ROAD TRAFFIC (DRIVING INSTRUCTION) BILL (Hansard, 16 June 1967)

§ Sir Harwood Harrison (Eye)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I am very glad that there is time to discuss the Third Reading of this important Bill. I congratulate the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Will Owen) on having sponsored it through an unopposed Second Reading and a lengthy Committee stage. Not many hon. Members can introduce and get a Third Reading for a Bill of 22 Clauses and two Schedules, and this is to the hon. Gentleman's credit. I also congratulate him on having persuaded the Government to back the Bill. Without the help of the Parliamentary Secretary, whom I am glad is present, and his Department, we should have made much less headway with the Bill.
My pleasure is tinged with a little bitterness, because, in two Parliaments, I tried to introduce a much shorter Bill on these lines and, on both occasions, first under my Government and then under that of the party opposite, the Whips shot it down. This time there has been much more consultation and the Bill has reached its last stages.
First and foremost, it is intended to improve the conditions under which we drive and road safety, to prevent so much loss of life and limb. The second thing incorporated in the Bill will, we hope, be a resultant common standard of instruction. No one will be able to teach some one else to drive, that is, to hold a lethal weapon—if someone "bumps me off," it does not matter whether he uses a motor car or a revolver—without having passed the Ministry's test.
This is important to ensure that those who learn give the same signals throughout their lives. Older drivers, like me, who were taught in a rough and ready way, probably still commit errors because of early habitual mistakes.
I believe that the Bill has been improved by Amendments from both sides in Committee. It makes it clear that, if one is a professional driving instructor or employed by the Government and is 994 paid, one must pass the Ministry's test. The Bill was originally more loose, but Clause 2 has now been tightened and I am very happy with it.
It provides that the only people who can instruct for payment without having passed the Ministry's tests are certain police instructors. These are not police drivers; they are very skilled police instructors of driving. They themselves will not get any reward, but payments will go to the police forces when they advise motorists on skid pans, and so on. The Home Office has been very helpful over this. This is the only exception in the Bill, and I think that it will lead to great improvement and is to be welcomed.
I must say a word on behalf of the men and women who will ultimately be affected by the Bill. Unfortunately, there is not one common association or union of professional driving instructors. There are a number of bodies representing some of these people, but some are not represented at all. There has been a tremendous amount of undercutting. A man may set up with an old car which is not fit for the purpose of instruction but he has been able to give instruction up to now. This sort of thing has penalised the better members of the profession who have been trying to do their job with dual control and so on.
I hope that the professional standard of driving instructors will improve. I think that if their remuneration were looked at we should find that they are in a low income bracket. They perform a very useful function but, because of the competitive and freelance nature of their work, there has not been in the profession an adequate standard and an adequate reward; and if this sort of thing follows we shall have done a useful service to these people, because they will realise the importance of their job. It is important for all of us in the country.
It is important for the young who are going to drive. Every boy and girl reaching the age of 17 now is a potential owner and driver of a motor car.

§ Mr. David Webster (Weston-super-Mare)
I do not want there to be any misunderstanding, and that is why I make the point that we want to have qualified driving instructors but do not want to have a class of society with certain privileges. My hon. and gallant Friend the 995 Member for Eye (Sir H. Harrison) talked about remuneration. I am sure that he would agree with me on this point.

§ Sir H. Harrison
As my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster), who was a great help during the Committee stage, will appreciate, there is an absolutely open avenue for any new people to enter the profession. I believe that to be right. I know from what I have seen and been told that a large number of good professional driving instructors have left the profession because the reward has been insufficient.
The Bill will deal only with those who receive reward. It does not deal with the father, mother, brother, or girl friend who is to instruct someone; they will still be free to do so voluntarily. But I hope that this is a first step along the road and that at a later stage we shall have another Bill, when all these people will be brought in and it will be appreciated that learners must have a properly qualified instructor.
I am sorry that the date of coming into operation of the Bill has been left open—I well understand the reason—and that it will be for the Minister of Transport to decide when to make the necessary Orders. It could not be otherwise, but I hope that the Bill will be brought into operation sooner than the Joint Parliamentary Secretary led us to believe might be the case on Committee. The last thing I want to go out from the House is that professional driving instructors need not bother to take the examination because the Bill will never come into operation. There is a feeling that the Bill might never become law. I hope that the right hon. Lady the Minister of Transport and her colleagues will do all they can to dispel the idea that driving instructors need not take the examination because they will be able to get away with it.
I thank everyone who has helped with the Bill. I have, in a fashion, been living with it for more than four years. However, it is always satisfactory for those on the back benches to see progress being made. I am most grateful for all the help that has been given to the Bill, and I hope that it will have an easy passage in another place.

