You are here: Parliament home page > Parliamentary business > Publications and Records > Lords Publications > Lords Hansard > Lords Hansard by Date > Daily Hansard
Previous Section Back to Table of Contents Lords Hansard Home Page

I end by reminding your Lordships of the unsavoury fact that most of our laws now come from Brussels. Thousands of regulations pass every year into UK law without Parliament ever seeing them. The Minister may look slightly perturbed, but it is absolutely true. Indeed, more than 2,000 of them were passed in 2006 alone. Those are the laws that we cannot touch; not one syllable, not one word, not one comma of them. They go straight into law. That gives rise to a serious question that is put not by any Minister in this Government or, I am afraid, by any Opposition spokesman, but by Roman Herzog, the former President of the German republic, when he learnt that 80 per cent of German law is actually made in Brussels. He said:

The time has come for our Parliament to ask itself the same question.

Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to speak from the Conservative Front Benches on the regulations and the proposed amendment to it. I have some questions to put to the Minister, and some strong comments to make on which I would like him to comment. I have quite a lot of sympathy for the amendment, although I make it clear that we on these Benches will not vote for it. Although the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, made some very valuable comments, I do not support much of what he said.

Dr Ladyman, the Commons Minister responsible for negotiating this legislation on behalf of UK, said:



19 Jun 2007 : Column 167

That is pertinent to what the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said, and is not a particularly ringing endorsement of what we are being asked to consider in your Lordships’ House today. I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said about our competence in negotiation, particularly on rural issues. We should at least give Dr Ladyman credit for his honesty. However, if he is not particularly keen on the legislation, what hope do the industry and those affected, particularly in rural areas, have? One can tell by the sheer number of derogations applicable to the regulations that they are simply too blunt and arbitrary an instrument to achieve what they set out to do, however well meaning they may be. At this point, let me emphasise that we on these Benches take extremely seriously the whole issue of road safety and the measures designed to deter those who are unfit to drive safely on our roads.

I should be grateful if the Minister would comment on a number of points. The vast majority of UK operators intend to abide by the regulations. However, they are exasperated by hauliers from other countries who flout such regulations. During the passage of the Road Safety Bill, we discussed at some length allowing UK authorities the ability to enforce and prosecute foreign drivers for offences committed in this country. Will the Minister say where we are in achieving this objective? Will foreign drivers be subject to scrutiny and a subsequent penalty regime at the roadside that are at least as strong as those for UK drivers? We in this country seem to be extremely good at enforcing—or, as some have put it, gold-plating—EU legislation, to the detriment of UK interests, while the evidence in other countries is that they are much less rigorous about doing the same thing. In addition, effective enforcement depends on agencies having the capacity and equipment to do so. Will the Minister clarify what his plans are to improve enforcement by the relevant agencies? Will he say in particular whether VOSA has the resources to carry out such functions? If it does, will he tell us how many additional traffic examiners are being trained and the cost of that training? I shall also probe the Government on their definition of “journey”, as my colleague in the other place did.

In addition, weekly rest is still contentious. The Confederation of Passenger Transport is still campaigning in Brussels on the coach industry’s problems with weekly rest. Previously, the coach industry regulations stated that drivers could postpone taking weekly rest for 12 days, and then take two days’ rest together. Drivers in the goods industry are required to take weekly rest after a maximum of six days. The Confederation of Passenger Transport felt that the regulations on weekly rest were inflexible about when drivers should stop working and start taking their weekly or daily rest. I therefore wonder whether the Minister will clarify the matter further today.



19 Jun 2007 : Column 168

Despite large sectors being exempt in the derogations, notable groups will still fall foul of the regulations. My noble friend Lord Attlee will comment on this in a moment. It is a pity that he has not had the chance to do so already. He has been heavily involved not least with the Reserve Forces, and I am sure that he will go into much more detail when he has a chance to speak. I simply ask the Minister what plans the Government have to include other notable groups in any future application for derogation, and whether he is entirely satisfied that no other groups, such as retained firefighters, coastguards, and community transport and mountain rescue volunteers, will be unfairly penalised as a result of being included in the regulations.

Finally, as in the other place, I ask the Minister whether the Government would consider a review of these regulations after a suitable period so that we may assess their impact, their cost and whether they have been effective in improving road safety.

