§
'.—(1) In section 104 of the 1967 Act (general interpretation provisions) the following subsections shall be inserted after subsection (1) (in substitution for subsections (1A) to (1E) inserted by section 1(7) of the Heavy Commercial Vehicles (Controls and Regulations) Act 1973)—
(1A) In this Act 'heavy commercial vehicle' means any goods vehicle which has an operating weight exceeding 7.5 tonnes.
(1B) The operating weight of a goods vehicle for the purposes of this section is—
(1C) In this section—
'articulated vehicle' means a motor vehicle with a trailer so attached to it as to be partially superimposed upon it;
'goods vehicle' has the same meaning (except as provided by subsection (1D) below) as in the Road Traffic Act 1972;
and references to the maximum laden weight of a vehicle are references to the total laden weight which must not be exceeded in the case of that vehicle if it is used in Great Britain without contravening any regulations for the time being in force under section 40 of that Act (construction and use regulations).
(1D) In this section, and in the definition of 'goods vehicle' in section 196(1) of that Act as it applies for the purposes of this section, 'trailer' means any vehicle other than a motor vehicle.
(1E) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend subsections (1A) and (1B) above (whether as originally enacted or as previously amended under this subsection)—
(1F) Different regulations may be made under subsection (1E) above for the purpose of different provisions of this Act and as respects different classes of vehicles or as respects the same class of vehicles in different circumstances and as respects different times of the day or night and as respects roads in different localities.
(1G)Regulations under subsection (1E) above shall not so amend subsection (IA) above that there is any case in which a goods vehicle whose operating weight (ascertained in accordance with subsection (1B) above as originally enacted) does not exceed 7.5 tonnes is a heavy commercial vehicle for any of the purposes of this Act".
(2) In section 36A of the 1972 Act (prohibition of parking of heavy commercial vehicles on verges and footways), for subsections (5) to (9) (which contain a definition of "heavy commercial vehicle" which corresponds to that replaced for the purposes of the 1967 Act by the definition inserted in section 104 of that Act by subsection (1) above) there shall be substituted the following subsections—
(5) In this section 'heavy commercial vehicle' means any goods vehicle which has an operating weight exceeding 7.5 tonnes.
(6) The operating weight of a goods vehicle for the purposes of this section is—
(7) In this section 'articulated vehicle' means a motor vehicle with a trailer so attached to it as to be partially superimposed upon it; and references to the maximum laden weight of a vehicle are references to the total laden weight which must not be exceeded in the case of that vehicle if it is to be used in Great Britain without contravening any regulations for the time being in force under section 40 of this Act.
(8) In this section, and in the definition of 'goods vehicle' in section 196(1) of this Act as it applies for the purposes of this section, 'trailer' means any vehicle other than a motor vehicle.
(9) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend subsections (5) and (6) above (whether as originally enacted or as previously amended under this subsection)—
(10) Different regulations may be made under subsection (9) above as respects different classes of vehicles or as respects the same class of vehicles in different circumstances and as respects different times of the day or night and as respects different localities.
(11) Regulations under subsection (9) above shall not so amend subsection above that there is any case in which a goods vehicle whose operating weight (ascertained in accordance with subsection (6) above as originally enacted) does not exceed 7.5 tonnes is a heavy commercial vehicle for any of the purposes of this section.".
(3) For the purpose of determining whether or not any vehicle is a heavy commercial vehicle for the purposes of a traffic regulation order or experimental traffic order—
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(4) In subsection (3) above—
experimental traffic order" has the same meaning as it has in section 9 of the 1967 Act, but does not include an order in respect of traffic on roads in Greater London;
the new definition" means section 104(1A) to (1G) of that Act, as it has effect by virtue of subsection (1) above;
the previous definition" means section 104(1A) to (1E) of that Act, as it had effect before the coming into force of this section;
traffic regulation order" has the same meaning as it has in section 1 of that Act; and
transitional period" means the period beginning with the coming into force of this section and ending with 31st December 1989.'.—[Mrs. Chalker.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
§ Mrs. ChalkerI beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this it will be convenient to take Government amendments Nos. 64 and 80.
