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TRANSPORT
Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. David Jamieson): The Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005 were laid before Parliament today and will come into force on 4 April 2005. These new regulations implement Council Directive 2002/15/EC concerning the working time of persons performing mobile road transport activities.
To accompany the new regulations, we have also published
Copies of these documents have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
The regulations, formal guidance and regulatory impact assessment follow public consultation—we have also placed copies of a summary of the consultation responses and the Government's subsequent conclusions in the Libraries of both Houses.
The new regulations will provide extra protection for drivers and crew of heavy goods and public service vehicles who carry out road transport activities covered by the EU drivers' hours rules—Regulation (EEC) 3820/85. The main provisions of the Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005 are:
weekly working time is limited to an average of 48 hours (normally calculated over a four month reference period),
a maximum of 60 hours' work can be performed in a single week, so long as the average 48-hour limit is maintained,
there are break requirements tied to hours worked to supplement the break requirements linked to driving time in the driver's hours rules.
In addition, under the new regulations:
where there is either a collective agreement or a workforce agreement at company level between the employer and employees, companies will be able to use the derogations available under the directive:-
the four-month reference period for calculating the average 48-hour week can be extended to six months
the 10 hour limit (over a 24-hour period) for night workers can be exceeded, although the 60-hour weekly limit will still apply, and drivers will still have to respect the EU drivers hours rules
the definition of "night time" is a period between 00.00–04.00 for drivers and crew of goods vehicles and 01.00–05.00 for drivers and crew of passenger vehicles,
workers who occasionally perform road transport activities will be subject to the Working Time Regulations 1998 (as amended) rather than these new regulations.
Self-employed drivers will not be covered by the regulations until March 2009, as provided for in the directive.
The Government will review the new regulations and associated formal guidance in the light of practical experience.
WORK AND PENSIONS
Stakeholder Pensions
The Minister for Pensions (Malcolm Wicks): We have today laid regulations before Parliament to make the stakeholder pension suitable for inclusion in the new suite of stakeholder products. We are also publishing the Government's response to the consultation on the regulations and a copy has been placed in the Library.
There are two key changes to the stakeholder regulations. The first requires pension scheme providers to introduce lifestyling. The second amends the charge cap applicable to consumers.
"Lifestyling" is an established financial mechanism and means that a pension scheme member's savings will be moved gradually into less volatile investments at least five years before retirement, thus helping to reduce the risk of an unexpected drop in value in the period before retirement. Lifestyling will be a requirement where a person makes no choice about how his or her pension savings are to be invested. However, members will be able to opt out of lifestyling if they so choose.
The regulations also provide for an increase in the stakeholder pension charge cap. For new members of schemes from 6 April 2005, the annual management charge will be capped at 1.5 per cent. for the first 10 years of membership, decreasing to 1 per cent. thereafter. However charges for existing members will continue to be capped at 1 per cent. per annum.
The regulations come into effect on 6 April 2005.