§ Sir Dudley Smith (Warwick and Leamington)I welcome what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in his opening speech on this contentious issue. Anyone in his right mind and with an appreciation of the industrial and commercial necessity of heavy lorries would not say that they should all be banned. However, there is a great public resentment of heavy lorries, which pass through villages and despoil urban areas. Although heavy lorries are an integral part of our communications and industrial system, they have few friends. In Britain generally, villages are shaken and violated by heavy lorries, which over the years seem to have grown in size if they have not in reality. They have certainly increased in numbers. Pleasant urban areas are disturbed by the continual passage within them of heavy lorries and town centres are jammed almost constantly by them.
Apart from the resultant road damage, we can cope with the overall problem in the longer term—it is one which continues to increase—only by the strict adherence to routes by heavy lorries. These routes should not be confined to motorways or dual carriageways. There must be a proper appreciation of exactly where lorries can go and of loading and unloading times. As the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) said, there is overloading, and it amounts to an abuse which must be checked.
The European Economic Commission, as opposed to the Community, is much less popular than it used to be, and it was never a particularly popular animal. The same applies to the Community. There is too much bureaucratic rule. I do not like the idea of a great deal of harmonisation of roads and transport and lorries and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is taking the right attitude. This Government, and any Government, will rue the day when they accept a course that leads to complete harmonisation with the rest of Europe. If that happens, large areas of Britain will be despoiled.
§ Mr. Stephen Ross (Isle of Wight)I congratulate the Secretary of State on sticking to his guns and returning from Brussels without giving ground on his predecessor's undertaking that the 38-tonne limit will be maintained.
I listened carefully to what the right hon. Gentleman said about the duration of the derogation. Article 8 says that there will be some investigation between now and 30 June 1986 and that a report will be submitted to the Commissioners. Will we be able to hold the line after 28 February 1987, which is when a decision on the report must be made? Having heard today's announcements, we are not likely to spend £100 billion on bridges in the meantime and, therefore, we might be able to get away with it. If, by chance, the Minister of State gets her way and we spend rather more on our roads, it will be rather more difficult to do so.
The Secretary of State has achieved quite a lot under the article. It is worth while that we should be moving towards a further liberalisation of the various controls covering road transport apart from the weight limits. I hope that the Secretary of State will be able to say a little about what we are doing about safety enforcement. It is still a bit of a bad joke in this country. Weighbridge 258 facilities are still inadequate. Not all our major ports have weighbridge facilities, even now, and daily weighing cannot be carried out even where there is a weighbridge because the number of staff is inadequate. I am told that in many cases they are manned only between 9 am and 5.30 pm.
Therefore, there are things that we can do to improve the situation. However, having said that and asked the Secretary of State about safety enforcement, I at least am relieved to know that he has honoured the pledge that his predecessor gave to the House.
§ Mr. Jeremy Hanley (Richmond and Barnes)I welcome my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's courageous stand on lorry weights. There was hardly any newspaper in Britain, before he went to Europe, that believed that he would argue the case for the lorry weights that he succeeded in achieving. Almost every body said that he would give in to the 40-tonner, and I believe that the fact that he did not shows not only the Government's views but my right hon. Friend's strength of purpose.
However, I must add that the last line of the Government's package refers to encouragement for lorry routing and action areas. When the M25 is complete, there will be the facility for a wide change of policy within the context of the City of London and the Greater London area. The Greater London council has proposed a lorry ban, and it would be unwise for my right hon. Friend to ignore its popularity in some of the areas that have been particularly plagued by heavy lorries over the past few years. When the M25 is complete, many lorries will be able to avoid the centre of London—I mean not just lorries of around 38 tonnes, but much lighter lorries than that. I agree that the axle weight of 7.6 tonnes per axle that my right hon. Friend succeeded in achieving as opposed to the old 8.125 tonnes per axle is an advantage, but I also agree with the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) about momentum. In a domestic area with side roads, heavily built up, with slow traffic, small domestic cars, people crossing zebra crossings and with right angles such as are found on the south circular, the momentum of lorries gives rise to fears among the local inhabitants. When the M25 is complete, there should be a proper series of lorry zones dictated throughout the whole of the Greater London area to encourage lorries to go round rather than through London.
