MOTOR VEHICLES (TESTS) (EXTENSION) ORDER, 1961 (Hansard, 14 November 1961)

§ THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM)
rose to move, That the Motor Vehicles (Tests) (Extension) Order, 1961, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, Section 65 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, makes provision for the periodic testing of motor vehicles to see that they comply with certain statutory requirements relating to the condition of parts of equipment which affect their safe use on the roads, and these are at present lights, brakes and steering. It also provides for the issue of a test certificate for those vehicles which do so comply. Section 66 makes it an offence, with certain specified exemptions, to use a vehicle which was first registered in this country not less than ten years ago unless there is in force a test certificate relating to it; and subsection (3) of this section makes provision for the reduction of the 10-year age limit by an Order made by the Minister of Transport specifying a lower figure, It is such an Order that I am asking your Lordships to approve.
The periodic testing scheme was brought into effect in September, 1960, by the Motor Vehicles (Tests) Regulations, 1960, which, among other things, specified the classes and types of vehicle to be included. The test was made compulsory for 10-year old vehicles by the Road Traffic Act, 1956 (Commencement No. 11 Order) 1961, which was made in January and required vehicles in various age groups over ten years to be provided with test certificates by specified dates over the months between February and May, and other vehicles by the tenth anniversary of the date of their first registration. The first round of testing of the approximately 1½ million 10-year old vehicles has therefore been completed. The records show that of the total I number of vehicles so far tested, very nearly 40 per cent. failed to qualify for a test certificate on first inspection, and we have no means of telling how many vehicles were scrapped without being tested at all because they were known to be in a bad condition and uneconomic to 573 repair. All the evidence goes to show that a very substantial proportion of vehicles less than ten years old are used in a condition below the minimum standard required by law and that, generally speaking vehicles between seven and ten years old are in not very much better shape than the older ones.
The Order substitutes seven years for ten years as the age limit for a compulsory test, and its effect is to require vehicles in the classes covered by the Regulations to be provided with a test certificate by December 31, 1961, if they have been registered for not less than seven years on that date, and in other cases by the seventh anniversary of their original registration. I beg to move.

§ LORD TAYLOR
My Lords, this seems an eminently reasonable thing to do, but there are one or two questions we should like to ask the Minister before we let this Order go through. First, to what extent is it anticipated that this system of testing will be extended? Is it next going to be after five years and then after three years, and is there a point beyond which it is not proposed to introduce testing? Secondly, as presumably the bulk of cars to be tested each year will be correspondingly increased as a result of this great new influx of cars between seven and ten years old, will the testing stations be able to deal with them adequately? Thirdly, is the Minister satisfied that the testing stations are really efficient? He may have heard the broadcast a little while ago of a gentleman who had had his car tested and passed. Then he was pulled up at one of these spot checks of the Ministry of Transport and his car was found to have seven defects after it had been passed only a week previously. This makes one wonder a little whether the Ministry are satisfied that these tests are being done efficiently. Finally, is there any further evidence about the high accident rate in old cars?
I suspect that the Ministry is right in thinking that large numbers of these old cars are driven in a dangerous state. In my experience there are two kinds of old car drivers: either the people who are proud of their old cars, as I used to be, and try to keep them in good con- 574 dition, or the very occasional driver who just licenses his old car for the summer, in which case it may be a very unroad-worthy vehicle. Has the Minister any further evidence about that?

