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Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I have been remiss in not arranging that meeting, although the noble Earl will recognise that there were one or two quite significant issues with the Bill which inevitably had priority and which directly concern officials in my department. He is right that the meeting that he wants involves Home Office officials. Let me assure the noble Earl that of course I will arrange such a meeting. I will let him know as soon as I have done so. We hope to achieve that possibly in the new year rather than at this stage. My priority now is to deal with the passage of this Bill, which I had hoped we might complete before Christmas. But it may be a new year's present rather than the Christmas present that we all desired.
I understand the points that the noble Earl has made, some of which are very valid. But they are points of detail about the way in which things are done. We do not think that the amendment is necessary. After all, the police have been removing vehicles as necessary under the Act for more than 20 years and have not felt that the lack of regulations relating to their contractual arrangements affect their efficiency in any way. We do not see why we need to increase the regulatory burden without a proven and obvious need. I do not think that the noble Earl has made out his case in those terms, although he has identified certain weaknesses which we intend to address. But we do not think that we need statutory change in order to do that.
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A great deal of work is under way in the context of the Highways Agency that will lead to its traffic officers, where appropriate and authorisedthe noble Earl will know that that comes into force under legislation that has been passed only recentlyarranging removals on the strategic road network and adjoining roads.
The agency will need its own contracts for this purpose, but the police will retain their powers on the network and continue to be responsible for removals on other roads, so their contractual arrangements will also continue. Obviously we want consistency between the two groups of operators, if I can define them in those terms, and to that end we see the necessity for effective collaboration. The agency, the Home Office, the Association of Chief Police Officers, the insurance industry and the operators are engaged in discussion at regular meetings and, recently, at a workshop which was deemed by most as very successful.
I recognise the concerns underlying the noble Earl's amendment, and if I thought they were not being addressed I would be less confident about asking him to withdraw it. He has identified where additional work needs to be done. I can assure him that we are doing that work and that we do not need to change the law in order to effect improvement. On that basis, I hope he will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I am extremely grateful for that response from the Minister. He has acknowledged that there are some difficulties and he has done so in a more helpful way than I had anticipated. But I think he does not quite appreciate one of the changes that has taken place in recent years. In days of old, the police headquarters would ring up a garage on the rota. No one used to have to pay to be on that rota, at least not legally. Today, however, they are often managed by commercial concerns which take a big cut for themselves, funded by the motorist. The Minister has given a guarded acknowledgment of the difficulties here.
I want to sound a word of caution regarding the insurance industry, because it is part of the problem. If a vehicle of very low value is involved in a write-off collision, the recovery operator still has to keep the vehicle in a secure compound for some time. Insurance assessors are very poor at getting to the recovery firm to assess such vehicles and declaring them as write-offs. That links in with problems I discussed in relation to the Vehicles (Crime) Bill where vehicles are not declared to be write-offs fast enough. So the insurance industry itself has something of a case to answer.
I have no intention of returning to this issue. I am grateful for the Minister's response and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 44 [Minor corrections]:
[Amendment No. 63 not moved.]
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Baroness Crawley moved Amendment No. 64:
"(6) In Schedule 1 to that Act (offences to which certain sections apply), after the entry relating to section 94A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (c. 52) insert
"RTA section 99(5) | Driving licence holder failing to surrender licence and counterpart. | Section 6 of this Act."" |
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the purpose of this amendment is to reintroduce the entry for Section 99(5) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 in the table in Schedule 1 to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 so as to provide for Section 6 of that Act to apply to Section 99(5) of the Road Traffic Act 1988. The entry was repealed in error by the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 2004, which came into force on 22 July 2004. I beg to move.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, can the Minister explain what effect the omission has had? If this provision has not been in force for a year, but is now being replaced, have we missed it?
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I hope that it has had a minimal effect, but I shall be happy to write to the noble Baroness to let her know whether it has had more than that.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 44, as amended, agreed to.
The Earl of Dundee moved Amendment No. 65:
"GRADUATED LEARNING
(1) The Road Traffic Act 1988 (c. 52) is amended as follows.
(2) In section 97 (grant of licences), after subsection (6) insert
"(7) The Secretary of State may, by regulations, require a new driver prior to driving accompanied on the road to pass an initial test of competence.
(8) In considering such regulations, the Secretary of State shall consult with such persons as he considers appropriate.
(9) In setting such regulations, the Secretary of State may limit the scope and applicability to such times and places as he considers appropriate.""
The noble Earl said: My Lords, the background to this amendment is the anomaly reflected by new young drivers. As we know, while 17 to 21 year-olds account for roughly 10 per cent of driving licences, nevertheless they are involved in 20 per cent of crashes. Most of those accidents occur within the first six months of their licensed driving. In Committee a number of amendments were moved to address this anomaly, all on the theme of restricting newly qualified drivers. The Minister was reluctant to support any of them. However, in explaining his position he did say that he favoured a graduated approach to learning. This amendment seeks to achieve just that.
First, it would require some training before a provisional licence is issued at all. Secondly, it would enable pilot schemes for particular regions and for certain lengths of time. Thirdly, it would permit the Secretary of State to set up pilot training schemes so
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that later on he could extend to the whole country a good system of graduated learning based on properly accumulated evidence.
The proposal for training in advance of the provisional licence issued to car drivers borrows from the current procedure for motorcyclists. They have to go through a compulsory basic training test. This ensures a level of competence in handling and manoeuvring before going out on the road and before the motorcyclist can ride with L-plates. Early training before the provisional licence equally applied to car drivers could well include hazard perception. That component is already included in the main driving theory test. As such, it is one of several examples of early training which could come before the provisional licence to good effect, and without much extra cost or complication.
However, the Minister may well argue that it would be premature to deploy any of the measures in this amendment until next year when we have the results of the research being conducted by the Department for Transport. That research is on the training and testing of young and novice drivers. Its timing and substance are therefore particularly welcome and useful. There are two ways in which this amendment precisely assists those endeavours. First, if adopted, it can provide a framework for action on graduated learning. And secondly, if not adopted, the Minister may feel able to give us instead a guarantee now that the Government will definitely take action on the department's report once it is published next year. I beg to move.
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