ROAD TRAFFIC AND ROADS IMPROVEMENT BILL (Hansard, 5 July 1960)

HL Deb 05 July 1960 vol 224 cc1028-126 1028

§ 3.38 p.m.

§ Order of the Day for the House to be again in Committee read.

§ Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Chesham.)

§ On Question, Motion agreed to.

§ House in Committee accordingly.

§ [The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]

§ Clause 1 [Punishment without prosecution of offences in connection with lights, reflectors, obstruction &c.]:

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, after subsection (5) to insert: ( ) Sums paid by way of fixed penalties for any offences shall be accumulated in a "Parking Fund" which shall be controlled by the Minister of Transport who may make grants therefrom to police authorities or local authorities for the following purposes:

(a) to contribute towards the cost of the administration and enforcement of a scheme of parking control;
(b) to contribute towards the cost of the provision or maintenance of off-street parking accommodation."

§ The noble Lord said: Before I address myself to the subject of this Amendment, may I express my personal pleasure at seeing the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, in his place? I can only think that his appearance here to-day is due to the fact that his recovery from his unfortunate illness has been rapid. In welcoming him, I would assure the noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, who has been helping him, that that is no disparagement whatsoever of him. For myself I am in the position that: How happy could I be with either Were t'other dear charmer away. 1029 But to have two charmers at the same time is, I am sure, agreeable.

This Amendment is put down because in principle it follows the decision of Parliament when it instituted parking meters in our traffic control in the Road Traffic Bill, 1956. The revenue from those meters goes into a fund which is earmarked for the provision of off-street parking. However much we may burke the issue—and the issue has been burked by successive Governments for years past, and it has been burked by practically every local authority—the solution to the congestion of the roads of this country is the provision of off-street parking. We cannot come back to that first principle often enough. It is, I know, an unfortunate one for Governments to face, and an unfortunate one for local authorities to face, because in the last analysis it comes down to a question of finance. But if we had had adequate off-street parking in the first place, years and years ago, and if we had kept up that off-street parking to keep pace with the growth of our road traffic, this Bill would never have been necessary.

I see no difference between the fines that are going to be charged under this Bill for letting out parking places on the kerbside at £2 a time (that is what it really means) and money put in a slot meter in the legitimate way. So I should like—and I think it is only right to make the point—to see all the money that is collected used in the way stated in the Amendment: Sums paid by way of fixed penalties for any offences"— that is, offences under this Bill— shall be accumulated in a Parking Fund' which shall be controlled by the Minister of Transport who may make grants therefrom to notice authorities or local authorities for the following purposes:

(a) to contribute towards the cost of the administration and enforcement of a scheme of parking control;
(b) to contribute towards the cost of the provision or maintenance of off-street parking accommodation."

§ In view of the provision in this Bill for the introduction of the disc system, this will mean that any revenues obtained from that by way of fines and penalties should go into the same fund.

§ I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, who, in his Second Reading speech, either his winding-up speech or 1030 his initial speech—I think it was his winding-up speech—had to admit that the money, the net amount that will be available from the parking-meter scheme, will be marginal. I think he said £15 per annum per meter—it was something like that. He will need a million or two meters to obtain the funds necessary to provide all the off-street parking in places where it will be wanted in this country.

§ I want the local authorities to have a free hand in opting whether to have parking meters or disc parking. The introduction of disc parking schemes has been brought into this Bill, if I may say so, in rather a half-hearted manner. I do not think that the Minister himself is very keen about it. But this Bill loads the dice against them, because while the local authority will be able to collect the money towards their off-street parking funds if they have parking-meter schemes, they will not be able to collect the money into a parking-meter fund if they have disc schemes; and I think they should. That is the simple purpose of this Amendment. It seeks to take the principle forward, because once Parliament gives way on this, once Parliament departs from the principle it established in the 1956 Road Traffic Act, that monies derived from parking meters should go to the provision of off-street parking, we shall never get it back again. It may be that this plan of ticket fines will be extended over the country where there will not be any chance of parking meters. Therefore, I think that on all counts this is a desirable provision to put into the Bill and I hope it will commend itself to the Government. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 2, line 34, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES
I have an Amendment to this Amendment, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Somers. I regret that it does not appear on the Marshalled List, but the noble Lord is not to blame for that: he handed it in yesterday or the day before. The noble Lord wishes to move the following Amendment: In Amendment No. 5, in line 3, leave out the word `may' and insert the word 'shall'.

1031

§ LORD SOMERS
I must apologise to the Committee for introducing another Amendment which is not on the Marshalled List, but, as the Lord Chairman has explained, I did give it in yesterday. This is, I think, a sufficiently simple Amendment not to need any explanation at all. It is merely making the purpose of the original Amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has moved—and which, may I say, I agree with wholeheartedly—a little more certain.
Those of us who are motorists—and before I go any farther, I think I should define what I mean by that term: most of us, I expect, drive a car, but by the word "motorists" I mean those for whom motoring occupies a very important place in life—have laboured very long under the burden of realising that we have really no guarantee that the millions which we pay into the Treasury by way of taxation are going to return in any form which will benefit us as motorists. That, I know, has been the principle as regards all taxation in this country for very many years, but I think it is outstandingly so in the case of motorists. For instance, those who pay every week for their Health Insurance stamps are pretty certain that they are going to get their old-age pension when they reach the age of 65. There are other forms of taxation which I think can be said to provide a reasonably certain return. But motorists, no!
I have no absolute figures at hand, but the return in the way of improved roads, provision of off-street parking and other things such as that, has been minute in comparison with the taxation which has been paid out by the hundreds of thousands of motorists—or the millions, I think I should say—every year. Therefore, I wish, by this Amendment to the Amendment, to make it a little more certain that these fixed penalties shall be devoted to the purpose which the noble Lord has made out. May I say that, if my Amendment to the Amendment is carried, I am sure that those of us who are keen motorists will go and park in the wrong place as often as we possibly can so as to swell that fund.
Amendment to the Amendment moved— In Amendment No. 5, in line 3, leave out 'may' and insert 'shall'."—(Lord Somers.)

1032

§ 3.50 p.m.

§ THE EARL OF SWINTON
I hope that for once the Government will stand firm on what I believe is one of the most important principles of finance. About 40 years ago Sir Eric Geddes, who was a very large transport figure, introduced an assigned revenue, by which a certain amount of taxation which was levied upon motorists was assigned for some special purpose. That was a sin—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, will bear this out—against what has always been a cardinal principle of taxation: that you tax where it is fair to tax and where you can get the revenue, and that you apply that revenue for whatever are the needs of the State. Nothing is more foolish, as well as being more unorthodox (and the two things do not always go together), than the idea that because you collect revenue from one section of the taxpayers you have got to give it back to them. It would all be very agreeable, particularly to your Lordships, most of whom (certainly on the Benches opposite, and some of us on these) are surtax payers, if the revenue which was collected in surtax from ourselves and in death duties from our forbears was applied for our benefit. It would be extremely agreeable, but I do not think it would be equitable and I do not think it would be sensible; and I hope that all this nonsense, if I may say so, will be swept out of the way.
Now there is a perfectly good argument for saying that you ought to spend more money upon roads. All right; if that is the right thing to do in the interests of the community, then let us spend more money upon roads. If it is a wise reduction in taxation, when a less formidable Chancellor of the Exchequer, nearer to a General Election, decides that some remission of taxation should be made, and that it is popular and right (of course, the two things must go together) to make some reduction in the taxation of motor cars or petrol, then let it be done: but do not let us have any more of this most unorthodox, heretical argument. From a member of the established Church of Scotland, I am surprised to hear such heresy. Do not let us have any more of this heresy—that because you collect a tax from A you have got to give it back to A. If you collect a tax from A it should be the 1033 right type of tax: if it is not, then the House will vote against it. But if it is the right type of tax, it is collected from A and it is applied from A to Z for the benefit of the community.

§ LORD DERWENT
I hesitate to join issue with so learned an ex-Minister from my part of the world as my noble friend, but I should have thought he was a little wrong in this particular case, because Parliament has already done this. They are not taxing A to pay the money back to A. Parliament has already said that, in the case of parking, where there are parking meters the money taken from A shall in fact be paid to B and shall be used for parking purposes. Parliament has done that because, presumably, the Government wanted it done. Parliament has said that the net proceeds of a parking meter, after all the men have been paid, and so on, must be used for off-street parking. What the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, is saying is: Here is another case where you are in fact charging for parking and where it therefore follows that, as Parliament has already established that where you charge for parking on the highway you should use the proceeds for off-street parking, this money should be used to provide off-street parking accommodation.
Of course, I agree with my noble friend Lord Swinton that if the Government really think that the provision of off-street parking is an important matter (which presumably they do; they have said so), a far better way is for them to give some money towards it; but they have time and again refused to have anything to do with it. In those circumstances, I think it is not unreasonable that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, should ask that in this particular case, where you are charging for parking on the road.. although my noble friend below me denies it, you should follow what has previously happened when a charge has been made for parking.

§ LORD CHESHAM
Might I intervene for one second, because I think that my noble friend behind me is misleading your Lordships. If he implies that there is any form of charge in a disc parking scheme, may I say that that is not so; you park free. If you do not comply with whatever are the regulations applying to that disc scheme, you commit an offence 1034 and are liable to be fined if you are convicted of having committed that offence. That is in no sense a charge for parking; and I think my noble friend, no doubt in innocence, has rather tended to mislead your Lordships by referring to it as a charge.

§ EARL WINTERTON
What my noble friend Lord Swinton was saying I think needs saying. Personally, I am getting rather tired of hearing in your Lordships' House, and of reading in the proceedings in another place, certain people who own motor cars—and, after all, we all own motor cars—always suggesting that any money taken from them in taxation should be spent for the benefit of the motorist. It is an utterly wrong principle. It bores the public. It commands no real support from the public. I should like to support most strongly what my noble friend has said—which is, I think, a principle of taxation. It would be out of order to go further on the matter; but, after all, if the money taken from motorists should be used only for the benefit of the motorist, why should not the money taken from surtax payers be used to give us an old age pension? It is a most dangerous principle and it has been far too much advanced, both in your Lordships' House and elsewhere.

§ LORD SILKIN
We are much obliged to the two noble Earls for the academic argument which they have developed in this House on the principles of taxation, with which I think most of us would agree. They were both preaching to the converted. But may I say, with great respect, that they are not really talking to the Amendment at all. They have, if I may say so, confused themselves by imagining that we are talking about taxation. We are not talking about taxation at all. The charge which is levied upon motorists for the use of a parking meter is not a tax: it is for the use of a certain amount of space and for the use of that parking meter, and Parliament has already decreed that the proceeds from the use of parking meters are to go to a specific purpose, such as the provision of off-street parking. One can argue on the merits of this Amendment, as to whether it is right or wrong, but it is an extension of that principle: that where people are fined in accordance with Clause 1 of the Bill, or they are required to pay a fixed 1035 penalty for the unlawful use of the street, that money should go for the provision of off-street parking so that motorists can use the roads in a lawful way.
Now one can argue—and I admit that it is arguable—as to whether the extension of this principle, which has already been accepted, is a good one or not. One can even argue the merits of using the proceeds of parking meters for providing off-street parking, but it would be quite wrong to confuse the issue by suggesting that we propose to use taxation for this purpose. It is not taxation. I am bound to say that the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, was probably misled by the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Somers, who brought in the whole question of the use which is being made of motor taxation, which has nothing to do with this Amendment at all.

§ LORD SOMERS
May I interrupt to say that I was not implying that I wanted the general principle of the taxation of motorists changed? I merely brought that in to show that we are getting a little impatient because no more money is being spent on motoring interests. I was merely confirming what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, had said.

§ LORD SILKIN
If that is so, then I think we are all agreed on taxation of motorists. Any Government is entitled to take the proceeds of that taxation for the general benefit of the community. But in this case there is going to be a heavy burden on local authorities to provide off-street parking, especially in the central areas of London where it is most needed. The cost of land and of providing these facilities is enormous. We hear every day in the Press of the increasing cost of land. Unless some help is given to local authorities to provide off-street parking, they will be quite unable financially to carry out this duty. This Amendment is one way of providing them with some facilities. May I say, on behalf of my noble friend, that it would be acceptable to us to make this mandatory on the Government? If we are to be realistic and if we intend to provide more off-street parking facilities in big centres of population, then somehow we must provide means for doing so. There is no other machinery for doing it in the Bill, and we suggest that this is one effective way of enabling 1036 local authorities to carry out the obligation which Parliament desires them to carry out.

§ THE EARL OF SWINTON
I really cannot allow the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, to get away with this. I am grateful to him for his support of the general thesis which my noble friend Lord Winterton and I propounded, that we should not have assigned revenue, but surely it applies equally to this. I was a little misled by my noble friend Lord Somers, who said that people who contributed towards old age pensions—which, after all, has nothing to do with this, because it is a contributory scheme like any other insurance policy—ought to be able to draw benefit from it. In this case somebody commits an offence and is "had up" and fined.

§ LORD SILKIN
He is not "had up".

§ THE EARL OF SWINTON
Well, somebody puts a paper, an affiche, on his motor car and he has the right to be "had up" or pay £2 into the "kitty". Now what is the "kitty"? I say quite emphatically that the "kitty" is not something to do with other motorists who may or may not have committed a similar offence. The "kitty" is the same "kitty" into which the money is paid when the noble Lord is "had up" for any of the other offences which I have no doubt he commits from time to time and to which he either pleads guilty or is defended and, if defended, is fined something more. He really cannot suggest that the fine he pays for whatever offence he is prosecuted should be paid into a fund out of which those who have enjoyed the same indiscretions should receive a bonus. This is an extraordinary conception which is being introduced to us. I hesitate to speak in the presence of an ex-Lord Chancellor, but I think that he would support me when I say that this is a very odd idea.
We have all been "had up" for different offences and had to pay a fine, which goes into the funds of the local authority, who can then apply it in reduction of rate or in whatever way they like. Even in the Duchy of Lancaster, of which I had the honour once of being Chancellor, all fines which are paid, except those for motoring offences which are statutory offences, are paid to the Queen, and out of them are provided 1037 the courts of the Duchy of Lancaster. I well remember that on one occasion we were fortunate enough to have a very large fine which provided quite unexpected revenue for the year. I venture to say that that ought not to be treated as a precedent. In motoring offences, the fines did not go into the general revenue of the Duchy; they went to the local authority. I think that on reflection the noble Lord will see that the thesis which my noble friend Lord Winterton and I propounded, about the application of the proceeds of general taxation, applies just as much to fines imposed for special offences, and that they ought to go into general revenue, whether national or local, and be applied by either national or local authority in the way they think proper.

LORD HAWKE
Could somebody enlighten my ignorance about where these fines will go if this Amendment is not made?

EARL BATHURST
I think it is time that a little enlightenment should be given. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, stated that the effect of his Amendment would be what amounted to a direct subsidy of off-street parking for local authorities, and the noble Lord, Lord Somers, in his Amendment, wishes this is to be mandatory. Wherever there is a Government subsidy, that subsidy must come from taxation. But in the case of this Amendment, the subsidy would not be from taxation, as the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, made clear; it would be from a fine. We are getting mixed up between taxation and fines—that is, fixed penalties from tickets—and meter charges. The fines are laid down under the Road Traffic Act, 1960. The fines collected by the court under that Act go through the Home Office to the Exchequer and go from the Exchequer to the Ministry of Transport in the form of a grant to the General Road Fund.

LORD SOM̃ERS
I think that the noble Earl is misreading my Amendment. It simply alters the word "may" to "shall". The money still comes from the parking fines. Therefore, it is a fine and not from taxation at all.

EARL BATHURST
With great respect to my noble friend, if he will listen a little longer, that is exactly what I was talking about: that these parking 1038 fines that I mentioned are also written in the 1960 Act.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
When the noble Earl was interrupted he was on an interesting point. Would he be good enough to go back and repeat what he said?

EARL BATHURST
With due respect to the noble Lord, I suppose I was. The fines as laid down in the 1960 Road Traffic Act—that is, the fines for these penalties, which are specified, meter offence fines—go, as I have explained, through the Home Office to the Treasury and then to the Ministry of Transport into the General Road Fund. That is the principle we wish to uphold. Equally, all fines, whether meter fines or not, which are specified under the 1960 Act—and practically all of them, I think I am right in saying, are the sort of fines we are considering in this Bill—will go in the end to the Road Fund.
The next effect of the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, would be to bring about the most undesirable principle that the amount of money resulting from fines—in other words, the degree of enforcement which results in the collection of the fines—will have a very direct connection with the amount of money that would be given in subsidy to the particular local authority. I do not think we can agree with that principle: that the amount of subsidy should depend on the degree of enforcement of a penalty for an offence. Let me make it quite clear that we are talking about penalties. All these fixed penalties, or the ticket system, are imposed in no way as if it were a summary conviction. Yesterday we had considerable argument about what the option "or" should be. If the alleged offender does not decide to take his ticket, he will go before the court in exactly the same way. I do not think that your Lordships would wish that that fine—a perfectly ordinary fine, to which my noble friend Lord Swinton and the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, referred—should subsidise a particular purpose, which in this case, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, wishes, would be the local authority parking place.
I must take up the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, when he says words to the effect that it is a paltry sum for 1039 each meter. I agree that £15 a year as a net profit does not sound very much for each meter, which may well be quite an expensive item. But your Lordships probably read in the newspapers on Friday night that already, in the first year of working 1,838 meters, the Westminster Council have collected something in the region of £28,000. That sounds a very large sum, but I must agree straight away with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, that off-street car parking is an expensive business. I am informed that in the central London area it can cost from £1,000 to £1,500 per car a year, which also sounds a considerable sum. But with the amount of money that would come in from the charge on that car park, day to day and year by year, I suppose that the sum begins to look rather smaller.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, also said that my noble friend Lord Chesham was allowing no other measure in this Bill to help off-street car parking. I have already mentioned that the meter charge is completely separate (if I may make this quite clear to my noble friend Lord Somers) from the fine the local authorities collect—the charge from the meters, including the 10s. excess charge, which also goes to them for off-street car parking. In no way should that 10s. excess charge be confused with a fine for a meter offence. It has nothing to do with the measures in this Bill, except that the traffic warden could collect it.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
The noble Earl, if I may say so, has explained this extraordinarily well, but has he not now made one mistake? The excess 10s. charge was admitted by the Government of the day of which the noble Earl, Lord Swinton (I hesitate to remind him of it), was a member, to be partly a fine. If the noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, will look up the debate, I think he will find that the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, who was then in charge of the Bill, admitted that the reason for the large amount of excess charge for keeping a car on a metered space over and above the limit of time had to be regarded in some way as partly rent and partly a fine for breaking the regulations. I do not think my memory is at fault, because I 1040 remember the discussion so well. I am glad the noble Earl has said where this goes, but before he finishes his explanation, can he explain to the Committee that this money—I take it he is now referring to the money that will be collected in these 2s. fines—will find the same route as the fines under the Road Traffic Act—because these fines will really come under the Road Traffic Act. Did he say that they go via the Treasury—

EARL BATHURST
The Home Office.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
The Home Office first: they get their "cut". Then it goes to the Treasury, and they get their "cut"—and, knowing the Treasury, I would ask the noble Earl whether he will tell me what proportion eventually finds its way to the Ministry of Transport Road Fund? I should think it is a very small amount. Could the noble Earl explain why there should be this devious route?

