HL Deb 14 November 1961 vol 235 cc582-92

3.7 p.m.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

LORD SILKIN

My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, moves the Second Reading of this Bill, I should like to ask the Leader of the House for some guidance as to how he thinks the Bill should be dealt with. He will bear in mind that this is a Bill which has been through this House on one occasion. There are quite a number of modifications to the Bill—in particular, there is one where the will of this House is being flouted. But we spent many weeks, indeed months, on this Bill, and, to a large extent, I imagine that the debate will be somewhat repetitive, both on Second Reading and on the later stages. In those circumstances, I wonder whether the noble Viscount the Leader of the House could say what is his view as to the way in which it should be dealt with.

3.9 p.m.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, for raising this question on, I take it, to put myself in order, what I must describe as a point of order. I think it is a subject which we should think about before we embark upon the discussion on this Bill. As the noble Lord quite rightly says, we spent a great deal of time last Session discussing the Bill, which is substantially identical, although a number of divergencies are listed in the Explanatory Memorandum. I would say only this to noble Lords. I was most anxious last Session, and I am anxious this Session, that this House should not suppose, or act in such a way as to be thought to suppose, that its labours last Session were in any way wasted, and should do as much as it can to avoid the wastage of the time we spent last Session so devotedly on the Bill.

I must make it quite plain that this is, constitutionally speaking, a new Session, and therefore a new Bill; and noble Lords, and of course the House a fortiori, have every right to discuss it in any way they see fit, even to delivering verbally the same speeches that they delivered in the last Session. Whether they would be wise to do so is, however, a question which they also should consider, because although they are perfectly free to make as many speeches on the same subject, and indeed on different subjects, as they please, they are by no means compelled by the rules of Order to take this particular course. I would venture to suggest, my Lords, that there may be Members of the House who, perhaps, may not be eager to take this course or to hear this course being taken.

I would, therefore, respectfully suggest to noble Lords that this is virtually the same measure. All the differences that I have been able to see are Committee points—I do not think anyone could dispute that—and I think that only about two of them are really controversial. Having said that noble Lords are entirely their own judges in the matter—and I hope they will believe me when I say that I would rise to their support if anyone challenged their right to speak as fully as they wished on any subject that they wished which is in order on the Bill—I would rather hope that some noble Lords would take some of the issues as read and hand over this Bill to another place as soon as possible, so that they may have the pleasure of discussing it, too.

3.12 p.m.

LORD CHESHAM

My Lords, it certainly feels rather odd and unusual to be performing the second introduction of what is in effect "an old friend," and socially, I suppose, this is not what is usually done; but my noble Leader has already dealt with the circumstances of this renewed acquaintance. As he said, your Lordships' time has surely not been wasted, as one can see by the fact that this Bill is so very like the previous one. My Lords, what differences there are lie, as I intend to show, in points that are really much more Committee ones, and I only propose to remind your Lordships most briefly of the Bill's characteristics. We have, as he said, debated the principles most fully, and I shall confine myself to pointing out briefly where the differences lie, even though they may be rather more suited to the Committee stage.

Your Lordships will recall that, when I asked you to give a Second Reading to the Road Traffic Bill during the last Session, I tried to set out something of what we are doing in other fields of road safety. I did that so that your Lordships could see in proper perspective the part which legislation had to play in the war on accidents, and I referred to the work we were doing under the traditional three E's—engineering, enforcement and education. I will not take up your Lordships' time with any such general review to-day, but I should like, if I may, to add one or two footnotes to what I said earlier this year.

I need hardly say that the engineering improvements to our road system are going on at an increasingly rapid rate. It has become, I am sorry to say, quite customary, particularly from the Benches opposite—and we had a little experience of that during the recent debate on the gracious Speech—to say that nothing is being done, that nothing is being planned, and that no improvement is going on in the Government's road programme. But, my Lords, it does not need a very long I look at the facts to see that that is an assertion which will not really stand up to more than a moment's scrutiny. We are well into the biggest road building and improvement programme this country has ever known. Some people may argue that it could or should be bigger, or should be faster; and perhaps, personally, I would not feel like arguing against them very strongly on that. But I do say, that it represents a solid achievement within the limits of the available resources, resources both financial and constructional, and it is idle to attempt either to deny it or to decry it.

