TRANSPORT BILL (Hansard, 25 March 1980)

§ Mr. Booth
It was not the intention of my hon. Friends and myself in addressing the amendment to convey the impression even by implication that we do not want as full and rigorous a testing procedure applied to the school bus run by the school authority as that applied to any other public service vehicle. We may have been remiss in not having introduced the point earlier, although it was raised in 1307 Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. Dobson).
Our intention was to raise the question in the House in the hope of persuading the Minister that we want as full and rigorous a testing procedure as possible. If all local education authorities are running perfectly safe buses fit for carrying children, I cannot see why it should cost a lot of money to put the buses through the initial certificate of fitness procedure.
The other question that arises is how the annual inspection requirements which the Minister is to introduce will be defined in respect of vehicles which have not been subject to the initial certificate of fitness procedure. Obviously, where there is no initial certificate, vehicles cannot be tested to see whether they are still of the standard required by that certificate.
I appreciate what the Minister told the House about his intention to apply the 1308 annual test regulations to the vehicles. That is a considerable step forward. While I would not want it to be taken from anything I say that I am suggesting that local education authorities are not concerned about the safety of youngsters, I feel that this is an area in which we should demand uniformly high standards right across the board and should not distinguish between buses run by local authorities to carry children and buses run by private operators to carry fare-paying passengers.
In many cases the buses which are contracted to carry children will have public service licences and be subject to test procedures, but they will be buses used for other purposes as well as for carrying children. That is a particular category in which local authorities have a high standard. Will the Minister tell us how the annual tests will be carried out, and to what standard or criterion, if there is no initial certificate of fitness for the school bus run by the school authority?

§ Mr. Fowler
If I may reply to that point, with the leave of the House, what is being proposed would not give PSV examiners or certifying authorities powers to inspect vehicles once a certificate had been issued, or to prohibit the driving of unfit vehicles. The annual test for buses that is to be implemented will cover all school buses.
There is little difference of opinion between Conservative Members and Labour Members on that point. I shall examine the matter raised by the right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) in more detail and if there is a further point to be discussed I shall be happy to have talks with him to see whether any improvements can be made. My advice is that the annual test will provide all the safeguards that the right hon. Gentleman will require.

§ Mr. Booth
In the light of that assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

§ Mr. Booth
I beg to move amendment No. 27, in page 19, line 25 at end insert— '(aa) that the operating centre for those vehicles is suitable for the operations authorised in the licence; and'. The amendment makes the granting of an operator's licence conditional upon the operating centre being suitable for the operation of the number of vehicles included on such a licence. This is a difficult issue, because there is an enormous variation in the standards of operation. There are many good public service vehicle operators who have excellent offices that are well administered, and who have good maintenance facilities for their buses and good garaging arrangements. The amendment will be welcomed by them. They have nothing to fear from it and everything to gain.
The amendment is aimed at the small minority of operators who seek to operate on a shoestring, without proper office provision and without proper garaging facilities. I do not suggest that this is a problem peculiar to the bus industry; it happens also in the freight industry. If we are to attach the importance to the operator's licence that the Bill suggests, 1310 before an operator's licence is granted there should be consideration of the question whether the person making an application to run 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 public service vehicles has an office in which he can admiinster their operation, a garage in which he can park them, and arrangements by which he can suitably deal with them.
I appreciate that maintenance facilities are covered in another part of the Bill. I am not suggesting that this amendment is necessary to secure maintenance arrangements. It is necessary to ensure that there are adequate parking facilities for all vehicles covered by operators' licences and that an operating centre can be located.

§ Mr. Gummer
Wherever possible, we must not extend the number of regulations for people wishing to operate a business. The right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth), in introducing his proposals, made great play of the word "office". I understand that there might be some argument about parking, and that many difficulties have arisen because operators have not had adequate parking facilities. However, the Bill should be concerned with safety and the maintenance necessary for that safety.
This amendment is widely drawn. We are talking about a suitable operating centre and we are extending the word "suitable" to cover the offices in which the operation is administered. We are moving into an area that has laid considerable increases on the costs of running services in Britain.
We have begun to be a nation that sets standards that are applied universally to many areas where local conditions and situations do not demand such standards. I should be happier—I am sure that many of my right hon. and hon. Friends would be happier—if we made clear that our main and central purpose is to ensure the safety of the travelling public. We are not in this place to implement detailed regulations that govern how people run their offices and operations. We should strenuously object to the amendment.