§ EARL HOWE
My Lords, before the question is answered, may I ask the noble Lord whether it is intended to have a re-examination every future eight or nine months, as the case may be, or can the owner of a vehicle seven years old think that it is the final examination to which he is likely to have to submit his car? Up to the present owners of vehicles over ten years old have imagined that they would be allowed to run for at any rate one year before the vehicles had to be reexamined. I submit that the Minister might think it worth while to give us a little more information about what is intended by the Ministry.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
My Lords, I have never disguised my dislike of this method of testing vehicles. Your Lordships will well remember that when the 1958 Act was going through your Lordships' House I moved to have these provisions taken out of the Bill; and my experience since has confirmed me in my opinion that they are wholly unsatisfactory. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has just cited a case where, after a car had been through one of these testing stations, seven major defects were found. I think that is a modest estimate; I should have not been surprised if he had said seventy-seven. A lot of the reputable testing stations are refusing to test these old cars because the statutory requirement regarding brakes, steering and lighting concern the least accident-prone features which they find.
As the Minister has said, about 1¼ million to 1½ million cars were tested in forty-six weeks, the first period, in 12,000 testing stations. That was about 2.3 to 2.4 cars per week, at colossal cost to the country, and gave a gross revenue to these testing stations of about 32s. to 33s. a week for these cars. We are now going to raise the income of these places by having seven-year-old motor cars tested. But the trouble is that you are not stopping accident-prone motor cars from coming on to the roads of this country. 575 By far the best method of testing—and I applaud the Minister for introducing it—is the spot check upon the road. That is of far more use. I am not going to exaggerate the abuses of the present method but, as I have said, many of the reputable garages refuse to test some of these very old and dilapidated motor cars because they will not issue a certificate when they know that the statutory requirement of the certificate will not mean anything, and the vehicle will go out just as prone to accident as it was when it came in.
I want to ask the Minister, if he would be good enough to tell me, why, if the Ministry are so satisfied that this is a good thing for the safety of the road, he does not extend it to commercial vehicles?—because a spokesman of the Road Haulage Association only the other day made the statement that 25 per cent. of the goods-carrying vehicles on the road are not fit to be on the road. Yet the Minister has not thought fit to extend this scheme to commercial vehicles. I hope the Minister will not go on wasting public money, because testing cannot bring any great benefit to the nation, and it certainly does not bring any revenue whatsoever to the testing stations. I hope he will concentrate all the efforts of his Department upon spot testing on the roads, which I am certain is by far the best thing to do. Might I ask him whether, as a contribution to what this Order seeks to do, he will bring in an Order that will prevent motor vehicles that, through accident, are written off by insurance companies as a total loss from being rebuilt by scrap merchants, licensed and brought on to the roads again? If I suggested to your Lordships that instead of having a regulation like this we had one that every vehicle on the road of ten years old and over should be scrapped and never be allowed to be put on the road again, I expect I should have a storm of criticism; but, other than the relics of years gone by which can be kept on the road only through historical interest, that might make a major contribution to road safety.

§ LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH
My Lords, in the course of his reply would the Minister indicate whether, in view of the rather shocking revelations made by my noble friend, Lord Taylor, 576 he does not think that it is time that the Minister of Transport himself was tested?

§ LORD CHESHAM
My Lords, I am now faced with a number of questions, and if I supply the answers to them rather tersely I hope that noble Lords will understand that it is because of the number that have been asked. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, asked to what extent, down to what age, it was intended these tests should be brought, and I cannot give him a categorical answer straight away. But it has never been any secret that it was the intention to bring them down as far as was reasonably possible. I do not want to be pinned down as to whether it might be this year or that, but the present suggested alteration to seven years is certainly not regarded as the end of the thing, and we shall have to see, if it goes smoothly, as we expect it will, what can be the next move and how far it seems reasonable to go.
He then asked whether the testing stations could deal with this number of tests. We have kept very carefully in touch with the garage trade in this matter and the answer is, Yes, they can. There are now 16,000 stations opened and equipped for the job and they feel no doubt, neither do we, that they can deal with it.

§ LORD TAYLOR
My Lords, before the noble Lord goes on, am I right in thinking this is a cumulative affair and that ten years old tested cars have to be retested each year, and then the same with nine years, eight years and seven years, so that the figure will get bigger every year?