Criticism is the less acceptable in this particular week, which is due to see, on i Thursday and Friday respectively, the opening of both the Hammersmith Fly-over and the Staines By-Pass, with the very large contribution that both of those have to make. But I am not really talking of the major headline-hitting schemes of very large cost, although I have here a pretty formidable list of those which have been completed in the last two or three years. I will spare your Lordships from having to hear of them, because I would rather refer to the very large number of lesser schemes that are being carried out all over the country, each one of which is making its own contribution to a better road system. So far as possible, each scheme is authorised in the order in which it can do the most possible good, and there can be no shadow of doubt that all of this is having a cumulative effect which is bringing about a steady rate of improvement.

If I may come on to planning ahead, the planned level of Government investment in major improvements and new construction over the next five years ending in 1966–67 is £540 million. This will enable the trunk road programme to be increased by 50 per cent. from next April onwards, and the five major projects, including most of the motorway network, to be substantially completed in the next five years. If your Lordships are interested, as I know you are, in further details on these matters, may I say that there is our booklet entitled Road Progress, of which I have arranged for copies to be available for your Lordships in the Printed Paper Office. There has been a three-year rolling programme on classified roads which was drawn up last year and it will be continued. Under this the local authority will always know three years in advance the schemes that we shall be able to consider for a grant. Looking even further ahead, my Lords, a study group has been set up, in association with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, to go into the great problems raised by the ever increasing volume of traffic in large towns, and by the rapid development of town centres. This group will consider the sort of measures which are needed to cater for the traffic and to strike the right balance between traffic needs and the needs of good planning in land use and amenity. So that, as well as planning ahead, we really are building new roads, improving existing ones and making better use of those that we have.

Many of the steps which the London Traffic Management Unit, set up by my right honourable friend, are taking are designed primarily to improve the flow of traffic and to remove some of those causes of frustration which can, and do, contribute to selfish and inconsiderate driving. Traffic Engineers have known for a long time that the more smoothly flowing traffic is also safe traffic, and I should like briefly to mention the kind of worthwhile reduction in road accidents which can be achieved, and in fact is being achieved, by quoting the example of one particular traffic improvement in London. I am talking about the Tottenham Court Road-Gower Street one-way scheme. Not only has this halved the average travelling time between Trafalgar Square and Hampstead Road (on the average this has been cut from 14 minutes to 7 minutes) but the number of accidents involving personal injury over the route has, during the first five months of operation, been reduced by nearly one-fifth. Between May and September of this year there were 185 such accidents against 221 in the corresponding months of 1960. The reduction, I am glad to say, has been progressive, and September's figures for the route show a reduction of 40 per cent. compared with September in 1960. I mention this only as an example, to show that what appear to be traffic flow measures are also playing their part in reducing the accident rate. Incidentally, this also applies to the areas in which there is parking meter control.

As I have said, it is sometimes possible to assess the road safety contribution of particular measures, but very often it is much more difficult to do so because there are too many different factors at work to isolate the effect of individual measures. I think we can take some heart, or at least extract a crumb of comfort and feel that the time and efforts which are being devoted to road safety work are not entirely without their results, when we look at the trends of the road accident figures for this year. For three out of the last four months, the numbers of killed and seriously injured on the roads have been smaller than they were during the corresponding period last year. Now this is a reversal of the unfortunately much more familiar trend in the first half of the year, when the casualties were running at a higher rate than last year's.

LORD HAWKE

My Lords, could I ask my noble friend whether he has, by any chance, the estimate of the vehicular mileage during the same period? Because that is the really relevant figure. The mileage has probably gone up.

LORD CHESHAM

I have not got it in my head at the moment, my Lords, but I will certainly do my best to help my noble friend later on; but if this trend, measured whichever way, is continued until the end of the year—and we all most earnestly hope that it will be—then the total of killed and seriously injured this year will be very little more than last year's. If you look at that against the ever-increasing volume of traffic—which, this year, is likely to be about 10 per cent. more than last year— it would be a very worthwhile achievement.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

My Lords, will the noble Lord forgive my interrupting? What are the months for which he is quoting these figures? He has said that the trend has gone down. Up to what month is he quoting these figures?

