HC Deb 19 January 1976 vol 903 cc1097-108

11.40 p.m.

Mr. Peter Emery (Honiton)

I raise a matter that has considerable import in the West Country and that I believe is also of concern in many other country districts of the United Kingdom, namely, the use of minibuses as a means of transportation in two specific ways of which I have given notice to the Under-Secretary of State—minibuses used by education authorities, charities or local government for outings and visits for children, the elderly and the disabled, and in rural areas to provide the country community with an extra means of transportation in areas where public transport does not exist. This is done in many European countries, particularly Switzerland and Germany.

Why should we have the nonsense of having to have a public service vehicle licence for these extra services or for the extra use of transport for the benefit of the public? Surely, we should be able to adapt the Public Service Vehicle Regulations to benefit the community rather than pander either to a bus monopoly that, in many areas, provides no services, or to a bureaucratic machine that seems to have forgotten that the main purpose of its existence is to help rather than hinder the population?

First, I want to deal with the use of minibuses for social and charitable purposes, and I can put the case best by quoting a letter that I have received from the Chairman of the Devon Association for the Blind. He writes: I am writing to you for support. One of the Articles of our Constitution is to assist in the welfare of the blind within Devon. There are, as you may know, some 2,000 registered blind and partially sighted persons within the county. We run a holiday home for blind people at Instow that receives blind persons from the whole country. We also assist in the running of clubs for blind persons at Exmouth, Sidmouth, South Molton, Ilfracombe, Bideford, Okehampton, Tavistock, Kingsbridge, Buckfastleigh, Newton Abbot, Torquay, Paignton and Brixham. As you are aware, the Western Traffic Commissioners have stated that, where you have a vehicle adapted to carry eight or more passengers who pay for the expenses of the purpose of the outing, e.g., a theatre ticket, the law may he infringed if the vehicle does not have a Public Service Vehicle licence. In other words, they claim that such a payment constitutes carrying passengers for hire or reward. This is so they say even though the passengers pay nothing for the costs of running the vehicle either generally or for the specific journey. This affects the use by ourselves of minibus journeys for blind persons. The Association wrote to the Department of the Environment and received in reply a letter that said that in the instance quoted the Association might be caught under Section 18(3)(c) of the Road Traffic Act, which provides that: A payment shall be treated as made for the carrying of a passenger if made in consideration of a person being given a right to be carried whether for one or more journeys and whether or not the right is exercised. That was reinforced by the memorandum issued by the Department of the Environment in February 1973, paragraphs 20 and 21 of which refer to Hire or reward: Any payment or consideration given by or on behalf of or received from a passenger constitutes hire or reward. Any payment made to a club or society which entitles the passenger to be carried in one of its own vehicles also constitutes hire or reward even though the payment is not directly related to the journey or journeys made. I have referred to the specific problem as it affects the blind, but it goes far wider than that. In the context of education, I have had letters from the governors of Wythcombe House School and the Southbrook Special School saying that they have been most concerned at the way the Regulations were being applied because it meant that they were unable to use minibuses for sporting visits and outings for children.

The youth service in Devon have been concerned. The Adventure Club, within my area, approached me. The club does not have a minibus of its own but it hires one, using voluntary labour and help to take young people to Derbyshire and Wales for special outings.

Old people and the disabled are very much affected, because they often want to be taken away from their usually limited and rather introverted existence in homes. Voluntary help is enlisted so that visits may be mounted, and public subscriptions have been raised to buy minibuses. These efforts also have been threatened.

This is no theoretical problem. The county council suspended the use of its vehicles in June 1975 because of the Regulations and their interpretation, as suggested by the traffic commissioners. I suggest that in future there should be far closer liaison between certain traffic commissioners and the Department of the Environment.

I congratulate the Minister in one respect, even if only slightly. I shall be open about it and say straightaway that after six months some help has been provided by the Department. I do not know how generally known this is, because I have been unsuccessful in my attempts to trace the matter through in the Library. Most of the argument arises from Press comment, though there was a letter from the Minister's Department to the Devon County Council. I cannot quote from it, but the reference is RT533/6/01PE3.

