HC Deb 03 April 1958 vol 585 cc1387-404

12.2 p.m.

Mr. Ernest Davies (Enfield, East)

I rise to draw attention to the observance and enforcement of certain provisions of the Road Traffic Acts, particularly as they concern the operation of the road haulage industry. I am taking this opportunity to raise the matter because it cannot be dealt with adequately at Question time. I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for having selected this as one of the subjects to be debated on the Adjournment before the Easter Recess.

There are a large number of provisions in the Road Traffic Acts which concern the orderly operation of the road haulage industry. There are, particularly, provisions of the Acts concerning working conditions, and it is to two of these, in particular, which have been widely infringed in recent months, if not in the last two years, that I wish to draw attention.

There are two provisions which concern employees in the industry, Section 19 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, lays down the number of hours which can be worked by drivers or other employees, and in particular limits them to 11 hours' continuous driving and a certain number of hours in 24. Section 16 of the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, requires that records shall be kept by drivers on behalf of the operators and that these records shall contain particulars of the journeys made. It is only by checking the log sheets that it is possible to ascertain the number of hours which have been worked and whether the statutory requirements are being observed.

In a competitive industry it is inevitable that there should be some breaches of the law, but it is most regrettable that since denationalisation, under the Transport Act, 1953 there has been a steady increase in the number of offences committed, the number of prosecutions and the number of convictions. I have only to quote figures which have been given to me in reply to Questions to show this. For instance, in respect of Section 19 of the 1930 Act, in 1954, when denationalisation was just beginning, there were 924 convictions for nonobservance of the requirements relating to working hours. The figure nearly doubled in 1955 to 1,743 and it increased to 3,336 in 1956. Thus, the number of convictions has more than trebled in three years.

The enforcement officers were used in connection with the petrol rationing scheme in 1957, so there was no enforcement during part of the year. However, by the last quarter of 1957, when enforcement was again being carried out, the number of prosecutions and convictions recovered, as it were, to the rate which had previously prevailed. That shows that there was no diminution in 1957. The annual rate on the basis of the last quarter was more than 2,000.

It is, as I said, inevitable that there should be some non-observance of the law, but it is most regrettable that there should have been this very large increase; and there is evidence to show that only a small proportion of the offences committed are brought to court. Anyone who is interested in the transport industry, travels on the roads and meets drivers will obtain ample evidence of the very large number of drivers who are being employed for far longer hours than the Acts permit. If one visits a transport café and speaks to the drivers there, sees the weary state that some of them are in, and hears of the long hours worked, one is shocked and surprised at what is going on. Every night there are drivers who should not be driving at all. They have been working far longer than the 11 continuous hours permitted, they are weary and a danger to others on the roads.

Whenever I have drawn attention to this matter in the House, or have written about it in the Press, drivers have written to me about breaches in the law. I have a batch of letters here. I will quote just one. The driver writes: We are doing 250–300 miles daily on trips and, at the same time, delivering the goods to shops at an average of 12 drops each long journey and putting about 15 hours' driving time in each day. We are going mad, driving at this rate … We may do Manchester to the North-East Coast with 15 drops and a round trip of 300 miles—this is a day's work, but still our wage for all this is £10 flat. We have got to fiddle our log sheets down to the 11 hours' driving time. I have done a 650 mile round trip with deliveries and have to be back the following day. One has only to see the distances which these drivers have travelled mentioned in the charges to know full well that they could not possibly have driven within the limits imposed by the law.

Not only have I received this evidence, but in the commercial Press, such as Motor Transport, Headlight, and other papers concerned with transport, there are constantly reports of cases which have been brought before the licensing authorities and in which the figures of the long distances driven have been given. It is true that, as a whole, operators wish to abide by the law, and that by no means are all road hauliers guilty of committing offences. The regrettable thing is that if certain operators break the law, because of the competitive conditions of the industry, others, who would much prefer to abide by it, may also have to turn a blind eye to the excessive hours which their drivers work.