With regard to competing with our European neighbours, heavier lorries will bring more freedom of trade in the national context, but there must be the infrastructure to carry those lorries and encourage the trade that many of my right hon. and hon. Friends would like to see. The purpose of my speech is simply this. Many roads upon which our lorries now travel are totally inadequate for the purpose. It is because of political cowardice and incompetence in the past that we do not have the infrastructure that we need to carry the lorries that will help us to compete with our European neighbours. Lorry zones, lorry routes and lorry bans are the product of the fact that we do not have the lorry system that many of our neighbours have developed over the years.
We have heavy loads, heavy lorries and dense traffic. I encourage my right hon. Friend to make a statement in which the Government's intention to take lorries outside London once the M25 is complete is given clearly and unequivocally to the constituents whom I represent. To 259 make too wide the hours that are dictated by the GLC lorry ban and too rapid their introduction can bring only a failure of the GLC lorry ban. As I have said before, I believe the GLC lorry ban to be politically sensitive but popular. However, its introduction has been brought about more by politics than by the needs of my constituents. Further, the hours during which the ban operates are so wide as to cause deliberate friction with central Government.
There is no doubt that a lorry ban of sorts would be popular, but the hours of midnight to 6 am would be more sensible. My right hon. Friend should consider a restriction on lorries, not just within the 65 per cent. of historic towns but within historic London, which at present is subject to blight. Many London bridges should also be free of heavy lorries. I suggest that on Kew bridge alone, a lorry limit of 16, 14 or 12 tonnes is an acceptable maximum in such a conservation area.
My right hon. Friend should give close attention to a lorry ban. A public inquiry may be needed, and I believe that it would show that many of the routes traditionally used by heavy lorries in London are totally inappropriate. Lorry disgorging points should be built on the M25 to allow smaller lorries into our metropolis, although heavier lorries should be banned.
My constituents do not care a jot that heavy lorries are safer. These vehicles are totally inappropriate for domestic side roads. While I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the limit he has managed to achieve from Europe, I ask him to go even further.
§ Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South)Even as a London Member, I shall not follow the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) in his support for the GLC, welcome though that might be.
This matter has been before the House for some time. The Select Committee on European legislation saw the first proposals in the 1978–79 Session, and the explanatory memorandum it then considered was signed by one William Rodgers. There have been a number of Secretaries of State for Transport since then, and these proposals have evolved, not least because of some of the efforts of the House of Commons.
I understand that the negotiations on the whole package were completed as recently as 12 December. The document which emerged from that meeting is the one to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred, although there was some debate between him and my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) about its exact merit.
We are grateful for the efforts of the Secretary of State and his Department in getting this document to the House, but it is a pity that there is no explanatory memorandum. I should have thought that from 12 December until now —it could even have been drafted on the aeroplane—it would have been possible to produce an explanatory memorandum. It may be that the document was not in its final form, and perhaps I am doing the Secretary of State an injustice. My point is that the timescale for the House to debate this final package has been pretty tight. I do not necessarily blame the right hon. Gentleman, as that may be the nature of Community legislative machinery. If so, we should mark and note it. I hope that the right hon.
260 Gentleman will refer to the explanatory memorandum when he replies as that may cast light on the disagreement between himself and my hon. Friend.
The Government may have been somewhat coy in their signposting of this debate. Last Thursday, the Leader of the House said:
Tuesday … Debate on European Community documents on transport measures. The relevant numbers will appear in the Official Report."The draft regulations have been before us for some time. In italics at the bottom of the column—but only seen on Friday by Members of Parliament, let alone by anybody else—we read:"(d) Unnumbered draft directive submitted by Department of Transport on 13 December 1984". — [Official Report, 13 December 1984; Vol. 69, c. 1207.]It is to that proposal that I now turn.The Minister and my hon. Friend have argued about the worth of this derogation. I shall therefore read paragraph 9 into the record:
Whereas the state of certain portions of the road network in Ireland and in the United Kingdom does not make it possible at the present stage to apply all the provisions of this directive; whereas the application of some of these provisions in those member states should therefore be temporarily deferred under arrangements to be set by the Council in a decision to be taken by the end of February 1987 at the latest; whereas it is not possible to fix these arrangements in the present directive; whereas in view of the requirement for substantial improvements to the relevant portions of the road networks which will take a certain number of years to complete, the conditions referred to in Article 75, paragraph 3 are at present fulfilled in those member states and are expected to remain so that when the Council takes its decision; and whereas in consequence this decision will then be adopted by unanimous vote".I do not intend to embark on any exegesis of that text, but all the qualifications ought to be noted—the reference to "expected to" and to the road network not making it possible at the present stage to apply all the provisions of the directive. The Minister or his successor may be able to provide a watertight defence, but the problem does not relate only to paragraph 9. Linked with the Minister's statement is the statement that the legislative document, which ought to stand on its own merits, is clearly linked to other matters, for example to the electrification of the railways. I do not understand why a legislative instrument should be linked with cash handouts, whatever their merits. What financial inducement or pressure might there be in 1987? It might be linked to putting up £1.4 million to £1.6 million. Package bargaining in the EEC is now fashionable.
