularly important to address anxiety about range for drivers on longer journeys. However, it is clear that we will need many more charging points across the UK in the future. The recent Budget committed us to place greater emphasis on locating charge points at rail stations. We have enhanced capital allowances to offer tax relief for companies to install recharging equipment. Noble Lords also mentioned golf clubs, which is a very good idea. We are looking at charge points being installed at supermarkets, hotels and retail centres. We shall consider adding the wider provision of charge points to the Bill but, as I said, currently the focus is just on the large fuel retailers.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, and other noble Lords pointed out, planning policy is an important tool in encouraging both residential and non-residential developments to bring charge point infrastructure into their thinking. Local planning policies are guided by the National Planning Policy Framework, which stipulates that developments should, where practical, incorporate charging facilities. In the Budget we announced additional initiatives. After the Grenfell review, the Government will update the building regulations to mandate that all new residential developments must contain the enabling cabling for charge points. The Government will also update road works guidance for local authorities so that infrastructure is installed when these works are happening anyway. Officials in my department are working on the details of these measures with our colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government; the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, of working together with communities to deliver these charge points is good, and we will take that forward.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, have the Government ruled out at this stage a differential in the unit price for electricity used by someone to charge their car as against the unit price for electricity consumed in the home for, say, white goods, lighting and heating?

[Baroness Sugg]

I do not believe that that has been ruled out. I will come on to our strategy, which we will publish shortly; it will look at those kinds of issues.

The noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, made a number of wider and compelling points about transport emissions and how we can better influence investment decisions. I am afraid that I do not have time to go into those now or to begin to address them, but I hope that the noble Baroness will meet me so that we can discuss that further.

The noble Lord, Lord Birt, asked when we will publish our updated strategy, which will look at managing electricity and increasing charging points. We last set out our strategy on electric vehicles in 2013, so it is due an update. While our ambition that nearly all cars and vans should be zero-emissions vehicles by 2050 remains unchanged, obviously the market and technology have developed hugely since then, as the noble Lord, Lord Birt, pointed out. It is therefore right that we review the steps we need to deliver our ambition on this. We plan to publish the strategy by the end of March, and I hope that it will address many of the wider points raised today by the noble Baronesses, Lady Randerson and Lady Worthington, the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and other noble Lords.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, made the sensible suggestion that we should have one universal charging point. The shift to electric vehicles is being driven by the global automotive industry. The Bill does not set out precisely which charging connector could be used as the common standard in any regulation. However, it will allow technical specifications to be set so that drivers can be confident that they will be able to plug in and charge when they arrive at public charge points. I am afraid that I do not have the information about how many of these charge points are operational, but I will go back to see whether we can find that out. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, is quite right that we must ensure that these all function as well.

My noble friend Lord Selborne and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, highlighted the importance of skills, and I agree that we must ensure that the UK has a suitably skilled workforce. Motorists with electric vehicles will clearly expect the same level of knowledge and customer service that they have come to expect in connection with conventional vehicles, and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, points out, it is important that we make sure that those trained in these vehicles are trained safely.

As a professional body for the automotive industry, the Institute of the Motor Industry is well placed to help government understand the challenge of ensuring that maintenance and repair is carried out in a professional and safe manner. There are already some level 1 to 3 qualifications in electric vehicle maintenance and repair, and between 30 and 50 UK colleges and training providers offer these courses. However, we can of course do more, and I will look closely at the suggestion made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, on this. We recognise that this is a potential barrier for the uptake of electric vehicles and we are already taking steps to address this.

On the Parliamentary Estate—I wondered whether this would come up—there are currently only two charging points in the underground car park. A major project is under way to refurbish the car park, and around 80 car charging sockets are planned—10% of the planned car parking spaces—with the capacity to add more in the future. The car park refurbishment project started in the summer of last year and is due to finish in summer 2019.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 20th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise to the House because my voice is a little frail today, after a rather difficult week.

I regret to say that I have mixed feelings over the introduction of the Bill, although I particularly welcome provisions dealing with battery technology. I believe that the moment the industry can claim 450 or 500-mile ranges for vehicles, particularly motor cars—with adequate charging points at home, on the roadside and in commercial areas—the market will take off.

However, I see two impediments. First, the price of home-charging units will inevitably go up because the Exchequer will have to compensate for the revenue loss on hydrocarbons, particularly taking into account the fact that some people will use their electric vehicles far more regularly than others. We need a little more information about how hydrocarbon revenues will be made up. Also, if home-charging rates are put up, we might get tax evasion—as we have with pink diesel, which has been a major area of tax evasion over the years. Secondly, the introduction of electric vehicles has consequences for west African and Middle Eastern politics: oil-producing countries that are dependent on hydrocarbon production will be in a rather difficult position. I am not opposing it at all, but I am not sure that we have altogether thought through the political consequences for those parts of the world.