Many hauliers are very small operators, and, in the excessive competition which prevails in the industry today, following its atomisation, they find that they can make ends meet only by running vehicles to death and by allowing drivers to work excessive hours. It may be correctly said that no breach of the law can take place without the connivance of the drivers themselves. That is true enough, but there are two reasons why drivers accept the conditions imposed by their employers.

The first is the great temptation to earn extra money, and easy money inasmuch as, because it is paid in contravention of the law, it is generally handed out in cash and not returned for tax purposes. Drivers can easily earn a few extra pounds a week if they fall to the temptation of exceeding the maximum permitted number of hours of work and if they are willing to "fiddle" their log sheets to give a false picture of the hours worked.

The second reason why drivers fall to this temptation is the fear of losing their jobs. Less scrupulous hauliers insist on drivers breaking the law under threat of dismissal. In one of the cases brought to me from time to time a man who accepted dismissal because he refused to work excessive hours was refused unemployment benefit when he applied for it. However, representations were made and he obtained unemployment benefit, but that example shows that this is a quite usual practice in the industry.

Enforcement is a problem. It is very difficult to enforce the law when there are nearly 1½ million vehicles subject to this legislation. Unfortunately, the Minister has not found it possible to appoint sufficient enforcement officers. In reply to a Question of mine recently, he said that there were 102 driving and traffic examiners employed full time. That is a ridiculous number. It is ludicrous that there should be only 102 enforcement officers to deal with nearly 1½ million vehicles. That is one enforcement officer to 15,000 vehicles. How can one enforcement officer possibly watch that number of vehicles?

It is very difficult for these officers successfully to bring prosecutions, to obtain the necessary evidence, because they cannot stop any vehicle without being accompanied by a police officer in uniform. That limits their activities considerably, because they have to make it known that they are to take action and they have to obtain the services of a police officer to do so.

Enforcement officers are engaged not only on enforcement of provisions about working conditions, but are also employed from time to time in giving driving tests to motorists, and on a great number of other activities. When I put that Question, only 102 were employed full time. The Minister said that he was recruiting more enforcement officers and I believe that he is trying to engage another 50, although I do not think that they will all be employed full time on this aspect of the Ministry's work.

One reason why it is difficult to recruit more officers is that the pay is inadequate. The salaries are inadequate to attract and retain in this type of work people who are skilled and qualified and who have integrity. I believe that it is the desire of the Minister to enforce the law. Whenever I have brought cases to his attention, as I frequently have, full investigation has been made and, in many cases, prosecutions have taken place, but Ministers should not rely on letters from Members of Parliament, or informers, or snoopers, for the enforcement of the law. It should be possible to employ sufficient people in their legitimate work to enforce it effectively.

Apart from conditions in the industry, the main factor which prevents the proper enforcement of the law in this respect is that the punishment is not adequate for the crime. The penalties imposed are not sufficient to act as a deterrent to infringement of the law. I have come across many cases where very small fines have been imposed when a large number of breaches has occurred and when the road haulier has clearly been using his vehicles and employing his drivers outside the law, and thus getting far more value out of them and bringing in more revenue. In cases like that, a few pounds here and there make no difference. They are part of his expenses, as it were, and can be deducted from the extra profit which he is able to make by engaging in the competition in this way.

Only last month, the Minister wrote to inform me of the action taken in some cases which I have sent to him. He said about one case: One operator and five of his drivers were prosecuted in January and on conviction were fined a total of £15 10s. on a number of charges … That is ludicrous. What difference does a fine of that sort make to the operator when several offences have been committed and when he has obviously gained more by employing his drivers for hours longer than permitted and conniving with them in getting false log sheets?

I should like to quote one more example, because it is equally demonstrative of the inadequacy of the penalties. A Hull and Grimsby haulage firm was fined a total of £292 on 73 summonses. That works out at roughly £4 per summons If three, four or five times that amount is earned on each breach of the law it is clear that any firm will be willing to pay the fines.

If the law is to be properly enforced there must be a deterrent—and the deterrent can be the suspension, for a period, or the complete revocation of the A and B licences under which the vehicles operate. The law already provides those penalties. They can be imposed, but they are very rarely resorted to by magistrates or licensing authorities. In 1956, in over 9,000 successful prosecutions under Section 19 of the 1930 Act and Section 16 of the 1933 Act, there were only four revocations of licences and seven suspensions. Only on 11 occasions out of 9,000 was the more severe penalty of revocation or suspension resorted to by the courts.