§ Mr. Kenneth Clarke
I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Eye (Mr. Gummer). The right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) confined the application of the amendment. Most of his arguments bore on 1311 the requirements of the operator's licence that appertain to public safety. However, the amendment goes much wider. I contend that the Bill as drafted gives sufficient power to the traffic commissioners to ensure that the operator is a proper and competent person with maintenance facilities that enable him to keep his vehicles in a safe and sound condition. That is what the Bill is concerned with, and that is its limit. It is a proper limit and there is no need to go further.
The amendment would open up the prospect of traffic commissioners entering into town and country planning considerations and deciding whether in their opinion the centre chosen by the operator who wants to set up a business is "suitable"—a very wide term—for the operations authorised. That would bring the commissioners into dreadfully contentious areas.
Everyone thinks that a bus operation is good in principle as long as the garage is not next door. Of course, we have to protect the environment when bus services are being contemplated. Garages have to be sited, so far as possible, so that they do not constitute a nuisance to neighbouring properties. That is a function of the local authority, the planning authority and those who are charged with town and country planning. As my hon. Friend said, it would be an inappropriate additional function to give to the commissioners.
It seems that yet another hurdle is being set for a business man to overcome before he obtains the necessary licence to enable him to operate a bus. Before anyone says that the Foster committee recommended similar arrangements for heavy goods vehicles, I hasten to say that the Government intend to respond very soon to the Foster report. We have not closed our minds to the heavy goods vehicle recommendation. However, we feel that the considerations that apply to heavy goods vehicles are different from those that apply to passenger transport vehicles.

§ Mr. Booth
The Parliamentary Secretary seems to ignore one of the propositions that the Bill raises, namely, that there must be an operating centre for the purpose of establishing the appropriate 1312 traffic commissioner to which the operator should go. Therefore, someone will have to take a decision. For this purpose I do not mind whether it is the planning authority or the traffic commissioner.
An operator may properly be asked by the commissioner "Where is your operating centre? Why are you applying to me as opposed to applying to another commissioner? On what grounds do you say that the area for which I am the commissioner is the one in which your operating centre falls?" If it is a matter for the planning authority, and the operator is able to say "I have planning consent to operate from this centre", the point is met.
The issue of what is suitable is, I suggest, a matter for the commissioner. What is suitable for running a two-bus business may well be a small bureau in the front room, which a man might reasonably say is his office. A different situation exists when a major bus company makes an application to operate.

§ Mr. Gummer
Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why an official rather than the operator should decide whether an office is suitable? Surely this is totally outwith the purposes of officials. Surely a man is able to decide whether his office is suitable for his operation without someone popping along to tell him whether it is suitable.

§ Mr. Booth
The individual who is considering the application is placed under a statutory duty that the Minister has decided to impose. Application must be made to the traffic commissioner for the area in which the applicant has his operating centre. The Parliamentary Secretary said that the planning authorities for the area must decide whether the operating centre is suitable. That is the proposition with which I am dealing; it is not my own concept of the matter.
10.15 pm
Following the logic of the Minister's remarks and the requirements of the Bill, the commissioner will have to ask applicants whether they are applying to him because their operating centre is within his area. Applicants will have to assure him that that is the case. That is why it is necessary to consider the location of the operating centres. It is also a matter of enforcing the requirements of the operator's licence. To enforce those 1313 requirements the commissioner must be able to locate the operating centre.

§ Mr. Kenneth Clarke
The right hon. Gentleman is overlooking clause 35, where the operating centre is defined as the base or centre at which the vehicle is normally kept". It does not follow that there is a need for suitability, which is the point at issue. The traffic commissioner is not required to visit an operating centre and say that it would be more suitable if the building were half-timbered and thatched. That matter is best left to the local authority.