Although I welcome the provisions on battery usage, I take a very different view on driverless vehicles. From the 2017 Budget report, I understand that the Government want to see some of them on the road by 2021. That worries me. I regard the development of driverless car technology as premature and, in the main, probably unnecessary—a huge black hole down which millions, perhaps billions, of pounds will be lost as promoters increasingly experience regulatory problems, software failure problems, contested legal liability—despite the first-instance arrangements that the Minister referred to—roadside vehicle control technology problems, road pricing arguments, public expenditure or infrastructure constraints, traffic delays leading to congestion and, most of all, driver frustration, which does not appear to have been considered to date. I foresee huge driver frustration with the technology. I am not suggesting that driverless vehicles will never happen; they will come one day, but only after the increasing problem of congestion has been resolved—particularly as every year there are more and more vehicles on our roads— public transport has been hugely improved, and there have been developments in as yet unexploited overhead transport systems in inner-city areas. The high-speed agenda currently being pursued is premature.

I will take two areas where the Bill seeks to reassure us. On insurance, we had a report from the Science and Technology Committee in February 2017. Paragraphs 54 to 59 of that excellent report are on liability and insurance and describe occasions,

“when an accident occurs and the car is in fully autonomous mode. In this case the ‘driver’ is not necessarily liable and liability could lie with the manufacturer of the vehicle”.

The report goes on to state that there were,

“some remaining issues, particularly around product liability”.

That is the understatement of 2017. The whole approach to vehicle liability will turn into a legal nightmare in the end despite the assurances given by the Minister. It is a lawyer’s dream, with different legal jurisdictions internationally drawing up different protocols, law, appeal arrangements and perhaps even immunities.

If noble Lords want more evidence of that, we need do no more than examine the provisions in the Bill. Clause 3(2) states:

“The insurer or owner of an automated vehicle is not liable under section 2 to the person in charge of the vehicle where the accident that it caused was wholly due to the person’s negligence in allowing the vehicle to begin driving itself when it was not appropriate to do so”.


“Inappropriate to do so” will be very expensive words, because the lawyers will make a mint out of it. They will love that one. How about this one?

“An insurance policy in respect of an automated vehicle may exclude or limit the insurer’s liability … for damage suffered by an insured person arising from an accident occurring as a direct result of …a failure to install safety-critical software updates that the insured person”—


once again we are into an area that the lawyers will love—

“knows, or ought reasonably to know, are safety critical”.

That is also worth a few bob.

We will end up in trench warfare between the likes of Microsoft, Tesla, Dyson, Ford, Mitsubishi and the big insurance companies and poor old Joe Bloggs, the innocent man caught in the middle, with 100 cars barping and beeping behind him as he sits at a congested roundabout with two software systems in two separate cars screaming and arguing with each other over who should go first. If the wrong one proceeds and clouts the other, there will be some very angry queueing drivers behind. It will be like a road traffic accident in Italy in the 1950s and 1960s—some noble Lords may recall them. Whenever there was an accident there would be a huge crowd of people surrounding the cars. The reason was of course because there was only third-party insurance and someone was going to pay. That is the kind of argument that I see us getting into.

I have another example on software conflict. Clause 2(2)(d) states that:

“Where … an accident is caused by an automated vehicle when driving itself”,


and,

“a person suffers damage as a result of the accident”,

the insurer is liable for the damage. But which car’s insurer? I heard insurance companies referred to, but will they stand up at the end of the day? People pay premiums to insurance companies and there comes a point where someone has to take a decision on conditions of software conflict.

I ask myself a simple question. Should a vehicle owner who is not driving, an attendant driver, a passenger or any other person be held responsible in law in any way for a software malfunction beyond their knowledge or control that leads to damage to another vehicle or injury to others? By others I mean people in the car allegedly at fault, persons in another vehicle, pedestrians in the street or persons on private property. What about a multiple accident on a motorway? That will be an interesting one for the lawyers.

That brings me to the equally important issue of offences under the road traffic Acts. Again, I ask a simple question: who is liable when the software leads the vehicle to drive down a cycle lane, which is punishable in law? Who is liable if the vehicle turns right at a “No right-hand turn” sign, which is punishable; or exceeds the speed limit, which is punishable; passes through a red light, which is punishable; or enters a one-way street the wrong way—punishable? I have no reason to believe that these issues have been sorted out.