EARL BATHURST
So far as I know, there is no commission charged by the Treasury or by my right honourable friend who is responsible for collecting the fines in the courts. I do not think they would consider themselves as commission agents in any way. There may, of course, be certain administrative charges. However, if the noble Lord would put down a Question with regard to that, I will certainly give him an exact answer. But it is the intention that the fines should go through the courts and be collected. From the courts they go to the Home Office; from the Home Office to the Treasury, and from the Treasury into the Road Fund of the Ministry of Transport. That applies to all those fines for offences under the Road Traffic Act, 1960, of which these parking offences are such offences. But the meter charges, about which the noble Lord started to talk, the 6d. in the slot and the 10s. excess charge, will go in exactly the same way to the local authority. The only difference (and this is subject to another subsection) will be that there is the possibility that the traffic warden may do the collecting, instead of the man employed by the local authority as a meter-minder.
I want also to make it quite clear to the noble Lord that, whatever was said in the Hansard he mentioned—and I am quite certain that it was corrected or re-said—this 10s. excess charge is a 1041 charge and is not in any way a fine. So that for the sum of I Is. (I think I am correct) you have four hours' parking. After that there is an offence which will be a ticketable offence, and an offence of the sort I have described to my noble friend Lord Somers. That is why we do not believe that it is a right principle that fines—the perfectly ordinary payment of fines, the results of summary conviction—should go to subsidise a particular activity.
I have reached the point where my noble friend Lord Chesham explained the other ways that were open to finance off-street parking. He will tell us, as he has already told us on Second Reading, that local authorities can charge in their car parks. They can let their car parks to an outside body, a company or person, who will run the car park and pay rent; and they can also let their car park to a garage company who will sell petrol, run a maintenance station, or some such activity. It seems that there is considerable competition to do that. From all information, it would seem that car parks will be able to be built up. I agree with what my noble friend Lord Somers, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, have said about wanting more off-street car parking. I ask them to bear in mind the cost of the space for each car, and I also ask them to bear in mind that, as the years go on, large sums will be available to the local authorities through charges gained from meters. For instance, the local authority in Westminster, according to the newspapers, plan some 800 more meters, and so it will have a cumulative effect. May I now go back to the disc system?

§ EARL HOWE
Before the noble Earl passes from that subject, can he tell me whether the sums received by the local authorities, either for meters or car parking, are subject to income tax? It has been stated in the Press that income tax is charged on all receipts.

EARL BATHURST
Yes, my Lords: they are subject to income tax, and my noble friend has had a long discussion with the noble Earl about this in your Lordships' House. They are subject to income tax because it is a trading organisation; and therefore it would seem right and proper that they should be 1042 subject to income tax. But the noble Earl knows very well that the local authorities may put against that taxation, in exactly the same way as any private individual may, the cost of running the car park which they are going to set up. In theory, at any rate, that will balance. There will be no sum due to the Treasury, provided that the local authority establishes its car park. I hope that that is clear to the noble Earl.
I should like to mention the disc system over which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, said we were rather half-hearted. If that system should be operated, as it can be operated under a later clause of the Bill, it will operate entirely on a penalty principle. Any of your Lordships who have been to Paris will know that if you commit an offence you pay a penalty. I cannot believe that the noble Lord would disagree that it is a penalty and a fine, in exactly the same way as I was mentioning a statutory fine and conviction. It still seems wrong to us—and I think there is much to be said for this point of view—to subsidise a particular activity, namely, local authority car parking, from a particular fine.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
Could the noble Earl answer this question? Do the fines that may come about through breaches of a disc system find their way via the route the noble Earl outlined, through the Home Office and the Treasury to the Road Fund of the Ministry of Transport?

EARL BATHURST
That is so. When I say "through the Home Office", what I mean is that it has been collected by the courts or by the clerk to the justices. I imagine that it is just a pure cheque transaction. There is not a great deal of operational trouble involved. There is just one further point. I want to make it quite clear that the police grant of 50 per cent. is payable already to all local authorities for the police service. In exactly the same way, the 50 per cent. will be available towards the cost, of appointing traffic wardens which are, of course, operating under the police.
I hope I have shown your Lordships that the result of accepting the noble Lord's Amendment would be to specify that certain grants or subsidies should be taken from particular fines. We do not 1043 believe that that can possibly be a right principle, for exactly the same reasons as the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, said. Then, of course, he changed to taxation, which was a bit of a hare brought up by my noble friend Lord Somers I cannot advise your Lordships to accept the Amendment of the noble Lord.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I am very grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, for his very lucid explanation, which I will study closely. Did I understand him to say that fines collected under the Road Traffic Act, 1960, go eventually to the Road Fund of the Ministry of Transport?

EARL BATHURST
Yes.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I cannot understand the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, agreeing with that. That is just what he has been denouncing wholeheartedly, aided and abetted by his noble colleague, Lord Winterton. And yet the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, was a member of the Government which agreed to this dreadful form of financial manipulation.

§ THE EARL OF SWINTON
I really must protest. I was a very obscure member of that Government. I think it was about 45 years ago, and I was an Under-Secretary. I thought it a shocking thing, but odd things were done in Mr. Lloyd George's Government, and it went through. I am glad to say that in the more respectable Government of Mr. Bonar Law—it is not for me to judge as I was a member of both; I will not say I was a more distinguished member, but I was in a more influential position—we reversed all that nonsense, and we have never reverted to it since.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I refuse to accept that the noble Earl has been an obscure member of anything. That is the last thing I would ever accuse him of. I am not talking about Mr. Lloyd George's Government. I am talking about the Government of 1956.

§ THE EARL OF SWINTON
No. I declared my innings closed.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
The noble Earl was a member of the Government of 1953. He cannot pick upon Mr. Lloyd George as a scapegoat. The noble Earl must accept responsibility for 1044 this special Fund that is now in operation.
I thank the noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, for his reply. I should like to look at it again, if he does not mind, because it is a reply which is worth studying. It is one of the most lucid replies I have heard from the Government Front Bench in your Lordships' House for a long time. If your Lordships will give me permission, for the time being I will withdraw my Amendment.

LORD SOM̃ERS
I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment to the Amendment.

§ Amendment to Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ 4.30 p.m.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, after subsection (5) to insert: ( ) No evidence shall be given to any court concerning any record of the payment of any fixed penalties without the consent of the person who made the payment. The noble Lord said: This is an Amendment of substance, and here I again try to make clear in this Bill precisely what the Government's intention is. It has been said by all the Government spokesmen upon this Bill—except the noble Lord who moved the Second Reading, who was careful and, if I may say so, clever enough to sidestep this issue—that when a ticket is given to an alleged offender, and that offender within the statutory time of 21 days pays the fine of £2 to the clerk whose address will be entered upon the ticket, no record of that is kept at all: the motorist can go on committing an offence so long as he has £2 in his pocket and is willing to pay. He can be, for the purposes of this Bill, a first offender all his life. That is what has been said; and that nothing can be done about it. But there is nothing in the Bill to say that—nothing whatsoever.

§ The best I can do, to make your Lordships quite clear upon this point, is to quote what the Ministers have said. In the Second Reading debate in another place the right honourable gentleman the Minister of Transport was asked this question [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 621 (No. 96), col. 906]: Can a person go on committing these offences for a dozen times or more and still be liable to only half the penalty, at the most, for a first offence?

1045

§ Mr. Marples said: That is right. There will be no record kept that can be brought; before the courts. He was then asked: Is there no record to be kept at all, so that the person serving the notice, and the clerk of the court receiving it, will not know what the record is of a particular person? Mr. Marples then said: The police keep a record. If a man is a persistent offender they can prosecute him instead of issuing a ticket. But the Under-Secretary of the Home Office, in his winding-up speech, said something rather different. I will quote what he said. In answer to the question what was to happen about "persistent offenders, those people who are always getting tickets," and what records were to be kept he said (col. 1026): Under Clause 1 of the Bill, as the money has to be paid to the justices' clerk, the justices' clerk will always have a record, but it must not be thought that the court itself will thereby be given judicial notice of the matter. The payment of a fixed penalty is not a conviction and it is not a sentence, and it would not be right for the fact that there has been such a penalty paid in the past on one or two or more occasions to be brought to the notice of the court. On the question about whether the records would be kept by the police, the Under-Secretary said: Of course, it is up to them to decide whether to keep records or not. They are at liberty to do so if they wish. The Commissioner of Police has told the Home Secretary that he has no intention whatever of keeping central records."— What an amazing statement!— He wants to get rid of paper work, and has no intention of giving the police additional paper work by keeping records of all these standard penalties. So now it goes forth from the Commissioner of Police that you can go on in the London area paying £2 for a parking space for ever more. Really it is an amazing state of affairs. But there is nothing in the Bill to say anything about this.

§ I will finish the quotation from the Under-Secretary's speech on the Second Reading: However, of necessity, the police constable or the traffic warden who serves the notice for the payment of the standard penalty will have to have a note of the circumstances in case, eventually, there is to be a case in court, and to that extent the police will keep a record. 1046 Of course, they must keep a record, because if you do not pay the first time you are then issued with a summons, and either the constable or the warden, as the case may be, who has issued you with the ticket will be the chief prosecution witness. Then the Under-Secretary continued: The warden or the constable may have noted that a particular car is persistently parked in some place or area, and that the driver is always having to have these notices served on him. In such a case, the warden or constable is quite at liberty to say to the police officer he is working under, 'This fellow offends much too often. It is no good serving any more notices on him—let us take him to court.' But they have not got any records; they are not going to keep any records in London.

§ Then on the Committee stage the Under-Secretary of the Home Office said this: There is one other matter which, in deference to the Committee, although it has not been mentioned, I feel that I should stress on this Question. I refer to the extent, if any, to which a payment of a fixed penalty will have any influence at all on any proceedings arising out of alleged failure to pay that penalty or any subsequent proceeding. Note that phrase: "any subsequent proceeding". Before we part with the clause, I should stress that there is no question whatever of payment of a fixed penalty or even of service of a ticket being even mentioned in those proceedings unless the defendant himself raises the matter. It is most important that we should hear that in mind. Of course, if we find that there are people who behave in such a way as continually to earn tickets by irresponsibly leaving their cars frequently in the wrong place and then frequently refuse to pay the penalty and frequently come to court and are convicted, then, of course, in those I hope, unusual cases, the previous convictions would always count against them. But there is nothing in the Bill about this—nothing whatsoever.

§ I have said that one of the great difficulties in road traffic law is to get some uniformity of administration. I must confess that I wish the Commissioner of the Police for the Metropolis would wait until Parliament has finished with a Bill before offering all these statements about what he intends to do with the Bill, when it has not yet become law. But he is only one of about 120. What are the others going to do? I would ask the noble Lord who is to reply to me—I do not know whether it is going 1047 to be Tweedledum or Tweedledee, or whoever it is—to try to give a lucid explanation. What happens? No records are going to be kept. Of course the police will keep a record. The chief constable of any area is bound to keep a record. He would be deficient in his duties if he did not. The only way by which a persistent offender can be brought to court is by refusing to give him a ticket, because as soon as he is given a ticket no proceedings can be started at all if, within 21 days, he pays the £2. So in any natural administration a chief constable will have a record, and he will be apprised of those people who are habitual offenders. He will, of necessity, go to his subordinates and say, "Do not give the owner of X Y Z 123 another ticket; report him." There is no obligation on either a warden or a constable to give a ticket—he may give a ticket. If he receives instructions from his superiors not to, he will not.

§ So then it comes to court. I have been critical of benches of magistrates, but I have not been so critical as to say that they are devoid of all intelligence. If this man is brought before them, have the magistrates the right to ask, "Why did you not have a ticket?". Is the magistrate allowed to ask the prosecuting inspector of police—he is prosecuting for one of these offences; let us say it is for obstruction, or waiting, or something of that kind—"Was he not offered a ticket?" Is the chief constable allowed to reply: "No; he is an habitual offender."? Will the Bench not know? Suppose the bench ask the man, "Why did you not pay your fine?"; and suppose the man answers, "I never had the option; I was not given a ticket". The non-delivery of a ticket is the only way by which the police can perform what I understand to be their bounden duty—that is, to prosecute habitual offenders.

§ As I say, there is nothing whatsoever in this Bill, as far as I can see, to say all this. I thought that I would try to put something in the Bill. I do not know whether my Amendment is effective, but certainly it tries to put into this Bill the substance of the protestations of not only the Minister of Transport but the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office in another place. By this 1048 Amendment I seek to insert as a new subsection, the words: No evidence shall be given to any court concerning any record of the payment of any fixed penalties without the consent of the person who made the payment. I put in the last part because it is possible for a faulty summons to be issued. The man may want to say, "I have never had a ticket before", or he may want to admit that he has had one.

§ I hope that the noble Earl sees the dilemma. It is a most serious dilemma. Without putting something such as I suggest into this Bill, I do not think that we shall stop the chief constable acting in this way if he is so minded. There is nobody who can say that he may not. I do not know of any authority in this country, except an Act of Parliament, which gives a chief constable any instruction as to how he is to administer the law. In motoring cases, he is the sole arbiter of whether or not a summons is issued, except of course in cases of a serious nature which go direct to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The chief constable will decide in cases where a man has not paid the fine whether he is, or is not, prosecuted. If the man defaults after 21 days, who starts the proceedings? The clerk does not. The clerk will have to go to the police and say, "Here is a man who has not paid within 21 days. Will you please now find out who the owner is—whether the man whose name is on this paper is the owner, or who is the owner; and will you put the machinery in motion?" The chief constable will then decide whether he prosecutes. So the chief constable will have all the records that it is proper for a chief constable to have.

§ Surely any bench of magistrates will know that when the chief constable or his representative appears in court to prosecute, he is prosecuting on one of two grounds: either that the man has not paid the fine, or that he has not been given a ticket because he is an habitual offender. I do not see how you can stop that. The only way in which you can try to stop it is that which I have tried to suggest—that is, by saying that no evidence shall be given. I do not know whether that is going to be effective. But do not delude the public, as all these speeches are, into thinking that they can go on, year in and year out, so long as they have £2 in their pockets, buying 1049 parking space by the roadside for evermore. Do not delude them, because they just will not be able to do it. That is what has been stated, except for the proviso about the police. But then, when the Ministers who have supported this line have at last mentioned the police, they have been emphatic that no record can be produced in court.

§ I think this matter wants clearing up. I sense that it is the Government's idea that no record shall be produced in court that gives the past history of a man who is an habitual offender. If that is the Government's idea, put something about it in the Bill, because without it you will never be able to operate the thought you have; and you will not be able to stop the police, if they think fit, from being able to tell the court the grounds upon which they have issued the summons—that is, that a man is an habitual offender. If they say he is an habitual offender they will have to prove it, and they have the records. So I hope that the noble Earl will help me to help him clarify the position. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 2, line 34, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

§ 4.50 p.m.

EARL BATHURST
With great respect, I wonder if I might outline to your Lordships the exact procedure under this ticket system. When I have done so your Lordships may still wish to continue to discuss the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, but I believe that there is some confusion about how the Ticket procedure will work. Under subsection (3) of Clause 1, a policeman or traffic warden may give an alleged offender a ticket. On the ticket will be shown a series of offences, as prescribed in this Bill; and possibly the particular offence alleged will be marked by a cross or tick. Each ticked will bear a number, and the same serial number will appear on each of two counterfoils attached to the ticket. One of the counterfoils will go back to the police station or office from which the constable or traffic warden is operating and the other will go to the clerk of the court. On the ticket will appear the registration number of the motor vehicle (but no further details) with the description of the offence indicated by letters or in some other con- 1050 venient way. There will also be details of the time and place of the alleged offence, with possibly a diagram or something of that kind to make clear the alleged offence. May I make clear to your Lordships that it may be that neither the policeman nor the traffic warden will ask an alleged offender for his name or address. Indeed, the traffic warden will have no authority to do so in any case.
Under Clause 1 (7), where an alleged offender is not present the policeman or traffic warden can put the ticket on the motor vehicle in some way—presumably fixing it under the windscreen wiper. In order to pay the fine, the alleged offender has to send this ticket to the magistrates' court. As I have said, the magistrates' court will already have received a counterfoil bearing that same serial number. So that a receipt may be sent to the alleged offender, he has to write his name and address on the back of the ticket that is given him; although perhaps if he pays by cheque he may not need to do so. The magistrates' clerk will then return the receipted ticket to the alleged offender and nothing more need be done by him. Meanwhile, the magistrates' clerk marks on his counterfoil a note of receipt of the fine and sends it to the police station which received the other counterfoil. There, by some system—perhaps counterfoils will be kept on a niece of string or retained in some similar manner—the two counterfoils will come together. Presumably, someone in the police station will have the duly of watching to check the individual tickets coming in. At no stage, however, will details other than the registration number of the car be given. I should imagine that a superintendent of a particular police station would be very pleased to see the counterfoils go into the dustbin or be disposed of in some other way—I trust that there will be some kind of salvage system.
Now let us look at the situation if that does not happen. Suppose an alleged offender does not admit the offence and refuses to pay the fixed penalty. The magistrates' clerk, by means of a calendar or through some other system, finds that a particular alleged offender, in respect of whom he has received a counterfoil, has not paid the penalty within the number of days specified in the order. He then sends that particular counterfoil to the police station where it 1051 is married with the other counterfoil already there bearing a note of the type of offence, the other details which I have mentioned will appear, and the registration number of the car.
Twenty-one days (or whatever period is specified) having elapsed, a prosecution can be put in hand. Through the usual channels the chief officer of police will find out who is the owner of the car, and the prosecution will follow. The question of whether a prosecution "may" or "will" take place was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, yesterday. As to cases where a chief officer of police might decide not to prosecute, I can only think of occasions when there may have been some extraordinary breach of procedure by the policeman or traffic warden, or perhaps some subsequent discovery that the motor vehicle had broken down, or that the alleged offender was ill. It would be some such extraordinary reason as that which might lead a chief constable to decide against a prosecution.
The Commissioner of Police in London has decided that he will send a warning order to anyone who appears to have forgotten to pay the fine when his identity is established. The fixed penalty can still be paid then and, in fact, can foe paid right up to the time when a prosecution takes place. I believe that I have made it clear that the name of the person cannot possibly be found out unless he refuses to pay the fixed penalty. If he so decides, then his identity must be found out.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
The noble Earl is wrong. The police can always find out the owner of any motor car if they have the registration number.

EARL BATHURST
With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, I cannot see any police superintendent, or police constable, thumbing through a mass of counterfoils unless they should do so for amusement. I see no reason why they should want to do so.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
There is nothing in this Bill to say they cannot do so. The noble Earl is assuming that 120 chiefs of police in this country are all going to think as he thinks. A chief constable's responsibility is to see that the law is obeyed; and the law does not intend people to be 1052 habitual offenders. I imagine that if I were a chief constable I should have a register of the registration numbers of all motor cars for which tickets have been issued. I cannot imagine a chief constable not doing that, so that it will be possible for a chief constable to know the name and address of the owner of every car in respect of which a counterfoil goes through his hands. The noble Earl is assuming that chief constables will not have that record. I am going to assume that they will.