§ Mr. Eldon Griffiths (Bury St. Edmunds)And always has been.
§ Mr. SpearingYes. It has even crept into the document we are discussing. The Greeks want something for Mediterranean products and are holding up expansion. When the House is faced with a request for an increase from 38 tonnes to 40 tonnes, it may be wrapped up in a vast financial package and we shall be unable to do very much about it.
I do not wish to be too fanciful. Members of the Conservative party know of the predictions made by certain of my hon. Friends. It is also true to say that some of my speeches have proved to be an underestimate rather than an overestimate. Therefore, the argument between my hon. Friend and the Minister is thoroughly justified. History is on the side of my hon. Friend.
§ Mr. Jonathan Sayeed (Bristol. East)I do not intend to follow Labour Members through the lurid realms of conjecture. I shall just stick to the directive.
As one who has driven a heavy goods vehicle—a 40-ft articulated truck — from London to Doha, and helped pioneer the overseas routes to the middle east, I welcome the measure. I do so for four reasons.
The first aspect that I welcome is the flexibility in hours that the measure provides. That is important and it is about time that it came in. The second aspect — a minor measure—relates to the funds available for infrastructure. Thirdly, I particularly welcome the measure for the deal that has been arrived at on weights. That deal, for which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State fought and which he won, allows for the reduction of axle weights and additionally will continue to keep noise levels of vehicles down. It should reassure both urban and rural dwellers.
Above all, I welcome the measure for the increase in permits. It is ridiculous that British haulage has been put at a severe disadvantage, vis-a-vis French, German or Dutch hauliers, because of the few permits that are issued to British hauliers. I am delighted that permits are to be increased by 30 per cent. in the first year and 15 per cent. thereafter, to an increase over four years of 100 per cent. I should like to see the complete scrapping of the restrictions on permit numbers.
Finally, I urge my right hon. Friend to continue to ensure that companies and lorry drivers who offend, particularly those who persistently offend, against the weight regulations, are given stringent fines. The vehicles and drivers should be arrested until those fines are paid. In order to assist him, I should like to see the more widespread introduction of small portable electronic weighbridges which the police can carry around in trucks to check lorries which they think are overloaded.
This is a modest but excellent measure and I hope that the House adopts it.
§ Mr. Eldon Griffiths (Bury St. Edmunds)With respect to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), for whom I have a good deal of affection, I have never heard her, or any other Front Bench spokesman on transport, make a speech that went so wide of the subject matter of the debate. I had a feeling as I was listening to her that she had either picked up a crib that had been prepared for the debate four years ago when we stopped the 40-tonne limit, or that she had an anticipatory brief that had been prepared for the debate that may take place 18 months from now. Whatever the provenance of her brief, it was not related to the derogations that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has brought back from Brussels.
My right hon. Friend has done rather well. I did not expect that he would succeed in persuading the Community partners that there should be an indefinite ceiling on weights, an indefinite limit to lengths, that he would also, while achieving those two surprising results, bring back a little extra in quotas, and permits, and that he would get a little bit on the side for the M25, and a little bit more for the electrification of the railways in Essex. Taking the package as a whole, the House should 262 congratulate my right hon. Friend, and not, with respect to the hon. Lady, try to fabricate some sort of attack out of thin air.
I want to make three quick points. The first is that occasionally somebody in the House should say a good word for the heavy lorry. I have a rural constituency. I am just as much concerned about the impact of heavy lorries on villages and towns as anybody else. But it is a beast of burden. It is not the lorry that is the problem, but the fact that it gets mixed up with people, because we have not as yet been able to build enough bypasses and new motorways and we have not succeeded in making lorries sufficiently clean, safe and quiet in their operation.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will find some opportunity to tell the House—not in any detail—of the progress that is being made on the quiet heavy lorry, on the new safety arrangements, particularly against jack-knifing in the case of articulated vehicles, and also the progress that is now capable of being made in providing for more efficient and smaller weighing apparatus. Perhaps we could hear more about the technical progress being made in improving the lorries themselves.