Finally, I have been referred to case law which is based on a House of Lords decision of 1925: Donoghue v Stevenson, known as the “snail in the bottle” case. It established the civil tort of negligence and obliged manufacturers to observe a duty of care towards customers. I should make it clear that I am not a lawyer; I am simply referring to the comments of others. In that decision, it was established that a manufacturer owes a duty to the consumers who it intends to use its products. This arose out of the need for negligence to be dependent on contract. It enforced the concept of a duty between the parties concerned. The lawyers will argue that in the case of the driverless car the software manufacturer, or even the vehicle manufacturer, stands in the front line of responsibility in both accidental damage and injury, and perhaps even in the unimaginable circumstance of road traffic Acts penalty fine payments. As I say, I am most unhappy about this latter part of the Bill. I know that the noble Baroness has given us assurances on first-instance responsibility, but I do not believe that it is going to work, or at least not yet.

Electric Car Ownership

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I am sure that were he a female driver, it would be much cheaper.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, would the Minister confirm that you do not need an expensive, fast-charging point for an electric car? You can charge an electric car with a 13 amp domestic plug and a 3 kilowatt feed.

[Lord Callanan]

That is of course true—it just takes longer.

HS2 and CH2M

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Wednesday 5th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The short answer to the second part of the noble Lord’s question is yes. In terms of the specifics—the other bidders and the numbers involved—I will write to him.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

Does that mean that we will be told whether Bechtel had people inside HS2 as well?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I am sure that the noble Lord raises that question as he is aware of other bidders. Again, I am sure he will respect the confidentiality of the allocation and award of the DP contract, which has still to be made. As I said, I will take back the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and ensure that other noble Lords who are interested are accorded a reply.

Drones

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend is right to raise this important issue. Let me assure him that new laws have been implemented and measures taken to deal with the problem of the delivery of drugs into prisons. Equally, let me reassure my noble friend that I am talking to Ministers across both the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. We will be convening a meeting with manufacturers, either next month or in April, to talk directly about the importance of ensuring that all safety and security aspects are covered.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will recall a debate before Christmas in which his attention was drawn to the availability of drone-jamming signal equipment which could be used to an operational distance of 2,000 feet. It would be avoided by drone users because they would be likely to lose their drones. Why cannot we order and use this equipment to cover our airports?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord is right: he pointed out that specific issue, which I have taken up directly with officials. I would ask him also to take part in the consultation. We will be raising his specific point directly with manufacturers.

Road Traffic Accidents: Hand-held Mobile Devices

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, the House is indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, for raising this hugely important issue. I have a particular interest in this debate because I was involved in an accident where the other party was using a mobile phone. After that incident, the other party immediately accepted liability, offered to pay for repairs to the vehicle I was driving and the matter was closed. The police were not involved, nor were insurance companies, but I was left wondering what would have happened in the event that the accident had injured passengers in the vehicle. That set me down the route of considering what options we have open to us.

I think this debate is an interesting indicator of how Parliament gets its priorities distorted. We spend endless hours talking about drink-driving, smoking, parking problems, drug use and whiplash but very little time talking about this issue, which is the subject of much public discussion. We know that almost the entire population under the age of 60 has a mobile phone. I suspect that there are probably more mobile phone users today than there are drinkers, smokers or even drug users.

This debate is about abuse. If you stand on a street corner almost anywhere in the United Kingdom and observe drivers passing by to find out whether they are using their mobile phone, you will be astonished at the numbers who are. Recently, I was standing on a corner waiting for some lights to change near Maidenhead. In the phasing of the lights, discounting one or two of the first vehicles that went through, out of 37 drivers that passed me, 11 were using mobile phones. I believe that what I saw is an indicator of a national problem where the estimates are gross underestimates.

Furthermore, we just do not know how many accidents are caused by mobile phones. The noble Baroness produced some statistics, but I suspect that they are an underestimate. I am not altogether convinced that the police do sufficient investigative work when accidents take place to establish whether the cause of an accident was a mobile phone. Do they stop a driver immediately and say, “Have you been using a mobile phone? Can we have your mobile phone? Can we check whether your mobile phone has been in use?”. I suspect that if rapid checks took place we would find that mobile phones were involved in far more accidents.

Last week, I referred to Google as a source of information on these matters. The benefit of Google is that it provides us with some insight into developments internationally into the issue of mobile phone abuse. Much of that debate is going on in the United States of America. The noble Baroness referred to research in America. The International Journal of Enterprise Network Management recently published a paper on illegal mobile phone usage detection. The trigger for the paper was a series of studies reporting that 20% of all fatal accidents involving trucks or heavy vehicles in the United States involved the use of hand-held mobile phones at the wheel. Additionally, the National Safety Council, another American organisation, published statistics claiming that 21% of all crashes involved people talking on hand-held mobile phones and a further 3% involved texting. I suspect that the statistics here in the United Kingdom would be very similar, if the truth were known. The truth is that we have no reliable data at the moment on the incidence of hand-held mobile phone usage in road accidents in the United Kingdom. This raises a simple question for me: how often do police officers investigate the use of phones in accidents?