§ Mrs. ChalkerAlthough the new clause and the amendments appear to be substantial, I can honestly assure the House that the objectives are simple and straightforward. The purpose is to substitute a new definition of "heavy commercial vehicle" for the present definition in section 104 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967 and section 36A of the Road Traffic Act 1972. It may not be clear to some hon. Members why I am moving the new clause and attendant amendments. I need therefore to explain some of the history behind the new clause.
Since 1973, when the present definition was inserted in the 1967 and 1972 Acts by the Heavy Commercial Vehicles (Controls and Regulations) Act 1973—often known, I understand, as the Dykes Act after its sponsor, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes), heavy commercial vehicles have been classified for traffic regulation purposes as those with an unladen weight exceeding 3 tons. During this time, many local authorities have relied on this definition when making traffic regulation orders to control the movement of heavy lorries. They continue to do so in many cases where controls are needed to improve the environment of their areas.
Over the last decade, however, the trend in the classification of heavy lorries has moved away from describing vehicles in terms of their unladen weight. Today, lorries tend to be classified according to their maximum laden weight. Their operation is governed by a weight being the weight of the vehicle with the maximum load it is permitted to carry in the United Kingdom. Requirements for such matters as heavy goods vehicle drivers' licences and reflective rear chevrons on lorries are now determined in accordance with maximum gross weight rather than unladen weight, and the plating requirements which are essential for enforcement, as hon. Members I know will agree, are in terms of gross weights.
The need to change the definition of "heavy commercial vehicles" has been prompted, however, by general metrication requirements, which have been followed in the new Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 1981 which, as hon. Members will remember, 666 came into force in August last year. These require signs imposing weight restrictions on heavy lorries to show the restriction in terms of the metric maximum gross weight of the vehicle.
As the House will appreciate, it is essential that traffic signs and traffic regulation orders are in the same terminology if they are to be enforceable. The change in the signing requirements has now put the definition in the 1967 Act out of step. Authorities are therefore inhibited from making new orders to restrict the movement of heavy lorries for amenity purposes. It is important that this discrepancy is resolved without delay so that local authorities can continue to introduce measures to protect their inhabitants from lorry nuisance.
The new definition applies to vehicles with an operating weight exceeding 7.5 tonnes. The operating weight is the maximum laden weight which is not to be exceeded in Great Britain. This is set out in the construction and use regulations and appears on a plate in the cab of each vehicle. For this reason, it is often called the "plated weight". As 7.5 tonnes is the threshold for heavy goods vehicles licences, drivers will know whether the vehicle they are driving is likely to contravene a lorry ban. This is also the weight at which rear chevrons are required on lorries. So the adoption of 7.5 tonnes should considerably aid enforcement of weight restrictions. This is something that both sides of the House are agreed we must do.
Provision is also made to enable the Secretary of State to amend the definition by regulations so that the weight or description of vehicles can be changed in the future if this seems to be warranted. Some protection for the transport industry is included to provide that the definition shall not be amended by regulations in a way that would bring in vehicles of 7.5 tonnes or below.
In making the change to the new definition it is important to preserve the integrity of those traffic orders that were made before the new traffic signs regulations took effect. The traffic signs regulations specifically saved existing signs until 31 December 1989 and the same must be done for the orders if they are to keep in step. Hon. Members will understand that it would be totally impracticable for authorities to have to replace countless traffic signs overnight many of them during the early years of their useful life—and it would add considerably to the financial burdens of the country as a whole and local authorities specifically. Subsection 3 of the new clause therefore preserves the present definition in respect of those orders made before 13 August 1981 until the end of 1989. This will allow an orderly and gradual change to i he new terminology without placing unnecessary burdens on the authorities concerned.