That is no deterrent to the unscrupulous or ruthless operator. In the last quarter of 1957, out of 1,910 successful prosecutions there was not a single case of revocation or suspension. The Minister's powers are limited. He cannot give directions to licensing authorities. But he can make it known in various ways what his wishes are, and his wishes are not generally ignored by licensing authorities.

The only long-term cure for this parlous state of the goods traffic part of the industry is reorganisation, but that is not the purpose of the debate. Only when we return to a planned transport system and abolish the excessive competition resulting from the atomisation of the industry following denationalisation will we remove the temptation for operators to employ drivers for far longer hours than the Statutes permit, and for drivers to work those longer hours in order to gain more money. In the meantime, the Minister could help to minimise the number of occasions on which the Statutes are broken by employing more officers and streamlining and improving the procedure under which they operate, and, at the same time, persuading licensing authorities to resort to more severe penalties when they deal with cases of repeated infringement of the Statutes.

The Minister should substantially increase the number of enforcement officers and should overhaul the methods used by them, so that the procedure can be simplified. He should also make known the seriousness of these offences and his determination to reduce them. It lies within his power to take far more effective steps than he has so far, and to bring to an end the present position whereby many drivers of heavy vehicles not only endanger themselves through excessive fatigue, but also increase the danger to other road users. I ask him to take this matter seriously and to consider what further steps he can take to ensure that the law is observed and safety on the roads improved.

12.25 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Hirst (Shipley)

We always appreciate the opportunities—even if they are fleeting—to discuss our transport industry. When we compare the situation existing here, with all its slight blemishes, to that which obtains in many other countries, we find a tremendous amount upon which we can congratulate ourselves. I rather regret what the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) said upon the subject of nationalisation. I do not think that it is a factor of any moment in this discussion, except in the context in which he used it. It is inevitable that when a transport system is broken down into smaller units a few managers will be found who are not of the same calibre as those of the larger units, whether they be nationalised or not.

The competition to which he refers may help to bring this situation about, but we must get the matter in perspective. Although the number of infringements under the two relevant Sections have increased—and they have increased impressively if they are viewed upon a percentage basis—they must be considered in the context of the enormous amount of transport which is now flowing along our roads. It is absolutely colossal. In that context I cannot agree that the number of offences is very great, although we should all like to see a decrease.

We must pay tribute to the high standard of conduct on our roads. I travel quite a lot, and I never cease to be impressed by the standard of driving of commercial transport drivers, whether they are nationalised or not. There is also a very high standard of courtesy among them, which is unequalled in any other country. I wish that more courtesy was shown by private drivers. These factors should be weighed against the other little blemishes.

I like to go into road transport cafés. I find them much better places than the other cafés which can be found up and down the Great North Road. I cannot bear out what the hon. Member for Enfield, East says about their being full of dejected and tired gentlemen, leaning on the tables, "done in". That is quite contrary to my view. I am privileged to know many of these drivers, and they know me. I talk to them, and I find that they are usually exceedingly happy, jolly, alive and awake. There is a danger of our creating in the public mind the false impression that there is something terribly wrong about the situation.

There may be room for improvement, but I know of no walk in life where there is not. We should make it clear that we feel that, generally speaking, our affairs on the roads are run extremely well, and the standard is extremely high. We should make it clear that we feel that it is something that we can be proud of and can show off to visitors. Such blemishes as exist are infinitesimal compared with the usually high standard of conduct both of operators and drivers.

The hon. Member for Enfield, East seeks only to serve a sensible and useful purpose, but I think that we are sometimes apt to cry stinking fish about ourselves—and cause others to believe it to be true—when there is no reason for crying or for stink.

12.29 p.m.