EARL BATHURST
Had the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, not interrupted me at that moment, I was intending to say that, first of all, it is impracticable for a chief officer of police or police superintendent to take a note of every counterfoil coming in unless the fixed penalty payment is not made.
I come now to the second point. Even if a chief constable did so, that would not stand up in court, because there has to be a previous court conviction proved, and then there must be recognition by the policeman of the alleged offender. So even if a case were brought, evidence of a previous offence on which this fixed penalty payment had been made would not stand up. The noble and learned Law Lords are not with us, but I am advised that that is so; so that evidence in relation to a previous offence could not be brought against an alleged offender. I will say no more for the present because I expect other noble Lords wish to speak.

§ LORD SPENS
May I just refer to the noble Lord's last remark? I do not quite follow how what he has now said goes with subsection (5) which says: Payment of a fixed penalty under this section shall be made to such justices' clerk … and sums paid by way of fixed penalty for any offence shall be treated for the purposes of that section as if they were fines imposed on summary conviction for that offence; and in any proceedings a certificate that payment of a fixed penalty was or was not made to the prescribed justices' clerk by a date specified in the certificate shall, if the certificate purports to be signed by the justices' clerk, be sufficient evidence of the facts stated, unless the contrary is proved. It seems to be, under that subsection, that the payment of a fixed penalty is to be regarded as a penalty payable on a summary conviction, and if there is a series of payments of fixed penalties 1053 and then subsequently a case taken to the court, it would appear that those payments of previous fixed penalties could be used as if they were payments of penalties on summary convictions.

EARL BATHURST
With respect, I think that the noble Lord will see, at the end of subsection (5), a reference to whether or not a particular payment is made. Indeed, it concerns the receipt system which I was talking about. It would be deemed to be paid by the receipt being posted back to the alleged offender, unless it should be proved otherwise; and I cannot quite understand such a case.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I think I may be able to help the noble Lord. If he reads that subsection carefully he will see that the words he has read out refer only to the Justices of the Peace Act, 1949.

§ LORD SPENS
That is quite true.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
But the noble Earl is contradicting both the Ministers. I will read what the Minister of Transport said: The police keep a record. This is what the Minister of Transport said in the House of Commons. If a man is a persistent offender they can prosecute him instead of issuing a ticket. So the police are going to keep a record. It is intended by the Minister that the police shall do so.

EARL BATHURST
The record is, as I mentioned, a record of what the constable or traffic warden puts on the back of a piece of paper; the time and place and number of the car and so forth. Those details are kept, but there is no mention of a name.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
It has been said: If a man is a persistent offender they can prosecute him instead of issuing a ticket. How do they know he is a persistent offender? It is by the record.

EARL BATHURST
With all respect, again, may I say that he will become known as a persistent offender to the constable or the traffic warden. If a constable or traffic warden sees the noble 1054 Lord's Bentley or Jaguar left in one place every day he will get to know it and he will initiate a prosecution.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
A policeman has to keep a notebook. But the Under-Secretary of State said precisely the same thing. He said: A warden or constable may have rioted a particular car is persistently parked in some place and the driver is always having to have these notices served upon him. In such a case the warden or constable is quite at liberty to say, 'This fellow offends too often. It is no good serving any more notices upon him. Let us prosecute him'. I know that every policeman has to enter everything in his notebook. The police will have some record, if only to go into court, if they issue a summons, to say that the man is an habitual offender. They will not be able to get away with their case unless they produce some evidence. Is it the intention of the Government that they shall produce evidence? Evidently it is in the Minister's mind; evidently it is in the Under-Secretary of State's mind, because he says that the police can prosecute. If you do not want the police to prosecute, then we have to put something in the Bill that will prevent them from giving the only evidence they can to sustain a prosecution of the offender. And that is the object of my Amendment. Without my Amendment there is nothing in this Bill—and nobody, not even the Home Secretary, can give a chief of police instructions—to prevent the police from doing the very thing that the noble Lord keeps on saying they will not do. They can do it—and both his fellow Ministers say that they can do it. I have read from their very words. That is why the confusion arises.

§ LORD SHEPHERD
May I say a few words? I apologise because I was not here at the beginning of this interesting debate. I feel that the case of the noble Earl is rather weak. He first of all said, if my memory serves me correctly, that the police or the traffic wardens would be issuing a ticket and that there would be two counterfoils, and that when payment was made by the offender he hoped the counterfoil would be torn up and would disappear. I hope he does not think we can accept that. Does he mean to say that the police are going to accept money from the public or from an offender—

1055

EARL BATHURST
No; not the police. I hope that we made that clear. The court has received the money and sent a receipt, and sent a counterfoil to the police.

§ LORD SHEPHERD
The court or the police—I may have used the wrong word. Are they going to receive money from the public without keeping a record and issue a receipt without keeping a copy of the receipt? I cannot believe it. The other point I wanted to ask is this. The noble Earl said that these tickets would be issued but would not be accepted as evidence because there had not been a conviction. I remember that not so long ago, three or four years ago, I committed a minor offence and I was warned by the superintendent that the police were not going to take any action at that particular moment but that if I committed the same offence again, the offence I had committed would be taken into account. I understand that that is the case. Therefore, if there is this evidence with the courts and with the police that a man has paid a penalty, and he has therefore technically admitted that he has committed an offence, this evidence is available. All my noble friend is asking to be put into the Bill is something to make quite clear what is the Government's intention—namely, that an offence which has been expunged by the payment of this penalty will not be used as evidence.
I think that this is only a small point. I should have thought that the Government could say, All right". The noble Lords who are leading for the Government may say that they cannot accept the Amendment themselves, but I should have thought that a case had been made by my noble friend which is of sufficient importance and which is a great principle, and that they could say, "All right. We will take it back and we will consult the Minister and then have consultations with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, to see whether we can bring forward an Amendment similar to his words, or perhaps in more suitable words". But here is a principle, and I think that the whole House is, in general, in sympathy with it. I would ask the Ministers whether they cannot agree to take this matter back and consult their right honourable friend and then have consultations with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth.

1056

LORD HAWKE
I think it would be a mistake to say that the whole House is in sympathy with this Amendment. Definitely one member is not, and that is myself. This Amendment seeks to take out of the Bill the only deterrent or power the authorities have to deal with the persistent parker, the man to whom £2 is nothing and who is going to leave his car time after time and not mind paying. If that could not be used in evidence against him in a prosecution it is taking the teeth out of the Bill in a very important matter.

§ LORD SILKIN
There is some confusion as to what is the intention of the Government. Is it the Government's intention that a person may commit this offence as often as he pleases and that there will be no record available to the police? I do not care whether you keep records so long as the police cannot use them in a subsequent prosecution. If that is the intention of the Government, then it seems to me in conflict with the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, who has just spoken, because he is talking of a deterrent prosecution. How can there be a deterrent prosecution against a persistent offender if the police are not in a position to use evidence of persistent offences?
I really think that there is a need for clarity about this matter, and I would suggest that the noble Earl gives an undertaking that this point will be examined and that, if necessary, something will be put into Clause 1 to make quite clear just what the Government's intentions are. Frankly, I do not mind what they are. I do not mind whether you punish a persistent offender and bring out all his previous offences or not. That is beside the point. But if, as the noble Earl has just admitted, the intention is that they are not to be brought out, then that is not at all clear from the Bill, and I think it should be so stated. I would therefore suggest that the best way of dealing with this matter is to clear up this confusion which I think has existed right through the passage of the Bill. We have never been certain whether or not the intention was that these previous offences should be brought out. If the police can prosecute a persistent offender, how can they establish that he is a persistent offender without being able 1057 to give evidence of these previous offences?

EARL BATHURST
In reply, first, to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, I assure him that it is the Government's intention that these offences should not be taken into consideration time and time again on each occasion of an offence. That is the intention. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, said that my case was weak. That may possibly be so, because it is not in the Bill; but, as I have endeavoured to make clear to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, in the first place it is impossible for the police to collect these records. It really is impossible from the point of view of the work involved, unless a constable did it for a hobby, which I think is unlikely. I must remind the noble Lord that the object of the Bill is, first, to speed the traffic by enforcing the parking regulations; and secondly, to reduce the paper work, the accounting work and so forth, that must take place in police offices. My final point, which I want to make to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, is that, even if they could be recorded, that evidence would not stand up (as I tried to make clear) in a court of law. I wonder whether the noble Lord will accept that from me that it would not stand up in a court of law.

§ LORD SILKIN
Why does the noble Earl say that it would not stand up? You can give any evidence you like; and, if it is not contradicted, it will stand up.

EARL BATHURST
I do not think it can be taken into consideration when dealing with another offence. From what I understand, the man must previously have been convicted by a court, which he has not been, and he must be recognised by the policeman concerned. I am assured that that is the case. If it should not be so, then perhaps I can explain it at a later stage. I will look most carefully into it to see whether or not that is so; but I am advised that, as the Bill stands, that will in fact be the case, and that, because of it, the noble Lord's Amendment is not necessary. However, we have had a good deal of discussion on this point and perhaps I can go back and look at it again and take further advice from my noble and learned friend. In that case, possibly the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw his Amend- 1058 ment to-day, subject to the next stage. Would that meet with the approval of the noble Lord?

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
Yes. I am in the same position as my noble friend: I do not care what the Government's intentions are, but I want them stated. There is a genuine conflict here. The noble Lord, Lord Hawke, has voiced one opinion, and he is not alone in that opinion; the noble Earl has voiced another. I have tried to frame an Amendment based upon the utterances of the Minister of Transport, to the effect that the police can and will prosecute habitual offenders. The Under-Secretary of State said the same thing. I have been looking at the Bill and asking myself, "Now what is it that they want to do?" With respect, I do not agree with the noble Earl's explanation, because if a chief officer of police can issue a summons upon a man for persistent obstruction—

EARL BATHURST
The noble Lord realises that the car would probably be towed away?

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
No, it will not be towed away if it is an hour every day for 25 days. Really!

EARL BATHURST
With great respect to the noble Lord, all these fines will occur in the areas where there are distinct parking regulations. That can happen now, and it will happen under the new procedure. Nothing has changed.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
But what I want the noble Earl to get advice upon—I am nor, talking about being towed away—is this. If a chief officer of police issues a summons for constant obstruction and he goes to court, he has to justify that charge. How is he going to do it? By calling upon the evidence he has that that man has received a ticket on x number of occasions. Now I am going to accept the noble Earl's offer. I will not press this Amendment this afternoon if the noble Earl will get some advice about it and see whether something can be put in the Bill that will substantiate that what the noble Earl says will be the case. I do not mind that. I shall be perfectly happy with that. With your Lordships' permission, I will withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

1059

§ 5.18 p.m.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved to leave out subsection (9) and to substitute for it: (9) The fixed penalties for offences shall be as specified in the second column of the Second Schedule to this Act. The noble Lord said: I move here to leave out subsection (9), which says: The fixed penalty for an offence shall be two pounds or one-half the maximum amount of the fine to which a person not previously convicted is liable on summary conviction of the offence, whichever is the less: Provided that the Secretary of State may by order provide for the fixed penalty to be in any case more or less than two pounds (but not more than one-half the maximum amount of the fine to which a person not previously convicted is liable on summary conviction).

§ One half the fine on summary conviction is £10. Under The Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulation No. 89, under which the majority of these cases will be brought, the maximum fine is £20. It is not more for a second offence; it is a continuing £20. Half that will be £10. I think it is wrong to put into the hands of a Government Department or of the Secretary of State the right to fix penalties; I think they should be clearly stated. All the other penalties are clearly stated right the way through the Road Traffic Act. I think that this should be put into a Schedule, and that Parliament should say what they are going to be. That is the simple purpose of this Amendment. There are one or two Amendments to follow which have the same purpose. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 3, line 7, leave out subsection (9) and insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

EARL BATHURST
With great respect, the noble Lord is wrong over the fines stated in the Road Traffic Act, 1960. Only the maximum is laid down and the Minister can vary the fines by the Negative Resolution procedure. My right honourable friend has only a small margin of variation—between £2 and £2 10s. for small offences, and between £2 and £5 for serious offences where the maximum is £20. I think that the noble Lord would agree that as fines under the principal Act can be varied by regulation, it would seem right that the fixed penalties under this Act should be varied in the same way.

1060

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I do not agree. I do not think that the noble Earl is wholly correct. The maximum fines are set out in the Bill and it is for the magistrates to decide the amount of the fine.

EARL BATHURST
With great respect, not under the 1960 Act.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
The maximum fines are laid down for exceeding the speed limit or for careless or dangerous driving. Unless I am completely wrong, the magistrates are given discretion, up to the maximum, in imposing fines.

EARL BATHURST
We are not considering fines for speeding or dangerous driving. I am talking about specific fines mentioned in the 1960 Act, fines which are regulated by my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport by regulation subject to Negative Resolution.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
Most of the offences which the noble Lord has mentioned come under Regulation 89 of the Construction and Use Regulations. This says: No person in charge of a motor vehicle or trailer shall cause or permit the motor vehicle or trailer to stand on a road so as to cause any unnecessary obstruction thereof. And in Regulation 104, the penalty is laid down: If any person uses or causes or permits to be used on any road a motor vehicle or trailer in contravention of or fails to comply with any of the preceding Regulations in Part III of these Regulations he shall for each offence be liable to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds. That is subject to a prosecution, and the magistrates will fix the fine. Under this clause the Home Secretary has power to prescribe a fine up to 50 per cent. of the maximum which can be imposed on summary conviction. Subsection (9) says: The fixed penalty for an offence shall be two pounds or one-half the maximum amount of the fine to which a person not previously convicted is liable on summary conviction of the offence, whichever is the less: Provided that the Secretary of State may by order provide for the fixed penalty to be in any case more or less than two pounds (but not more than one-half the maximum amount of the fine to which a person not previously convicted is liable on summary conviction). 1061 The noble Earl cannot say that the penalties are all fixed. The Secretary of State by order can impose a statutory static fine up to a maximum of 50 per cent. of the fine which the magistrates are allowed to impose on summary conviction. Do not say that I am wrong.
Fixed penalties are taking away the jurisdiction of the magistrates' courts. They take no notice of means, and I have always been told by magistrates that in the case of fines for road offences one of their principal duties is to see that the alleged offender has the means to pay the fine. There is no means test here. It is £2 a time, or anything up to £10 a time for Judy O'Grady or the Colonel's lady, for the owner of a small motor car or the owner of a Rolls Royce. As I say, this should not be subject to the decision of the Home Secretary. I think it is a wrong principle to introduce. I do not think that Parliament would agree to all the offences in the Road Traffic Act, which go up to manslaughter and imprisonment, being arbitrarily fixed.

EARL BATHURST
I really must interrupt the noble Lord, because he is misleading your Lordships. The noble Lord mentioned manslaughter and other serious offences, but we are here trying to prevent parking offences and obstruction. If we find that the penalties are not high enough and want to raise them, I do not think that your Lordships' House and another place would wish to have the whole matter debated every time the question comes up. I must apologise to the noble Lord for what I said about fines under the Construction and Use Regulations. The noble Lord is quite right about this point.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I am arguing on the principle of this matter. As soon as we institute a system of ticket fining, we are instituting something which is entirely new in this country. I think that this system will expand. I cannot see anything to stop it expanding. I think that a great many other offences will be subject to ticket fining in years Ito come. All that I am asking is that at this stage we should be as careful as we can to see that we are moving along the right lines, and I do not consider that Parliament is moving along the right lines by imposing fines which the noble Earl says are 1062 trivial, though in fact they go up to £10, and I do not call that trivial—it is half the maximum. If your Lordships agree with the noble Earl and not with me, all right. I have explained the position, as I see it, and if the Committee do not support me in wanting to keep this under control of Parliament, I am always in the hands of the Committee.

§ LORD CHESHAM
Perhaps I may be allowed a quick word on this Amendment—and I hope that the noble Lord will not think it unfair that we should endeavour to swamp him by two to one from this side. The noble Lord in this case has, I think, got hold of the wrong end of the stick. He drew a moving analogy on the size of the fine between the Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady and said the circumstances were not taken into account if the amount of the penalty should be fixed by regulation. Neither are those circumstances taken into account so far as I can see, if the amount is fixed by Parliament. So that it makes no difference whatever. But the point is that most of the ticket offences will, in London, be in regulations made under Section 34 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, and in corresponding regulation's in the provinces. Section 34 allows the Minister to fix the maximum penalties within a maximum laid down by the Act. In other words, if the Act says that the maximum penalty which may be imposed is £20, he is free, within the limit of £20, by regulation to make title maximum £5, £10 or whatever seems to him good; and that is the maximum which the courts must apply. If we accepted this Amendment, what would happen would be that the maximum penalty for an offence could be fixed by the Minister by regulation, but that any variation in the fixed penalty based on half that offence would have to be altered by coming to Parliament for it, and, quite honestly, I think that situation is a little absurd.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
With your Lordships' permission, I will withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ 5.33 p.m.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, in subsection (11), to leave out "be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either" and insert 1063 "not have effect unless approved by resolution of each". The noble Lord said: The purpose of this Amendment is to substitute in this connection the Affirmative for the Negative Resolution procedure—though I suppose that the noble Lord will tell me that this is needed in a hurry. Clause 1 (11) says: The power of the Secretary of State to make orders or regulations under this section shall be exercisable by statutory instrument, which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament. That is the Negative Resolution procedure. I think that the power of the Secretary of State to make orders or regulations under this clause should be by Affirmative Resolution. I will not go into all the arguments. We are having a new venture, and I think that Parliament should keep it well under control. On important matters, I do not like the Negative Resolution procedure. No doubt the noble Lord will have an argument to put up against this Amendment, but I hope that he will give serious consideration to it; and perhaps he will tell me why in this case the Negative procedure has been selected. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 3, line 26, leave out ("be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either") and insert the said new words.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

EARL BATHURST
The subject of the noble Lord's Amendment was, of course, deeply discussed in another place, but the Government decided that the Negative Resolution procedure should stay for Clause 1. But at another time it was decided, again largely as a result of discussion in another place, that the Affirmative Resolution procedure should take place on all orders under Clause 2—those dealing with wardens and their functions, and so on. I hope to be able to show the noble Lord that in fact the orders to be made under Clause 1 are very small compared with those to be made under Clause 2. The first application of the Negative Resolution is that by order my right honourable friend will prescribe the areas where these fixed penalties may be used. It is similar to saying on what day a certain Bill or a certain measure shall come into force. It is a comparable provision. The local 1064 authority concerned in that area will almost always ask my right honourable friend to make these particular orders.
Secondly, he can exclude certain offences mentioned in Clause 1 to which the fixed penalties would apply. I have been saying that this is an experimental scheme; it is a trial scheme; it is a new idea. Should any offence not seem suitable to a fixed penalty, which I have already mentioned in Clause 1, then my right honourable friend the Secretary of State can exclude that offence by an order subject to the Negative Resolution procedure. The third Negative Resolution procedure order is the one we have already discussed with regard to these minor fines. Finally, under subsection (10) there are procedural orders and regulations with regard to the ticket that I have mentioned; the function of the justices' clerk, the duties that he should perform and the sort of information that is necessary on these tickets and on the counterfoils. I do not think these small procedural and administrative matters need the attention of your Lordships and of another place every time they may crop up. Therefore I cannot accept the noble Lord's Amendment substituting the Affirmative Resolution procedure for the Negative Resolution procedure for these very minor points in the administration of this Bill when it becomes an Act. It is open to your Lordships at any time to make a prayer for the annulment of such a regulation, and then, of course, it will be fully debated in your Lordships' House. For those reasons, I cannot accept the Amendment.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I am not going to argue the matter. As the noble Lord has said, it was argued in another place. I do not like this, but, with your Lordships' permission, I withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ On Question: Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
We have taken some time over Clause 1. I had intended to say a few words on the Question that the clause stand part, but I think that I will not delay the Committee now. I must confess to being very worried about this clause—in fact, I think I am even more unhappy now than I was after the Second Reading 1065 debate. However, as we have so many Amendments for further consideration, I will not get too unhappy until I see what the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, is going to produce as a result of yesterday afternoon's proceedings. Whatever comments I have to make I will reserve for another time.