The House may also like to know that the proposed change in the definition in the 1967 Act has been generally welcomed by the local authority associations and the road haulage industry. In order to avoid a proliferation of different definitions on the statute book, an identical description of heavy commercial vehicle is being inserted in section 36A of the Road Traffic Act 1972 which prohibits the parking of these vehicles on verges and footways.
There are two consequential amendments to clause 55 and schedule 6. These are purely technical amendments needed to facilitate the repeal of the provision to be superseded. I wish to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Come (Mr. Lee) for his efforts to correct the heavy commercial vehicle definition. My hon. Friend, 667 as I have shown, was entirely right to do so. But as time is unlikely to allow him a chance to succeed with his Private Member's Bill, I believe this to be an important step forward that will aid local authorities in their important environmental task of restricting the weights of lorries on unsuitable roads. It will make the task of those carrying out enforcement that much clearer. I hope that the House will feel able to accept the new clause and its attendant amendments.
§ Mr. Albert Booth (Barrow-in-Furness)It is easy to appreciate, given the number of vehicles that flow across the frontiers of the Community, the desirability of uniform definitions for vehicles in the Community. But when we come to the actual changes that we should make, it is appropriate to ask how far the definitions, and the tonnages that are involved, lend themselves to the regulation of heavy vehicles that we want in Britain.
It is fairly simple to table a new clause saying that the definition of a heavy commercial vehicle shall cease to be 3 tonnes unladen and shall become 7.5 tonnes operating weight.
With respect to the Under-Secretary, it is not so easy to enforce that weight. It is much easier to recognise a 3-tonne unladen vehicle or a 30 cwt. unladen vehicle than it is to recognise a vehicle on the basis of operating weight unless there is a clear and invariable relationship between the unladen and the laden weights of vehicles. It would be theoretically possible to give the same maximum operating weights to all vehicles of a given unladen weight. But the new clause does not propose to do that.
In its definitions of operating weight, the new clause takes a number of possible combinations which might make up the total operating weight. It does so in subsections (1) and (2). Since there is a question of what will constitute operating weight over a range of vehicles, does the EEC require that we use, as a common definition point, 7.5 metric tonnes of operating weight?
Having visited a number of places where local authorities are concerned about how far they can effectively route vehicles, and how far they can put prohibitions on the use of certain types of heavy vehicle, I am keenly aware that this type of vehicle is not necessarily the one about which local authorities are particularly worried.
For example, in places where bypass routes are open, the local authority might be happy only to block the large four-axle fixed vehicle and the 32-tonne articulated lorry from passing through the village or the town and to force them, other than when they are picking up or delivering, to use the bypass.
The local authorities would not necessarily want to ban all vehicles over 7.5 tonnes from routes that are capable of taking them—in terms of road strength and in terms of the space they require. It would be helpful to those authorities that are following this matter closely, for the reasons the Minister has mentioned, if the Minister were to say whether it is the Government's intention to facilitate them, if they want to ban heavy lorries on certain routes at levels above this figure. That would make sense for the industry and for local authority planning and would facilitate the use of roads that are suitable for the largest vehicles.
668 Is this the most suitable definition for the restriction of parking on verges and footways? I would not like to think that the pavement outside my house might have, when I go home tonight, a lorry of 7.25 tonnes operating weight parked on it. I doubt whether the pavement would sustain that. The local authority would not like it, either. Is the definition in the new clause the most suitable one for this purpose?
4.45 pm
The Under-Secretary has reminded us that the Government are taking a power in the new clause to change by regulation the weights that may be used in respect of parking on verges and footways. It would be useful if the Minister could confirm whether the power is confined to that or whether it would apply to the other part of the clause also. If it is confined to the parking of vehicles on verges—section 36(a) of the Road Traffic Act 1972—subsection (9) of the new clause allows the Secretary of State by regulation to amend the weights that shall apply.