Mr. David Jones (The Hartlepools)

I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst) is comparing like with like when he suggests that we should compare the standard of conduct in this matter with that which exists abroad, because the situations are entirely different. I would remind him that the first Act from which these regulations were made is now twenty-eight years old, and the other is twenty-five years old. If Parliament thought that this kind of standard of conduct was necessary on the roads twenty-five years ago, how much more important is it today, with the tremendously increased volume of traffic? My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) was bound to introduce the problem of nationalisation, because it was the breaking up of the nationalised fleet by the Act of 1953 and the intensification of competition on the roads that brought about these conditions.

I would not disagree with the hon. Member for Shipley when he talks about the standard of driving and the demeanour of the average driver. The drivers of heavy vehicles are among the best class of the community. It is all the more tragic, therefore, that they should be subjected to the kind of iniquities to which they are subjected by unscrupulous employers. It is because we have a standard of drivers of heavy vehicles which is second to none that we ought not to subject them, in the interest of competition, to the temptations to which they are subjected these days.

A driver in charge of a heavy vehicle of, maybe, two-and-a-half, three, four or five tons unladen weight and with a volume of goods on the vehicle, who has been on the road for 11, 12, 13 or 14 hours, is not only a serious danger to himself, but to every other road user whether he be the driver of a private car, a passenger in a passenger service vehicle, a cyclist or a pedestrian. After long periods on the road, drivers of heavy vehicles must of necessity be fatigued.

It may be argued that if a driver declined to co-operate in breaking the law, the law would not be broken. That would be putting such a driver who is dependent for his livelihood on cooperating with his employer in an impossib1e position. If a driver declined to break the law, the chances are that in a reasonably short time following that refusal an excuse would be found for getting rid of him. Where would he go from there? What would be his chances of getting a job with another private enterprise firm if he had first to reveal to his prospective employer the name of his late employer? The prospective employer would no doubt telephone the previous employed, who would probably reply something like this, "I dismissed him because he would not drive for 11 hours." Does anyone really believe that that driver would get the job?

I suggest, therefore, that to ask drivers to be themselves responsible for keeping their employers within the law is asking far too much. If in the interests of safety on the roads it was necessary twenty-eight and twenty-five years ago, respectively, to introduce these regulations, how much more important and necessary is it today?

My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East said that there are nearly 1½ million licensed commercial vehicles on the roads today. A substantial proportion of them are vehicles of more than two tons unladen weight. By and large, the road system of this country has not improved substantially from what it was twenty-eight years ago. If it was important in 1930 and 1933 that the law should be preserved, how much more important is it in 1958? The responsibility for seeing that the law is observed and that, if it is broken, effective action is taken, lies with the Ministry of Transport.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East said, in 1956 more than 3,000 prosecutions were instituted. I would remind the House that that was the number of people who were actually caught. How many others were not caught because of the limited number of enforcement officers? The number is not the total number of offences committed in 1956; it is merely the number of convictions of those caught in the act of breaking the law. The actual number of those breaking the law must obviously have been considerably more than that.

The other danger which has not been discussed this morning is that of vehicles which are operating in a condition of unfitness. With increased congestion on the roads, it is obviously vitally important that the regulations should be observed and that the law should be enforced to the maximum possible degree. Therefore, I support my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East in urging the Ministry to give serious consideration to increasing substantially the number of enforcement officers.

One other point I wish to make is that if owners of privately-owned commercial vehicles are permitted to get away with breaking the law to a substantial extent, it means that the other forms of transport which are observing the law are unable to procure in fair competition the traffic which they are entitled to carry. It may very well be that that is why the volume of freight carried on British Railways in 1957 was less than that in 1956.

As a consequence of that—I do not propose to do more than refer to the matter in passing—the railwaymen are being called upon to endure conditions of employment which are not in keeping with conditions observed in other industries. It seems to me to be quite unfair that the road transport industry, particularly the small owner of a limited number of vehicles, should be allowed to flout the law in this way and thus reflect adversely upon the conditions under which railwaymen are employed.

The remedy lies in the hands of the Ministry of Transport. The Parliamentary Secretary may say that the Minister has no authority other than to observe the law. I am quite sure that within the Ministry there are channels through which the views of the Ministry can be conveyed to licensing authorities throughout the country. I would emphasise the need for the Ministry to give consideration to increasing the number of enforcement officers employed. That, in turn, would involve a reconsideration of the salaries paid to these enforcement officers. I urge the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us that the Ministry is proposing to take all these remedies so that this state of affairs may be put right.