§ Clause 1 agreed to.

§ Clause 2:

§ Traffic Wardens

§ 2.—(1) Subject to subsection (3) of this section, a police authority in England or Wales may appoint persons to discharge, in aid of the police, functions normally undertaken by the police in connection with the control and regulation of road traffic or with the enforcement of the law relating to road traffic; and persons so appointed shall act under the direction of the chief officer of police, but shall be deemed to be employed by the police authority.

§ (2) Persons employed under subsection (1) of this section shall be known as "traffic wardens", and a police authority employing traffic wardens for the purposes of that subsection may also (subject to subsection (3) of this section) employ them to act, under the direction of the chief officer of police, for other purposes connected with the control and regulation of road traffic or road vehicles; and in pat ticular— (a) where the police authority provides school crossing patrols under section forty-seven of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, whether as the appropriate authority or by agreement with the appropriate authority, the traffic wardens may be employed to act as school crossing patrols; and

§ (3) Traffic wardens shall not be employed to discharge functions other than those prescribed as appropriate for the purpose by order of the Secretary of State, and an order under this subsection may be varied or revoked by a subsequent order of the Secretary of State.

§ An order under this subsection shall be made by statutory instrument, and—

(a) in the case of an order made before the first day of October, nineteen hundred and sixty, shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament;
(b) in any other case, shall not be made unless a draft thereof has been laid before, and approved by resolution of, each House of Parliament.

§ 5.40 p.m.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "control and regulation of road traffic or with the enforcement of the law relating to road traffic", and to substitute: enforcement of parking regulations other than the enforcement of regulations relating to obstruction of the highway".

1066

§ The noble Lord said: This Amendment again is an effort to meet what I think is the Government's intention. Clause 2 deals with the appointment of traffic wardens. I understand from what Ministers have said that the intention is that these traffic wardens shall deal only with the enforcement of parking regulations other than the enforcement of regulations relating to obstruction on the highway. I do not know whether it would be wise of me to pursue this particular Amendment, in view of what the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, said on the first three Amendments. He is going to try to set out very clearly what the ticket functions will be.

§ The object of this Amendment is to confine the operation of traffic wardens to a minor character, as I thought was intended. This whole clause is very misleading. Take, for instance, subsection (4). That says: In so far as an order under subsection (3) of this section authorises the employment of traffic wardens for the purposes of section one of this Act references in that section to a constable shall include a traffic warden. I read that to mean that by an order of the Home Secretary—admittedly passed by Parliament—a traffic warden can assume, for the purposes of this Bill, the duties of a fully-fledged constable. That was the argument I had with the noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, yesterday afternoon, and this is where I said it was set out in the Bill. What I seek to do is to say that the traffic wardens shall carry out jurisdiction only over the offences mentioned in Clause 1 (1). As the noble Lord is going to look at paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of Clause 1, if the Committee will allow me I should like to withdraw this Amendment at the present time, to see what transpires, unless, of course, the noble Earl has anything helpful to say upon it. He can see what it seeks to do. It seeks to say that the traffic warden shall operate the ticket system only where a ticket can be given in that restricted area, which I hope will be defined in Clause 1 more clearly later. If it would suit the noble Earl, I am quite willing to withdraw this Amendment now and put it down, either in this form or in some other form, after my discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Chesham. To put myself in order, perhaps I had better move the Amendment now.

1067

§ Amendment Moved— Page 4, line 1, leave out ("control and regulation of road traffic or with the enforcement of the law relating to road traffic") and insert the said new words.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

§ LORD CHESHAM
I am obliged to the noble Lord for taking that view, because I think it is the obvious and balanced one to take. His Amendment falls into two parts, one of which removes obstruction altogether, and the other part of which I should find arguable also, apart from the obstruction issue, as being too narrow. If the noble Lord wishes his Amendment to come up, I think perhaps it would be advisable to defer discussion of it until we have had the further conversations which we have arranged about the obstruction issue, and then perhaps take the whole thing together.
May I just take this opportunity of saying something to the noble Lord about his interpretation of subsection (4)—that is, the cross-reference of traffic wardens and constables? Yesterday he took that to mean that, by some magical process, an order could create a traffic warden into a constable, or something of that nature and what he said just now seems to me to show that he had misinterpreted that subsection slightly. Since he mentioned it, I should like to say (it may ease our subsequent conversations and later consideration of this Amendment) that the purpose of that subsection is to relate traffic wardens to the ticket system. If the noble Lord looks at Clause 1, he will nowhere find any reference to a traffic warden. This subsection means that in so far as an order under subsection (3) authorises it, within the laid-down limits of the functions of a traffic warden, the traffic warden may employ the ticket system. That is the link between the creation of the ticket system and the creation of the traffic warden. That is all it means. You cannot swap one for another. Otherwise I should be glad to fall in with what the noble Lord has suggested.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I am grateful to the noble Lord. I think that would be the better course, and if your Lordships will give me permission, I will withdraw my Amendment for the time being.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

1068

§ 5.50 p.m.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, in subsection (2), to leave out paragraph (a). The noble Lord said: I put this Amendment down in order to get a statement of policy from the Government. Some of us are very apprehensive, and our apprehension has been brought about in the main by a rather unfortunate comment by the Commissioner of Police. He has said that he does not intend to have female wardens. I am not enamoured of policewomen or female wardens, but I think that women have done an outstanding job of work with the school patrols. I want to know whether the Government intend to limit those persons who to-day are employed to act as school crossing patrols to males; whether it is intended to limit these patrols to traffic wardens or whether they will continue to employ as school crossing patrols the same type of female who is not a traffic warden. I do not want to see them cut out of it at all. I do not mind. I have an open mind as to whether women should be wardens. But I rather fear that, as this paragraph is drafted at the moment, all school crossing patrols will be wardens, and all wardens will be male.

§ Can we have a pronouncement from the Government that where women are doing this job very efficiently—and they are doing it very efficiently in London—they will be left alone? That is the only reason I move to leave out paragraph (a), so that the Government will say what is the intention. I believe that some of my noble friends who have taken a very great interest in this matter in London are rather disturbed, and I understand that some local authorities are rather disturbed, that the good work that has been done by these females with these children, acting as crossing patrols, may be damaged. I will admit again that it was perhaps put into their minds by another unfortunate remark of the Chief Commissioner of Police; that he did not intend to have any women as traffic wardens. I will move this, and perhaps the noble Earl can tell me the position. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved Page 4, line 13, leave out paragraph (a).—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

1069

§ 5.52 p.m.

EARL BATHURST
It might be convenient to your Lordships if I answered the noble Lord straight away, because I think it will save a great deal of time for those of your Lordships who are interested in this point. I assure the noble Lord that the intention is not to do away with the school crossing patrols and substitute wardens for them. The intention of this particular subsection is that a warden could be used instead of a school crossing patrol, if that crossing patrol for some reason or another went absent, was sick, could not attend or just did not turn up. As the position is to-day, if a crossing patrol does not turn up, either a policeman or policewoman, or a cadet, has to be used. We have mentioned in your Lordships' House before how short we are of police and how pressing are their duties. The entire point of this subsection is to enable the chief officer of police, should he see fit, to send a traffic warden instead to carry out that function.
With regard to women, the Commissioner of Police in London has said that he does not intend at first to use women. Under the Bill there is no reason at all why women should not be employed. But I ask your Lordships to remember that this job of traffic warden will be a fairly arduous job, with long hours on one's feet in various sorts of weather and possibly not too pleasant conditions. I should have thought the Commissioner of Police was wise in not appointing women until we see partly the results of recruiting, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, said is encouraging so far—there are applications for these posts. When we have seen how the recruiting goes and how this new system works, that will be the time, no doubt subject to what the Commissioner of Police decides, to recruit women. There is nothing in the Bill to stop the recruitment of women as traffic wardens. I hope that that has made the position clear to the noble Lord. If there are any other points I will, of course, answer them.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
Could I ask the noble Earl one more question? Will all the schools patrols in future be brought under the police? Some are under the Ministry of Education and some are under the police. Will 1070 they in future be all under the police, or will the present position remain unchanged?

EARL BATHURST
I think I am correct in saying that in London all patrols of school crossings are under the Commissioner of Police. In the provinces, I think I am right in saying, it is different. But it will enable the Commissioner in London or the Chief Officer of Police elsewhere to delegate the school crossing patrol duty to a warden instead of to a police constable.

§ LORD MERRIVALE
Before the noble Lord withdraws his Amendment, might I ask my noble friend to ask his right honourable friend to invite the Commissioner of Police to get in touch with the Chiefs of Police in Stockholm and New York, to find out how satisfactory women traffic wardens are proving in those two towns? Those two towns have them. At the moment 20 Members of Parliament are there, and it may well be that they also will have found out whether they are proving satisfactory or not.

EARL BATHURST
I will draw my right honourable friend's attention to that, and I suspect that those 20 Members of Parliament will tell your Lordships whether it is better to be fined by a pleasant and reasonable-looking girl rather than by a male traffic warden. I hope the noble Lord sees fit to withdraw his Amendment.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
With the explanation the noble Earl has given, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, in subsection (3), to omit the whole of paragraph (a) and, in paragraph (b), the words "in any other case". The noble Lord said: I come now to another of these instruments, these orders. The subsection says that the order … in the case of an order made before the first day of October, nineteen hundred and sixty, shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament", and after that it shall be by Affirmative Resolution—the Negative Resolution procedure up to October, and the Affirmative one after that. Why cannot we have here the Affirmative 1071 Resolution procedure throughout? We are starting on a new idea, and I think Parliament should be able to discuss these regulations. The Government should table them and we should debate them and not have to pray against them.

§ I know the reason why this has been done. Again, the Chief Commissioner of Police in London says that he wants to have all these traffic wardens operating by Christmas; therefore, he cannot stand for the processes of Parliamentary control. He will not get them in any case. There is really no hurry. We should debate this properly and see that we are setting out on the right foot with these traffic wardens. We do not know what type of man we are going to get; we do not know what these regulations are going to contain; we know nothing about the conditions of employment, wages, disciplinary code and everything like that. We know nothing. That is all going to be in regulations. Up to October 1, 1960, October of this year, it can all be done by Negative Resolution—in other words, we cannot know anything about this until we come back after the Summer Recess. Do the Government think that is right? I do not. Why this bursting hurry? I believe I am right—the noble Earl will correct me if I am wrong—but again the Commissioner of Police has said that he intends to employ only about 100.

EARL BATHURST
In the first instance, for the designated areas.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
Have we got to swallow regulations which we shall not be able to see, just for the employment of 100 traffic wardens in London? I do not think it is right. I think that we should be able calmly to debate these regulations which will be a pattern for the whole of the country.
I was going to suggest to the noble Earl a procedure which we adopted under the Road Traffic Act. With the Affirmative Resolution procedure one always has this disadvantage. The Government produce a whole batch of regulations, which can be debated; and the Government can make their case. But the regulations cannot be altered: we have to "swallow" them in bulk. I think that very sensibly the Government, in the case of the Road Traffic Act, as 1072 regards the testing of ten-year-old motor cars, agreed with the House to produce a White Paper setting out what they proposed to do, so that they could have the benefit of the advice of Parliament before the regulations were made and tabled. I thought that was an eminently sensible suggestion. Why cannot the Government do it on this occasion? I am sure that both your Lordships' House and another place would appreciate it. We could then see what are going to be the conditions, the qualifications, the wages and the disciplinary code. I take it that all those things will have to be put in regulations—or are they to vary from police authority to police authority? Is each police authority, watch committee or standing joint committee to have carte blanche in regard to their regulations; to pay what wages they like, and have what disciplinary code they like? I should prefer to have the Affirmative Resolution procedure, and I should like the Government to produce regulations in the form of a White Paper, so that the House can debate them and make what suggestions it thinks it proper to make. That is the reason why I have put down this Amendment, which is to leave out the part that says that up to October 1 of this year regulations can be laid, subject to the Negative Resolution procedure. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 4, leave out from beginning of line 31 to ("shall") in line 35.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

§ 6.3 p.m.

EARL BATHURST
The effect of the noble Lord's Amendment, whatever else he may wish it to be, would undoubtedly be to delay the appointment of traffic wardens and prevent them from functioning. Your Lordships may or may not be in favour of traffic wardens. But whatever else may be said, my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport, after his experiment with the Pink Zone last year, decided that traffic wardens were necessary to keep traffic flowing—that is the whole point of them; to keep traffic flowing. It is something about which we have heard so much at various times from the noble Lord opposite.
I cannot believe that by the time we have had this Bill read for a third time there will be anything more to be said 1073 about traffic wardens or their functions, and so forth, except for the point of obstruction, than will have been said in both Houses of Parliament. In fact, I think it would be most wearisome for your Lordships and for another place to have to go all through the points that have already been brought up in order that an Affirmative Resolution be passed to bring traffic wardens into being. They will still have to be recruited and trained. My right honourable friend wants wardens working on the streets, if possible, long before, but certainly in time for, the Christmas rush. Nothing will have escaped either House of Parliament if this appointment of wardens in the first case is to be carried forward under the Negative Resolution procedure. Anything after October will be by Affirmative Resolution, as the noble Lord, I am quite certain, agrees.
I believe that we must get this scheme working first, then see how it works, and then my right honourable friends the Minister of Transport and the Secretary of State will see what further resolutions and orders are needed to perfect this admittedly experimental scheme in this country. We want to get it under way, and I am certain that the noble Lord will appreciate that if his Amendment is carried here we shall have yet another delay to a vital scheme. For that reason, I cannot advise your Lordships to accept the Amendment.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
Would the noble Earl be kind enough to explain to me why, when these regulations are laid, they should go over all the ground we have covered up to date? Surely the regulations will set out such things as terms of employment and qualifications, and things like that, will they not? We do not know about those things. We have not been able to discuss them. All we know is that the wardens are to be properly trained and suitable people. That is vague enough. Will the noble Earl tell me what the regulations are going to contain?

EARL BATHURST
We have discussed this question at great length. I remember my noble friend saying that they would be ex-Servicemen, ex-policemen, on perhaps half or quarter pension, maybe on full pension; or maybe young men or women who do not quite come up to the physical standard 1074 required for the police force. I agree that we have said little about pay; but it is for the authorities to decide what wages will be required, and consultations will, of course, be going on with regard to that matter. I must make it quite clear that it is for the police authorities in the provinces in future to decide how they will make their traffic wardens work. They will work under their individual chief officers of police. But this initial order is to set up wardens in the London area, and I think we must have said, both in this House and in another place, and certainly so by Third Reading, nearly everything that it is possible to say about traffic wardens in general.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
Well, I do not agree with the noble Earl. If I agreed with him I should agree to the Negative Resolution procedure for every order after October. The Government have admitted the correctness of having the Affirmative Resolution method adopted after October 1, but before October 1 it is the Negative Resolution procedure. Expediency and speed are the only things which he can call to his aid. As to the rest, he cannot, because we are going to debate those. However, if that is how the noble Earl requires it I am not going to stand in his way. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ 6.9 p.m.

§ LORD MILVERTON moved to leave out Clause 2. The noble Lord said: By Clause 2 as it stands at present, traffic wardens are to be appointed by police authorities at their discretion, and they will work, as we have just been hearing, under the chief constables. The object of putting down this Amendment is to bring to the notice of the Government the fact that there is a quite considerable body of competent opinion which thinks that that is not a good administrative arrangement. Among those who think that it is bad administratively are the Association of Municipal Corporations.

§ The duties of traffic wardens, as we have heard repeatedly in this debate, are not laid down in the Bill but are to be prescribed by the Secretary of State. So, far as any indication has been given by the Government up to date (and it has been slightly qualified in this debate), 1075 it seems that their duties will be in connection only with parking and lighting offences, and possibly obstruction; and with these only in relation to stationary vehicles. It is the duty of local authorities to make proper provision for parking facilities in their areas and, in the opinion I am offering, it is wrong to separate these two aspects of the parking problem—the enforcement of the law in relation to vehicles waiting on the highway and the provision of parking places for them. I suggest that the authorities which are responsible for parking places should also be the employers of traffic wardens. Again, in Section 116 of the Highways Act, 1959, there is a general power enabling county or county borough councils to assert and protect the rights of the public to the use and enjoyment of highways in their area. From this it seems to me to follow reasonably that traffic wardens, the purpose of whose employment surely is to maintain these rights of the public, should be in the employ of those local authorities.

§ In the Second Reading debate in another place the right honourable gentleman the Minister of Transport expressed his opposition to what he called "divided responsibility" for road traffic. But I suggest that the employment of traffic wardens by local authorities to deal with stationary vehicles would in no way interfere with the responsibility of the police to enforce the law relating to moving vehicles. It is appreciated that the co-operation of wardens with the police would be very necessary and I can see no reason at all why that should not be achieved.

§ Lastly, to the extent that there has been a deterioration in the relationship between the police and the public, the pre-occupation of the police with obstruction offences must be substantially responsible for a good deal of that state of affairs. Transfer of the powers as proposed would perhaps help to improve this relationship, because traffic wardens employed by local authorities, as opposed to police authorities, could not then be stigmatized, as they have been by certain people who have spoken about this, as second-class policemen. I suggest that time, at any rate, will show; for I do 1076 not suppose the Government will alter their views, and we have just heard the noble Lord who is looking after this Bill say that we should know in a year or two what weaknesses there are. I believe that this will be one of the weaknesses which will be revealed in practice—the burdening of the police with a totally unnecessary administrative job which probably could be done much better by local authorities in collaboration with the police. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Leave out Clause 2.—(Lord Milverton.)

§ LORD ADDINGTON
As one of the many noble Lords who are associated with local government, I support this Amendment, and I would urge that county boroughs and non-county boroughs (and I sit on the council of one) should be able to employ traffic wardens.

EARL BATHURST
My noble friend Lord Milverton has somewhat gone back to the position on Amendment No. 5 where we had enforcement of the law, and fines, mixed up with the provision of parking places. We must not consider the traffic warden as some kind of glorified municipal car park attendant, for that is not at all the case. He is administering a system of justice, novel and experimental in this country I agree, in connection with offences for which a fine is imposed. This Bill gives that power, and that power alone, to a traffic warden. It is not given to a municipal car park attendant or to a man who looks after parking meters—unless the local authority should decide to recommend him as a traffic warden, to be employed under the chief constable or, in London, the Commissioner of Police. There will have to be discussions between the bodies concerned, where a local authority wishes them to be appointed, on the method by which they are to be appointed to take over such duties.
I am sure that my noble friends Lord Milverton and the noble Lord who has just spoken will appreciate that we must administer this legal system in a similar form throughout the country. That is why action is to be taken by regulations and orders—so that these Amendments to this Bill, when it becomes law, shall percolate as quickly as possible down to 1077 individuals throughout the country. If this particular Amendment were accepted we should have county boroughs, non-county boroughs and possibly highway authorities, rural district councils, urban district councils and the police as well, all administering a slightly different interpretation of this Bill. I do not think that that should be possible. It should be administered in a fair way all over the country, balancing one place with another.
I believe that under those conditions the motorist would be even more confused—and I agree with my noble friend Lord Somers that there is enough confusion for the motorist to put up with at the present day. If this Amendment were to be accepted I believe there would be worse confusion and, worse still, anomalies in the manner in which this fixed fine system was administered and applied. For those reasons I cannot recommend your Lordships to accept my noble friend Lord Milverton's Amendment.

