PROCEDURE IN RELATION TO PROPOSALS OF CENTRAL BOARD FOR FIXING REMUNERATION. (Hansard, 6 July 1938)

§ LORD TEMPLEMORE
My Lords, I can only refer the noble Lord to the First Schedule, and especially the last part of sub-paragraph (3), in which the Minister is required to consult the area boards. I have said that he will follow their views and advice to the fullest possible extent. Further than that I am afraid I cannot go.

LORD WALERAN
Having heard what the noble Lord has said, I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ LORD TEMPLEMORE
My Lords, I do not know whether it will appease the anxiety of the noble Lord, but I can only repeat what I said on the Amendment in the Committee stage. This Amendment would empower the Industrial Court to exclude from the provisions of the Act certain workers who are only employed on road haulage work for a small part of their time. The Amendment does not define "grade of employment" or "road haulage" work. The effect of the Amendment would be that either Part I of the Bill could not operate until the Industrial Court had produced an adequate definition of the scope of its powers, or, alternatively, the employers and workers and the Central and Area Boards under Part I of the Bill and C licence holders under Part II of the Bill, would have to proceed hypothetically and be exposed to the risk of acting ultra vires.
In order if I can to allay the fears of my noble friends, I should like to explain exactly what the scope of the Bill is. The people to whom this measure is going to apply include the "travelling staff." The Minister explained on the Second Reading in another place that while the Baillie Committee's recommendations related solely to drivers and statutory attendants, which I think Lord Howe quoted the other day, the decision to include "all the travelling staff who accompany a vehicle, either to attend to it or 615 to its load," was made after careful consideration and consultation with organisations of employers and workers. The decision to cover the work of the travelling staff was undertaken because the mates, van boys and workers who travel on a vehicle for the purpose of attending to the transport of the goods are as much in need of protection, and as much a part of road transport, as are the workers who attend to the vehicle. For instance, the work of a "driver" is seldom confined to driving. He normally attends to the vehicle in other ways, and to its load, including loading, unloading, collecting and delivering. Indeed, under the Road and Rail Traffic Acts "driving time" includes all time spent on or in connection with a vehicle or its load.
The drivers are often accompanied by other workers who may or may not be "statutory attendants," but in the great majority of cases they will share with the driver some part of his duties of attending to the vehicle and its load. The variety of circumstances in which these workers are employed is so great that the only satisfactory way of limiting the definition of them is that adopted in the Third Schedule of defining "road haulage work," and making the scope depend on the outstanding criterion of travelling on or accompanying the vehicle. The term "statutory attendant" would be a most unsatisfactory term to employ in the definition, because a statutory attendant is only required to be in attendance while the vehicle is "on the highway," although in almost every case the occupation of a worker who is a statutory attendant necessarily involves work while the vehicle is off the highway, for example, while it is being loaded or unloaded. Further, the expression "statutory attendant" does not define an occupation because a statutory attendant is merely a second man who is required by law to accompany a vehicle which is drawing a trailer; and a statutory attendant may be a second fully-qualified driver, or merely an attendant with no other qualification and no other work. It should be noted that the definition does not cover any of the work done by a person who does not travel on a vehicle or by a person who is not required to travel on a vehicle for the purpose of loading, unloading, collection, delivery, 616 and so forth. Accordingly it should be clear that the examples which my noble friends Lord Howe and Lord Sandhurst quoted the other day, of billposters, window cleaners, and cellarmen, do not come under the Bill.
It is important to bear this in mind since the definition in the Bill is itself a compromise between the views of those who wish such workers to be included and those who wish the Bill to be even narrower in scope than it is. This compromise was made after careful consideration and consultation, and in the view of the Government it is just, and it is most undesirable to disturb it. I should like to add that a road-mender, gasfitter, billposter, or window cleaner, who travels on a vehicle with his materials and tools for the purpose of following his occupation, is excluded, but if he travels for the main purpose of doing road haulage he is included in respect of the time he spends on road haulage work, but not for time spent on other work. After this somewhat long and complicated explanation, which I only give to satisfy my noble friend, I hope he will withdraw the Amendment.

LORD WALERAN
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friends I would like to thank my noble friend Lord Temple-more very much for the trouble he has taken, and I beg leave to withdraw.