8 pm

Earl Attlee: My Lords, it might be a convenient moment to speak to my amendment, perhaps in a different tone from the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, and despite the fact that he has taken some of the wind out of my sails. Before speaking to my amendment I should remind the House of my interests: I am still a serving TA officer, patron of the Road Rescue Recovery Association and president of the Heavy Transport Association. I have quite a long speech, but the underlying EU directive is the equivalent of primary legislation, and the subject is complex and multi-faceted. I think that it would help your Lordships if I explained some of the problems facing the TA.

First, I have an observation on the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. Surely, it should be possible to split a route into two so that if a current route, say, route 9, with a length of 60 kilometres, is split into routes 9A and 9B, neither of which exceed 50 kilometres, the problem disappears. It seems to be rather loose drafting in the EU regulations.

I cannot deny that the new EU regulations are needed to further improve road safety. Among other things, drivers will be issued with a driver’s smartcard to put into the digital tachograph, but there will be only one card per driver, per licence holder, which will be invaluable in stopping drivers from working under two names. With the old style of analogue tachograph, drivers could easily work continuously for one employer during the week and for another agency at the weekend, which, obviously, is extremely dangerous and undesirable.

Unfortunately, these regulations and the underlying EU directive do not meet the needs of the voluntary Reserve Forces, which is why I have tabled my non-fatal amendment. The Minister refers to it as a difficult issue. The regulations define rest as,

But, once under military law on a weekend exercise, a vocational driver does not, by definition, have time at his free disposal. Being engaged on a weekend field

19 Jun 2007 : Column 169

exercise does not count as rest; it is classed as “other work”. All vocational drivers who are members of the volunteer Reserve Forces have to keep a record of all the work they do while on duty, irrespective of whether this involves driving duties.

As the Minister said, in a Written Answer the Minister of State for Defence Equipment and Support, the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, stated that under these regulations,

Unless the driver is able to complete the required weekly rest period before commencing his weekend training—he will not have a problem if he takes Thursday and Friday off work, but he will if he works the full five days—he must take the required weekly rest period as soon as the training finishes. But that would mean that a driver who finishes training at 5 pm on Sunday would not be able to recommence work until 5 pm on Monday afternoon if taking a reduced rest period, which he can do only once every two weeks, or 2 pm on the following Tuesday if he is taking the full 45 hours. That is impractical for most employers. It is their legal duty to ensure that their drivers have sufficient rest, which they might not have had if they start driving first thing on Monday morning after weekend training. Of course, it is ironic that, should he drive a minibus of scouts 200, 300 or 400 miles for a holiday, that would not be a problem under the regulations. The problem is that military service is not time at one’s free disposal.

Arrangements between the employer and the reservist could be made. However, the driver cannot be certain when an exercise will finish. I have been very surprised sometimes to finish an exercise six hours later than I anticipated. But the driver will not be able to give his employer a precise time when he can start driving professionally again. If the driver is driving for a builders’ merchant, I do not think that the yard foreman will be very pleased when the driver leaves work on Friday saying, “I might be able to start at seven o’clock on Monday morning, but it might be Tuesday morning”.

If a driver completes a full week’s driving, he will not be able to commit to a full weekend’s training if he has no option but to start work again on Monday morning. This would have a severe impact on a small infantry unit, which may have only a few HGV drivers, many of whom will drive for a living. TA units could be confined to base at weekends because they do not have enough drivers to undertake their training. In addition, many large logistic units will be deprived of a significant proportion of their HGV drivers, many of whom are needed to support the Regular Army on operations.

I welcome the Written Statement by the Minister of State, Dr Stephen Ladyman, informing the House that a derogation had been sought by the Department for Transport for an exemption to the weekly rest requirements for professional drivers when training with the volunteer Reserve Forces. It is a tightly

19 Jun 2007 : Column 170

drafted derogation or request for derogation. However, the Minister admits that,

In the mean time, all reservists will need to comply with the regulation as it stands. It is the employer who is in difficulty, not the TA. There is no possibility of the TA turning a blind eye to the problem; it is in the hands of the employer. To be fair to Ministers, this problem has always existed; we have not recognised it. But does the Minister agree that waiting 18 months is impractical for the TA and vocational drivers?