12.39 p.m.

Mr. J. A. Sparks (Acton)

I want to leave the Minister sufficient time in which to reply to the debate, but I should like, very briefly, to say that I support my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) and my hon. Friend the Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones) in what they have said on this matter. I certainly disagree with the approach of the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst), which seemed to be one of complacency and sheer indifference. I do not think that anyone on this side of the House attempted to make a wholesale and sweeping indictment of all road operators and all road drivers, but, in most walks of life, it is the irresponsible minority—the anarchists, if we like to call them such—which endangers good law and order.

Mr. Hirst

I would like to correct the hon. Gentleman. It is not a question that my speech was intended to be complacent. I only asked that we should put the matter in perspective. I said that the 3,500 prosecutions were unfortunate, and I did not approve of it at all, but there are, as the hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones) mentioned, 1½ million vehicles on the roads, travelling I do not know how many journeys. It is only a question of proportion, not of complacency.

Mr. Sparks

I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman is coming a little nearer to our point of view. He agrees with us that the irresponsible minority must be watched, and, if necessary, that action must be taken in the interests of the whole community. There he comes very much nearer to our view.

We know the difficulties which the Minister may have in enforcing the law in this respect. We know that the vehicles on the roads today, compared with those on the roads twenty-five or twenty-eight years ago, have about doubled in size and number. Therefore, the road transport problem has become much more intense than it was at the time when the Road Traffic Acts were passed through the House.

In view of the increasing traffic, the increasing danger, and the appeals that are constantly made for greater care on the roads, as well as the increasing volume year by year of injuries and fatalities, we must ever be vigilant to reduce the hazards on the roads to the absolute minimum. That is the intention of this debate. We do not seek to penalise the good operator or the good driver. We want to strengthen the law against the anarchists, who will, if they can, evade their obligations under the law, and who not only evade them but exercise a power of intimidation over their employees.

It is not a very easy matter for an employee to defy his employer without running the risk of being dismissed and having his character blackened. When he looks for another job, he has to produce a testimonial. What sort of testimonial will he get from his previous employer when that employer has sacked him because he was not prepared to break the law?

The Minister ought to try, if he can, to catch up with these people. The only way I can see in which he can do that is by strengthening the establishment of his enforcement officers, Let us have a few more of them. At present, they are totally inadequate. In an Adjournment debate we cannot talk about matters that involve legislation, but this is something that must be constantly watched in order to reduce this irresponsible minority in road transport to the absolute minimum.

If it is allowed to grow, and the bad practices are allowed to continue, they will completely undermine the whole structure of road transport, because the good employers and operators will inevitably, on account of this unfair competition, be driven to resort to the same methods. While that situation continues, it is a real threat to the industry itself and to all of those who have to use the highways.

12.45 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent)

In rising to reply to this debate, I recognise the interest of the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies), which has gone back over a good many years. The hon. Gentleman was asking questions on this topic three or four years ago. I agree with him that we gain a general benefit from a short debate of this kind, when we can put matters more completely in their proper perspective.

I welcome and agree with some aspects of the debate. Certainly, we are concerned to see that the Acts of 1930 and 1933 are properly administered, in so far as they concern these matters, and, also, to see that enforcement is adequate. I will give the figures for the information of the House.

The hon. Member for Enfield, East made a number of very general allegations which are not supported by evidence. We are always ready to take up evidence of any particular case, as the hon. Member mentioned, and let me say straight away that those cases of which we are informed in that informal and private way are the merest fringe of the total number. The vast majority of cases are dealt with in the ordinary process of enforcement, and I hope that I shall leave the impression in the House that the view which is taken by hon. Members opposite—that there is widespread intimidation of employees by employers who cause them to make these breaches of the law—is not supported by evidence.