The Minister has dealt with half of the problem. He has suggested—he could not be absolutely certain—that if a charge were made only for the theatre ticket, for the sporting visit, or for the food that might be obtained on or during the visit, it would be in order. That was very much in doubt, previously. But I say that the Minister has dealt with only half the problem, because he has not accepted that there can be any payment at all for the petrol, oil and maintenance or dilapidation of the vehicle or minibus.

It seems a strange and niggardly way of interpreting the law. In the education sector, for instance, minibuses not being used for school purposes on a Saturday afternoon can be used for other educational or sporting purposes—there is no charge for the game that is being played—so long as somebody can meet the cost of petrol and oil in order to run the buses in country areas, where journeys of 20 miles or 30 miles either way may be involved.

I ask the Minister, therefore, two questions: is it in order if there is an overall charge to a central fund—in other words, if there is a school entertainment fund and the fund charges 90p although, let us say, the ticket for the theatre, where the children go to see a Shakespeare play, is only 75p? I shall not point out that if the petrol and oil were paid for from the school entertainment fund, many other things could be paid for, too, so there would be an indirect, if not a direct, payment.

Could there be a non-compulsory donation? If the tickets were bought, it might be suggested that a donation of 15p or 20p would help. If prepayment for a ticket or a meal is not allowed, it presupposes that the use of the minibus is compulsory after the money has been paid. If that is so, surely it is another example of administrative nonsense, which the Minister should clear up.

Can the Minister tell us anything about the experiments with postal minibuses? He should do everything in his power to ensure that minibuses of the type I have described can be used in country areas without a public service vehicle licence having to be obtained. Many villages in Devon have no public transport.

Mr. David Penhaligon (Truro)

And in Cornwall.

Mr. Emery

This is true of many areas, no doubt.

If taxi drivers, garage owners or retired people could run minibuses they would provide a facility that would compete with no one. Why cannot the Minnister find a way to allow this? If he cannot, will he urge local authorities, under Section 30 of the Transport Act, 1968—dealt with in para. 19 of his memorandum of Febraury 1973—to make grants in lieu of road transport services on a three-year basis?

May we be assured, first, that minibuses for charitable or educational purposes, for the disabled or the elderly, will be allowed to be used, despite any small charges for oil and petrol, and, second, that they may be run by any reasonable person where no public transport service exists? If he can give those two assurances, the Minister will have done much to help people in rural areas.

11.55 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Kenneth Marks)

The hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery) has raised a matter that I know is of particular concern in his constituency but that has also aroused interest throughout the country.

I am fully aware that schools and welfare and social organisations that own minibuses have run up against serious difficulties over financing their use, for a whole range of activities, in relation to the licensing provisions of the Road Traffic Act 1960. The hon. Gentleman has widened somewhat the scope of the matters that I thought he would raise. He gave my office notice at about 6 p.m. this evening that he would be widening the debate, and I accept, his constituency being what it is, that this is a matter that affects rural areas.

I hope to clear up some of the misunderstandings that may have worsened these difficulties, although I shall not be able to give the hon. Gentleman all the assurances that he wants. To do that would need legislation, for which he could not ask in an Adjournment debate.

The idea has spread nation-wide that payments by passengers for matters other than their transport can constitute operation for hire or reward and thus bring a vehicle within the public service vehicle licensing system. Similarly, many welfare organisations have expressed concern about the effect on their activities of EEC regulations which have applied in this country from 1st January 1976.

There is considerable uncertainty about public service vehicle licensing, and this is shown in many of the representations that have reached my Department, I would like to begin by explaining a few points about the PSV licensing system. This system dates, in essence, from 1930, and is currently embodied in the Road Traffic Act 1960. Broadly speaking, any vehicle carrying passengers for hire or reward which is adapted to carry eight or more passengers is a public service vehicle. The operator is required to hold a public service vehicle licence in respect of the vehicle, and the driver a PSV driver's licence. In addition, if passengers are carried at differing fares, a road service licence may also be required, covering such things as route, timetable and fares.

Applications for public service vehicle and road service licences are made to the traffic commissioners. They are statutorily independent bodies, which are appointed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and appeal lies to him against their decisions. Anyone—for example, welfare organisations, social clubs or individuals—can apply for licences. Public service vehicle licences are granted to driver, vehicle and operator if they meet certain specified standards as to fitness. Before granting a road service licence the traffic commissioners have to consider, in relation to certain statutory criteria, whether there is a need for the service. The aim is to prevent the covering of some routes in profusion while others are neglected, and to offer a degree of protection to licensed operators who are committed to the expense of operating to public service vehicle standards.