Secondly, my right hon. Friend spoke of the additional permits that he had wrung out of our European partners, but is he confident that the French Government, in particular, will honour them? Sometimes permits are available in theory on a Community-wide basis but in practice are not forthcoming from France.
Thirdly, and more generally, I believe that no Community country has more to gain than we have from a common market in services. If we can move fairly swiftly towards a common market in transport, we shall gain almost five times the potential market on the continent that any European country' will gain here. That is the relative size of the market available, so it must be right for us to venture down that road.
Personally, I feel almost a sense of shame that British Transport Ministers constantly have to go to Brussels, as I did a long time ago, to make these appeals because we have a road and bridge system that is not up to the traffic that we seek to place on it. In the long run, the answer is not to stay away from the Common Market in transport or to object to harmonisation of lengths, widths and axle weights but to improve our infrastructure so that we can enjoy the benefits of a true common market in heavy vehicles.
§ Mr. Roger Moate (Faversham)The speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) contained exactly the same contradiction as that of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. At the end of his speech my hon. Friend proclaimed his belief in a true free common market in services and transport, and I agree with that. Earlier in his speech, however, he sought to defend a differential between the United Kingdom and the Community in terms of lorry weights. One cannot have both.
The overwhelming argument for free movement of lorries and a true common market in services emphasises the fact that the derogation secured by my right hon. Friend is temporary in nature and, when it comes to the crunch, will not protect us aginst 40-tonne lorries. That fundamental contradiction in the case put by my right hon.
263 Friend the Secretary of State is the reason why the House should view with great suspicion and indeed reject the proposition before us today.
Only two years ago, after immense debate, the House concluded in favour of a 38-tonne limit—not a two-year stay of execution. I appreciate that it is a matter of conjecture, but I believe that there is a danger that we are now being asked in effect to agree to a stay of execution for two years. We did not vote for such a derogation two years ago. We voted for a 38-tonne limit. At that time there was no Community agreement on 40-tonne or 44-tonne vehicles. The proposition was that we should fight for a Community compromise in our direction, but that is not what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has now secured.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has conceded the case for a European 40-tonne lorry and secured a two-year derogation for this country. He claims also to have gained the victory of a power of veto after that, but it was always our view that we had such a power on matters of fundamental national importance. We were assured time and again that that was the position, so what extra gain has been achieved?
As the hon. Member for Newham South, (Mr. Spearing), who chairs the Select Committee on European Legislation, pointed out, we should consider the matter in its context. We are told that what the Government have achieved is part of a good package, and that that is why it has taken them so long to bring it before the House. We are told that we should, therefore, accept it. I suspect that in two years we shall be told the same thing.
We are agreeing, together with Eire, to be the odd man out in Europe. That position is not one that can be sustained for any time. My right hon. Friend knows that. I suspect that he does not even want to keep out the 40-tonne lorries. He emphasised that he accepted the fact that there had been a decision by Parliament two years ago. However, the weight of his argument seemed to be in favour of the economic case for the 40-tonne lorry — and, of course, there is an argument for the 40-tonne lorry.
The terms of the derogation are essentially temporary. Effectively, it will last until we have improved our road network. Intellectually and in logic, we are conceding the case. We have secured only a two-year derogation. That is not what we argued for two years ago, and we should not accept it tonight.
The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) said that it was reprehensible that the arrangement should have been brought before the House in such a hurry. I agree with her. She also argued that the decision would result in further damage to the environment. I agree with her on that, too. I will call the hon. Lady's bluff. If she will vote against the motion, I will join her in the Lobby.
§ Mrs. DunwoodyI should be very happy to join the hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) in the Lobby. As always, we may be a distinguished few, but what we lack in numbers we shall make up for in quality.
§ Mr. MoateI am delighted that the hon. Lady takes that view. I feel strongly that we are being asked to make an unfair decision, given the time factor that is involved. In the next couple of years the pressures on us from the Road Haulage Association, the Freight Transport 264 Association and many other bodies will increase. The pressure not to exercise the veto will be immense. In two years Parliament will be presented with a package that we are told is too good to refuse.