§ Mr. Booth
The Minister's point is relevant if we rely purely on the definition clause. All that the applicant has to say is that he normally keeps his vehicle in a certain place. If he says that he normally keeps it on the public highway at the place where it will start its operation he is giving a perfectly honest answer to the commissioner, but one that should not satisfy the House if the House is serious about providing a Transport Bill—

§ Mr. Ronald W. Brown (Hackney, South and Shoreditch)
Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that recently I referred a problem to the Government where somebody in my constituency made an application for a licence in another borough? The advertisement for that licence was in another borough. The commissioner did not know that the vehicles were in use in our area. My right hon. Friend's point is valid, and I hope that he will pursue it.

§ Mr. Booth
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. If the other borough to which he referred was in the area of another traffic commissioner, it is one of the problems that the Bill should tackle. I accept that the term "suitable" could be interpreted widely, but it would be interpreted by a commissioner in whom the Government repose enormous faith.
In the Bill the Government are proposing to give commissioners responsibility for making difficult decisions. Therefore, the Government must believe that they are responsible and capable men. On that basis, they are sufficiently responsible and capable to decide whether a person who applies for an operator's licence has a suitable operating 1314 centre within his area. If the commissioner thinks that the proper operating centre lies elsewhere, or that no such suitable centre exists, he must take that into account when deciding whether to grant a licence.

§ Mr. Kenneth Clarke
With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall reply. Clause 20 sets out the conditions that must be fulfilled to obtain an operator's licence. Subsection (1) sets out the various criteria for the operator himself, which we all agree are sensible. One criterion about which the traffic commissioners must be satisfied is set out in subsection (3)(a), namely, that commissioners should be satisfied, before they grant a licence that there will be adequate facilities or arrangements for maintaining in a fit and serviceable condition the vehicles proposed to be used under the licence". I cannot intervene in the details of any one case, but given that the application for an operator's licence must give the location of the operating centre—which is where the vehicles are usually kept—the operator must show that operating centre to somebody. If he showed an oily patch on the ground in Acacia Gardens, somewhere in the area of a traffic commissioner, it would be open to the commissioner to say that there were not adequate facilities or arrangements to maintain the vehicles in a fit and serviceable condition—for example, if there were no pits or workshops.

§ Mr. Ronald W. Brown
rose—

§ Mr. Clarke
I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment. I know of his problems, and I supect that he wishes to embroil me in the details of one operator. That is a matter for the traffic commissioners. The Bill tells them not to grant operators' licences unless there are adequate facilities. I am merely suggesting as a matter of fact that a person will not normally be regarded as having adequate facilities if he proposes to stick his vehicle out in the street.

§ Mr. Brown
I should like the hon. Gentleman to take account of the fact that when applications are made it is possible for operators to show that the place at which they maintain their vehicles is valid in the eyes of the traffic commissioners. What the commissioners do 1315 not know, and do not ask, is where an operator leaves his vehicles at night. Therefore, if an operator runs his business off the street, a commissioner is not involved. It has been claimed that the commissioners' concern is whether or not the vehicles are in a good condition, and whether they are properly maintained. That is not the same as granting a licence to operate off the streets.

§ Mr. Clarke
That brings us back to the basic point of the argument. In granting an operator's licence, the commissioner's sole concern is public safety. He will take into account whether the person is reputable, whether he will comply with the law, and whether the vehicles are in a fit and serviceable condition. If an operator runs his business off the street, he is defying the parking regulations. That is a matter for the police, the local authority, the planning authority, and so on. However, I believe that the duties of traffic commissioners must be confined to the safety of vehicles and to licensing. We must find other ways of ensuring that the law of nuisance is enforced, that people can protect their premises, and that the town and country planning regulations are adhered to, and so on. I do not believe that the amendment will be of very much help in terms of operators' licences.

§ Mr. Brown
I am told that no one has any right of appeal whatever, and that when an application is made to the traffic commissioner only the local authority and/or the police can make such an objection. Therefore, the ordinary individual, who knows the truth, cannot make any representations. Am I right in saying that the Bill, as drafted, retains that provision? If so, will the hon. Gentleman please have a look at it and see whether, in another place, we ought not to introduce an amendment to ensure that ordinary people have the right of objection?

