HC Deb 31 May 1956 vol 553 cc524-32

8.0 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Strauss

I beg to move, in page 4, line 23, to leave out subsection (3).

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris)

It might be convenient to consider, with this Amendment, the proposed Amendment, in page 4, line 36, to leave out from "section" to "he", and that in line 38, to leave out from "section" to the second "the".

Mr. Strauss

I hope that the House will consider this Amendment and the Clause to which it relates very carefully. I suggest that the Clause as it stands is really ridiculous, and in order to make it sensible and effective it must be amended. This Clause provides for the testing of vehicles on the roads. We were told in Committee that to have any system of spot checking it would be necessary to bring the existing law up to date and to make some amendments, and those changes are embodied in Clause 2.

At the start of the Clause is stated the purpose of the testing of vehicles on the roads: Any authorised examiner may test a motor vehicle on a road for the purpose…"— I hope that the House will note the purpose— of ascertaining whether the requirements imposed by law (whether generally or at specified times or in specified circumstances) as to brakes, silencers, steering gear, tyres, and lighting equipment and reflectors are complied with as respects the vehicle, and of bringing to the notice of the driver any failure to comply with those requirements… Anyone reading that would assume, as I certainly assumed, that if cars are tested on the side of the road—it is proposed to test between 40,000 and 60,000 a year—the tester will see whether the brakes, the steering wheel and the lighting are in a reasonable condition.

If the car offends against the law by being below the standard required by the law. the tester must take the appropriate action, which is to report the matter to the authorities. If the purpose of the Clause is as stated, to see whether the law is complied with, surely it is the duty of the inspector to see that if it is not complied with a prosecution shall follow. There could be no other meaning. If the tester found that the brakes were in a dangerous condition, or the lighting was all wrong and the law was broken, he would be in duty bound to take action or he would be condoning an offence.

That purpose of testing cars to see whether the minimum legal standards are being observed is obviously desirable, quite apart from the purpose of telling the owner of the car that his car is not in a good condition or that the lights are out of alignment and ought to be corrected. That is the secondary purpose, but the first is to see whether the law is being broken. Subsection (3) tells us that a motorist whose car is to be examined for this purpose can say to the examiner, "I do not want my car examined now. I should like it examined in a few weeks' time". The examiner cannot then proceed with the examination. The motorist can go away and have his car put into a condition which complies with the law, thus avoiding the penalties which should properly fall upon him. That seems to be entirely ridiculous.

Someone is caught in the act of committing an offence, which may be a very serious offence and result in serious accident or death, but he is to be allowed to say, "I will not allow you to examine the evidence which I carry with me that an offence is being committed. I want to carry the evidence away and have the car put right, so that when you examine the vehicle in a fortnight's time it will be in a perfect condition and there will be no evidence that I have been driving a car in a highly dangerous condition".

Either the purpose of the test on the side of the road must be purely that of giving advice to a motorist and telling him that he should see to this, that or the other thing and have the car put in as good a condition as it ought to be in, or it is, as stated in the Clause, to see whether the law is complied with. I am sure that the Attorney-General would agree that if an officer of the Crown sees that the law is not being complied with he is in duty bound to take the necessary steps to bring the offender to justice.

This matter was dealt with very briefly in the Standing Committee, when the Joint Parliamentary Secretary made this statement: The proposed new Clause gives to the driver the option to have the inspection deferred. If any hon. Member feels inclined to say that the provision is too wide because it would enable the driver of a car which was in a very poor condition to elect to have the inspection deferred and then to have the car put right before the date of the inspection, our reply is that that in itself is no bad thing."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 24th November, 1955; c. 557.] That is extraordinary. Of course it is a good thing for a defect in a car to be put right, but if the purpose is to see whether the law is being broken and if it is found that the law is being broken—it may be in a serious way—it is essential that those who find that the law has been broken, or suspect that it has, should have the opportunity of inspecting the car.

The tester should be able to see whether the brakes are in as appalling a condition as they appear to be and to take the necessary action. If the tester is to be told by the motorist, "I will not let you look at the brakes now but you can look at them in a week's time" one of the chief purposes of the Clause will be violated, and certainly the purpose as stated in subsection (1) will be entirely nullified.