The Under-Secretary of State said that there is a safeguard against amending the weights downwards. Therefore, one can only assume that the Secretary of State will gain a power to raise the weights, which, in some ways, is the more alarming. If one makes up a combined operating weight to 7.5 tonnes with a trailer combination it will impose much less loading on roads, pavements and parking spaces than that some 7.5 tonnes on a two, fixed-axle vehicle. So one can recognise the technical sense of the new clause but such is the understandable sensitivity on the issue of parking vehicles on verges that some assurances must be given about the circumstances in which the Secretary of State would use the regulation process on the restriction of operating loads for parking. Up to now, this has been controlled by primary legislation. Those are all the points that I wish to raise. I hope that the Government will give a favorable response on the issue of flexibility of routing.
The Armitage argument has thrown up a large measure of agreement in the House about the desirability of having sensible bypassing arrangements. If we are to have such sensible arrangements we need sensible regulations to ensure that the appropriate types of vehicles use those bypasses.
It is realistic to say that we shall not have ideal bypass routes for every town and village in Britain in the next decade. Therefore we shall have to tolerate bypass routes that in some cases, will be less than ideal but which, nevertheless, would afford some protection to inner towns and to villages if they were required to be the routes of the biggest vehicles. The Government might set a limit that is appreciably above 7.5 tonnes operating weight but that would still be a useful means of direction of traffic.
I am sure the Minister would accept that that would have been within the spirit and intention of the Dykes Act even if not conforming exactly with the proposals of its sections. In a non-party political sense, it would be seen, I hope, as a serious contribution towards an intelligent use of roads and vehicles. It would be seen as an incentive to local authorities, which, for some time, will not be able to have an ideal bypassing arrangement, nevertheless to go for an arrangement that would relieve the town centres from the heaviest of vehicles and at the same time give access, which will be needed until some other arrangements can be made, to a number of commercial 669 vehicles which, while above the limits set down in the new clause, are smaller than the biggest vehicles on our roads today.
§ Mr. OgdenFirst, I ask the Secretary of State whether he shares my admiration of the skill and dexterity with which the Under-Secretary of State steered her way through the technical explanation of the effect of the clause and its history.
Some time ago changes were made to our road signs and that means that changes must be made in definitions. If we had left the road signs alone, there would have been no need to change definitions. Are we to be told later that because we made road sign changes and changes in definitions of heavy commercial vehicles it will be necessary to introduce new regulations as a third stage? Is this second stage the end of the procedural changes or will something more complicated be introduced later? In other words, will it be a two-stage or three-stage operation?
§ Mrs. ChalkerI believe that this will be a two-stage operation. I should be slightly anxious if I were asked to say that there will never be a further stage. Something might occur in another part of our economy that will cause us to enter into a re-examination. I can assure the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden) that to the best of my knowledge this is the second and final stage. However, I may be wrong. After 11 weeks I may not know as much as I want to know about heavy goods vehicles and trafficking. If I am wrong, I hope that he will forgive me.
§ Mr. OgdenDuring the hon. Lady's opening remarks her right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer entered the Chamber and took his place on the Treasury Bench, looked worried and then departed. May we have an assurance that his appearance had nothing to do with what we are discussing?
§ Mrs. ChalkerI did not even see my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am sure that the worries that the hon. Gentleman saw on his face had nothing to do with the moving of the new clause.
The right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) rightly said that we need a much more intelligent use of our roads and of the vehicles that travel upon them. I agree with him wholeheartedly. We sometimes forget that a driver of a heavy goods vehicle is responsible for the laden weight of his vehicle. I know that the right hon. Gentleman has talked on many occasions about the enforcement of weight provisions. We are increasing the number of dynamic weighing machines considerably and this is helping to ensure that drivers of heavy goods vehicles adhere to the law on maximum laden weights. My experience of watching this operation is that drivers are becoming much better informed about total laden weights and the way in which lorries should be loaded.