When this issue was raised last week in the House, the Minister said:

“Others in the car may well be using a mobile phone quite legitimately … if the driver is not using a mobile phone but others are, that can be a lifeline … during a trip”.—[Official Report, 5/12/2016; col. 493.]

This issue of passengers, to which the noble Baroness referred, led me to do some further research. I trawled some American sites and found that engineers from Anna University in Chennai, India, have invented a device that uses radio frequency identification technology to determine whether a car is moving and the driver using a phone. If a driver is using a phone, the device uses a mobile jammer to shut down the driver’s phone—that is just the driver’s phone. The technology allows passengers complete access to their phones, leaving them free to make calls. Will the Minister follow up on that piece of research?

We come to texting. There is a whole variety of jammer products available for in-vehicle use to deal with texting. A company in America called Access 2 Communications Incorporated has designed a piece of equipment called TextBuster. It is a small piece of hardware which is located under the dashboard—as the noble Baroness referred to—and it thwarts texting. Furthermore, it can shut down phone data connection entirely, shutting off email and other internet connectivity. I can even report that, in America, there are DIY jammer kits on the market, available for as little as £25. That equipment has the benefit of a limited effective range of as little as two or three feet, thereby ensuring that it does not interfere with equipment in neighbouring vehicles. Britain’s retailers might consider the distribution of such equipment, although I understand that at the moment it would be in breach of the 2006 legislation, which I am sure the Minister will refer to in winding up.

The existence of these sorts of technology begs a simple question. Can we imagine circumstances in which automobile manufacturers could offer to integrate these technologies, just like seatbelts or airbags, within vehicles’ Bluetooth systems? Why not make the fitting of such equipment mandatory? That will save lives just as airbags, seat belts and even speed limits do.

Finally, I want to move to another matter, unrelated to mobile phone use but where similar technology issues arise. Jammers can have wider applications and I understand that equipment is now available for interrupting the most frequently used drone frequencies. Drones have become a public nuisance and threaten airline safety, but drone-jamming equipment is now available for operating distances of up to 2,000 feet. The equipment totally disables a drone and will bring it down to earth. Surely we should consider such equipment. I suspect that drone enthusiasts, who pay anything between £30 and £500 in the UK for a drone, would think twice about deploying them in areas where jammers are located if they thought they were vulnerable to destruction—I have airports in mind. Again, Ministers might turn their attention to the possibility of introducing such equipment.

Returning to mobile phones, in my view we need a statutory framework capable of shutting down hand-held mobile phone usage by vehicle drivers when vehicles are mobile. Drivers should be able to use hand-held equipment only when vehicles are stationary, at which time connectivity would be automatically restored. The equipment should be wired into the electrics in a way which prevents tampering by the vehicle’s owner. Commercial vehicles, in particular lorries and vans, should be first in line for the mandatory installation of such equipment. Finally, we should amend the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006, in particular where its provisions deal with signal interception.

I understand that the Government have acknowledged that enforcement alone would not fully address behaviour. They have said that they are,

“willing to work with industry on technology that would encourage better and safer behaviour”.

The Government say that they want,

“to take full advantage rapidly developing in-car technology and where it can support safe driving behaviour. However … even with technology such as drive-safe modes it is ultimately the driver that has to take responsibility for their actions”.

My case is that, while hand-held equipment is available which can be used in cars, drivers will very often not take responsibility for their actions. You can have all the campaigns in the world, but I suspect that drivers will ignore them. Campaigning in this area is insufficient; we need mandatory provisions and intervention. That is the only way that we are going to save lives.

Mobile Phone Use: Motorists

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble and learned Lord is right to inform your Lordships’ House about the importance of our justice system and the pressures on it and the prison system. Returning to an earlier point, we have learned over time—particularly if we look at drink-driving—that informing and educating the public is an important part of ensuring that we eradicate the illegal use of such phones.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, have Ministers considered the circumstances in which it might be appropriate to introduce, on a mandatory basis, mobile phone signal jamming equipment? It is currently available on the internet. You can google it. Would it not be wise to consider that kind of product?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

Again, the noble Lord makes an important point, and I am sure he would acknowledge that that is being looked at. We all use flight mode, for example, when we board planes. Others in the car may well be using a mobile phone quite legitimately. Of course, when you are travelling great distances, if the driver is not using a mobile phone but others are, that can be a lifeline if certain issues or challenges arise during a trip.