HC Deb 30 January 1967 vol 740 cc209-16

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ioan L. Evans.]

11.34 p.m.

Mr. Peter Mills (Torrington)

I am raising this matter tonight because I feel very strongly, as do others, that the time has come for an amendment to the existing legislation so far as it concerns the log books of drivers of electrically-controlled vehicles over 16 cwt. in weight. Many of my hon. Friends support me, and indeed my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Fortescue), I hope, will be able to catch your eye Mr. Deputy-Speaker.

One of my first jobs was as a milk roundsman. I delivered milk on a hand barrow, and I do not suppose that many hon. Members can say that they have done that. It was not long before I was promoted to delivering in a pony and trap. However, I never advanced to driving an electrically-controlled vehicle such as we are discussing tonight.

The keeping of drivers' records as at present required is a great waste of time and expense for the trade and all retailers who use this type of vehicle, particularly at this time of reduced profits and exceedingly high costs. I have here a copy of a report which appeared in the Daily Telegraph telling of the protests made by dairymen about their profit margin. It shows how difficult it is for the members of the National Dairymen's Association to cope with the rising costs they are experiencing, so much so that they have asked the Government to do something about it by raising the price of milk to help them.

What I am proposing tonight is one way by which the Government could give practical help. I fully appreciate the need for the existing regulations regarding drivers' records in other branches of transport. It is more important than ever today for the regulations to be kept and enforced because of the danger of excessive driving hours. But this cannot apply to electric vehicles; there is no danger there.

We cannot afford to allow this waste of the nation's resources in time and money to continue. Why should records have to be kept of driving hours on electric vehicles used by dairymen, bakers and others? Very little time is actually spent in driving. Why keep records of hours worked when the details have to be given under other regulations relating to wages? It is ridiculous that a driver should have to fill in a log sheet giving his time of starting and the time of all breaks. Anyone in the trade or who has been a milk roundsman knows only too well the number of cups of tea that are offered to a man on his round. He has to put down the time of finishing as well. The sheets must be checked each day, recorded, filed and held for six months. They can be inspected by a Ministry of Transport inspector.

These inspections do take place, and there are a number of cases coming before the courts each year. The inspectors go to ridiculous lengths. I have one example here. A dairyman in the Crow-borough area was before the court for 133 offences of failing to keep proper records, including not showing whether it was a.m. or p.m., not giving the "C" licence number, not giving the company's address in full, not showing the area served in sufficient detail—that is, Crowborough was not considered adequate. What a waste of time. What ridiculous lengths the inspectors have to go to. It is all a terrible waste of time and money. It adds up to at least 1 million wasted man-hours a year, and we cannot afford such waste.

What is the opposition to doing away with these driving logs and records? First, the trade unions. They have obviously felt unhappy in the past, and I can understand that, but why should they feel unhappy now? The vehicles cannot go very far. Is it necessary to put up opposition? The vehicles can go only 25 to 30 miles at the very most, and they must then come in and have their batteries recharged, which takes 12 hours. The roundsmen clock in and out and there are regular rounds every day. I believe that the trade unions would have nothing to fear if there were exemption for that type of vehicle.

Furthermore, most drivers or rounds-men think the keeping of the records is an infernal nuisance. It creates ill-will between management and staff, and most roundsmen would be delighted if further exemption could be made. The Minister may say that we have had a lot of exemption already. That is true. Over the years many electric vehicles have been exempted, but I believe that the need to go further with exemption is now very apparent, for today so many electric vehicles are in the taxation class above 16 cwt. One dairy firm in the Midlands has 1,000 electric vehicles that are not exempted, and in most other cases only five or six per cent. of electric vehicles are exempted. Records must be kept in respect of the rest. Anyway, to save any confusion most firms insist that all must keep full records, whether their vehicles are exempted or not. What a waste of time and energy!

The number of vehicles of this kind grows every year, and the figures show how rapidly it is rising. In 1938, there were only 4,156; in 1955 there were 21,700; and in 1965 there were 40,000—a considerable increase. Those figures do not include pedestrian-controlled vehicles. The figures are large and are growing every year, and we shall see an extension of the use of that type of vehicle.