It is no use saying, as the Minister said in Committee, that it is not the intention that the Clause should be a penal clause. I should have thought that the wording of the Clause would make it inevitable and necessary that the tester, finding or suspecting that a violation of the law had taken place, should proceed to test the car, and that if he finds that that is so he must take the offender to court.

Therefore, Z move the deletion of subsection (3) which would enable the motorist to say, "I shall not have my car examined by you, Mr. Inspector, today, but will take it away and you can look at it in a few weeks' time, when it will be in a good condition, and when the very serious offence of driving it in the condition in which it is today cannot be examined by you, and you will not be able to prosecute—as you ought—because I have been driving a dangerous car liable to cause an accident". To put the matter right, I move the Amendment.

Mr. Janner

I want to add a few words to the plea made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss). It seems to me that difficulty will arise if this subsection remains. I think that the argument of my right hon. Friend is a perfectly legitimate one.

If an officer stops a car, is he to say to the driver, "Under subsection (3), you are entitled, if you desire, to have the inspection deferred for a period"? Does the Minister think that in such circumstances anyone would do other than have the inspection deferred? The motorist is not likely to risk a prosecution by having the examination made at that time if he knows that he has this alternative. One might as well say that under no circumstances shall the inspection take place at the time but that the person who is stopped will be told to choose a reasonable time when the inspection shall take place.

I think that my right hon. Friend is perfectly right. That state of affairs would immediately destroy the purpose of the Clause. It would mean that a person could drive an unfit vehicle, and on being found out could say, "Give me time and I will put it right". If that is the intention, it should be stated clearly by the Minister.

There are many cases in which a caution is administered to a person. A policeman will sometimes give a caution. He will say, "You are doing something which is wrong. See that you do not do it again". He acts as a court of justice himself very often. In this matter, however, our aim is to see that cars are in proper condition and that anyone who lets his car fall into a bad condition, which may result in an accident, perhaps a serious accident, shall be found guilty of an offence. I hope that the Minister will take heed of what has been said by my right hon. Friend, and consider the Amendment sympathetically; and, if he cannot accept it, find an Amendment of his own to achieve the same purpose.

Mr. Isaacs

I think there is another angle from which this matter should be looked at. A motorist is stopped on the road and told that his car is dangerous because the lights or the brakes, for instance, are wrong. Then he has thirty days in which he can make up his mind to do something about the defect. That means that he has thirty days in which he can drive that dangerous vehicle anywhere. He could drive it from London to as far as the north of Scotland and back. Suppose that such a man, within the thirty days, causes an injury to somebody with his defective car. Will the fact that he took advantage of the thirtyday period be held against him? Or will he be able to plead, "It was not so bad, and they let me go"? If a man is found to have a dangerous car he ought not to be allowed any more time in which to drive it than that which it will take him to drive the car home or to a garage so that it can be repaired. To allow him freedom to drive anywhere he likes in the United Kingdom for thirty days is bad.

Mr. Watkinson

First I should tell the House why this thirty-day permissive period was prescribed. I want to make it quite plain, because I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) takes a different view of what the reason was. The purpose of this spot checking is not to prosecute motorists. It is to secure that cars are kept in a satisfactory condition. It is the other side of the testing medal, so to speak.

Mr. Strauss

Can the Minister give some guarantee, and can it be clearly stated in the Bill, that in no circumstances will prosecutions follow this roadside checking of cars?

Mr. Watkinson

No, of course I could not give that. Perhaps I may be allowed to develop the matter, for I think there may be a possibility of finding some way through this difficulty.

The purpose of the spot checking is to have a different method, the spot checking method, of trying to persuade motorists to keep their cars up to scratch. It is a method of dealing with cars which at first, perhaps, will not be able to go through the testing stations.

This period was prescribed by my predecessor because it was felt that it should be made plain, if the spot checks were much increased in number, that they were not attempts to prosecute a large number of motorists. but to secure that a larger number of motorists had their cars put right. That is why the thirty-day period was allowed.

8.15 p.m.

That was at a time when my predecessor intended, I think, that the spot check method should be pressed forward much more vigorously, because at that time, I understand, he was not proposing to reintroduce the compulsory testing of cars. I regard the spot checking as a useful adjunct to compulsory testing.

