§ 4.22 p.m.
§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
§ THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL)My Lords, this is a simple, practical and non-controversial measure which I believe would have been presented to Parliament by any Government that happened to be returned to power after the last General Election. It contains nothing that anyone would say is tainted with Party bias. Its main object is to exempt from driving tests persons who hold, or have held, war-time provisional driving licences, if they can satisfy certain simple requirements relating to their experience and conduct as drivers. The necessity for these exemptions arises out of the war. In 1940, war conditions led to the abandonment of driving tests, and the Ministry of Transport's driving examiners were naturally transferred, or went on their own accord, to duties directly connected with the war effort. Concurrently with the discontinuance of tests, provision was made by a Defence Regulation for applicants to be given provisional licences valid for twelve months at a time, to drive for any purpose. The pre-war requirement that the holder of a provisional licence should display "L" plates and be accompanied by an experienced driver was thus suspended. This made it possible for any holder of a provisional licence to drive without restriction and without having been subject to the pre-war driving test.
464 We could get back to the pre-war position by the simple process of revoking the Defence Regulation and restoring in full the Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) Regulation of 1937. This, however, would not be altogether fair. It would mean that everyone who had been driving under this war-time provisional licence would have to be tested, and there are, of course, serious objections to such a course. Many of these wartime drivers have driven thousands of miles during the war under very difficult conditions. Some of them drove with the utmost skill for the civil defence services, in far more arduous circumstances—often circumstances of danger and fatigue—than they would be likely to encounter in ordinary peace-time conditions. I am sure that your Lordships will agree that if their conduct was satisfactory during the whole of their period of war-time driving, it would be unreasonable to regard them now as learners requiring to be tested before being granted a driving licence.
There is, moreover, an administrative difficulty. As there are about 1,500,000 of these drivers it would be impracticable to test them all within a reasonable period of time. Even at the rate of 300,000 or 400,000 a year, it would take something like five years' work of testing before they had all been cleared off. It is therefore proposed in Clause 2 of the Bill—Clause 2 being the most essential of the clauses—that persons who have held a war-time provisional licence for twelve months and have not been convicted during that time of any serious driving offence, shall now be able to obtain a driving licence without having to undergo a test. This is subject to the applicant making his application within a year from the passage of the Bill.
Persons suffering from disabilities likely to make them dangerous as drivers are not affected by these arrangements for exemption, and are obliged, like all new drivers, to pass the test successfully. Those who are not covered by the exemption granted under Clause 2 of the Bill to holders of these war-time licences, and who did not hold a driving licence before the war, are now subject to a driving test. This applies to all fresh applicants for a licence, and Clause 1 of the Bill revokes the Defence Regulation that authorized the war-time provisional licence as a temporary expedient.
465 Clause 3 of the Bill enables the Minister to prescribe by regulation to whom the fee for a driving test shall be paid, and this will replace the pre-war practice of making the payment to the examiner who conducts the test. This change is, I think, eminently desirable as a matter of administrative convenience. Clause 3 also lays down in terms that the money received by a person prescribed by the Minister shall be paid into the Exchequer. I commend this Bill to your Lordships as a small and practical step to exempt from the pre-war driving test certain persons who have a good record as a result of their driving during the war, and as a means of improving the administrative machinery connected with the testing of drivers. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
§ On Question. Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.