I believe that because of the extension of the numbers, the problems I have mentioned will grow even greater year by year. Over 2 million weekly log sheets are compiled each year, taking 30 minutes each a week to write, examine, record and file. What a waste of time in these modern and—I hope—enlightened days! Surely, it is time for all concerned to support my plea?

I believe that my suggestion is a fight for increased productivity, and that it would now be welcomed by the trade union movement and by the roundsmen. The Minister of Transport would do a real service to the country if she exempted drivers of electric vehicles from regulations which were never intended to apply to them, and which achieve nothing but a terrible and annoying-to-all waste of effort.

11.43 p.m.

Mr. Ron Lewis (Carlisle)

I support the case made by the hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) and his plea. Drivers of the type of vehicle concerned should be exempted from the present regulations, which are absolutely unnecessary in my view, and a complete waste of a person's time.

The widespread use of electric vehicles was not visualised when the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, was passed. Even in 1935, when the regulations were made, the total of all electric vehicles was about 3,000, and a very limited number was milk vehicles. It is estimated that some 20,000 electric vehicles are now used in retail milk delivery, and they operate within a very limited space. Therefore, it is unnecessary to require drivers to keep log books.

I hope that the Minister will take notice of these please and will cut this work out. It would help to increase productivity and to keep down the cost of milk, because, under the Ministry of Agriculture's control, it could mean that the whole of the benefit would accrue to the public at large. I support the plea made by the hon. Gentleman.

11.45 p.m.

Mr. Tim Fortescue (Liverpool, Garston)

I, too, support the plea of my hon. Friend the Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills). We are talking about the cost of milk distribution, and the last words on cost have been written in the Davies Report, made by Mr. H. L. Davies, former General Manager of the Milk Marketing Board. He presented his Report to the Minister on 17th January last year. He referred to the excellence of the milk distribution we have and the fact that it is unique in that over 95 per cent. of our homes now have milk delivered every day. In the United States, which is the next in the league table, the figure is only about 50 per cent. But Mr. Davies pointed seriously to the increasing costs and said: There is every likelihood that … with the present system of milk distribution. costs will increase and there will need to be further adjustments upwards to consumer prices. The main feature of rising costs on the distributive side has been the substantial increase in wages-cost in the last ten years. Manpower for the job has always been short, although not so short today as it was six months ago. The milk rounds-man's job is far more complicated than most people realise and we are far from the days when it was reported from a West Country town that the local dairy manager had taken on three gentlemen who had recently left the local lunatic asylum and, when reprimanded by head office, had said, "Please do not make me fire them for they are the best men I have." Today a roundsman has to be a man of considerable versatility and skill and he is a difficult man to find.

The Davies Report raised the whole question as to whether the daily milk delivery could continue because of rising prices. He said: I am satisfied personally that consumers like the service and they would he reluctant, and perhaps most reluctant of all the parties, to consent to change. Every possible reduction in the cost burden of the present system of milk distribution must be made so that we can carry on with this daily delivery, which is unique, as long as we can. I ask the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to review the cases in which his inspectors have found breaches of the regulations by examining the files of dairy companies—which have millions of filed copies—and see whether, in any one of these cases, there has been any danger to life on the roads due to the fact that the driver of an electric vehicle has been too tired properly to control his vehicle. I believe that the hon. Gentleman would not find one case and I therefore urge him to persuade the Minister to amend the regulations.

11.48p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler)

I will go straight to the root of the problem raised by the hon. Gentleman for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills). The statutory requirements governing hours of working for goods vehicle drivers are about to celebrate their 37th birthday. If the application of these regulations to drivers of electrically propelled vehicles were nonsensical and wasteful, I would find it astonishing that there had not been very powerful agitation to abolish it.

I recognise that there is a problem here, however, and I shall come to some specific comments in a moment. Let me first sketch the background. It was in the Road Traffic Act, 1930, that the hours of work for drivers of goods vehicles were originally regulated. The present requirements are contained in Section 73 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, which consolidated previous enactments. This Section provides that a driver may not be at the wheel or work on the vehicle for more than 11 hours a day. In connection with this, a roundman is considered to be working on his vehicle when he is actually delivering milk.