§ LORD MILVERTON
I have listened with great interest to the noble Earl's explanation of the reason why he cannot accept this Amendment. I remain quite unconvinced, but I am content to leave it to time to show that perhaps one of us will be right—and I believe it will be myself. With that small comfort, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill?

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
We have now disposed of Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill which, I suppose, are the most contentious in the whole Bill. I did not support the last Amendment because I accepted that we had agreed the principle on Second Reading; but I must say that I agree with a lot that has been said. Since I have been in your Lordships' House, on matters of this description I have always pleaded that the law should be made more simple; that we should make the administration of the road traffic laws more uniform. At present the motorist is pushed from here to there: he does not really know where he stands, the law is so complicated; it has so many different interpretations. And I am bound to say that, in my view, with the passage of this Bill confusion will be worse confounded.
1078 Clause 1 is the clause that sets up a new system of punishment without prosecution. I know that the noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, does not like that to be said, but that is what his own Bill says. That appears in the Long Title, which says: by providing for the punishment without a prosecution". Even this is not nation-wide. This law is not applied to this country; it is applied only to areas which are dictated by the Secretary of State. That is all. So we can have it in London and not in Birmingham: we can have it in Nottingham and not in Manchester. So the motorist can go through the length and breadth of this country and in one area he is subject to ticket fines, and in the next he is not. Are you going to put up a notice at the entry of every area where Clause 1 operates saying, "Beware, all ye who enter here!"? You are going to make confusion worse confounded.
Then as to the clause we have just left, that sets up traffic wardens and again it is not nation-wide. It is not obligatory for any police authority in the country to have any traffic wardens. So one police area may have them and then the next police area may not.

LORD HAWKE
My I interrupt the noble Lord for one second? The picture he is painting is, I think, a little exaggerated. Does not exactly the same thing apply at the moment? As a motorist goes from one police area to another he finds that one police area is renowned for being "hot" on motorists and another for being "cold" on motorists. In one area he will be prosecuted for an offence and in the next one, for precisely the same thing, he will not be. The situation will not be different.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
It it bad to-day. This Bill does not simplify it; it makes confusion worse confounded. It aggravates the position, because there is now more scope for the 120 chief officers of police to interpret more laws in their own way. The Commissioner of Police in London may say, "I shall interpret it this way."

EARL BATHURST
With very great respect to the noble Lord, I did say yesterday, and I think I must say again to-day, that in no way does this Bill change the existing law—in no way at 1079 all. If there should be a "no parking" sign in Manchester or London, or any other place, this Bill in no way changes the law with regard to that sign or restriction. The only thing we do is to set up designated areas, which the noble Lord mentioned; and in those areas a warden instead of a policeman will operate; and in those areas he will be able to give one a so-called ticket, so that one has the option of paying a fixed penalty. The law is not changed in any way at all. I beg the noble Lord to realise that.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
The noble Earl might want to argue that; I profoundly disagree with him. The law is added to. It makes the motorist's burden far greater. The noble Earl may shake his head, but I am at least entitled to my opinion. I respect the noble Earl's opinion, so I ask him to respect mine. That is the general consensus of opinion. I have one last despairing hope that we may be able to simplify some of this and make this Bill a working instrument. As we have passed these two new clauses, these new innovations, I am going to tell the noble Earl, whether he likes it or whether he does not, that the first part of Clause 1 of this Bill is completely unworkable—let me tell him that—because the present system is completely unworkable. It is no good driving motorists off the streets. The police have given up trying to drive them off the streets, because they have nowhere to drive them to. You can sprinkle all the meters you like; you can have all the areas you like of "no waiting", and this and that and the other; but you have to drive them somewhere. And until we get off-street parking we shall never solve this problem. I shall do my best to knock the Bill into shape in any future stage, but I should not like it to go out now that this is something that is going to revolutionise motoring or traffic control of this country. It will do no such thing.

§ LORD CHESHAM
Of course, the noble Lord is perfectly within his rights, but I do not know that at this stage we want to go really into the full details of our Second Reading debate again. I thought at the time—and nothing has since happened to persuade me to think differently—that the noble Lord was un- 1080 duly pessimistic about this Bill. "Confusion worse confounded," he says to us. But I cannot see that there is any evidence of that. Because the whole of his argument—I must not go on about this but I must make this point—is based on this (if he will forgive my calling it this) fallacious understanding of Clause 1, which causes him to say that some new system of confusing oppression is being perpetrated on the motorist or any other form of road user to whom it applies. For the last time, I hope, I would say that there is no offence to which Clause 1 applies for which an offender cannot be prosecuted today. The only thing that it does is to affect the need for going to court. A motorist on his way through Birmingham perhaps parks his car and commits an offence. He may live in Newcastle, and it is a great nuisance to him to attend court; it is easier, if he commits an offence, to find a ticket on his car. It does not sound greatly like confusion.
But the point I really want to make is this. Here is a Bill produced to do certain things: to speed traffic and get things going in London and to help considerably with car parking and one or two other things all over the country. It is an emergency Bill which has been produced in a hurry. It has been produced in response to the often repeated speeches in your Lordships' House—and no one has repeated it more often than the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth—saying how urgent it is to tackle these matters. That is the object of this Bill. It is an emergency Bill, to get something done; and I hope that, as time goes on and further Bills to get something done are produced, we shall be able to get on with them quickly. Otherwise, I feel I shall have to pick up the original words, addressed to me, of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth—that I would have a rough ride if we did not get something done. If we do not get something done, it will not be I who has the rough ride.

§ Clause 2 agreed to.

§ Clause 3 agreed to.

§ Clause 4 [Designation orders made by Minister without application]:

§ 6.31 p.m.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, in subsection (2), to leave out 1081 "may" and insert "shall" [make grants]. The noble Lord said: This is a very simple Amendment. At the present moment, local authorities are under a statutory compulsion to pay the surplus from their parking meter operations into a parking meter fund for the benefit of off-street parking. In this clause the Minister assumes the power to initiate parking meter schemes in the London area. Admittedly it is, in the noble Lord's term, an emergency power, but he may—not "shall", but "may"—pay over moneys to a parking meter fund. I want to ask the noble Lord where there is a difference between the obligation placed upon a local authority and that placed upon the Minister. Why should he not be under a statutory obligation to do it? That is why I have put down this Amendment to change "may" to "shall". I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 7, line 35, leave out ("may") and insert ("shall").—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

§ LORD CHESHAM
This, as the noble Lord has said, is a simple Amendment and, I am glad to say, a simple matter. We ail know that the noble Lord wants these sums used for the provision of off-street parking, and the powers that are taken under the Bill of course go a great way towards what he wants. Up till now, the Minister has been able to have only experimental or demonstration schemes, and any money he earned from those went into the Exchequer. However, under the Bill it now goes to the purposes which the noble Lord wants it to go for.
He inquires why the word "may" is used, and not "shall". It is for these reasons. First, it is because it is not, and never has been, the normal practice for Ministers to be put under an obligation to pay grants in this way. That is why, in the first place, the word "may" is used. Secondly, I think that it would not be entirely meaningful, either, to say that he must pay these grants, because it could so happen that at the time there was no worth-while scheme to which he could contribute. It must be remembered that the Minister hopes that he will never have to use this power, and that therefore he is not likely, in any case, to be in possession of large sums of money. If he does have to use it, he is quite determined to use the money for the 1082 purpose that the noble Lord wants it used for, and I can offer an assurance on that. However, the point is really that Ministers are not normally put under an absolute obligation in grant payments of this kind.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I am quite satisfied with the noble Lord's explanation, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ On Question, Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?

§ 6.35 p.m.

§ LORD MERRIVALE
I trust it will be convenient to your Lordships if under this clause—"Designation orders made by Minister without application"—I refer to a matter which I raised on the Second Reading of this Bill. I should like to raise the matter again because I did not get a reply on the question of excess charge, and I trust that this course will be agreeable to your Lordships. I had intended putting down an Amendment which, if agreed to, would have had the effect of completely taking out of the Bill the question of excess charge; but, after consideration of the matter—and here I should like to say how indebted I am to the Minister and to his advisers for the detailed explanations that they were kind enough to give me on the whole subject—I decided not to put down such an Amendment. I hope, therefore, that these amended proposals, to which I propose to draw your Lordships' attention now, may meet with your favour—in other words, that I may be able to carry your Lordships with me.
A number of your Lordships are, understandably, interested in the provision of off-street parking accommodation. The advantage of the excess charge, as has been mentioned earlier in the course of the Committee stage, is that money accruing from this source goes to the local authorities concerned, and any surplus must be held by them for the provision or maintenance of off-street parking accommodation. I will therefore differentiate between an excess charge for parking over time, which is desirable, and excess time, which is undesirable. Under this clause I should like to address a plea to the Minister that, when he comes to consider designation orders, he will very seriously curtail the period of 1083 excess time granted to a motorist after exceeding the standard prescribed period. This, in my humble opinion, should be limited, at the most, to 30 minutes, and not to two hours as at present.
The noble Lord, when he comes to reply on this matter, as I hope he will, may say that, as a deterrent to overtime parking, the Minister has the power to raise the excess charge; but I would respectfully submit to him that the emphasis should be on time and not on price. The Minister and the noble Lord, during the Second Reading debates, categorically stated that there was no intention of creating a privileged class of motorists, and if the emphasis is on price rather than on time I fear that only a small number of motorists may be able to afford a high excess charge and that many may not. In fact, earlier on the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, seemed to think that a number of motorists could afford the fixed fine of £2. If that is so, I should imagine that many could afford the 10s. excess charge which is at the moment being levied.
My noble friend on the Front Bench may also say that, whilst the experience of Westminster and Marylebone shows that a considerable number of motorists do overstay, they are only a small percentage of the total number. That may well be; but, whatever the number, those that remain over time are contributing to a reduction in turnover and to a reduction in traffic flow, on account of a far greater number who will be space seeking or probably parking illegally. An article in the Observer of June 19, entitled "Meter Zone Confusion", said: A mid-morning survey of south-east Mayfair showed 130 hired meters, 38 apparently illegally parked cars and not a vacant parking meter. The article went on to suggest that it was a question of either increasing the charge or decreasing the duration. I suggest that it is better to decrease the duration. I would strongly urge the Minister, when considering designation orders, to impose varying standard parking periods determined by the supply and demand in each area, and firmly to limit the excess charge period. In other words, a motorist should incur excess charge if he overstays the standard prescribed 1084 period; and after fifteen or thirty minutes, at the most, after incurring the charge, if he has not removed his vehicle he is then committing an offence and his vehicle should be liable to be towed away.

§ LORD CHESHAM
Of course, the points which my noble friend has raised about excess time and charge are very much in the mind of my right honourable friend. Both the amount of the excess charge and the period to which it relates can be dealt with in individual orders and no doubt will be determined in consultation with the authorities of the areas concerned, as and when orders are made. As my noble friend knows, no further amendment of the law is necessary to vary the charge and time. It will certainly be the Minister's objective to ensure that meters are used to achieve the object for which they are designed—which is the regulation of short-term parking—and if this involves raising the excess charge or shortening the present two-hour period, or both, I am sure that my right honourable friend will not hesitate to use his powers.

§ LORD MERRIVALE
While thanking my noble friend, could I ask him a question arising out of a statement he made On Second Reading [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 224 (No. 91), col. 451]: There is no magic about the length of time allowed. It can be over any period, as is allowed in the Act. The present period of two hours in the areas concerned was recommended by an expert Committee as being the best suited to the conditions in question. In effect, it is not two hours, because a large number are parking up to four hours. This was not recommended by the Committee.

§ LORD CHESHAM
The regulation time of parking is two hours and over that a motorist incurs an excess charge. Perhaps I did not make myself clear on Second Reading. Two hours normal parking and two hours at an excess rate was what the Committee recommended.

§ EARL HOWE
If the time allowed by the parking meter is shortened materially, then there will have to be more supervision, and if the number of superintendents is stepped up it will increase the charge all round.

§ LORD MERRIVALE
Is it not desirable that the regulations should be strictly enforced? If two hours is the 1085 recognised period of time for designated schemes which are in force at the moment, anybody who stays beyond the prescribed period is committing an offence by obstructing the general flow of traffic, and those two hours are in excess of what was recommended by the Committee.

§ LORD CHESHAM
I do not think they are. The hours were laid down in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee. I may be wrong, but I am strongly under the impression that the period was fixed with reference to the advice given. Naturally, if many more attendants had to be employed to enforce proper parking at meters, it would be more expensive.

§ LORD MERRIVALE
If it is recognised that it is desirable that a motorist should not overstay the prescribed period, have the local authority or the police power to tow the vehicle away after the prescribed period has been exceeded?

§ LORD CHESHAM
If my noble friend is talking about designation orders, as I think he is, he will find it all in the Bill.

§ On Question, Clause 4 agreed to.

§ Clause 5 [Designation orders outside London Traffic Area]:

§ 6.47 p.m.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved to leave out subsection (7). The noble Lord said: The Bill takes away the Minister's control over parking meter schemes in areas outside London and gives control to the local authorities. I have not the same abiding faith in local authorities that some noble Lords have. The purpose of parking meters is to aid in the control of traffic by clearing the streets and preventing congestion, not to raise money. I am apprehensive about the position if the Minister's control is taken away. At the present time the local authorities need not obtain the sanction of the Minister, and I want that control returned to the Minister. I hold the view that sooner or later we shall have to have central control by the Minister of Transport over all the main arteries of traffic. However, that is perhaps a few years off. But I do not want all the authority to be taken out of the hands of the Minister when it comes to 1086 the siting and operation of parking meter schemes. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 9, line 8, leave out subsection (7).—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

§ LORD CHESHAM
I know that the noble Lord has not the faith in local authorities which some other noble Lords have, but I do not think that this is the moment to try to argue that out. In 1956 a considerable degree of autonomy was given to local authorities in respect of traffic regulation orders, which they now make under Section 26 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960. For example, orders to make one-way streets or waiting regulations do not need the Minister's confirmation. At that time, five years ago, there had been no experience of parking meter designation orders and it was not a matter over which it was thought local authorities should be given autonomy. But now there has been experience of parking meters and it seems perfectly reasonable that in due course it should be possible to give local authorities autonomy in this matter as well. In the other traffic matters, not once in the last three years has my right honourable friend or any of his predecessors had to use their review powers which they have under Section 26, which is their reserve power of review on any of these local orders which can be made without the Minister's confirmation.
I think the Minister feels that the time will come before long, even if it has not already come, when local authorities really can be trusted to deal with these designation orders themselves, and it is his intention—not yet, but when we have got some further experience with the use of parking meters in the streets—to grant them this freedom. But the safeguard—and this is what the noble Lord wants—is that my right honourable friend certainly intends to retain his reserve power of review, and if anything went seriously wrong he would certainly use it to put it right.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I am grateful to the noble Lord. That has eased my mind a little. I hope that the Minister will do this, because if he does, then I shall be quite happy. With the noble Lord's assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

1087

§ Clause 5 agreed to.

§ Clauses 6 and 7 agreed to.

§ Clause 8 [Traffic regulations for London Traffic Area]:

§ 6.52 p.m.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved to leave out subsection (4). The noble Lord said: This is the Harley Street section, a painful memory to the noble Lord. Where the noble Lord made his mistake, if he will allow me to say so, was that if he had said Carey Street and not Harley Street no noble Lord would have liked to claim a lasting acquaintance with that street. But the noble Lord said Harley Street and that got him into a lot of trouble. These are very wide powers, and I know the noble Lord appreciates that. It really means that the Minister can close up (I may be guilty of a little exaggeration) the whole of the West End of London; or he can say that only certain people can come into the West End of London; or he can say that only certain people can wait in or use their cars in particular areas. It is, as I say, very wide.

§ Subsection (4) says: Regulations under the said section thirty-four which impose any restriction upon the use by vehicles of streets in the London Traffic Area, or the waiting of vehicles in such streets, may include provision with respect to the issue and display of certificates or other means of identification of vehicles which are excepted from the restriction, whether generally or in particular circumstances or at particular times. I suppose the powers are necessary, but they must be used very carefully. I had the experience of listening to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, expounding in your Lordships' House on the Traffic Bill of 1956 that there was only one way to solve the traffic problem, and that was to prohibit the entry of motor cars into London, except if they had a privilege ticket. He did not get very far with his argument in this House. But this subsection could cover a scheme of that description. I should like the noble Lord, if he can—I do not want him to do it at any great length—to give some idea of what the Minister has in mind. If he does that, I do not say that I shall be satisfied, but I may be.

§ Does he really think that this is necessary for the purpose of the regulation and the movement of traffic? I know 1088 that a lot of play was made in another place about creating a privileged class of Members of the House of Lords. Personally, I do not see why they should not have a few privileges; they certainly get through a lot of hard work—at least, I am beginning to think so. If the noble Lord would give me some idea of what this subsection really means, I will wait to hear what he has to say before I pass any final judgment. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 12, line 1, leave out subsection (4).—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

§ EARL HOWE
I rather fancy that the noble Lord made some allusion to me. I should like to make it clear that the proposal I put before the House of Commons, a good long time ago now—

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
No; here.

§ EARL HOWE
—was to tell motorists coming daily to London that they could not enter the central area of London unless they got a police pass, and the condition of the grant of that police pass would be that they could show that they had off-street parking accommodation available to them in the central area; and if they had not, they would have to stay outside. New registrations of motor cars have been going on at monthly rates of something between 150,000 and 180,000, and it is obvious that something very drastic, such as I suggested, may have to be adopted. If that is the position, is it not as well that the Minister should be endowed with powers, not necessarily to bring in a scheme such as I advocated, but possibly something far better?

LORD WALERAN
I should like to associate myself in the main with what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has said in regard to this Amendment. As the subsection is drafted it goes very far. I recognise that certain powers are desirable, but I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, will give some assurance that properly defined powers may be given to your Lordships' House. The powers in this subsection are, I think, too wide as they stand.

§ LORD CHESHAM
It is possible to argue at length on this subject. If you like to let your imagination run away 1089 with you, you can have a great deal of fun with it. You can envisage schemes such as those to which the noble Lord referred. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, said that under this clause it would be possible for the Minister to close the West End and to prohibit all except certain people from coming into the West End, and that these powers would need to be used very carefully. That is so, of course: they will need to be used very carefully indeed. This Amendment in fact relates to subsection (4). I want to be quite specific about this. Subsection (4) provides that vehicles which have been exempted or, rather, where exemptions have been granted, may be identified by some kind of sign. The exemptions will be granted under subsection (3); that is the subsection which creates exemptions. Subsection (4) in effect merely states that those exemptions can be identified by some means. I trust that the noble Lord is not going to press this Amendment. I do not think he is, because it would not do what he wanted. It would merely mean that the Minister could create exempted classes and not identify them.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
Could the noble Lord give us a few examples of what he has in mind?