There can be certainty about the unladen weight of a vehicle but it is overloading that causes excessive damage to our roads and the disruption of communities. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that we must protect communities from excessive laden weights and that the emphasis must be placed there rather than on unladen weights. That is what we sought to do by changing signs by regulation. We are seeking to bring all our transport law into direct operation. It is clear that the 1976 Act is out of date.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether there is a direct correlation between unladen weights and maximum 670 laden weights. There is no direct correlation but 7.5 tonnes maximum laden weight is the generally recognised equivalent of 3 tonnes unladen weight. That is the rule of thumb. A maximum laden weight of 7.5 tonnes is the weight at which rear chevrons are required, which make it much easier to spot the vehicles.
The change in definition is a direct consequence of the change in the traffic signs regulations, but it is not linked directly to lorry weights within the EEC. I hope that we can bring our law up to date so that we may enforce it more effectively. That is the object of the new clause.
The right hon. Gentleman directed some of his remarks to heavier total weight bans on certain routes. This concept appeals to my right hon. Friend and myself and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the suggestion. I am not sure whether it will be possible to take that action by means of the new clause as it stands. However, I shall consider that issue while the Bill is in another place.
§ Mr. FryBefore my hon. Friend goes too far along that route, will she bear in mind the Transport and Road Research Laboratory report on the so-called Windsor cordon, which showed that by designating certain routes that lorries could use and banning them from other routes the heavy lorries were moved from the front of some houses to the front of others? At the end of the day there was a considerable increase in transport charges, which had to be paid by the local community. I urge my hon. Friend not to go too far too quickly along the route suggested by the right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth).
§ Mrs. ChalkerI understand my hon. Friend's argument. If all traffic is forced off one route and it all gees on to another, we inconvenience B instead of A. My right hon. Friend has asked counties to formulate a lorry strategy because he wishes to avoid the problem that occurred following the Windsor cordon. The problem occurred in other areas but it was most dramatic in the Windsor area. I shall try to take a balanced decision, together with my right hon. Friend, on the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness. Where city and town centres have especially difficult turns for heavy vehicles it seems sensible to introduce variable weight restrictions. They must be maximum laden weight restrictions rather than maximum unladen weights.
The right hon. Gentleman spoke about parking on verges and footways. The new definition contained in this rather lengthy new clause is intended to replace the 3 tonnes unladen weight definition with its metric maximum laden weight equivalent. I agree that anyone who finds a vehicle of even a lower weight than the maximum metric equivalent laden weight parked outside his home will be horrified. I hope that police officers will take action if they find such a vehicle parked on a pavement. They often take action despite some of our law not having been brought into full enforcement.
§ Mr. BoothThe new clause appears to go further than merely swapping English weights for metric weights. I thought that the hon. Lady acknowledged that it gives the power to change these weights by regulation. I asked her to confirm whether that was so only for footpath parking or whether it applied to the previous provision. If it applies only to footpath parking, what is the justification for allowing, by regulation, a higher parking weight?
§ Mrs. ChalkerI am informed that the facility to amend by regulation will be parallel with the provisions contained in current legislation. The provisions in the new clause merely preserve the status quo. They apply across the breadth of signing and do not relate only to parking on verges and footways. The new clause merely contains a translation of the old imperial weights into the metric equivalents. That is reflected in the change from the 3 tonnes unladen weight to the maximum metric laden weight equivalent. I hope that that clears up the matter.
The right hon. Gentleman seems to think that this is a good measure. In my view, it will help with enforcement, which I am very keen to improve. As I said, we are conscious of the need to increase the right weights on lorries and the proper loading on lorries. I remind the House that we have dramatically increased the numbers of dynamic weighing machines, many more of which are coming into operation. They will help drivers, who are responsible for the laden weight of their vehicles, to get used to that weight.
I hope, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman will be happy to allow the clause to be read a Second time.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.