In relation to the present difficulties, I must emphasise that there is no question of a new interpretation of the Road Traffic Act 1960—as some people seem to think and as some Press reports in the Devon area suggest—but rather that, as a result of unrelated incidents, and their attendant publicity, the possible illegal operation of a considerable number of minibuses and other vehicles throughout the country had come to light.

When minibuses were purchased in the early days by welfare organisations, social clubs, schools, and so on, operating costs were normally borne by the owners—in some cases the parent-teacher association of the school, but more usually the local authority—and the vehicles operated in effect as free transport. However, with the increased range of activities for which minibuses were used and the increased costs of motor transport organisations found themselves increasingly unable to bear the full operating costs and began to finance these from special funds, or by making charges to passengers.

Schools, welfare and social organisations may not have realised the significance of Section 118 of the Road Traffic Act 1960—that the receipt of any payment for, or for matters which include, the carrying of passengers, if made in consideration of a person being given a right to be carried, can bring the vehicle within the ambit of the public licensing system.

The doubts that organisations had begun to have about the legality of the operations were intensified when Devon County Council issued two circulars about the use of minibuses. These have since received widespread publicity. In them the Council attributed to the Traffic Commissioners for the Western Traffic Area the view that, even if passengers did not pay anything towards the expenses of running a minibus, there would be operation for hire or reward if they paid other expenses—for example, for accommodation, food, entry to museums, and so on. The reasoning behind this was said to be that as payment of these expenses entitled the payer to be carried to the exclusion of the non-payer, Section 118 of the Road Traffic Act 1960 would be infringed.

The Devon circulars advised schools, youth clubs and welfare organisations that in the light of this view they should stop all minibus outings in cases where the owner of the minibus did not bear the full cost of the outing. This produced immediate concern in Devon and other parts of the country, as Age Concern and other voluntary bodies gave wide publicity to the circulars and their apparent implications for welfare groups.

However, the Western Traffic Commissioners do not hold the view attributed to them. I am assured that they take the view, which is in line with advice given to the Department over the years, that where there was demonstrably no payment in consideration of a person's being given a right to be carried, the making of a payment in respect of other matters would not involve operation for hire or reward. I illustrate this by the example of a group of old people being taken to the theatre. If all they paid for was the theatre tickets, in the Department's view that would not be operation for hire or reward. I cannot assure the hon. Gentleman that if the theatre tickets cost 75p each and the buyers were charged 90p it would not then be operation for hire or reward. It is slightly more difficult in the case of a holiday trip, but even there I should imagine that the means of financing the cost of carriage could be organised.

Mr. Emery

Is the Minister saying that he cannot give me an assurance because at present he is not absolutely certain about the factors, in which case, perhaps, he could write to me about it, or is he saying that at present he thinks that the law is so uncertain that it would be wrong for him to give an opinion?

Mr. Marks

I cannot give that assurance, because my advice on the law as it stands is that that would infringe the Road Traffic Act 1960.

Officials of the Department and the Western Traffic Area Office have written to Devon County Council to clarify the position. The Department has also written to Age Concern and a number of hon. Members. We have also taken other steps to make known the true position as we see it, and we hope that these efforts and, I trust, the debate this evening will help to reduce the confusion.

I turn to the effect of the EEC regulation. This regulation requires, in the absence of professional experience, that any driver of a vehicle carrying more than nine persons should hold a certificate of professional competence. This has been interpreted by some to mean that drivers must have a public service vehicle driver's licence. My hon. Friend the Minister for Transport is seeking exemption for private minibuses from all the provisions of the regulation. In the meantime, he proposes to recognise an ordinary driving licence for a motor car as proof of competence to drive a minibus.

Mr. Emery

Would a minibus owned by a local authority be considered private?

Mr. Marks

I believe that a private minibus would be one owned by someone other than an operator with an operating licence.