It was unfair of the Government to present us with this package tonight. I understand that the Select Committee considered the question on 12 December, about a week ago. Presumably —I judge from the documents—the Committee did not know of the deal that my right hon. Friend did in Europe on that day or the day before. Hardly a week later, we are presented with this package, without much background information, an explanatory memorandum or much newspaper coverage. If we assent to the motion, the agreement will come into effect tomorrow.
After only a few days, we are being asked to accept the proposition of a Community regulation for 40-tonne lorries and 11-tonne axle weights, with the simple defence that in a couple of years we will have the right to a veto.
I am not opposed to heavy lorries. I recognise the importance of an efficient transport industry. I believed, however, that we had settled on the weight of 38 tonnes. We have now conceded that before long we will take a further step to 40-tonnes. Before long, there will be a return to the Armitage report and the European proposition of a 44-tonne limit.
There will be inexorable pressures from the lorry lobby and the Department of Transport, and, as sure as we are here tonight, we shall soon have a 40-tonne proposition.
If there is an opportunity to vote tonight, I shall be delighted to vote against the motion. There are not many hon. Members in the Chamber—this is an unlikely night for rebellion—but in a few years I am sure that people will look back to see who was wise enough to vote against what is not the thin end but the thick end of the wedge.
§ 11.4 pm
§ Mr. RidleyWith the leave of the House. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) was a little grudging in her understanding of this rather minor package. She was suspicious to a degree about the motives behind what I admit is a rather rushed procedure. In no sense does the matter arise because the European Parliament is taking the Council to the European Court. That has nothing to do with it. So finally it became possible to get this package last week. I hardly think that it will affect anything that the European Court might wish to say. I should like to make it clear that we asked the House to consider the directive tonight because we put a parliamentary reserve on the agreement. The agreement was not altogether expected but we got it and, having held up our colleagues in Europe through the parliamentary reserve, it seemed right that I should ask the House if it was content with the directive. There is, in the language of the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), a package. It is a good package because it includes the increase in quotas, which several of my hon. Friends have recognised as valuable to us and the money for the infrastructure, which is a net gain. It is unusual for us to have that from the Community. As I intend to show, fears about weights and dimensions are quite groundless.
§ Mrs. DunwoodyIs the Secretary of State prepared to tell us whether, if the European Court ordered that the directive become law because it believed that none of the existing derogations was acceptable under the treaty, 265 Britain would have to comply with that law? Is it not possible that that decision could have been taken on 5 January?
§ Mr. RidleyThe answer is no. The European Court cannot order the Council of Ministers to do anything.
§ Mrs. DunwoodyWill the Secretary of State give way?
§ Mr. RidleyI have answered the hon. Lady's question.
§ Mrs. DunwoodyNo, the right hon. Gentleman has not. With the greatest respect, does the Secretary of State accept that the European Court has the right, when it believes that the treaty is not being complied with, to make a decision that overrides British law? Will the Secretary of State be honest about it and accept that we might be ordered to comply?
§ Mr. RidleyI have said it once and I say again, that the answer is, no. The hon. Lady is in a dull and gloomy mood tonight. I do not know what is eating her. Perhaps I can cheer her up by saying that there was a possibility, before this directive, that the Council of Ministers might have got so fed up with our refusal to move on lorry weights that it could have made a majority decision to impose a 40—tonne limit on Britain. I assure the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate), who is also suspicious—
§ Mr. RidleyI do not know what is eating him. We have an extraordinary alliance between my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and the hon. Lady. They are to have a secret rendezvous alone in the No Lobby. There is no need for that. They can go to much more congenial and convenient places than the rather gloomy and dank No Lobby. I do not advise that. I am happy to tell them that the agreement makes it virtually impossible at any stage for the Council to impose a majority decision on us in regard to lorry weights.
I know that the hon. Member for Newham, South and my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham wanted assurances. For two and a bit years, until February 1987, there is no pressure on us. The Commission will review the state of our roads and report by February 1987. It will then be up to the Council to decide whether to set a target date for deciding whether our roads are adequate. We shall have the right, by unanimous decision, to decide to accept it, or not. There is no question of waiting two years and then it will all start. The power of veto will remain with us for all time, if we wish it to do so. The hon. Member for Newham, South asked about the meaning of article 75(3) and the words "expected to". I admit that it is a clumsy procedure, but no other article can be legally applied in the circumstances of this directive. To ensure unanimous voting, article 100 was not appropriate, and we therefore had to use article 75(3). If the hon. Gentleman sees exactly what that article says, he will see that we have obtained exactly what we want—the right to unanimous votes at that time. If the hon. Gentleman had been with me in Brussels, he would have realised how long and hard it was necessary to fight to include that sentence in the directive and he would not now question it.
