§ 3.13 p.m.
§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTHMy Lords, I beg to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government under which Act are the Statutory Instruments being made, and laid before the House, imposing a 40 m.p.h. speed limit on roads within the London Traffic Area which are at present unrestricted.]
LORD FAIRFAX OF CAMERONMy Lords, the answer to the noble Lord's question is the London Traffic Act, 1924, as amended by Section 63 of the London Passenger Transport Act, 1933.
§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTHMy Lords, while I accept the legal technicalities of what the noble Lord has said, may I ask him whether he would remind his right honourable friend the Minister of Transport that when this experiment of having a 40 m.p.h. limit on certain roads within the London Traffic Area met with such stern opposition in your Lordships' House, the Government never gave the slightest indication that it was their intention to give unrestricted roads a 40 m.p.h. limit? Might I ask him whether he would be kind enough to read the debate, because if the does so he will see that his noble friend Lord Selkirk, when presenting this proposition as an experiment to your Lordships' House, said that it was only a 30 m.p.h. limit, increased to a 40 m.p.h. limit? Would the noble Lord also understand that I doubt very much whether your Lordships would have agreed to the experiment at all if they had known it was going to take the form the Minister has now announced?
LORD FAIRFAX OF CAMERONMy Lords, I will certainly read the debate. The only thing I would say is that this limit is being imposed under legislation which was already enacted when the limit went through.