LORD CHESHAM

I am talking about three out of the last four months. I cannot remember offhand, out of my head, which is the other month.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

The noble Lord says, "three out of the last four". Is he taking October, September and August as the last three months? We are now in November. The last three months would be August, September and October. Is he quoting those figures?

LORD CHESHAM

May I sort that out and let the noble Lord know afterwards?—because, my Lords, I should like, if I may, to get straight on to the Bill now.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

Of course.

LORD CHESHAM

Your Lordships will remember that the first two clauses deal with drink and driving, and I do not think it is necessary for me to say anything more at all about them now except that, no doubt, many of your Lordships will have noticed that there has been left out the Amendment which was made to the Bill last time, which provided that the Secretary of State should prescribe by Regulation the methods to be adopted for collecting and analysing specimens of blood, and so on. Your Lordships will remember that, on the Third Reading of the previous Bill, I drew the attention of the House to the fact that the Government were still considering the implications of this provision because they were by no means satisfied with it. It is in column 103 of the appropriate Hansard of June 13. And so it has proved to be. I do not think your Lordships will want me to say anything more than that to-day, as this is probably not the occasion to do so. If necessary, it is perhaps more suitably dealt with on the Committee stage.

Clauses 3 to 7, which relate to the changed provisions with regard to penalties for road traffic offences, remain, so far as the general structure of that part of the Bill is concerned, as they were. Your Lordships will remember that we had long discussions over the division of individual offences between the three categories and the concern of the Government, which was very much also the concern of the House, to ensure that there was no possibility of a driver's being subject to obligatory disqualification through having committed three offences which might be regarded as technical or trivial. As a result of the consideration of these points by your Lordships, several changes were made, both by moving offences about between the Parts of the First Schedule and by introducing the concept of "special reasons" to ensure that, when appropriate, an offence would not contribute towards obligatory disqualification. I need hardly say that we regard the version of the Bill which emerged from this House as much better in this respect than that which was presented to you, and the changes which were made then have, of course, been retained.

Opportunity has been taken to make one or two minor improvements to these provisions, although, again, they are really more Committee points, and I will not take very long over them. Your Lordships will remember that under the 1960 Road Traffic Act it is an offence for a driver to fail to comply with the directions of a police constable who is regulating traffic or with certain specified signs. Your Lordships will also remember that we had proposed that the offences under this section which would be included in Part II of the First Schedule (and therefore rank towards the cumulative disqualification provision) were only to be those relating to traffic signs to be prescribed by the Minister—which, in fact, as I indicated, would be in the first place the "Halt" sign, traffic lights and double white lines. Failure to comply with other traffic directions would not be a disqualdfiable offence. But, my Lords, on further consideration we think that failure to comply with the directions of a police constable should be moved from the non-disqualifiable to the disqualifiable category, and we have therefore inserted it in Part II of the First Schedule.

There is another change in Clause 4 which relates to the removal of disqualification when that has been ordered by a court. Your Lordships will remember again that the provisions of this Bill are somewhat tougher than the existing law, in that it is proposed to reduce the number of disqualified people who are eligible to apply for their licence back before the expiry of the period of disqualification which the court ordered, by extending the period before which they could do so. We originally proposed that this tougher formula would apply both to those disqualified after the coming into force of these provisions and also to those disqualified previously but who would otherwise have been eligible under the present law to make an application for the return of their licence. But it is not altogether clear that, in law, the situation would be free from ambiguity, particularly having regard to the provisions of Section 38 of the Interpretation Act, which prevents the repeal of an enactment from removing any rights which might have accrued to someone under that enactment before its repeal. The better way, therefore, seems to be to make the new provisions regarding the removal of disqualification relate only to disqualifications ordered after the coming into force of the Bill, and this we have done in the new Clause 4. Your Lordships, I am sure, will appreciate that this change is only of significance during the shout, or relatively short, interim period of a year or so after the passing of the new Bill.