§ LORD CHESHAM
I was just coming to that. The first eventuality—we must keep off this Harley Street business—is a case where there is a real need for someone to be able to park his car, in certain circumstances only; such as a doctor, who genuinely needs to have his car parked outside his house, consulting room or other place. I do not quite know how it would be done. It would not be a question of saying that doctors requiring cars should apply for a lot of identity discs. No doubt it would be done with the aid of the B.M.A., and very carefully done indeed. At the moment your Lordships appreciate that it is not possible by these provisions to produce a category of people who should or could or might have an exemption—it applies only to vehicles. You can say that no lorries over three tons may go down the Strand—or no small motor cars or motor cycles, or no blue Rolls Royces, come to that—but you cannot say that only doctors may go down. That 1090 is the real point of the categorisation. In the first place, it is people such as doctors. Another instance which occurs to me is the case of specialists attending hospitals. In certain circumstances, where the hospital has no car park and they have to leave their cars in an emergency, there would be consultation with the hospital to find out how many specialists they needed, who they were to whom these exemptions should be issued, and that kind of thing. They are not intended for Members of this House or, indeed, of another place.
That brings me on to the second major reason. It might well be necessary, if there was some scheme involving traffic engineering, to close certain roads (this will serve as an example) around Westminster, so that traffic was not allowed down them. In those circumstances, it might be necessary to issue a temporary identity card, badge, or whatever it may be, to Members of both Houses. It might be necessary in certain circumstances of road building in provincial towns, or almost anywhere, to close temporarily an area and divert the traffic. The residents would have to be able to go to their houses while the through traffic went round the other way. Those are the kind of circumstances. It is thought that this power would be a great help with the increasing complexity of traffic. Also, the Minister needs to consider the needs of the individual to a certain extent. This power of exemption, and identified exemption, will make it much easier for him to be able to study the needs of the individual. It is necessary to make the complicated restrictions and enforcement of restrictions really work. I hope that that will satisfy the noble Lord.

LORD HAWKE
I think that this is one of the most necessary parts of the Bill. If the Minister, in order to deal with this terrible problem of the London traffic, is going to use those powers properly, he will obviously have to create a series of highways through London in which no waiting is allowed at all in normal circumstances, except between certain hours. Obviously there will have to be exceptions to that. A case which occurs to my mind is the "Black Maria" which goes round with the bank cash. For instance, if Kingsway or the Strand were to be a road in which it was an offence to leave a car for any period at 1091 all, then there would have to be exceptions such as the van going round with the bank cash.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, is very worried about the problem of individual liberty, the problem of giving privileges to certain classes, and so on. I can assure him that there is nothing that Parliament watches more carefully than that. The Minister's life would not be worth a moment's purchase if he did something so high-handed that the whole of Parliament was up in arms. I may further remind your Lordships that Parliament consists entirely of motorists these days, a great number of whom seem to be only too anxious to consider the needs of themselves as potential car parkers. I feel that the safeguards are adequate, and that the subsection is vital to the Bill.

§ LORD CHESHAM
May I intervene quickly once more? I forgot to give the noble Lord and the House the strongest assurance of which I am capable that it is not intended to make use of these powers except in the most sparing and careful way. They will not be used extensively. There is no intention and no desire—in fact, the opposite—to create some privileged class of motorist who motor about and park anywhere. It is only because it is felt that enforcement without identification is impossible, and as enforcement in these complicated traffic situations is essential, that this power is essential. That is why it has been asked for.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I am quite happy with the noble Lord's explanation. I am sure that even the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, will not mind my playing the modest rôle of the watchdog which he commends so highly as one of the greatest features of Parliament. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ On Question, Whether Clause 8 shall stand part of the Bill?

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
May I ask the noble Lord whether he could give me a moment or two in explanation of subsection (2)? That subsection says: 1092 It is hereby declared that references to traffic in the said section thirty-four (other than references to vehicles or vehicular traffic) include references to foot passengers. I have tried hard for years to get some control over foot passengers. You cannot go on for ever making the vehicle driver the whipping boy for accidents. A study of the statistics in our built-up areas will show that carelessness on the part of pedestrians is responsible for most accidents. Here we go on in the congested areas of London and do not even make pedestrians honour traffic lights.
Do I see in this a dawn that something is going to be done? I worked hard on the last Road Traffic Bill, and after hours of labour I managed to secure a very modest control of the pedestrian in respect of the policeman who is controlling the traffic at a crossing. That is all. We have got to control some of these pedestrians and their movements in these thickly populated streets. We are not going to do it all at once and we shall not do it by concentrating on vehicles. Everyone who uses the roads must play his part. This must have been put in this Bill for a purpose. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he could spend half a minute in telling us what is in the Minister's mind in putting this in the Bill. If he could do that, I should be grateful.

§ 7.11 p.m.

§ LORD CHESHAM
I am delighted to oblige the noble Lord. All I would say to him is that I hope that what he sees is not the light of dawn; I hope he sees a fairly substantial ray beaming down, and largely for the reasons which he has just set out. That is exactly what is in the Minister's mind. At the moment there is doubt in the law. We are all agreed, I think, that it will be necessary, as time goes on and as further schemes are produced, for control of pedestrian traffic to be an essential feature. At the moment there is doubt in law as to whether pedestrians are controllable as traffic. There is doubt in the definition. This has been put in for the simple reason that we want to do exactly what the noble Lord suggests, and it makes absolutely certain that pedestrians are "traffic" and, consequently, can be made subject to control.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, and for the first time since the noble Lord 1093 opened the Second Reading of this Bill II get some ray of hope and encouragement that we are going to tackle this problem. Up to the present time I have felt we were not. I am grateful to him, and I hope what he has said will receive considerable publicity.

§ LORD MERRIVALE
May I ask the noble Lord a question? Does he mean that when this Bill becomes an Act the Minister has power to make it an offence, if there is an inscription which pedestrians may read on a traffic light saying "Don't Cross", to cross at that particular time?

§ LORD CHESHAM
No; I do not mean specifically that. What I mean is that the Minister has power to regulate traffic in certain circumstances under certain Acts. It appears doubtful whether, at present, the traffic he has power to regulate includes pedestrians, who, we are all agreed, badly need regulating, when it comes to indiscriminate crossing of streets. This means merely that in the future he will be able to put forward measures to control pedestrians, which may relate to crossing at traffic lights or may relate to a number of different things which will, prove desirable in due course. This makes absolutely certain that such measures can be applied to pedestrians.

§ Clause 8 agreed to.

§ Clause 9 agreed to.

§ Clause 10 [Financial provisions in connection with provision of temporary parking accommodation in London area]:

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "due to special causes of a seasonal or occasional nature". The noble Lord said: This Amendment and No. 18 go together, and what I seek to do is to widen the powers of the Minister As the Bill is drafted, Clause 10 (1) reads: If the Minister, with a view to relieving traffic congestion due to special causes of a seasonal or occasional nature, enters into arrangements under which parking accommodation for vehicles is to be provided temporarily in the London area.… I need not read any further. But why? It is always necessary to provide this accommodation? May I give the noble Lord a case in point? I understand the Westminster City Council are going to extend their parking and prohibition of 1094 parking schemes right down into the St. James's Street area. So far as I know, no effort has been made up to the present time to find any off-street parking, because there is not any, except Horse Guards Parade. Why should not that be used permanently, when it is not wanted for the occasions for which it is sometimes used? Why should it not be a car park? It is a car park, but why should it be confined to officials' motor cars. We are so badly off for off-street car parking that I should like the Minister to have the power to say that any of these places shall be used as a car park. And that is the sole object of these two Amendments.

§ Unless we do something like this we shall never cure this problem. The noble Lord will know that the Berkeley Square area is very nice where all the parking meters are, but go just off the Square and the streets are jarnmed—you cannot get down them. You can go on pushing this traffic out and out, but there is a limit. I think the Minister should have the power to say that all these places should be used; that he should be able to make arrangements with a view to, relieving traffic congestion, not due to special causes, not due to "Pink Zones" and Christmas time, but at any time of the year. What merit is there in special causes of a seasonal or occasional nature? Traffic congestion is not occasional: it is permanent; in London, almost as permanent as death. I would suggest that the Minister should have these powers and I hope the noble Lord will accept my Amendment. The other one is just consequential on the first. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 13, line 35, leave out ("due to special causes of a seasonal or occasional nature").— (Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

§ LORD CHESHAM
The noble Lord, of course, has made a very convincing case. He drew graphically this picture of the streets jammed with cars. It is more than I can say about the off-street garages—that they are jammed with cars—because I do not think that is so. I think it will continue not to be so, whether there is a lot of off-street parking space available or whether there is not, so long as free parking is available somewhere in the streets. That is the fact of the matter. But to come to this 1095 Amendment, may I say to the noble Lord—a matter of some delicacy—first of all, before I come to the substance of it, that I cannot accept the Amendment because it would produce a strain on the funds of my right honourable friend which he is not equipped to stand. I think the noble Lord probably understands what I mean. But, apart from that, it has never been intended that the Minister should have general powers to provide off-street parking. I know that the noble Lord wants it, but it has never been intended that the Minister should have such powers.
As the traffic authority for the London area he has certain responsibilities, and it is perfectly clear, as the noble Lord also said, that there will not be sufficient permanent off-street car parks for some time to come. That is why the Minister seeks these powers, in order to be able to alleviate the situation in times of special congestion, such as Christmas, or the Motor Show, or any time when there is a lot of traffic about. It is only a temporary power, as the noble Lord knows. It is available for five years and only in respect of temporary car parks on these special occasions. The Minister is convinced, and it is firm Government policy, that it is for the local authorities to provide the off-street parking facilities. Assistance is being given under this Bill to do just that, and also to enable them to have the money from parking meters. I do not think it is right that the Minister should take on this duty. He should, I agree, have these temporary powers. The noble Lord raised rather a difficult point in regard to the Horse Guards Parade. It is not just a matter of arranging it: it is not quite so easy as that. I know what the noble Lord means. The Minister's intention is to try to help all he can, but it is not his job to provide permanent off-street parks and it might tend to lessen the inducement of the proper authorities to get on with off-street parking if he started moving in on it. I cannot accept the noble Lord's Amendment, because I think that the temporary powers are what are called for in the circumstances.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I think that the noble Lord has said something that is most sad. I know it is true. 1096 I do not usually waste much time on sympathising with Ministers; they deserve a lot of what they get. But I must confess that I have great sympathy for the Minister of Transport. When he wants to build roads he has the dead hand of the Treasury on him, and when he wants to do anything he has not any money. When he wants to do something to alleviate traffic conditions he has the Home Office on the other side. When I first saw this Bill I thought I detected the voice of Jacob; but I also observed the hand of Esau—and Esau's hands on Clause 1 and 2 have been most pronounced. Now it is the Treasury's turn.
I have one or two other Amendments down, but what I am trying to do is just what the noble Lord has said—that is, to get local authorities to build off-street parking. The Minister says, "I am going to push it on to local authorities". But it is no good doing that. It does not help to put a couple of petrol pumps and a small garage underneath a block of flats. That is not going to pay. I think that the Minister has the dickens of a position—he has to take all the raps. If we have parking congestion, it is the Minister who is to blame. If we do not have any roads, the Minister is to blame. The poor fellow is really like two pieces of meat in a most substantial sandwich. I know that I shall not get far with this argument, for the reasons stated by the noble Lord; but I am glad that he has emphasised certain things, because later on, when I come to other Amendments, I shall remind him of one or two of them. My noble friend Lord Silkin wants to say something on this point, after which I will withdraw my Amendment.

§ LORD SILKIN
I am not going to try to persuade my noble friend not to withdraw his Amendment, but I should like some clarification. What are "special causes of a seasonal or occasional nature"? They are not defined. I imagine that the Minister has absolute discretion to decide what these exceptional causes are. I do not complain much about that. But he then has the right to use public money for such purposes as he decides upon without being answerable to Parliament or to anybody else. It is therefore important that we should be quite clear as to what are these special causes when public money can 1097 be used for the provision of off-street parking. I wonder whether it might not be desirable, at another stage of the Bill, to be a little more explicit and to say with greater clarity what are the special occasions.

§ LORD CHESHAM
I will gladly explain that. To start with, the noble Lord seemed to me slightly suspicious of the link-up between special occasions or causes with any expenditure of public money. What it is intended to mean is that public money requires spending in the public interest—for example, at Christmas, at the Motor Show, which I mentioned—

§ LORD SILKIN
Wimbledon.

§ LORD CHESHAM
No; I should not have thought so. But there are times of the year which may be seasonal, or there may be some special occasion, such as a Jubilee, or a notable Royal occasion, in connection with which a great deal of extra traffic would come into an already congested district, requiring special arrangements to be made. The money part arises from the experience of the Pink Zone last Christmas, because it turned out—and difficulties arose from it—that the Minister had no right at all to incur any financial liability for any of the temporary off-street car parks that he arranged to use. He had therefore to rely on the generosity of other people. Naturally some people were not keen to contribute, but he had to rely on the generosity of other Ministers, the L.C.C. and such bodies as the motoring organisations who offered their facilities quite free for controlling the car parks. He had completely to rely in this matter on the charity of others which, I should like to acknowledge, was in many cases most freely given. There is not going to be all the off-street parking space we need for a few years. At least we know that. Therefore it is at these crush periods—and the Minister can well be trusted to select when they are—that he will be able to use money to provide car parks in difficult circumstances for the public when they need them.

§ LORD SHEPHERD
The noble Lord has raised quite an important point. First, he has said that the Minister has not previously had power to take over spaces in London and use public money for that purpose. But why could not the 1098 Minister recoup that money from the people who are to use those car parks? Let us take the case of the Horse Guards Parade. People will bring their cars up to central London and require a parking place, and I see no reason whatever why, if we have provided a system of parking meters in the streets around that area, those people should not pay for parking their cars in the space provided. Surely if the Minister had that power to take a subscription from a person who parks his car he would then have funds with which to recompense the authorities who have given him the area. I cannot see why he cannot do that. The other thing which rather amazed me was the noble Lord's remark that there are empty spaces in off-street parking areas. That is not my information. I understand that off-street parking facilities are fully occupied, day and night.

§ LORD CHESHAM
I am afraid I have not got the figures but I shall be delighted to obtain them and put them on paper and let the noble Lord have them; and if I am wrong I shall be delighted to apologise to him. Nothing would please me more—but I do not think I am wrong. The noble Lord mentioned my statement about the Minister charging; but the Minister has not the power to do so.

§ LORD SILKIN
He is given power under the Bill.

§ LORD CHESHAM
The Minister will have power under the Bill, but the noble Lord, as I understood him, was commenting on my statement that the Minister had no power to use public money. That may be necessary in certain cases, where certain available spaces which could be used needed a little money spent on them to make them suitable for use as car parks. The entry ramps might need to be widened or strengthened. If, for instance, space was borrowed from one of the railway regions, the surface might be covered with oil drippings from parked cars and there would be a bill far re-surfacing. Previously the Minister had power to pay for none of these things; nor has he power, of course, to act as an independent financial agent to charge people for parking and then spend the money. Ministers are not empowered to behave in that way—more is the pity, sometimes. But that is the purpose for 1099 which this money would be used. Certainly the sums would not be large; but where, for example, an area was borrowed from a firm or a local authority and the surface was churned up by motor cars, he could then pay for putting the surface right. These are the kind of reasons why the Minister would need money.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
It has been a very useful discussion, and I now ask your Lordships' leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Clause 10 agreed to.

§ [The Sitting was suspended at twenty-five minutes to eight and resumed at twenty-five minutes to nine.]

§ Clause 11 [Miscellaneous amendments as to local authorities parking places and traffic schemes]:

§ LORD CHESHAM moved in subsection (8) after "area" to insert nor to an order made under the said Act of 1960 revoking or varying an order so made and confirmed".

§ The noble Lord said: Amendment 19 and the next three Amendments which stand in my name are only fractionally more than drafting Amendments, and, with the Committee's leave, I should like to speak at any rate to Amendments 19, 20 and 21 together. They relate to the powers that are taken under subsections (8) and (9) of this clause, which are freed from certain restrictions which were applied in the past. I do not think I need go into the whole detail of the matter, which is rather complicated; but the purpose of these Amendments is solely and wholly to remove doubt. It is perfectly clear that the powers to make orders under those subsections are free from the restrictions I mentioned, but it is not absolutely clear that amendments or revocations of those orders are themselves free from the restrictions. Therefore, Amendments 19, 20 and 21 merely remove the doubt and bring them into line with the original orders. I beg to move Amendment No. 19.

§ Amendment moved— Page 16, line 30, after ("area") insert the said words.—(Lord Chesham.)

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I am only too glad to support any Amendment which makes something 1100 clear in this Bill and removes doubt. I commend the noble Lord for moving this Amendment and I give him my support.

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHESHAM
I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 16, line 31, at end insert ("or of an order varying or revoking an order so made and confirmed in so far as the last-mentioned order subsists by virtue of that section").—(Lord Chesham.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHESHAM
I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved—

§ Page 17, line 20, at end insert— ("( ) An order made by the council of a county district by virtue of the last foregoing subsection may be varied or revoked by a subsequent order made by them and confirmed by the Minister, and the provisions which, by virtue of subsection (8) of this section, do not apply to an order made by virtue of the last foregoing subsection shall also not apply to an order made under this subsection.")—(Lord Chesham.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHESHAM
This Amendment is even more of a drafting nature than the other three, and merely ensures that the Minister's procedure regulations can apply to disc orders should any be made.

§ Amendment moved— Page 17, line 29, leave out ("subsection (2)') and insert ("under or by virtue of subsection (2), (10) or (11)").—(Lord Chesham.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ Clause 11, as amended, agreed to.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, after Clause 11 to insert the following new clause:

§ Amendment of s. 26 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960

§ ".In subsection (4) of section twenty-six of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, the words 'if the restriction does not prevent loading or unloading for more than six hours in all in any consecutive period of twenty-four hours' shall cease to have effect."

§ The noble Lord said: I put this Amendment down because I thought that the noble Lord might like to give some information to the Committee. In one of the many speeches—most of them, let me say quite frankly, helpful and objective—that have been made by his right honourable friend the Minister of Transport, he said that in investigations into this great problem of traffic congestion 1101 they had never realised what a great factor was played by the indiscriminate loading and unloading of goods in our streets.

§ My mind went back to the discussions on the 1956 Act, when we tried hard to get something put in the Bill which would give the Minister some power—the noble Lord referred to it earlier this evening—to deal with the problem. Something of a compromise was arrived at, by giving the local authority power to make regulations restricting loading and unloading so long as the regulations did not apply to periods longer than six hours in any twenty-four. They could do that, I think I am right in saying, without the consent of the Minister. Like a lot of these things, that was a pious hope, and if has proved ineffective. I hold the view quite firmly that unless some restriction is imposed on our main arteries in this country, not only on waiting and parking but also on loading and unloading, we shall never cure this problem of traffic congestion. Most of the local authorities have come to the conclusion that to have a restriction which builds up loading and unloading in peak periods is bad. In other words, to simplify it, they have come to the conclusion that there must be a ban on loading and unloading from a time in the morning to a time in the evening. To say that you can do this for only six hours merely aggravates the problem of congestion, because it builds up a peak two or three times during the day.