§ Mr. Speaker
Might I observe for the benefit of the House that this is the last 996 day for Private Members' Bills and that there are still a number trembling on the brink after this one.

§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Morris)
In view of your remarks, Mr. Speaker, I shall comment only very briefly on the Bill.
First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. Will Owen) upon introducing the Bill. I should also like to express gratitude for the assistance that has been given by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster) throughout these proceedings. I must also express thanks to the hon. and gallant Member for Eye (Sir H. Harrison), who has been a great campaigner on this issue for a number of years. The Bill now having reached this stage, it is a proud day both for him and for my hon. Friend.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman raised one point concerning the date of operation of the Bill. Some parts of the Bill we can bring in fairly quickly. On others, we shall want to ensure that the profession is able to reorganise itself and qualify itself to be within these categories. I hope that it can do so as quickly as possible. I certainly give the hon. and gallant Gentleman an assurance that the Bill will be brought into effect as quickly as possible, although it may be a couple of years before it can be brought into full effect.

§ Mr. Will Owen (Morpeth)
I congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Eye (Sir H. Harrison) on his submission of the Third Reading to the House. In commending the Bill to the House, I hope that we may be permitted to establish thereby some basic contribution upon which a control of driving instruction may be achieved. That is the essential objective we had in mind.
Although, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman has indicated, Amendments were moved and considered which made a contribution in Committee to that ultimate objective, I hope that the House will now be good enough to give the Bill its best wishes and speed it forward so as to ensure that the basic purpose we seek is achieved—a real contributions 997 to road safety which is urgently needed at the moment.

§ Mr. Eldon Griffiths (Bury St. Edmunds)
I rise briefly to congratulate my hon. and gallant friend and neighbour for Eye (Sir H. Harrison). He can be described as the godfather of the Bill, although he has not, due to changed circumstance on the Front Bench, been able himself to pilot it through this final Reading.

§ Sir H. Harrison
No. That is not the case. It is entirely due to the luck of the draw for private Members. It does not matter which side of the House one sits. The hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Will Owen) was lucky in the draw and I was not.

§ Mr. Eldon Griffiths
I apologise. In the light of your warning, Mr. Speaker, I will simply add my congratulations to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eye.

§ Mr. David Webster (Weston-super-Mare)
I wish briefly to welcome the Bill to the Floor of the House. It did not have a Second Reading debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Will Owen). I went to the by-election which he was fighting and did my best to prevent him from getting here, but now that he is here he has done something very useful and I congratulate him, although I have no regrets about trying to prevent him from coming here.
I also congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eye (Sir H. Harrison). I thought that his remarks relating to the Whips were rather less than kind, as he has more experience of the Whips' Office than I, except on the receiving end. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) was rather interesting on the genetic history of this point.
My hon. and gallant Friend has much stressed the subject of universality on the Bill. I agree with him. We had some Amendments on this matter and with a little bit of luck, as they say in "My Fair Lady," we carried our way and were glad when the Bill was improved as a result. But I am not absolutely on the same side as my hon. and gallant Friend in relation to universality in every res- 998 pect. Everyone would wish to pay tribute to the R.A.C. for having pioneered the first registration of driving instructors and we did feel that we should exempt the R.A.C. from certain parts of the Bill. The hon. Member for Morpeth and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary were in remarkable unanimity on this point. It was a splendid and coincidental thing that any private Member should work so well with the Department.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary undertook, on the last day in Committee, to look into the remarks and correspondence on this matter and perhaps he can tell us whether he is able to give information about the comparability of the R.A.C. and existing tests. There was an exchange on this aspect in Committee—indeed, it was a fairly heavy exchange. If the hon. Gentleman is not able to clear tip this point now, perhaps it can be looked after in another place. I hope that he can now tell us something.
Having said that, I wish the Bill to be a success and I hope that it fulfils the purpose both of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eye and the hon. Member for Morpeth.

§ Mr. John Morris
I am not sure whether my undertaking was on the lines which the hon. Member indicated, but I have looked at the situation and I have nothing to add to what I said on a previous occasion.