§ (1) Undertakers executing any code-regulated works in a street which crosses or is crossed by, or is in the vicinity of, a railway, dock, harbour, pier, canal or inland navigation, shall comply with any reasonable requirements made to them by the authority having the management thereof for providing against the displaying of lights so as to involve risk of their being mistaken for any signal light or other light used for controlling, directing or securing the safety of traffic thereon or being a hindrance to the ready interpretation of any such signal or other light.
§ (2) Undertakers executing any code-regulated works at a crossing of a railway on the level shall comply with any reasonable requirements as to the arrangements for executing the works, in respect of hours of work or in any other respect, which are made to them by the authority having the management of the railway undertaking for securing the safety of persons employed in connection with the works or for securing that interference with traffic on the railway caused by the execution thereof is reduced so far as is practicable; and, in the case of any such works of which seven or three days' notice to the authority is required under section six of this Act but submission to them of a plan and section is not required, the undertakers shall defer beginning them for such further period as the authority may reasonably request as needed for formulating their requirements or making their traffic arrangements.
§ (3) If undertakers fail to satisfy an obligation to which they are subject by virtue of either of the preceding subsections, they shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds.—[Mr. Barnes.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
1967§ Mr. BarnesI beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This is largely a transport Clause. The British Transport Commission have drawn my attention to a number of points which I think the Committee wish to safeguard. In the first place, they point out that any lights which undertakers carrying out street works either near a railway or a canal or some inland navigation place might exhibit, such as red lamps, could easily be misleading and interfere with road signalling and safety arrangements. They wish the necessary safeguards to be inserted, and the first subsection of the new Clause meets that position.
The British Transport Commission also consider that where undertakers' works are carried on or near a railway level-crossing, that adds to the risks that can be incurred at such places. They think it is only right that the railways should make the necessary provisions for the safety and control of the railway traffic over the level crossing. This new Clause makes provision for that protection. Subsection (3), is a penalty provision in the event of undertakers failing to satisfy the obligations placed upon them by the Clause.
§ Mr. PowellThere are two points I wish to put to the Minister about this Clause. The first relates to the words:
securing the safety of persons employed in connection with the works ….It occurs to me that the requirements which the railway undertaking might make upon the undertakers executing the code-regulated works might have regard not only to the safety of persons employed in connection with the works but of persons employed in the railway undertaking or of persons travelling on the railway. I wonder whether those requirements have not been inadvertently overlooked.I appeal to the Minister to look again at the really atrocious drafting of the last four and a half lines of subsection (2), in which, for example, the word "them" refers, in the two places where it occurs, to different things. I suggest that it should not be difficult to tidy up that last part of the subsection, which, speaking for the moment as a textual critic, I would conjecture was added by a later hand.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.