§ I am perfectly well aware of the problems that this entails, and let me therefore tell the noble Lord that I do not propose to press this Amendment. There are terrific problems, such as access: but the only way I could think of to bring this matter forward was in this form. I am hopeful that the noble Lord will be able to give me some encouragement—that is all I really ask him to do—that this matter has not been lost sight of by the Minister—the fact that we have all got to play our part. If we are going to solve the road traffic congestion of this country, everybody has got to give way. We shall not solve it without some sacrifice by the shopkeeper, the shopper, the trade unions—in fact, everybody. It is useless to think that we can do this at one fell swoop. As I have said, I put this Amendment down in the hope that, 1102 because the Minister admitted in one of his speeches, as I said previously, that it has not yet been realised what an important part loading and unloading goods on our main arteries plays in traffic congestion, he might have in his future plans—and he has many—something with which to tackle this problem. That is the sole purpose which prompted me to put the Amendment down, to tempt the noble Lord to tell us whether this is one of the things his right honourable friend intends to tackle in the near future. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— After Clause 11, insert the said new Clause.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

§ LORD MILVERTON
I should like to support this Amendment. There is no need to add anything to what the noble Lord has already said, except possibly to draw attention to the fact that paragraph 7 of the Fourth Schedule to the Road Traffic Act, 1960, already gives the Minister complete freedom as to the time when loading and unloading may be permitted in the London Traffic Area, and I think that nobody would deny that the problem is equally great in many provincial towns.

§ LORD CHESHAM
I need not take up a great deal of your Lordships' time in replying to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, because I do not dissent from anything he said. He is right. The solution to this problem demands a degree of sacrifice on the part of all concerned. Subject to the Minister's reserve power of review which he will retain, I would agree that the local authorities should have this power. It is a major change in the way in which these things have been done, and perhaps the best way may be through consultation with the interests concerned. It is certainly a helpful move, and it would enable more progressive local authorities to follow the Minister's example of using clearways, which are most important. Had the noble Lord been disposed to press his Amendment, I should be disposed to accept it, subject only to having another look at it from the point of view of drafting.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
It is wonderful what an interval of an hour will do. I am going to accept the noble Lord's invitation and ask him to accept this Amendment, in principle, at least, 1103 if he does not like the drafting. This is an important point that will have to be tackled and the Minister is the only one to tackle it. As I have said, the ultimate end of all this is that the Minister will have to take jurisdiction over all the country's main arteries. May I press the noble Lord to accept the Amendment?

§ LORD CHESHAM
Subject only to having a look at the drafting to make sure that it is watertight, I will accept.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I accept the noble Lord's offer.

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ Clauses 12 and 13 agreed to.

§ Clause 14 [Charges for removing and storing vehicles]:

§ 8.50 p.m.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, in subsection (2), to leave out "(whether greater or smaller)" and insert "(not exceeding two pounds)". The noble Lord said: This Amendment has relation to a charge for towing away a vehicle. Subsection (2) says: The fixed charge in respect of the removal of a vehicle shall be two pounds or such other sum (whether greater or smaller) as may be prescribed. I quite agree that the cost to the police should be recovered. But the police are not coming into the scrap vehicle business, and "such other sum … as may be prescribed" could be a lot of money. I think that far better wording in this Bill would be "not exceeding two pounds". The Bill refers to "such other sum (whether greater or smaller)"—that may be £20 or £30. It is quite a simple Amendment, and I think "not exceeding two pounds" is about a correct charge for towing a vehicle away from somewhere where it has been parked and it ought not to have been. I know that the noble Lord said on Second Reading that people have had their vehicles towed away free of charge. Of course I do not agree to that: I think that some charge should be made, and that two pounds is about the right amount. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 21, line 16, leave out ("(whether greater or smaller)") and insert ("(not exceeding two pounds)").—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

1104

§ LORD SILKIN
I should like to ask the noble Lord a question about this. I do not follow what the intention is here. Is it the intention to prescribe a charge in each individual case? Obviously if the charge is to be related to the cost to the police, in some cases it will be high and in others it will be low. If the person whose car has to be towed away is going to get a bill for the cost of the removal, the term "as may be prescribed" seems to be inaccurate. What would be more correct would be to say, "or such sum as may reimburse the police authorities for the cost." "Prescribed" gives the impression that you are going to prescribe one charge for all time, either of £2 or some other charge, regardless of the individual case. It does not connote, certainly to me, that it is possible to make a specific charge in each individual case. It is really a matter of intention and drafting, and I am not sure what is the intention.

§ LORD CHESHAM
I think I can satisfy fairly simply the doubts that have been expressed. As the noble Lord said, I made some play on Second Reading that it was cheaper to have one's car towed away, and I need not go into that again. The intention is that the charge should not contain any primarily and substantially punitive element. I suppose it would be a legal argument whether it contained any or whether it did not, but that is not the idea of the thing. The idea is that it should represent the approximate cost of the removal of the vehicle towed away.
We have looked into this matter a good deal, and I think it is safe to say that the normal commercial rate for towing away vehicles for the kind of distance which is likely to be involved at present is somewhere round 30s. If you allow on top of that the amount of clerical work to which the police are put—because they have to take an inventory of the entire contents, look after the car, and so on—and the administrative costs, it was thought that a charge of £2 was the right one to fix, having regard to the cost of the job. It is as simple as that.
I should much prefer this Amendment not to be pressed because it may well be that in time to come the police may have to tow cars further away. They 1105 may have to take them further out of central London, or it may be that, with a rise in costs of some sort, this sum would no longer cover the cost and be a proper sum to charge. Therefore I think it is essential that the arrangements should be kept flexible so that the Minister can increase the fixed charge if costs should rise or there is some other circumstance, such as distance which changes, so that it can be kept up to the full cost. At the same time, if it proves that a reasonable figure is lower, the Minister can perfectly well make an order to alter the figure. He can alter it either way if circumstances require it.

§ LORD SILKIN
The noble Lord has not really directed his mind to my question. Do I take it that the intention is to have a fixed charge of £2 in respect of all vehicles, or such other sum as the Minister may prescribe, or is he intending, as I thought was the case from what he said on Second Reading, to have a special charge in respect of each particular vehicle? A large vehicle may cost more to move than a small one, and it may be necessary to tow it further away because the particular place to which these vehicles are normally taken is full. Is that the idea, or is there to be a fixed charge all round which may be increased or decreased by the Minister according as he may prescribe? I hope I have made my question clear.

§ LORD CHESHAM
I am sorry if I did not make my answer plain. Yes, it is the intention that any vehicle which is towed away will incur a charge of £2. I think it would be difficult to have a differential scale of charges according to distance and that sort of thing. We have looked at the distance and the different costs of different sizes of vehicles and it appears that £2 is a good average, fair charge for the job. If it proves to be too much, the Minister can reduce it, and if it proves to be insufficient he can increase it.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
The noble Lord has allayed my fears by saying that it is not the Minister's intention to incorporate in this charge for towing away part cost and part fine. By shaking his head the noble Lord agrees with me that we have already taken care of the fine. I am quite prepared to accept the noble Lord's explanation, and 1106 with your Lordships' permission I will withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave withdrawn.

§ Clause 14 agreed to.

§ Clause 15 agreed to.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, after Clause 15 to insert the following new clause:

§ Financial provisions relating to exercise of powers under sections 8 (5) and 11 (2) and (3)

§ ".Any moneys recovered in respect of any scheme of parking control introduced under the powers contained in sections 8 (5) and 11 (2) and (3) which provide for the use of specified apparatus or devices as a means of indicating the time of arrival at and departure from a parking place or place in a street shall be applied—

(1) to reimburse the local authority or police authority in respect of the cost of administration and enforcement of the scheme, and
(2) any surplus shall be used to meet the cost of the provision maintenance and supervision of off-street parking accommodation."

§ The noble Lord said: After the explanation given me by the noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, I am not certain that this Amendment is necessary. It is really concerned with disc schemes. The noble Earl has assured me that all the revenues from the operation of a disc scheme will be applied in the same manner as the revenues from all the parking meters and the fines—

EARL BATHURST
No.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
That was my impression when the noble Earl answered me earlier and said that all the moneys derived from any offence under the Road Traffic Act, 1960, would be channelled via the Home Office, via the Treasury, to the Road Fund.

EARL BATHURST
Yes.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
And this holds good for all parking disc schemes if they are brought into operation. The noble Earl said that.

EARL BATHURST
With the disc scheme it is a fine.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
All moneys recovered under any scheme—I do not know what they will be—but all moneys will be channelled in the same way into the Road Fund, as the noble Earl so eloquently and lucidly put it earlier this afternoon.

1107

EARL BATHURST
This is a direct charge.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I beg the noble Earl's pardon—direct charge. I am obliged to him for his correction. If that is so there is no need for this Amendment. I will move it so that the noble Lord can give that assurance. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— After Clause 15, insert the said new Clause.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

§ 9.4 p.m.

§ LORD CHESHAM
I am glad to have the chance to clear up this point now, because it is most important to be clear about this difference between fines and charges. There is a fundamental distinction between them. A charge is made for the lawful use of the road under some enactment or other. This is what a motorist pays when he uses a parking meter. A fine—or penalty perhaps we might call it—is made for an unlawful use of the street; the two are quite distinct. I am not sure if the point has been made, but the charge—that is, the original 6d. or 1s., and the excess charge if one is incurred on the parking meter—is a charge which does go to the provision of off-street parking. It must by law. Fines are something different, and cannot be so applied. They have to go through the channel already mentioned, and it would be a major departure from every kind of policy accepted for years, as the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, told us, if fines were diverted to some other purpose. It is therefore, not exactly correct for the noble Lord to say that his Amendment is unnecessary since what has already been explained to him by my noble friend does what he wants. In fact I do not see how you can get any money back from a disc scheme unless it is a fine. Therefore, the fine cannot go towards doing the things the noble Lord has set out in his Amendment.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I withdrew my other Amendment which was worded in almost the same terms, because I was assured that the money goes into the Road Fund of the Ministry of Transport. Whether or not it is specific, I really do not mind; it will be used for its proper purpose.

1108

§ LORD CHESHAM
If I may re-intervene or re-interrupt, that is so; but the purpose of the Vote for the Ministry of Transport money is not used for these things. That is what I am trying to make clear to the noble Lord. Therefore, in a sense, his Amendment is not unnecessary. The money goes in the way my noble friend described, and as the noble Lord understood it when he withdrew his previous Amendment; but it does not in fact go to a fund which pays for the things that the noble Lord was suggesting. It is only the other measures—composite development, parking meters and so on—which will assist that form of parking.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
As I accepted the noble Earl's explanation on my previous Amendment, I feel that it would be wrong to press this one. The money goes into the Ministry of Transport Fund. That is what I am anxious about. It goes into the Road Fund, although not specifically earmarked for it. In other words, the noble Lord has satisfied me that it goes into a good cause. On that explanation, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ 9.8 p.m.

§ LORD MILVERTON moved, after Clause 15 to insert the following new clause:

§ Restriction on the passage of vehicles

§ ".The authority having power to make traffic regulation orders under section twenty-six of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, may place in the carriageway of any road such bollards or other obstructions as it considers appropriate for preventing the passage of vehicles, or vehicles of any class or description, at any point at which their passage (whether in either direction or in one direction only) is prohibited by such traffic regulation order as aforesaid, and to maintain or light such obstructions."

§ The noble Lord said: Under Clause 9 (1) (b) of the Bill the Minister is proposing to give power to highway authorities in the London area to place in the carriageway bollards or obstructions for preventing the passage of vehicles. The Amendment which I have set down is intended to give a similar power to authorities outside the London area. The reason is that highway authorities are anxious, for safety reasons, to reduce the number of accesses for vehicles into main roads from side roads; and especially in the case of old towns where there may be 1109 many side roads, all joining the main road and close to one another, it is sometimes desired to make one or two roads available for pedestrians about the point where they meet the main road. This can be done while still leaving adequate accesses for vehicles to the side road by using other side roads close by. At present this object can be achieved only by placing "No Entry" signs back to back, or close to each other, where a side road joins the main road. However, there is a serious risk that a motorist about to emerge from the side road may fail to observe a "No Entry" sign placed in this rather unusual position—that is, at the end instead of at the beginning of a street. This could have dangerous consequences and the solution is clearly the erection of bollards; but as the law stands at present there is no power to do this.

§ I appreciate that the clause as drafted in this Amendment includes the Minister as one of the authorities having power to make traffic orders, and it has been suggested to me that this might create difficulties over the financial question. But what I think is most important is the principle; and I understand that the Association of Municipal Corporations, for instance, have had correspondence with the Ministry which has shown itself, shall we say, not unsympathetic to the proposal. No doubt it would be quite easy to re-draft this and add any necessary instructions to be placed on the bollards about what a motorist's course should be. Also, it would be possible to exclude the Minister and leave the power only to the local authority. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved—

§ After Clause 15 insert the said new clause.—(Lord Milverton.)

§ LORD CHESHAM
I do not think it will come as any surprise to the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, to hear that I have some sympathy with his Amendment. I find myself, in a sense, in a little trouble, because, as I have said, this Bill is rather of an emergency nature and was primarily designed to meet Problems of enforcement and regulation of traffic in London and the provision of car parks throughout the country as a whole. Apart from the fact that, even with the difference to which the noble Lord drew attention, it raises 1110 matters of some difficulty for my noble friend, as I mentioned earlier, I feel that perhaps it would be a better idea to deal with this matter in a subsequent Bill as soon as this can be found convenient, for it is not really appropriate to the present Bill. I should like also to give a little consideration—and I say no more than "consideration"—to the question of whether, while it may be reasonable to give this power to the Minister in regard to London and in respect of regulations which he has to lay before Parliament, it is quite reasonable to give similar power to local authorities in respect of their own orders, which do not have to be approved by Parliament or, in general, to be confirmed by the Minister. I do not want to say more than that I should like to look at it in that sense. Therefore I would suggest to the noble Lord that he should not press his Amendment but that we can look at it and try to deal with the matter in a subsequent Bill as soon as can be found convenient.

§ LORD MILVERTON
I should like to thank the noble Lord for the sympathetic way in which he has received this Amendment and I shall be very pleased to meet his hope that I will withdraw this Amendment, being satisfied that perhaps at some not too distant future date his sympathy may be translated into action. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Clause 16 agreed to.

§ Clauses 17 to 119 agreed to.

§ 9.15 p.m.

§ LORD CHESHAM moved, after Clause 19 to insert the following new clause:

§ Effect of regulations under s. 64 of Road Traffic Act, 1960

§ ". No such provision contained in regulations made or having effect as if made under subsection (1) of section sixty-four of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, as imposes or varies requirements with respect to the braking systems with which motor vehicles must be equipped shall be taken, for the purposes of subsection (3) of that section, or of any other provision of the regulations, to be one relating to the construction of vehicle."

§ The noble Lord said: I here come to a matter of some considerable difficulty. I think that the only thing I can do is 1111 raise both my arms in the air and cry, "Surrender!"—because I am in a position of being a sinner, not even able to excuse my sin on the ground that "it is only a little one". I do not think it can be classified even as that. But I am bound to say, quite openly and frankly, as your Lordships will probably have observed, that this Amendment has absolutely nothing to do with the Bill.

§ I think that in another place—and if it had been necessary it would have been so in your Lordships' House—it was made quite clear that this was an emergency Bill: that it was wanted quickly, and that any attempt to alter its scope to include a number of new matters would mean that the Bill would not be got when it was wanted. As a result, a great deal of pressure was put up successfully against attempts to widen its scope. Not specifically by this Amendment, but by Amendment No. 31, regarding the Title, the scope is, of course, to be widened. But my justification for it—I am going to explain the Amendment in a moment—is this. This Amendment brings in nothing new—no new principle of anything like that. It is merely a question of inserting a piece of machinery to remove doubt in the existing law.

§ The substance of the matter is this. A legal difficulty has arisen on the vehicle-testing scheme and specifically on the tests involving brakes. As things are at the moment, the regulations used are in general words about standards of braking efficiency; but now we have to be more exact. The vehicle-testing regulations have already been signed and will be laid before your Lordships as soon as they have been printed. The necessary Amendments to the Construction and Use Regulations, which specify exact standards for brakes, have also been signed and will be laid before Parliament this month. The difficulty is that these regulations about braking standards could, perhaps, be considered to be regulations as to the construction of vehicles. It is possible that if the matter were taken before a court and the court were to take that view, it would mean that under Section 64 (3) of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, the regulations would not apply for the next five years to any existing vehicle. And that, of course, makes complete nonsense of the vehicle-testing scheme.

1112

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
Which is nonsense already.

§ LORD CHESHAM
We therefore think it must be right to put this point beyond doubt, and this is what this new clause does. It says that for the purpose I have mentioned regulations about brakes are not to be regarded as regulations relating to the construction of a vehicle. I am sorry to do this, but it is very necessary. And, despite the interjection of the noble Lord opposite, if the Committee will accept the Amendment it will mean a great deal less nonsense than he says exists at present.

§ Amendment moved— After Clause 19 insert the said new clause.—(Lord Chesham)

§ 9.22 p.m.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
The hour is early, and on this subject, of course, I could speak to the Committee at great length, but I do not propose to indulge myself. The noble Lord has come in a white sheet. He has no need to apologise; I quite understand his position. I quite agree with the Amendment. It merely illustrates the nonsensical and silly thing which the Government propose to do. I had something to say about this on the first Amendment that I spoke to, and which the noble Lord was so kind as to say he would take back. The Government have had to fiddle about with all the Construction and Use Regulations—the lighting of vehicles and the braking of vehicles. It is the most nonsensical piece of legislation that any Government has ever introduced, and it will have no real effect. They do not know half the trouble they are going to run into. They have the Construction and Use Regulations, the ready-made cure for all this ill, which give them all the power they want to test vehicles on the road in a proper manner—and I am not against testing vehicles. It is very hard for me to have any sympathy with the noble Lord, because the Government have run their heads into a bunch of trouble already. We were going to have the testing of vehicles some long time ago. The regulations are now going to be laid. I hope the noble Lord does not think he has got over his troubles. The troubles he has had in the past are nothing, to those he is going to get in the future. It is one of those silly 1113 things. I sympathise with him, although I have not much sympathy for the Government. I shall not oppose this Amendment, because it is so essential; but it is one of those things which will come up from time to time. I hope that even now, at this late hour, Her Majesty's Government will scrap the entire silly scheme of vehicle inspection, which your Lordships turned down out of hand in 1956, and will do the sensible thing and have the testing of vehicles which is laid down in the Construction and Use Regulations, which is the only sensible way of proceeding. However, I have now said in a very short space of time what I could have token a long time to say. Let us give the noble Lord his Amendment—and I thank him for being so frank about it. I am not going to object to this for one moment.

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ Clause 20 agreed to.

