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Earl Attlee moved Amendment No. 6:
"NATIONAL ROAD SAFETY ACCREDITATION SCHEMES
(1) The Secretary of State may, if he considers it appropriate to do so for the purpose specified in subsection (3), establish and maintain a scheme ("a national road safety accreditation scheme").
(2) A national road safety accreditation scheme is a scheme for the exercise nationally by persons accredited by him under section (Accreditation under national road safety accreditation schemes) of the powers conferred by their accreditation under that section.
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(3) The purpose of a national road safety accreditation scheme is to contribute to national road safety by ensuring compliance with the Goods Vehicles Licensing of Operators Act 1995 (c. 23) and section 41 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (c. 52) (regulation of construction, weight, equipment and use of vehicles).
(4) Before establishing a national road safety accreditation scheme the Secretary of State shall consult such persons as he thinks fit."
The noble Earl said: It may be convenient if I speak also to Amendments Nos. 7, 8 and 21. I remind the Committee of my interest listed at col. 915 on 8 June at Second Reading.
VOSA, the Vehicle and Operators Services Agency, formerly the Vehicle Inspectorate, has the power to stop the vehicle on the road for the purposes of a test. That power derives from the Police Reform Act 2002. Section 41 provides for accreditation under the community safety accreditation scheme. Those are normally local schemes with local employees accredited by local police. VOSA inspectors operate on a much wider area, even in a region or across regional boundaries. For instance, a VOSA vehicle inspector operating out of Reading, west of London, will need to be accredited by the Metropolitan Police, the Hertfordshire Police, the Thames Valley Police and the Surrey Police merely to look after the western half of the M25. That is not efficient use of scarce resources of either VOSA or the police.
Those VOSA employees are either employees of the Secretary of State or of his agent. The powers that they enjoy are much tougher because they can already prohibit the vehicle moving if it has a defect under powers in the Road Traffic Acts. Having to accredit each VOSA inspector with many police forces is both unnecessary and bureaucratic. Also, police forces do not like doing it because they can add nothing to the process. My amendment would allow the Secretary of State to accredit those officials instead of the police. I beg to move.
Lord Bradshaw: The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, referred to the amendments made by the Police Reform Act 2002. In Northern Ireland, VOSA inspectors have always—or for many years—been able to stop vehicles. It was adjudged too dangerous for police to do so, because it set them as up as targets for terrorists. The VOSA inspectors did the necessary stopping.
I simply add that while the powers of the VOSA inspectors are being considered, the Minister should also examine what other things they might do. At the multi-agency checks that take place around the country, which I have attended, Customs and Excise inspectors dip the tanks of vehicles to see whether they are running on red diesel; inspectors check on the welfare of animals being transported; trading standards officers—formerly weights and measures inspectors—check the vehicles to see whether they are correctly weighed and the load is properly distributed; and people working for the Department for Work and Pensions—as I think it is now—check whether drivers have paid their national insurance and are bona fide employees.
In fact, you have to assemble an army of people—now not the police, fortunately—comprising Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all to check whether a lorry driver
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is working legitimately. It is worth considering not only whether VOSA inspectors should stop people, but whether they should make all the necessary checks instead of assembling various other individuals each to do a little job. One person could carry out the whole inspection effectively if it were not for the bureaucrat divisions between the departments involved. Will the Minister consider that when he replies?
Lord Berkeley: I support the amendment. The net result of what the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, outlined, is that there are probably very few inspections when there should be many more because of the complexity of getting accreditation. When driving around the country, one is aware of a lack of checks. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, may have missed out compliance with the Working Time Directive, but he gave us a pretty good list, which, again, is enough to put anybody off organising such checks.
I repeat what we have said many times in this House over the years: such drivers are supposed to drive legally; there must be enforcement and they must be checked out. The amendments in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, are a very good start, but I support the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, that all the other agencies that he mentioned should be included.
A similar thing happens on the railways. When the Channel Tunnel was built, an enormous building had to be constructed at the rail freight terminal in Willesden, not just for immigration—immigrants were supposed to be checked further on—but also for Customs. In those days, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food had to carry out a phyto-sanitary check there. The building, which is half as long as your Lordships' House, not just the Chamber, was fitted out at the taxpayers' expense but has not been used in the past 12 years. Such agencies require all those buildings when changes occur but checks are never made. If they spent less time requiring bricks and mortar and more time working out how to get out on to the roads to check people, the roads would be a much safer environment.
Viscount Simon: I have been out on traffic patrol with the police on numerous occasions specifically to inspect large vehicles, and the police are highly trained in that respect. However, I suspect that the number of qualified vehicle examiners is decreasing rapidly and that they do not have the time or make the effort to do such work. I therefore support the amendment.
Lord Bridges: I wish to approach the question from a different angle: the problem of securing road safety in rural areas such as the one in which I live. I am conscious that most of our roads are class C, originally for horse-drawn traffic, I suppose, and are now used extensively by large delivery vehicles. Somebody living in the area who wishes to buy a new refrigerator may find that it comes in an enormous vehicle that has travelled for 50 miles.
As a member of a Select Committee of this House examining proposals from Brussels about the maximum weight of heavy vehicles, I suggested to a representative
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from the Department for Transport that we should have maximum weights and dimensions for class-C small roads. The official replied, "Oh, it is quite impossible because that is the task of a local authority. There are no national schemes for minor roads".
That must be examined, in the interests of road safety. Why should we not have a conference of all local authorities to agree a national scheme for the maximum dimension and weight of minor roads? In that way we could greatly reduce the number of accidents, which occur quite regularly on minor roads. Enormous juggernauts come sweeping around such roads, and if you wish to stay alive you have to drive into the hedge, which may not always be sufficient to protect you. There is a problem here which ought to be considered in this context.
5 pm
Lord Davies of Oldham: The problem is that almost anything can be taken into account in the context of inspection. I accept entirely the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, that safety in rural areas is important—there will be several occasions during the passage of the Bill when we shall have extensive debates on the issue—but, of course, the amendments are concerned with the exercise of inspection and roadworthiness and therefore are not specific to any particular part of the country or any particular environment. However, I bear very much in mind the comments made by the noble Lord.
I ask the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, to withdraw his amendment and not to move the others. I cannot accept any of them in their entirety, but I congratulate him on putting forward some extremely useful concepts, which have been reinforced by other contributions in the Committee. I assure him that we are involved in discussions on those very issues in which my department will wish to take into account of the debate today.
The discussions will involve the Scottish Executive and, as the noble Earl will recognise, inevitably the Home Office because of the legal aspects involved. The debate has advanced the cause. Had the noble Earl included Amendment No. 9 in it, I would not have been in such a benign mood. He will find out when he moves it that I have more difficulty with Amendment No. 9.
The concepts behind Amendments Nos. 6, 7, 8 and 21 have some merit, and we want to take them on board in our discussions. I assure the noble Earl that that will be done. He is an exceedingly reasonable man, and I know that he will accept this gesture of goodwill on my part and that it will be sufficient for him not to press his amendments too vigorously. I would not want to go in for a minute, detailed dismantling job on the amendments, posing as a critic of the noble Earl when, in moving the amendment, he has done the Committee a service. I hope that that gesture of good faith illustrates that we appreciate a number of the points that he has made, which have been reinforced by other contributors to the debate. We are involved in consultation, we need to make progress, and we
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recognise that the present situation is not satisfactory. On that basis, I hope that the noble Earl will withdraw his amendment.
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