§ LORD CHESHAM
My Lords, I was coming on to that. It is the same question which was asked by my noble friend, Lord Howe, and the answer is that it will be cumulative to the extent that each category of cars as they come in will have to be tested each year. There is no question that they have to be tested more often than that, because the spread of tests to seven year old cars does not mean that ten year old cars have again to be tested because of the extension; but they have in any case, and always have had, to have an annual test. I think that makes the matter quite clear. The test certificate lasts for 577 twelve months and then you have to get another one. That is what happens to ten year old cars and is going to happen to seven year old cars. But this order does not mean that ten year old cars must have an extra test.
The noble Lord then queried whether tests were efficient, and compared them with spot checks; and he produced an instance, in part detail, which does not really add a great deal of validity to his argument. Spot checks cover a good deal more than does an ordinary test. For various reasons it was not thought desirable that the tests should cover all the various features which can be dealt with in a spot check, because certain things can be evaded with greater ease when you are going for a formal test than when you are suddenly pulled up on the side of the road. It would not really surprise me very much to find that a car that had passed a test had defects revealed in it at a roadside spot check, despite having passed the other test. I could not really accept what the noble Lord has said, unless he could give me details showing that there were definite defects which should have been revealed in a garage test, and that that test had been very recent. I really could not accept what he said, and I have no reason, by and large, to think that these tests are not efficient.
There is nothing going on, I am sorry to say, that in fact adds to previous knowledge about the accident rate and the effect of this scheme, because it is really too early to be able to deduce anything from activities so far. He must also remember, in contemplating the number of cars which will have to be tested, that while many more are coming on to the road a certain number are also, so to speak, dying. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, took a strange view about one thing, I thought. He told us that the test concentrated on those aspects of a vehicle which were least accident prone. But with a vehicle on the road, surely the most important parts that make it accident prone are the steering, brakes and lights.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
My Lords, what the noble Lord does not say is this: I said in relation to other defects which were shown on a ten-year-old motor car. Would the noble Lord say that so long as I have a certificate that 578 my brakes and my steering and my lights are all right, my broken chassis frame and the axle which threatens to fall off the car at any moment are of no importance at all?

§ LORD CHESHAM
No, my Lords, I did not say that at all, but neither do I agree that the steering and the brakes are of no importance. Surely the noble Lord knows—I am sure he does know— that if a car is presented for the test with a broken chassis it will not be tested because the tester has a perfect right to refuse to test on the ground that the vehicle is not roadworthy and is not safe to be taken on the road and tested. He has a right to do that and he does it.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
Does not the noble Lord realise that the only statutory obligation on a testing station is to sign a certificate that the brakes, the steering and the lights conform to the regulations laid down?

§ LORD CHESHAM
That is the statutory obligation on them for the test, but it goes a little further than that, as I have just stated. They may refuse a certificate on the ground that the car is not fit to go on the road and that it is not safe to road test that car when it goes for its test. Therefore, if it has a broken chassis or the axle is about to fall off it will not get its test certificate.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
It does.

§ LORD CHESHAM
If the noble Lord says that, I should like him, if he would, kindly to provide me with all the details of all the cases that he knows, and I shall be glad to go into them. Of course spot checks are better, much better, and the only thing I would say is that it would be ideal if we had spot checks on every car of a certain age in this country. I do not know how we find out what roads they confine themselves to, or how on earth it would be possible to arrange for a large army of testers at odd places on the roadside where they could cover a sufficient number of the country's vehicles to be able to achieve the results we want, although it would be nice. What I have just said to the noble Lord about broken chassis, and so on, probably is the reason why certain old cars have been refused for test. The other component parts are 579 probably regarded as being sufficiently unsafe as not to permit of their being tested.
On the point about commercial vehicles, I would say that the tests have not been extended to them for the simple reason that they are subjected to tests in another way. They are inspected at stated and unstated intervals by my right honourable friend's vehicle examiners, and they are tested in any case. The same applies at the moment to London taxis, which are inspected otherwise. The categories to be tested are those which are not subject to a test of some other kind such as applies to commercial vehicles. As to the suggestion of a regulation to prevent the rebuilding of "write-offs" after crashes, I am not sure that strictly that matter arises on this Order. I should like, for the moment, to consider what the noble Lord said, to see whether there is anything that can be taken out of the Order.