§ 9.24 p.m.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
May I ask the permission of the House and the indulgence of the Lord Chairman of Committees to raise a point which I should have raised under whether Clause 20 shall stand part? It is only to ask the noble Lord a question; that is all. I have been very puzzled to find out what is permanent legislation in this Bill and what stands for only five years. I may be right in saying, although I would not be sure, that all those clauses in this Bill which relate to London traffic are for only five years; but I do not think I am, because there are other clauses which operate outside the London traffic area and which operate for only five years. I think I am right in saying that Clauses 1 and 2 do not suffer from the five-year limitation. Would the noble Lord be kind enough to tell the Committee which clauses stand for five years and what is going to happen to them after the five years?

§ LORD CHESHAM
I should be delighted to do that. I think the best thing is to give in detail the clauses which are for a five-year period. They are Clause 3 (1), which enables the Minister to exercise his power to make parking meter designation orders in the London Traffic Area without reference to the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee; Clause 4, 1114 which deals with parking meter designation orders made by the Minister himself without application from local authorities, which are also free from the necessity of consulting that body; Clause 8 (1), which gives the Minister power to make traffic regulations in London without reference to that body; Clause 10, which deals with financing temporary car parks in London, such as at Christmas; Clause 12 (1), which deals with the composite development of local authority car parks; Clause 16, which deals with grants for mirror improvements on classified roads in London; Clause 17, which gives power to accelerate works not included in the six-monthly scheme for London; and finally, Clause 18, which gives the Minister powers to carry out road improvements himself in London. All the other clauses, of course, are permanent. The noble Lord asked what is to happen when the five-year period is up. This period was fixed because it was the view of the Minister that, by means of this expedited procedure, we should have been able to catch up with the situation by the end of five years sufficiently to be able to do without these powers. Frankly, if that is wrong, the Minister will have to think again when it gets nearer the end of the five-year period. But we did not think it necessary to take these powers permanently.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his answer. I paid him the compliment of giving him prior notice.

§ LORD CHESHAM
I gratefully acknowledge that.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
We may have another Road Traffic Bill, but we may not. I think that some of these powers should be permanent and that they will have to be made permanent. I hope, too, that they will be extended outside London; but I will not enter into that now. That is why I am glad the noble Lord has made the explanation he has, and I am grateful to him.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, after Clause 20 to insert the following new clause:

§ Additional powers to snake advances

§ ". The powers of the Minister under section seventeen of the Ministry of Transport 1115 Act, 1919 to make advances for certain purposes shall include a power to make advances for the provision of parking places by a local authority under sections eighty-one and eighty-two of the Road Traffic Act, 1960."

§ The noble Lord said: This is really my last Amendment, because the other Amendment standing in my name I shall not move. I suppose this Amendment is one of the greatest substance, because it hits at the whole of our problem. We have said many times throughout the course of the interesting debates we have had over the last two days that the nub of this whole problem is off-street parking. The Minister has said—and he said it quite tersely: "I am going to put the whole of the problem of off-street parking on to the local authorities." The noble Lord said this afternoon, on an earlier Amendment of mine, that it was in the Minister's mind that it should be the responsibility of the local authority to provide off-street parking. I do not dispute that. But what is the noble Lord's view of the responsibility of the central Government when the local authority do not provide off-street parking? The central Government cannot throw up their hands and abdicate from all responsibility. That is what they are doing. They are only putting forward an alibi. They cannot say: "Our responsibility ends, and if the local authority do not like to shoulder their responsibility, it is no concern of ours."

§ The noble Lord has made an effort by Clause 12 to give the local authorities an opportunity of building off-street parking, and of having petrol pumps and ancillary services, not to run themselves but to let out to other people to run. But that is not going to do anything. In answer to the question I previously asked, the noble Lord admitted that that is a power they can have only for five years, at most. I suppose that that power attracts loan sanction. I should like the noble Lord to answer that question when he comes to reply. But what loan sanction would be given on something with a five years' duration. In the last analysis we must have off-street parking—we cannot burke the issue any longer; and some of the funds for off-street parking have got to come out of the central funds of the central Government. You can try and burke this issue for years, as successive Governments have done, but it is no good.

1116

§ Successive Ministers of Transport have consulted the London and Home Counties Advisory Committee. But every committee that has been set up to advise the Government on the problem of London's traffic has ultimately come down on the side of saying that there is only one solution, the provision of off-street parking. The London County Council have just produced a most illuminating report in which they say they can provide in London, within a measurable space of time, with the compulsory powers which allow them to compel anybody erecting a building in London to provide garages at the same time, and with the meter schemes, off-street parking for 100,000 vehicles. This problem is not confined to London. I could enumerate local authority after local authority that has steadfastly refused, through bigotry and prejudice, to spend one penny on off-street parking. What are the Government going to do? Are they going to shrug their shoulders and say, "It is no concern of ours"—that it is planted solely on the local authorities? Governments cannot do that. Therefore, I put down this Amendment.

§ I moved practically the same Amendment when we were discussing the Road Traffic Act, 1956. I did not get any further then, but time passes and I may make a little more progress now. This work must be the subject of grant. I cannot for the life of me understand why off-street parking cannot be subject to the same type of grant as the grant for road construction. It is no good constructing roads unless you construct lay-bys or sidings to take the traffic off the roads. What would be the good of constructing railways in this country if you constructed no sidings? You cannot park all the goods trains and passenger trains that are required to run a national railway system on the main lines. Yet that is what you are trying to do.

§ I sincerely hope that I may make some impression on the Government that grants to local authorities, for the purpose of building or providing off-street parking, should come out of funds provided by the Exchequer, as in the case of the road programme. There is no difference between the two, and in the last analysis the Government will have to recognise that. I know that it is a big jump, but I beg your Lordships to realise 1117 that we shall go on (as the noble Lord quite rightly said, this is an emergency measure) having first-aid measures and emergency measures until we solve the problem of clearing the highways of all this parking, loading and unloading, and until we take the vehicles off the roads and cease to use the highways of this country as garages. Until we do that we shall have Bills like this with monotonous regularity. I hope that the noble Lord will give me at least some encouragement. I have been on this question now for twelve years. I do not know what man's span is to-day, but I am getting an old man on this. I may live to see the lime when the Government recognise that the provision of off-street parking is just as necessary as are highways for the swift, safe movement of the traffic of this country. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— After Clause 20 insert the said new clause.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

LORD WALERAN
I should like to support what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has said. I hope your Lordships will realise that the motoring organisations agree entirely that the long-term parker must not clutter up our roads. It is perfectly clear that this confusion of liberty and licence must not be allowed to continue. The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, has rightly said that you cannot get people to go into garages or into places where you pay to park if they can park free on the streets. But I feel it would be unfair if you shoved them off when they had nowhere to go. It is the frightful problem of the chicken and the egg again. Somehow you have to shove them off slowly where there is provision for them to go. It is no good the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, saying that all the parking places in London are half empty; that is just not true. I sympathise with the Minister of Transport very much indeed, and I can see that no Government would wish to say it would make grants for these things to local authorities, but surely there should be some way of guaranteeing loans for construction which would get over this shibboleth instead of always refusing to face the proper issue and playing ducks and drakes with the whole problem, which is what has been going on for a long time. I hope the noble 1118 Lord will give this point serious consideration, because we are just playing a game of marbles, and that is a childish game which we should have given up a long time ago.

§ LORD CHESHAM
While not wishing to be difficult or contentious on this matter, I have had, ever since I began to read the Amendments as they were put down, a feeling that this was a subject on which the noble Lord and I should probably not agree, and I am afraid we are not going to agree any more on this one. The noble Lord lays it down quite firmly that in his view this is a central Government responsibility, and he dubbed in advance any argument or case to be made to the contrary as an alibi. But I do not think it is an alibi. I think local authorities are perfectly capable of standing on their own feet and arranging their own affairs in many ways, and they are equally capable and are the right people to do so in the case of off-street parking in their own areas. I do not want to develop this theme at great length because I have one or two other things to say as a result of what the noble Lord said. But that, I say again, is definitely Government policy, and it is not an alibi or intended to be an alibi or any form of shield behind which to hide it is our belief that that is the proper way to do it and that local authorities are the people who should provide off-street parking in connection with their own efforts to regulate their own traffic problems. The Government have consistently taken that view since 1955, the time to which the noble Lord referred. He disagreed then; he disagrees now; very little, evidently, has changed since then. On Clause 12, which the noble Lord thinks is of very little value, I hold a contrary view. I think that the powers of composite development will encourage a lot of local authorities, in all probability, to start on the provision of car parks. Private enterprise has a big part to play. Also, of course, there is the question of being able instantly to begin to use what can be derived from parking meters. The noble Lord asked about loans. Certainly any local authority which wants to borrow money for providing off-street parking gets a loan, subject, of course, to getting 1119 support from the Minister. The Minister gives support. That support is given in all appropriate cases where it can be given, and I am happy to say that that view is almost always accepted by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
That is an innovation in this Bill, is it not? It was not so up to this Bill.

§ LORD CHESHAM
As I understand it, it was so, and under this Bill it applies to composite development, as well.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
Let me make this perfectly clear. If the provision for off-street garages was part of a development scheme it attracted loan sanction, perhaps. Now a local authority can build a composite building, or part of a scheme which provides a garage and other ancillary services, and let it out—they cannot run it themselves; but the capital cost of building it now attracts loan sanction. I think that that is a correct interpretation.

§ LORD CHESHAM
Yes, I think that that is correct. But it was perfectly possible before for local authorities to get a loan.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
They did not get it.

§ LORD CHESHAM
Well, I do not want to argue that out, but I am pretty certain I am right. I will check up and have a word with the noble Lord. I am pretty certain I am right that if a local authority wanted to provide off-street parking it was possible to get a loan for it. But there we are. I think we had better leave it like that. I think there is something to be gained from the noble Lord's remark that the L.C.C. have said that a great deal can be done. In fact, what encourages me in view of this matter is that, in the City in particular, a great deal has been done and has demonstrated what can be done by an enterprising local authority combined with the use of private enterprise. That encourages me to stick to my view. This piece of paper which I have now received confirms the view that ordinary car parks did attract loans before this Bill, and this extends loans to the composite development. 1120 I was just saying that there is sufficient sign, where a local authority is enterprising, to think that this is not quite so hopeless as the noble Lord seems to think. He thinks that it will not work and that we shall get nothing done. I think that we shall. I cannot look into the future, nor can I make any prognostications. Presumably, if it does not work we shall have to think again in the future. But we feel quite confident and hopeful that it will work, and I hope that it will start working as soon as possible. My noble friend Lord Waleran was of course completely right—we are all right; we know that off-street parking is the answer, and I do not appreciate him less for having made that point. But he did make the point about the chicken and the egg. It is not quite as easy an alternative as that, because he has to select at some stage—he has to make a definite choice which he places first and which second. I am afraid that any tendency to the argument that nothing can be done about clearing streets until the cars have got somewhere to go is effectively countered by the argument that when congestion begins on the streets "somewhere to go" will come as a result of demand.

LORD WALERAN
May I interrupt my noble friend? Is that not what they are doing in the City of London? They are actually building their garages there, and are going to put on the enforcement when they get the right amount of places to put the cars. I know that it is a jumbled business, but that is what they are doing. I think it is a fair way of doing it.

§ LORD CHESHAM
If it can be done. But in other areas, not in the City, if that is so, then everybody concerned—which means most of us—has to put up with congestion and chaos in the streets until then. And there is no alternative to that. The view of almost everybody I have heard speak seems to be that that situation is no longer tolerable, and I prefer putting my egg in front of my noble friend's chicken (or the other way round if it turns out like that), for I feel that the proper way is to create pressure to spur on the less enterprising authorities to provide the off-street car parking which is so very necessary to the public as a whole. I believe that the Bill will 1121 work as it is. I do not believe the Amendment of the noble Lord is one to be accepted in this Bill—apart from its financial implication, about which I spoke earlier. I believe that, apart from that, the Bill will be truly helpful in the provision of off-street car parking.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
The noble Lord has given a correct interpretation of Government policy. I commend the enterprising local authorities. I want to put to the Government the case of the unenterprising local authorities. I believe that the Government are running away from their responsibility, because if the noble Lord had seen the minutes of committees of some local authorities which I have seen upon this question of off-street car parking he would have been shocked by them. The noble Lord may say, "Let their streets get congested to the point where they are forced to do something". But they never will be forced to do anything. Their plea is that they cannot afford it. And when we hear, with what truth I do not know, about a half or a quarter of an acre of land in the centre of a town being sold for £250,000, one has some sympathy with the difficulties of these local authorities. I am not going to pursue this matter now. I have been given precisely the reply I expected. I had the same reply in 1956. We shall have another Bill of this kind in 1964, and I will put the Amendment down again; and we will see whether the dawn of enlightenment has broken over the Government in those years. I am grateful to the noble Lord for the very full explanation he has given, and with that I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Clause 21 agreed to.

§ Clauses 22 and 23 agreed to.

§ Schedule [Minor and consequential amendments of the Road Traffic Act, 1960]:

§ 9.55 p.m.

§ LORD MILVERTON moved to include among the Amendments of the Road Traffic Act, 1960:

("Section two hundred and twenty. (Control of dogs on roads.)

In subsection (2) after the word 'road' (where thirdly appearing) there shall be inserted the words 'or part of the width thereof'.")

1122

§ The noble Lord said: By Section 220 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, a local authority may designate roads on which it is an offence to permit a dog to be unless it is held on a lead. The Ministry of Transport have advised that the word "road" as defined in that Act does not include part of a road, so that a local authority cannot make an order under Section 220 of the Act in respect of any thing less than the whole width of any road in their area. Many main roads are boundary roads, and the consequence of this is that an authority cannot make an order requiring dogs to be held on a lead on a specified road if that road forms part of the boundary of their area. It is rather an anomalous and, if I may say so, absurd position. Boundary roads are often main roads, and these are the very roads on which it is highly desirable to ensure that dogs are not running loose. The Amendment which I have set out is designed to have the effect of defining "road" in Section 220, so that an order under that section may apply to part of a road; that is, that side of a road which lies within the local authority's boundary. And in order that the other side of the road should be subject to a similar order it will be necessary for the adjacent local authority to make a similar order. At the present time the law does not allow two authorities to co-operate in this manner.

§ If one wanted any evidence of the value of these regulations—in case the Committee may think this is a trivial matter—the figures are available for a place near where I live, which is the town of Slough, where all the roads are subject to an order. Records have been kept over a period of eighteen months, from October 1, 1958, to March 31, 1960. They illustrate, first, that the number of dog accidents during the eighteen months of the order, which was 26, compared with that during the eighteen prior to the order, which was 111. That shows a reduction of 77 per cent. The number of persons injured as a result of dog accidents during the period of the order was one, compared with the number similarly injured in the eighteen months before the order, which was 17. That was a drop of 95 per cent. Further, the personal injury rate was reduced by 11.5 per cent. during the period of that order. The number of dogs killed or 1123 injured during the period of the order, which was 20, as compared with the number killed or injured in the eighteen months prior to the order, which was 85, showed a reduction of 76.5 per cent. I hope that these figures will illustrate the need of some such Amendment to legislation as that which I have indicated. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 31, line 18, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Milverton.)

§ LORD CHESHAM
I do not think that it needs the eloquent words of my noble friend Lord Milverton to persuade me of the value of "dog orders". Also, of course, I fully realise what a sensible Amendment this is. I find myself in a small difficulty, in that the noble Lord's Amendment does not really fit into this Bill; it is more appropriate, it seems to me, for a Road Safety Bill. I should like to draw my noble friend's attention to the fact that it has already been announced that the Government intend to introduce a Road Safety Bill in a later Session of Parliament. I was wondering whether it would appeal to my noble friend if I were to say that I would undertake to include his Amendment in the Bill, or to help him to move an Amendment, if he prefers it, in a later Road Traffic Bill, rather than now. I should also perhaps say, in regard to his Amendment as it stands, that it is a little on the defective side because, whereas it says what may happen on one part of the road, it does not say what might happen on the other. I believe it could be done quite acceptably with a little thought (if my noble friend will allow me to say so) and a little more tidily than this. If what I suggest appeals to him and he agrees not to press his Amendment now, I will willingly give him the undertaking I mentioned.

§ LORD MILVERTON
I should like to thank the noble Lord for his courteous and sympathetic reply. In the circumstances, I have great pleasure in asking to be allowed to withdraw the Amendment.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
Before the noble Lord withdraws the Amendment, may I ask the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, this: Are we to take it that a Road Safety Bill may be anticipated in the next Session? 1124

§ LORD CHESHAM
I said "a later Session."

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
Do not leave it too late. The noble Lord cannot give us any more information than that: but do I understand that it is the Government's intention to draft and present to Parliament a Road Safety Bill?

§ LORD CHESHAM
Yes; the intention already stated.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I am grateful.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Schedule agreed to.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
had given notice of an Amendment to insert as a Second Schedule:

"Offence	Penalty
Parking a vehicle contrary to any waiting regulations	£".

§ The noble Lord said: In asking your Lordships' permission not to move this Amendment, may I ask the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, whether he will be tolerant, and whether the Government will be tolerant in not pressing the Report stage of this Bill, so that it may not be unduly hurried? We have some consultations to hold, and the Report stage is not a stage upon which it is convenient to argue as one would on Committee. One is always in a difficulty. I am hoping that the consultations which the noble Lord will have with his advisers, and which the noble Lord will have with myself, may result in some material gain to this Bill; but it is too serious a matter to be rushed through on a timetable. Therefore, I hope the powers-that-be—and I see that the Chief Whip has now moved up into the front line—will be tolerant about this. I think we can reach accommodation. If not, then we shall have to move Amendments on Third Reading—which, again, is not the best procedure to adopt. I, for my part, promise all the help I can give if I can have sympathetic consideration from him.

EARL ST. ALDWYN
I appreciate the noble Lord's problem, but I hope he will also appreciate mine. We have only a comparatively short time before the end of the Session. This Bill has been amended, and another place will wish to 1125 consider those Amendments; and in order that the Bill should survive and not be wrecked, I really feel I must insist on the Report stage being a week from to-day. I am sorry for the noble Lord, but it really is vital, if we are to get this Bill, that we take the Report stage then.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I hope that the usual channels will find a better way. I think it is too quick—I really do. I am not out to wreck this Bill—it is too important a Bill. I feel that we can cone to an accommodation, even if we take the Report stage and the Third Reading on the same day, in order to give us a breath in which to have proper consultations. I do not propose to do the job of the "usual channels" for them; that is what they are paid to do. I merely throw out that hint, that that may be a way out of it. I know that I shall have the sympathetic understanding of the Chief Whip, because he is always sympathetic.

EARL ST. ALDWYN
I am always willing to undertake discussions through the usual channels, and that I shall be happy to do.

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES
Do I understand that the noble Lord is not moving the Amendment?

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I am not moving the Amendment, because I withdrew the Amendment to which this is consequential.

§ LORD CHESHAM
I take this opportunity to say to the noble Lord opposite 1126 that if there is anything I can do in order to help him in any way I can, by trying to be more sympathetic and more tolerant than I hope I am all the time, I am sure he knows that I shall be only too glad to do it. Before I conclude, must also express my thanks for the serious and thoughtful way in which the noble Lord has handled his Amendments. While we have not always agreed, it has been a pleasant process. Your Lordships will be delighted to hear that this last Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Line 31, after ("London") insert ("to make provision as to the effect of regulations made or having effect as if made under section sixty-four of the Road Traffic Act, 1960;").—(Lord Chesham.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ Title, as amended, agreed to.

§ House resumed.