I shall not discuss the GLC lorry ban, because it has no connection with this directive. I have heard my hon. Friends' comments about that matter.
266 I should like to consider our progress with civilising the lorry. My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir D. Smith) asked about bypasses. We have given high priority to opening bypasses, opening 48 in the past five years with more under construction. Extending the motorway network and building bypasses are some of the main objectives for the remainder of this Parliament. By the middle of the 1990s we hope to build more than 140 bypasses. We have encouraged local authorities to build bypasses and to make sensible use of their powers to ban lorries. During the past four years, about 90 local bypasses have been started with financial assistance from the Government. A 1982 survey showed that 2,200 local lorry bans have been introduced in England and Wales. As more towns and villages are bypassed, there will be more scope for those lorry bans.
The hon. Members for Crewe and Nantwich and for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) and my hon. Friends the Members for Warwick and Leamington and for Bristol, East (Mr. Sayeed) asked what the Department is doing about overloading. The number of lorries that were weight checked by the Department's traffic examiners last year was 60 per cent. higher than two years earlier. That is a large increase. It has been made possible by installing 50 dynamic weighbridges, and we plan to install another 30 as soon as we can. That is a massive increase in equipment.
The other day, I visited one of the massive weighbridges and saw the major operation on the M1, taking selected lorries and checking them, not only for weight but defects of all sorts. After talking to many of those lorry drivers, I am certain that they know perfectly well that it is risky to drive overweight vehicles and that they are likely to be caught if they do. I hope that I can assure hon. Members that we are doing a great deal.
My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) asked about the M25. I am certain that, when completed, it will take a great many lorries away from his area and London. We shall certainly do all we can to think of ways of attracting, persuading and encouraging lorry drivers to take to the M25 and leave the other roads. There is great scope for local authorities to introduce local lorry bans. I hope that, when the M25 is completed, every local authority will use that route to find opportunities for more local bans or restrictions to persuade lorries to use the M25.
Lorry bans and how best to get lorries out of places where they should not be is better done locally by the boroughs and district councils. That will be helped when the GLC has been abolished because those powers will then devolve to the boroughs. That is another good reason for abolishing the GLC.
The hon. Member for Newham, South asked why the draft directive was not numbered and why there was no explanatory memorandum. The draft directive is not numbered because it is different to the one that was before us at the beginning of the meeting. I make no apology for changing it drastically. I am sure that the House would sooner have the one that I changed which, by the time it reached here, was still not numbered, rather than the numbered one which was not finally adopted by the Council.
Shortage of time made the explanatory memorandum so late that it would have been of little value to hon. Members. I shall make a note to try to ensure that we have one on future occasions.
§ Mr. SpearingI was in no way criticising the lack of a number. If the Secretary of State reads my speech in Hansard, he will find that I went out of my way to thank him and any other authorities for supplying the document at short notice. He will have noticed that the report of the Select Committee is dated 12 September. An explanatory memorandum might have enabled some of the disagreements in the debate to have been ironed out. I believe that an explanatory memorandum could have been laid Friday or yesterday without too much difficulty.
§ Mr. RidleyI accept that point. I know that the hon. Gentleman does a good job for the House scrutinising all these documents and we shall try not to transgress in future.
I was grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol, East and for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) for what they said. I have dealt with some of the points that they made. I do not expect that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds will press me to answer his question as to whether France will comply with the lorry quota weights. We shall try to make it do so. He was wise to point to the advantages of a common market in transport, if only because we joined a common market which we thought would be a common market in services as well as goods. It is in our national interest that we should have access to trade in Europe as it has access to our markets with its goods. We shall continue to press for that.
For the benefit of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham, I say that I do not accept that we cannot have a liberalised system of road haulage in Europe without Complete harmonisation first. We have a completely liberal quota-free arrangement between the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Benelux countries with no permits for the circulation of lorries, without having harmonised anything. That works well. It is to our mutual advantage.
I have never accepted that it is necessary to have full harmonisation to have a liberal system of road haulage in Europe. I believe that this agreement, modest though it is, has taken us some way towards a more liberal system in Europe without us having to concede on the harmonisation aspects one iota, which is something that I know that the House would not like. That is why our position has been protected.