It is not fair to make the allegation, and I warmly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst) that this is a very reputable industry. It is true that it is a highly competitive and young industry, and, indeed, its rates are tremendously low. I suppose that is one of the range of prices which has risen less than any other in the last year or two. Though that may make difficulties, it is certainly giving benefits to the traders concerned.

Let me give the figures about staffing. The pre-war figure was about 100. Our permanent establishment for this purpose is 100, and our system is to add to that figure of 100 permanent enforcement officers—traffic examiners, we call them—a rota from the driving examiners' staff, which we hope will rise to 52. At present, it has been varying between one or two and about a dozen or so, but we feel that these traffic examiners who have this experience will be a most valuable fortification in this kind of work. Our total hoped-for establishment will be 152 in due course. At present, we have 94 of our permanent officers in post and we are advertising five vacancies, which we hope to fill in the course of the next few months.

With regard to driving examiners, we have been heavily handicapped by the necessity to take them off enforcement work during the petrol rationing period, and we have also had a backlog of driving applications to deal with, but we have now shifted that fairly well and reduced the waiting period to an average of five weeks. We are holding a further competition this summer and we hope to enrol a considerable additional number of driving examiners. We have 775 now in post, and I hope that we shall be able to enrol another 100 or so. If we are able to do that and cope with the backlog, I think that there is every prospect in the coming months of gradually increasing the number who will be able to go over to this work.

Hon. Members have made some play with the fact that there has been a rising number of prosecutions in connection with Section 16 of the 1933 Act and Section 19 of the 1930 Act. Over recent years, in fact, the number of prosecutions is, in proportion, less than it was in prewar years. I know that that is an argument that could be used either way, but I do not think that it supports the argument that the situation has deteriorated since 1953 and denationalisation. The fact is that licensing authorities proceed rather more with warnings to first offenders and proceed to prosecutions only in the more serious cases.

The size of the fine, about which the hon. Member for Enfield, East complained, is entirely within the discretion of the court. With some responsibility for traffic matters, I, not unnaturally, sometimes feel that fines are not as adequate as they should be. On the other hand, in days gone by, when I sat as a member of a bench of magistrates, I have taken a different view of the situation. So there it is. The courts have their constitutional independence and we have to accept that they will move broadly in line with public opinion. I think that there is a tendency for fines to rise not only for these offences, but for motoring offences generally, although I agree with the hon. Member that at times they seem to be on the lenient side.

The licensing authorities can suspend or revoke licences. That is a very serious penalty. It is also true that they do not do this in very many cases.

Mr. Ernest Davies

The offences are serious.

Mr. Nugent

I agree, but we must leave it to the good judgment of the licensing authorities, and their experience, to decide in which cases it is right to adopt that course. Again, I must give the reply to the hon. Member which I have given before, that I do not think it would be right for my right hon. Friend to interfere with the judgment of the licensing authorities.

Reference has been made to the nature of the breaches. I agree that the failure to keep proper records is a breach. Safety factors, which were referred to by the hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones), are the responsibility of the vehicle examiners. I do not think that there is any problem on the staff side. A great deal has been said about the actual keeping of records. The hon. Member for Enfield, East alleged—and the allegation has been made generally—that these records are not kept correctly. It is difficult to say. We prosecute in a number of cases and we make spot checks of vehicles on the road where we suspect that operators are not keeping records. Enforcement officers will follow these people to see what does happen.

But I do not think it fair to make a general allegation against the road haulage industry that records are faked, because we simply do not know. The record of breaches of the regulations and of prosecutions is there, the number is fairly large—

Mr. Sparks

May I ask—

Mr. Nugent

I cannot give way, because I have little time in which to finish what I have to say. I listened with interest, and I think with courtesy, to what hon. Gentlemen opposite had to say—

Mr. D. Jones

And I hope that the hon. Gentleman learnt something.

Mr. Nugent

I hope so, and I hope that hon. Members opposite will listen to me and will learn something. But I say roundly that it is unfair to make such a general allegation against the road haulage operators.

Mr. Jones

It is true.

Mr. Nugent

The hon. Member says, "It is true." He has no evidence that it is generally true. Where cases are brought to our attention we prosecute, and we are continually checking the records, but I do not agree that these people, generally speaking, are less honest and less law abiding than other sections of the community. I must reject that suggestion.

The hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) and the hon. Member for The Hartlepools referred to the question of road safety, and I am concerned that excessive hours should not be worked by the men who drive the vehicles, because that would be dangerous for them and for the community as a whole. But on examining the figures, one finds that there were 55,000 accidents to goods vehicles—which is not a great number out of the 1¼ million vehicles on the roads—and, according to police records, only 65 of those accidents were attributable to excessive fatigue. It would not appear, therefore, that the practice is widespread.

Again, I do not think it fair or right to make allegations of this kind which cannot be effectively disproved but which, on the other hand, cannot be effectively proved.

Mr. Jones

Then what do we do?

Mr. Nugent

It may be that breaches are committed more often by the smaller operators than the bigger operators, but there is no evidence to show that that is so. I was concerned to hear the hon. Member for The Hartlepools, with all his seniority and responsibility, make the allegation that employees are intimidated into faking their records. Allegations of that kind may be made in this House, but they are simply not worth the air which they displace when they are made unless they are supported by evidence. We will examine any evidence which comes to us. I say once again that it is not fair to the road haulage industry to make allegations of that kind—

Mr. Jones

rose—

Mr. Nugent

No, I. cannot give way, I have only five minutes left.

I will gladly take up any case which the hon. Member brings to my notice. No one could feel more strongly against such a practice than I. It would be a most reprehensible state of affairs if it existed. Indeed, when there are prosecutions it appears, as the hon. Member will know from the figures I have sent him, that in a large number of cases the employer is the person prosecuted and in not quite so many it is the employee. But there is nothing to show that it is only the employer who is at fault. After all, it is human to err. People will commit breaches of the regulations over this matter as over other matters, and I am not going to accept that it is simply the employers who are at fault.

The hon. Member for Enfield, East and the hon. Member for The Hartlepools said that the real trouble stemmed from the time when the long-distance haulage industry was denationalised; and that the only cure would be to reverse that situation. But it was not the experience of this country that when there was more naionalisation, when hon. Members opposite were in power, with a greater number of rules and regulations, that there were fewer breaches of the regulations. Never has this country seen a greater number of breaches or black markets—

Mr. Ernest Davies

Where is the hon. Gentleman's evidence for that?

Mr. D. Jones

That is a generalisation.

Mr. Nugent

It is not a generalisation at all, it is recorded firmly in the hearts of the people. Never have we seen such a period of black markets and breaches of regulations. If the solution offered by hon. Members opposite is to re-organise—as it was put by the hon. Member—or to renationalise the long-distance road haulage industry, that is, the A and B licences, I must point out to them that the majority of the vehicles in this industry carry C licences. The number of C licences is three times the number of A and B licences. What do hon. Members opposite propose to do about that? Will they nationalise the C licences as well?

Mr. Jones

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman should wait and see.

Mr. Ernest Davies

It will require legislation.

Mr. Speaker

Order. There cannot be proposals for renationalising during an Adjournment debate, whether or not there may be such proposals on other occasions.

Mr. Nugent

The suggestions were made by hon. Members opposite and I hope that I have not transgressed in replying to them. I think that my point was a fair one. What has been said today by hon. Gentlemen opposite will leave great apprehensions in the minds of many people.

These regulations and their enforcement are serving their general purpose. The case of the hon. Member for Enfield, which he advocates warmly, and which he has been making progressively for years now, that the whole situation has deteriorated since 1953, is not borne out by the facts. It is simply a matter of guesswork. The hon. Member started with that conclusion and ends up with the same conclusion, and there is nothing to prove it. I ask hon. Members opposite to see this matter in perspective. I give this round assurance to the House, that it is our duty and, indeed, our intention, to make this enforcement effective and to strengthen further the enforcement staff.

We certainly intend to make the regulations as effective as we can and to prevent the kind of abuse that has been suggested today. In all fairness to the road haulage industry it should go out from here that the industry is not less law-abiding than the rest of the community. The picture we see here shows that enforcement is reasonable. As we overcome our staff difficulties we shall try to make it even more stringent.