The value of this legislation, as applied to goods vehicles in general, is, I think, undisputed. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman for Torrington said that himself. We all realise, especially today, that a fatigued driver is a menace to himself and to all other road users.

But there is a very real difficulty in enforcing regulations on hours limitation. Without some kind of record of the hours a man has worked, the requirement would be quite meaningless. That is why drivers of most vehicles operating under a carriers licence have to keep records of their hours of work, so that these can be inspected by the police and by the Ministry of Transport examiners in the enforcement of the regulations.

Obviously there are certain classes of drivers who are never likely to exceed the hours limits, and, as the hon. Gentleman said, it was to help some of these that in 1962 an exemption from the keeping of records was introduced for the drivers of C-licensed vehicles of under 16 cwt. unladen weight, used only within five miles of their base. This exemption covers many tradesmen and the like engaged in local delivery work. But electric milk floats pose a special problem which is not easy to resolve. They are designed neither for high speeds nor for prolonged continuous use.

It has therefore been suggested that their drivers should not have to fill in records, especially as in the majority of cases they are engaged on delivery work following a set pattern each day and involving very little actual driving. The 1962 exemption did not help, because most electric milk floats, on account of their batteries, weigh over 16 cwt. unladen. Pedestrian-controlled floats are exempted, however, as they do not have to have carriers' licences.

I appreciate that it is unlikely that the driver of an electric milk float, or any other electric vehicle for that matter, will drive it for more than the total permitted hours. It would, however, be quite possible for him to exceed the maximum permitted continuous period of work which is 5½ hours. I must stress that the purpose of these requirements is not to control the length of time over which a vehicle is used, but to control the length of time that the driver works. That is why we must have regard not only to the time that the milk rounds-man spends on his round, but to the total time in the day that he spends driving any vehicle subject to the hours limits.

He might, for instance, be required by his employer to drive a different vehicle early in the morning or after the milk round is finished. Alternatively, he might have separate employment, perhaps driving a lorry or a coach in the evening. The record forms are the only means under the law, as it stands at present, of checking that the total hours limits are not exceeded.

The requirement to keep records of hours worked serves also to protect a driver against an unscrupulous employer who might put pressure on him to exceed the permitted limits. Let me put the problem in perspective. There are at the moment 30,000 electrically-propelled goods vehicles on the road. Of these, 4,000 are pedestrian-controlled and are therefore exempt from the carriers' licence provisions.

I have myself examined one of the forms of the kind which a milk rounds-man would have to complete, and I am satisfied that the time spent each day in completing it would be well under five minutes. This shows, I hope, that the figure of 1 million man-hours per annum, which was recently quoted in another place as the time spent by milk rounds-men in completing their records, was an exaggeration.

Having said all this, may I give the hon. Gentleman and the House this ray of hope. We recognise that there are anomalies in the law concerning hours and records. On the 4th October last year my right hon. Friend announced her intention to review the statutory maximum hours of work for drivers of goods vehicles and buses.

This review is now in hand and covers not only statutory limits on hours, but methods of enforcement, penalties for infringement and requirements about record-keeping. We recognise that the value of these forms for milk roundsmen is debatable and we appreciate that the obligation on a driver of an electric milk float to fill in the forms and on his employer to check them is a tiresome obligation. We are therefore actively engaged in consultations with both the unions and the employers' organisations concerned.

One of the questions which we are considering is whether record-keeping to this extent is an indispensable ingredient of our measures to obtain safety on the roads. It may well be that in this case it is not necessary. I can assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that my right hon. Friend is always on the look out for opportunities to streamline procedure and eliminate waste. If she is satisfied as a result of the consultations now going on that this form-filling is an unnecessary piece of red tape, then we shall not hesitate to abolish it, but before doing so we must be completely satisfied that safety requirements will not be jeopardised.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at four minutes to Twelve o'clock.