My Lords, I should mention another small change which I think will commend itself to the House. This is Clause 19, which provides that regulations may allow an agricultural tractor, subject to conditions, to be driven on the road by someone over sixteen, compared with the present minimum age of seventeen. It is our stated intention to ensure that this concession is not allowed to work in a way which might be prejudicial to road safety. Furthermore, as many of your Lordships know, the T.U.C. and the National Union of Agricultural Workers have made representations to the Government about it. We are providing in the clause itself the condition that agricultural tractors may be driven on a road by sixteen-year-olds with a provisional licence only when proceeding to, when at, or when coming back from, a driving test. We had originally intended to put this provision, which is designed to ensure that the sixteen-year-olds will not generally drive on the road until they have passed their test, in regulations, but in the light of the representations from the T.U.C. about the lowering of this age limit, we think it would be better to put this condition about passing the test into the Bill, and this we have done.

I should like to turn for a moment to one of the new items, one which probably has attracted most public attention, and that is Clause 16, which relates to hover vehicles. I should like to say very quickly that this is an interim provision, interim in the sense that the next few years are obviously going to see a good deal of development of this type of vehicle, and it is not at all clear at the moment what sort of vehicles may appear and have occasion to travel on or along roads. Therefore, we feel that it would be quite wrong to attempt to make any detailed provision about their use on the road at present. I am advised that in law there is some doubt as to whether hover vehicles (if I may use the term incorporated in the Bill, because "Hovercraft" is a registered trade mark) are motor vehicles within the meaning of Section 253 of the 1960 Road Traffic Act. It is therefore possible that they might be used on the roads without any of the ordinary road traffic and safety restrictions and offences being applicable to them.

I believe that small hover vehicles are already being used for transporting goods in places like muddy building sites, where wheeled vehicles would be useless, and no doubt there will shortly be other versions of them which would 'be capable of being used on the public highway. From the point of view of road safety, it is obviously undesirable that this kind of vehicle should be used on the road without being subject to, at any rate, some of the appropriate provisions of existing road traffic legislation. The purpose of the provision that we have put in is, first of all, to make it clear that hover vehicles when used on the roads are motor vehicles, and then to allow the Minister to provide by regulations as to which requirements (with or without modification) of the various Acts should apply to them. Clearly, my Lords, in the interests of safety these machines must be subject to the same sort of rules as the rest of the traffic if they use the roads, and that is the purpose of this clause. Its purpose is certainly not—as some sections of the Press have misunderstood it to be—in any way to hamper or inhibit the development of this very interesting form of transport.

Finally, I think it would be wrong if I failed to foreshadow at this stage two possible further provisions which it has not been possible to include in the draft of the Bill which is before your Lordships at the moment but which we hope to cover by Amendments at the Committee stage. The first is in relation to traffic experiments. Permanent traffic regulation orders can be made by the various responsible authorities only after quite lengthy formal procedures, and this, of course, is quite right for permanent orders. But within the Metropolitan Police district powers are already available to the metropolitan police to conduct experiments for limited periods, six months in the first place, but subject to extensions, with Ministerial consent, up to a maximum of eighteen months. The formal procedures required for permanent regulations do not, of course, have to be followed for these temporary experiments.

What we propose to bring before your Lordships is a provision to enable local authorities outside the Metropolitan Police district also to make experimental orders without having to go through the whole drill appropriate to permanent orders. Any such experiments would be limited to three months initially, with powers of extension up to a total of eighteen months, which, of course, gives plenty of time for the necessary consultation if the local authority wishes to make the order a permanent one under its existing powers. We propose similar powers for the Minister within the London traffic area, and for himself and the Secretary of State for Scotland in relation to trunk roads. The other proposal which I hope to be able to put before your Lordships will be to ration- alise the present rather complex law regarding schemes for charging for parking on the highway. Experience since the passing of the 1956 Act has proved the permanent value of parking meter arrangements, and I hope it may prove practicable to produce simpler and more flexible provisions in the future.

My Lords, the level of debate and the constructive suggestions which came from your Lordships during consideration of the Road Traffic Bill last Session contributed to many significant and worthwhile improvements in the Bill. I am sure now that I am doing no more than recognising the facts of the situation when I look forward to a similar, though perhaps considerably abbreviated, high level of discussion on this Bill which I am now asking your Lordships to read a second time. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Chesham.)