I turn to the general position of the financing of running costs. Under the Road Traffic Act 1960 we receive many queries from people who are worried about infringing the licensing laws and who seek advice on the legality of their ways of financing minibus activities. In such circumstances, subject, of course, to the position of the courts in regard to interpretation of the law, I and my officials are prepared to offer whatever guidance we can on the question whether particular methods of finance would be judged to be legal. I should point out that the Royal National Institute for the Blind, which was mentioned, invariably telephones to seek the advice of the Department before making any arrangements.

In the most clear-cut cases, where passengers contribute directly to the costs of travel, there is no doubt that this would involve operation for hire or reward requiring public service vehicle and possibly road service licensing. I am only too aware that there are grey areas, however, particularly where funds of various sorts are used for financing minibuses, and it is difficult to offer guidance on these in the absence of authoritative rulings by the courts. But if contributions made to the funds were entirely unqualified—that is, they were ones that the organisation could use to pay for minibus trips, or not, as it chose—the Department understands that this would not involve hire or reward. In effect, one has to ask whether there is any obligation on the part of the association, towards those providing the money, to spend it in this way.

I appreciate that the hon. Member may still be concerned that praiseworthy activities by welfare organisations may still be impeded by even this view of the effect of the licensing provisions of the 1960 Act. I fully appreciate that some associations would like to be able to make direct charges to passengers for some activities, and these passengers would often not be able to afford commercial rates. I am aware that some associations thus consider that the law ought to be changed to permit this. However, I am by no means convinced that this should be the case, or that sufficient consideration has been given to the full implications of such a change for public transport generally. In view of the complexity of the issue and its very wide implications, we must examine the whole position carefully before suggesting possible solutions.

Meanwhile, I hope that this debate will have helped to clear up the misunderstandings that have recently bedevilled the issue of minibuses and licensing, and will reassure voluntary organisations that things are not necessarily as difficult as they thought.

The hon. Member referred to post buses as a means of providing passenger transport. I understand that there are at present 100 licensed postal bus services, of which 70 are in Scotland. They can provide a useful service, for example, where the volume of demand is too low to support a conventional bus service, and their number has been growing steadily.

There may well be further scope for them in a number of areas. But there are certain constraints which have to be borne in mind and which can limit their potential. The primary task of the Post Office is to deal with the mail, and if there is any conflict between this and carrying passengers the interest of the mail must have first priority. The itinerary of a Post Office vehicle collecting or delivering mail—I should imagine that this is true of the hon. Gentleman's area—could be too circuitous for the needs of potential passengers, and timing often does not match up.

Linear valley developments appear to offer the greatest scope for combined mail/passenger operation, which is probably one of the reasons for the larger number of services in Scotland than elsewhere. There is certainly scope for extension of these licensed services where Post Office and passenger requirements can be matched.

As for the potential of minibuses owned by local garages, it is perfectly possible for the owner of any minibus to seek to have it licensed as a public service vehicle. All the major manufacturers produce minibuses that can meet the PSV standards of fitness, though not every minibus currently on the road could do so. The operator would need to satisfy the traffic commissioners that he was a fit person to hold at PSV licence for the vehicle in relation to such matters as conduct, standing and maintenance facilities for the vehicle.

If separate fares are to be charged to passengers, the operator will need, in addition, a road service licence, or a permit in lieu of it, for which he also applies to the traffic commissioners. I suspect there is a general impression that nobody can obtain either road service licences or permits because of the complexity of the procedures and the opposition of existing operators. This is not so, as the 100 postal bus services demonstrate.

It is true that the traffic commissioners are required to put applications through a statutory sieve and that there is provision for objections by existing operators to licence applications which, if made, have to be taken into account by the commissioners. But the commissioners deal with all applications on their merits. If a garage owner believes that there is a need that he can meet with a licensed minibus, which otherwise will not be met, he can be sure of a sympathetic hearing from the commissioners.

If the issue is purely one of fare levels between an existing service and what he proposes, the garage owner must bear in mind that licensed operators in many cases are providing unremunerative services as well as ones that may produce a commercial network. This is a factor to which the commissioners are required, by law, to have regard in considering the needs of the area.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned rural transport problems. These are under very close consideration by the Department. It is hoped that a Bill allowing experiments throughout the country will be brought in at an early date.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at ten minutes past Twelve o'clock.