§ LORD HENDERSON
My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord this question on the illustration that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, gave of a car that goes in with certain substantial defects which are outside the provisions relating to driving, controlling, lighting, and so forth? If the garage inspector refuses to give a certificate of roadworthiness on these three things because of other defects, is the refusal recorded in the log book? There is nothing to stop that car going on the road until it comes to a spot check. In the event of a spot check, it seems to me that if there is a record on the log book that the car has been refused a clearance, it would be a great precaution against a car ever going on the road after being refused a clearance.

§ LORD CHESHAM
My Lords, there is no entry in the log book on this matter. The point is that if the certificate is refused, obviously the car will soon become one which must have a certificate in order to go on the road, and it is then illegal for it to do so without a certificate. That raises a question of enforcement. It seems to me that the police are managing to enforce these regulations because so far, up to June 30 last, there have been 829 prosecutions for not having a certificate when one was required.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
My Lords, is not the simple answer to the simple question of the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, that when a reputable garage proprietor says: "I will not put my name on a certificate for a vehicle that is in such a dilapidated condition", the owner takes it round the corner to some other testing station but only says, "My car is uncertified but the brakes, the steering and the lights are all right," and he comes back to the first garage and flouts the certificate in the owner's face?

§ LORD CHESHAM
He also has the right of appeal against the refusal of a certificate.

§ LORD MOLSON
My Lords, I should not like this Order to be discussed with not a single voice being raised in appreciation of what the Minister has done. It is interesting that so much of the criticism has come from noble Lords opposite. It was in the Committee stage that the Opposition in another place insisted upon provisions of this kind being introduced into the Act of 1956. That the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, should have moved their omission when these provisions came to this House at that time was only an early example of the disunity of the Party to which he at that time belonged.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that that is precisely what I did, and this House took them out of the Bill?

§ LORD MOLSON
What I am saying is that the noble Lord's then political friends in another place brought great pressure to bear upon the Government, as did other people who were concerned with road safety, in order that provisions of this kind should be introduced. The Government have been under constant pressure to speed up the introduction of this compulsory procedure, and therefore I was surprised to hear noble Lords opposite complaining that they regard the present test as being perfunctory and unsatisfactory. I am very glad indeed that it is now possible to reduce from ten to seven the age at which there is this compulsory test. Of course, it has never been contemplated that a test which is to apply to every car of a certain vintage will be as thorough as the spot test, nor does 581 the fact that it has passed the test in respect of brakes, steering and lights, which appear to be the most important things for the safety of other road users, mean to say that that vehicle is necessarily roadworthy, or that the person responsible for putting it on the road is not liable to be proceeded against for an offence. I wanted to say a few words in support of this procedure. Because every noble Lord who has so far spoken has appeared to disparage the value of these tests I wanted to say a word in favour of them.

§ LORD TAYLOR
My Lords, with all due respect, I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Molson, could have listened for one moment to what I said. I said that we welcomed this Order, that we had no objection to it and that we thought it was a good thing. Then I asked a series of, as I thought, reasonable questions, designed, in no hostile spirit, to find out whether the regulations were working efficiently. The noble Lord opposite got me muddled up with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth—full of beans and boil and indignation, but nothing to do with the Labour Party.

§ LORD MOLSON
My Lords, I apologise. I recognise that Lord Taylor's questions were of a friendly kind; but the general drift of the discussion has been so hostile that I wished to say a word in support.

VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN
My Lords, for clarification, may I just ask whether I heard the noble Lord aright? I understood him to say that he had no statistical evidence whatever as to the results of car testing so far as it has gone. Is that right? Does he not get figures as to the age of cars involved in crashes?

§ LORD CHESHAM
Yes. I did not say that at all; my noble friend did not hear me aright. All I said was that it was, as yet, too soon to get indicative figures of what the result has been.