The EU regulations also apply to recovery vehicles, which are used to rescue lorries and cars that break down. Unfortunately, I have not given any notice to the Minister, so he may have difficulty in answering me fully. I do not have any difficulty with the regulations being made to apply to recovery vehicles. In any case, there is a 100-kilometre radius of exemption. In fact, I had some anxiety when the regulations did not apply to recovery vehicles. However, what happens if a recovery vehicle is despatched 80 kilometres from the operating centre, which is comfortably within the exempt area, and then the customer requests that the casualty vehicle is moved to another location 120 kilometres from the operating centre, outside the radius? Clearly, the recovery vehicle and the driver fall within the scope. The problem is whether the driver should insert a disc into the tachograph when he leaves base, even though he could not know that he would be leaving the exempt radius. Should he comply with the rules as soon as he knows that he is leaving the exempt radius? But how does he remember all the other work he did during the past 15 days? Does the driving done beforehand count as driving hours and, if so, how? How is the driving undertaken in the previous 15 days to be treated for the purposes of the legislation?

Let us make no mistake: industry is content to implement the regulations. I have not been asked to resist them. However, how the regulations will work in practice is very important. At the moment there is uncertainty, and industry does not understand how these regulations are to be implemented in the circumstances I described. An interesting point is that, if the EU regulations were primary legislation, I am sure that they would not pass scrutiny because they are too vague. I understand that I may not get a full answer to my points about recovery vehicles this evening. Perhaps if I draft some suitable Questions for Written Answer, the Minister could give me some detailed answers that would explain to industry what it is supposed to be doing.

Another concern with the regulations, to which the Minister referred, is that they will have an impact on genuine users of heavy-goods vehicles weighing over 7.5 tonnes. The people at whom the regulations were aimed were those pretending they were private users when they were actually commercial. As the Minister said, these vehicles are often used privately in connection with steam rallies to move exhibits. There might be a perverse incentive for someone facing these difficulties to use a historic vehicle that is exempt because it is over 25 years old; but such an

19 Jun 2007 : Column 171

older vehicle will not have all the safety and environmental features of a newer one, and its harmful emissions would be significant, especially when it is used loaded.

Considerable effort will have to be put into these vehicles to meet a new requirement to keep the tachograph sealed and calibrated. A number of enthusiasts were caught out last month when their vehicles unexpectedly failed the goods vehicle MoT test because the tachograph was not sealed and calibrated. It worked perfectly but it was not calibrated. The regulation will also present maintenance problems. If the gearbox has to be removed, unless it has an electronic tachograph with an umbilical cord, you will lose the sealing on the tachograph. This will cause more expense and labour.

The cost will be disproportionate compared to the safety benefit of the regulation as it applies to historic vehicles, as the cost of calibrating and sealing a tachograph will be comparable to the annual insurance bill. It costs around £50 to pay for the calibration and sealing but only about £100 for the insurance. I argue that the cost of calibrating is disproportionate. An owner will usually have to take time off from his day job to take the vehicle to be calibrated, thereby losing either a day’s pay or a day’s holiday. Younger vehicles will be less attractive to preserved vehicles enthusiasts, as they will need to comply with the regulations. In that way we could lose some of our heritage.

When moving his Motion the Minister was very unhelpful in regard to the private use of heavy-goods vehicles. If I was in his position, I would probably have to do the same. However, he should not underestimate the damage that these regulations will do to the reputation of the European Union at places such as tractor engine rallies. The enthusiasts will suffer the extra day when they have to take the vehicle to have the tachograph calibrated which they might otherwise spend on maintaining the vehicle.

8.15 pm

Lord Livsey of Talgarth: My Lords, I have sympathy with the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. I was in the Territorial Army at one stage and in a driver training unit when I did national service a very long time ago. I understand what he is talking about.

I want very briefly to address the case made by my noble friend Lord Bradshaw. According to our briefings, these rules apply to the whole of Great Britain and these regulations will crucially impact on already disadvantaged rural areas. Certainly the areas in Wales which I am familiar with have only 75 to 80 per cent of the GDP of the UK and a very low-wage economy, which disadvantages many people who cannot afford to run alternative transport. Indeed, young people trying to get to work depend very much on bus services, as do the elderly.

I declare an interest as the former Member for Brecon and Radnorshire, the equal largest constituency in England and Wales, and I am the president of a dial-a-ride organisation for disabled and elderly people. We have five buses which travel over 100,000 miles a year within the specified rural area.