§ Mr. Clarke
I shall have a look at it. As the hon. Gentleman is anxious to pursue that problem I shall write to him setting out exactly the position about the revocation of an operator's licence once it has been granted, as well as the powers and duties of the traffic commissioners.

§ Mr. Kenneth Clarke
I beg to move amendment No. 28, in page 20, line 7 at end insert— (8) Where an application is made to the traffic commissioners by the holder of a PSV operator's licence for the grant to him of a new licence to take effect on the expiry of the existing licence and the traffic commissioners decide not to grant the new licence, they may direct that the existing licence continue in force for such period as appears to them reasonably required to enable the business carried on under the licence to be transferred to another person duly licensed to carry it on.".

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this we may take Government amendment No. 30.

§ Mr. Clarke
This amendment deals with the situation in which one applies for the renewal of an operator's licence and it is refused or, under clause 22, which relates to amendment No. 30, the traffic commissioners decide to revoke an operator's licence. In both cases the operator is potentially going out of business, either because he has been refused renewal or because he has had his licence revoked. Howeved, we think it right to give him a breathing space in which to transfer the business to someone else, who can carry it on as a going concern. In fact, we are enjoined to do just that by a European Community directive that covers that point.
I suggest that it is a perfectly sensible provision, as it enables someone who is being put out of business because of the drastic powers of the traffic commissioners to sell the business as a going concern. It also protects the public against a sudden, overnight withdrawal of services where the traffic commissioners have taken the drastic step of ending an operator's licence. In practice, it will give protection to the public and also to a company that would otherwise go out of business overnight, with a consequent effect on employment, and so on.

§ Mr. Booth
This amendment bears out the point that I was making, that the Government are reposing enormous confidence in and placing enormous responsibilities on the traffic commissioners. If, as the Parliamentary Secretary suggests—I am not saying that he is wrong—there is adequate safeguard, that is only because the traffic commisioner is able to judge accurately that a business should be carried on beyond the point at which the operator could get his licence renewed, 1317 or even beyond the point at which the traffic commissioner has intervened to revoke his licence for a limited time. Whether that can be done safely or without any risk to the public depends very much on the judgment of the commissioner as to the reasons why he is revoking the licence and the reasons why he is refusing to renew. He may be refusing to renew because the present owner has not got proper maintenance facilities for his vehicles, through allowing them to be run by an incompetent manager, or has not ensured that drivers have properly carried out their duties.
These amendments, following that decision, inform the commisioner that he has the power to allow the business to be run in spite of the fact that he has decided that he must revoke the licence and will not renew for a period. Under both amendments the commisioner will have power to fix the period. While we do not oppose these Government amendments, because we see there is a genuine difficulty and appreciate the point that the Parliamentary Secretary makes about EEC requirements, we feel that we should be given further assurance and some evidence of the number of cases, possibly at some time in the future, when we return to the matter, when commissioners grant to operators the right to continue to run a business, and the reasons for which licences have been revoked or renewal refused in such circumstances.

§ Mr. Clarke
I am not sure on what occasion we are likely to return to this interesting topic, relating to how many licences have been revoked or not renewed. We have every confidence in the ability of the traffic commissioners to look after public safety in passenger transport. Nothing in the Bill weakens their ability to judge the suitability of operators, the safety of vehicles, and so on. We are giving them a new permissive power. They may, in circumstances where they think fit, extend the period within which an operator may continue to operate, although they intend not to renew his licence or to revoke it. They will use this power only where they are satisfied that safety will not be threatened by the way in which the business is conducted in the meantime. The right hon. Gentleman is right. They will be allowed to fix whatever period seems to them fit.
1318 I do not think that it would be the general will of the House if I answered at this stage the questions that have been asked about the number of cases that have arisen in which licences have not been renewed or have been revoked, and what were the causes. I shall try to gather together such statistics as exist within the Department and put them in a letter to the right hon. Gentleman. In Committee we canvassed thoroughly the various situations within which an operator might lose his licence. All can broadly be stated to relate very much to the safety of vehicles and the competence of the operation, and the way in which the public can be assured that an operator will comply with the law and put on the road only those vehicles that should be on the road.