I have been impressed by the arguments put by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall and by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Southwark (Mr. Isaacs). I do not know whether we can find a way through this difficulty of what will happen to the man whose car is in such bad order that he should be prosecuted because he is deliberately endangering other people on the roads. That is a very relevant consideration. On the other hand, of course, it is only fair to say that the vast number of cases will not fall into that category, as, I think, the right hon. Gentleman will agree.

The only way I can see of meeting the right hon. Gentlemen is this, I do not know whether it will. I have only just thought of it, and it is therefore not a complete solution. I am wondering whether we can leave some of the discretion which at present rests with my examiners, so that if an examiner is satisfied that a car, although needing attention, is not dangerous, and that, perhaps, the driver has some genuine reason for not wanting to stop for an examination, he should allow him to proceed. The driver could be one of us, for instance, on an urgent journey to his constituency, or he could be a doctor. I think that such a man may have the advantage of the 30-day rule. If a car is obviously a danger and contravening the law, then, I think, one should, perhaps, try to draft a short Amendment so that my examiner, in conjunction with the policeman, who would, of course, have to be there, because it is the policeman who has to stop the car, would have the right to say, "Obviously this car is in such a dangerous condition the examination must be carried out forthwith."

I do not know whether I can achieve the making of that distinction. It would have to be clearly made, clearly set out, so that normally the ordinary motorist, whose car merely needs attention and who has some valid reason for wishing to defer the examination, may be allowed to do so, but in the special case, where the examiner is satisfied that the car is a danger on the highway and ought not to be allowed to proceed except for a limited distance, he would have authority to carry out the test on the spot.

I am quite prepared to examine that possibility to see if an Amendment to that effect can be made in another place. I do not think that I can go farther than that, and I must make it plain to the right hon. Gentlemen that I am not prepared to omit subsection (3) because I think that that would or could lead to the using of the spot check for a purpose for which I certainly do not want to use it, that is, to secure prosecutions. I do not want to secure prosecutions: I want by this Bill to secure a higher standard of safety on the roads.

Mr. Ede

The right hon. Gentleman has made another offer that he will do something in another place. I ought to have raised this matter on the last new Clause, but I was so overwhelmed by the right hon. Gentleman's generosity that I was disarmed of all suspicion. However, this is a Bill which originated in another place—

Hon. Members

No.

Mr. Watkinson

No. This is a new Bill. The previous Bill ended its life in another place. There is no difficulty in accepting my undertaking. If I give an assurance, I undertake to carry it out, and I have undertaken to try to clear this up.

Mr. Graham Page (Crosby)

I should like from this side of the House to express some sympathy with the case put forward by the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss), and to urge my right hon. Friend to endeavour to think out a solution along the lines which the right hon. Gentleman has suggested. We all appreciate the case of the motorist who may be hastening to catch an aircraft or a ship; we all appreciate that a doctor may have to hasten to a patient.

I raised this matter myself in Committee, and I pointed out that there does not seem to be another case in law in which a man can say, "I wish to defer the examination to see whether I am guilty or not". It seems to me that this latitude could be extended to the man who is drunk when driving a car, who would then say, "I will defer the test of my drunkenness until tomorrow, when I shall be sober".

It is very dangerous to introduce this principle of deferment into this subsection. I am sure that some discretion can be left to the policeman and the examining officer in the case where a motorist is reasonably in a hurry to keep some urgent appointment and his car seems to be in order, but to give a complete right to the motorist to say, "I shall defer this for thirty days", when his car may be in a dangerous condition, is going too far. That provision has never been needed up to the present in checks on commercial vehicles. Discretion has been used where there is some consideration of urgency and the driver should continue his journey, but it would be dangerous to introduce for the private motorist the sort of dispensation provided by the subsection.

Mr. G. R. Strauss

I am grateful to the Minister for his attitude. A way out of the difficulty might be to add to the second paragraph of the proviso in subsection (3), which reads: …where it appears to a police constable. that, by reason of an accident having occurred… something to the effect of "if in the opinion of the examiner the car appears to be in a seriously dangerous condition". It must be remembered that a person, in avoiding the testing of a car in a dangerous condition, may be avoiding a penalty of £50 or three months' imprisonment if he is a really bad offender. I am grateful to the Minister for his offer to look at the matter again, and for that reason I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.