19 Jun 2007 : Column 172

Our sparse population is not adequately provided for in these regulations. If you turned the county of Powys around 90 degrees, it would run across the south of England from the Severn Bridge to 11 miles beyond central London. That is the kind of area that I am talking about; sparsity of population is an enormous problem.

Another issue is the distance of 31.6 miles which my noble friend Lord Bradshaw mentioned. Because so many schools have been closed, all the buses that go through my village taking children to school exceed that distance on a round trip. I would like to think that the people who have been gold-plating these regulations understand the difficulties in many rural areas. We also undertake cross-border journeys—for example, between Brecon and Hereford or Newton and Shrewsbury—which exceed these distances considerably, and we have a bus route of 100 miles, from Cardiff, Merthyr, Brecon, Abergavenny and back to Cardiff, serving rural areas.

We must have derogation for our sparsely populated areas. I am familiar with the Highlands of Scotland; in mid-Wales we have a similar population density. This issue must be reviewed. I fear that some of the gold-plating has been done by people who work in places such as Woking. I was at the railway station there one day, and I counted 146 trains going to the same destination from Woking station. We lost our railways 40 years ago. We were promised bus services to replace them. We had six trains a day; we now have none. People should realise the deprivation of sparsely populated areas and the impact these regulations will have in making things unaffordable. Powys school transport costs £5.5 million. A French company has come in and underbid the local contractors. I am in favour of the EU but that is the kind of thing that is happening at the moment.

Viscount Brookeborough: My Lords, I support especially what the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has said. I will be brief; I was not going to speak but I think I can add something to it.

I declare an interest in that I am the honorary Colonel of the Rangers, which is a Northern Ireland infantry battalion, and I am also on the National Employer Advisory Board, a UK-wide board set up to advise the Government on their relations with employers and reservists and vice versa. I am not speaking as a representative of that board. I only indicate that as an interest and therefore that I am aware of some of what the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has said.

At present, somewhere between 7 per cent and 10 per cent of our forces in Afghanistan and Iraq are reservists. Our forces could not survive without their support, and I know that the Government fully recognise that. That shows what an incredible omission it was in the first place to leave the volunteer reserve out of this derogation. It is not criminal; I do not mean that, but it is simply amazing. The secret of the reservists is those who employ them. We can maintain the reserves’ support only with their employers’ support. The reservists will never be full time, so their first obligation is not only to their

19 Jun 2007 : Column 173

families but to their employers and their full-time jobs. It is not a matter of whether we want to please the employers. That is why the National Employer Advisory Board was put together. It is fundamental and vital.

Moreover, if we have a problem in any particular sector of employers—in this instance it is obviously the hauliers—it will haemorrhage if it is not worked out. The employers are incredibly supportive at the moment, but they cannot be so for ever if we do not carry out what should have been our obligation in the very first place. Last year I went to Basra as part of the National Employer Advisory Board. We took an employer who has 12 lorries and 12 drivers. Two of his drivers are reservists—12 per cent of his workforce.

This is not a funny little thing that hits the odd driver; it affects many key people. If they are unable to do their reserve training on a weekend, it does not just hit their personal training; it hits someone else who should be training—be it on Javelin, mortars or whatever—because the first person has to drive the truck, which means the second person does not get the training. That is vital. I visited the Royal Irish Rangers last week when they were training in Brecon. Because of the lack of funds—although my point is not about lack of funds but lack of foresight—they cannot fire Javelins in practice. They therefore need every minute of practice and training they can get, but if you have to take someone out of that because he happens to be able to drive a four-tonner, he will not get that training. Everyone is well aware of what goes on in Afghanistan, and I would hate to be responsible for anyone not being there with the correct amount of training. Take the Ulster Transport Regiment. Fifteen per cent of their people who have been deployed since Op. TELIC 1 have done HGV driving for a living.

I plead that people listen to the amendment and that the Government do what they always can: to expedite something they should have done in the first place. They have a responsibility to our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this discussion. It has been valuable and helpful. I entirely respect the different positions taken by noble Lords on the real and meaningful issues that have been raised. I do not wish to belittle anyone’s contribution to this debate in my comments. I will try to address many of the issues that have been raised. It has been a long debate on a statutory instrument, which is unusual.

Next Section Back to Table of Contents Lords Hansard Home Page