§ Question put:—
§ The House divided: Ayes 100, Noes 32.
268| Division No. 57] | [11.18 pm |
| AYES | |
| Alison, Rt Hon Michael | Chalker, Mrs Lynda |
| Amess, David | Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S) |
| Ancram, Michael | Cope, John |
| Atkinson, David (B'm'th E) | Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J. |
| Beaumont-Dark, Anthony | Dover, Den |
| Beith, A. J. | Durant, Tony |
| Bellingham, Henry | Fenner, Mrs Peggy |
| Boscawen, Hon Robert | Forth, Eric |
| Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes) | Fox, Marcus |
| Bruce, Malcolm | Fraser, Peter (Angus East) |
| Cash, William | Gale, Roger |
| Garel-Jones, Tristan | Norris, Steven |
| Goodhart, Sir Philip | Osborn, Sir John |
| Griffiths, E. (B'y St Edm'ds) | Page, Sir John (Harrow W) |
| Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N) | Page, Richard (Herts SW) |
| Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom) | Patten, John (Oxford) |
| Hanley, Jeremy | Percival, Rt Hon Sir Ian |
| Harris, David | Portillo, Michael |
| Hawkins, C. (High Peak) | Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas |
| Hawksley, Warren | Roberts, Wyn (Conwy) |
| Heddle, John | Roe, Mrs Marion |
| Henderson, Barry | Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight) |
| Hickmet, Richard | Sackville, Hon Thomas |
| Holt, Richard | Sayeed, Jonathan |
| Hooson, Tom | Skeet, T. H. H. |
| Howarth, Alan (Stratf'd-on-A) | Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick) |
| Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N) | Spencer, Derek |
| Jopling, Rt Hon Michael | Stern, Michael |
| King, Roger (B'ham N'field) | Stradling Thomas, J. |
| Kirkwood, Archy | Taylor, John (Solihull) |
| Knight, Gregory (Derby N) | Taylor, Teddy (S'end E) |
| Lang, Ian | Thompson, Donald (Calder V) |
| Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh) | Thorne, Neil (Ilford S) |
| Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark | Thurnham, Peter |
| Lester, Jim | Townend, John (Bridlington) |
| Lightbown, David | Tracey, Richard |
| Lilley, Peter | Waddington, David |
| Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham) | Waller, Gary |
| Lord, Michael | Wardle, C. (Bexhill) |
| Lyell, Nicholas | Warren, Kenneth |
| MacGregor, John | Watson, John |
| Major, John | Watts, John |
| Marshall, Michael (Arundel) | Whitfield, John |
| Mather, Carol | Whitney, Raymond |
| Maude, Hon Francis | Wilkinson, John |
| Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin | Wood, Timothy |
| Miller, Hal (B'grove) | Yeo, Tim |
| Mills, Iain (Meriden) | Young, Sir George (Acton) |
| Mitchell, David (NW Hants) | |
| Moynihan, Hon C. | Tellers for the Ayes: |
| Neale, Gerrard | Mr. Michael Neubert and |
| Nicholls, Patrick | Mr. Tim Sainsbury. |
| NOES | |
| Barron, Kevin | Loyden, Edward |
| Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E) | McDonald, Dr Oonagh |
| Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.) | Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride) |
| Corbett, Robin | Moate, Roger |
| Cunliffe, Lawrence | Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe) |
| Dalyell, Tam | Parry, Robert |
| Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly) | Patchett, Terry |
| Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'ge H'l) | Pike, Peter |
| Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G. | Powell, Raymond (Ogmore) |
| Eadie, Alex | Prescott, John |
| Evans, John (St. Helens N) | Rowlands, Ted |
| Godman, Dr Norman | Snape, Peter |
| Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth) | Spearing, Nigel |
| Hoyle, Douglas | Warden, Gareth (Gower) |
| Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S) | |
| Janner, Hon Greville | Tellers for the Noes: |
| Lambie, David | Mr. Don Dixon and |
| Lloyd, Tony (Stretford) | Mr. John McWilliam. |
§ Question accordingly agreed to.
§
Resolved.
That this House takes note of European Community Documents Nos. 4088/79, 9292/81 and 9508/84 and the unnumbered Draft Directive submitted by the Department of Transport on 13th December 1984; and notes with satisfaction the position adopted in relation to the Draft Council Directive on the weights, dimensions and certain other technical characteristics of certain road vehicles.