HL Deb 13 May 1965 vol 266 cc182-93

3.22 p.m.

THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM)

My Lords, I beg to move that the Functions of Traffic Wardens Order 1965, a Draft of which was laid before this House on April 14, and which was reported on by your Lordships' Special Orders Committee on May 5, be approved. The Special Orders Committee have reported that the Order does not raise important questions of policy or principle; that it is precedented by the Order which it will amend, but that it cannot be passed without special attention, because of a limitation of the powers to be conferred which is not apparent on the face of the Order. The Report then says that, since the Draft Order expressly denies to traffic wardens the statutory functions conferred on constables as such, a traffic warden will not be able to arrest without a warrant a person alleged to be driving while unfit to drive through drink or drugs nor will disobedience to a traffic warden's directions be an offence under Section 14 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960.

I think I should begin by saying something about this comment by your Lordships' Committee. Paragraph (3) of Article 1 of the Order makes it clear, in my view, that the Order does not authorise traffic wardens to exercise powers which are conferred only on constables. That provision was put in with the explicit purpose of making the situation quite clear. We feared that otherwise people reading an Order which extended the functions of traffic wardens to include functions normally undertaken by the police in connection with the control and regulation of road traffic, might be misled into thinking that it extended to them the powers of police constables.

The simple fact is that the Road Traffic and Roads Improvement Act, 1960, under which the Functions of Traffic Wardens Orders are made, authorises police authorities to employ traffic wardens to aid the police in prescribed functions, but does not put the wardens into the shoes of the police and does not give them the powers of police constables, except to the very limited extent of the enforcement of the fixed penalty system. Nor does it give my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, when prescribing the functions of traffic wardens, the authority to confer on the wardens the power exercised by the police. Accordingly, nothing that could have been put in or left out of the Draft Order would have had the effect of giving traffic wardens the power to arrest without warrant drunken drivers, or made it an offence for a motorist to disobey their signals. For this to be done, legislation would be necessary and the fact that the limitation exists reflects deliberate policy at the time the 1960 Act was passed. Whether that policy was right or wrong is a matter which no doubt could form the subject of a most interesting debate, but one which I think would be a little wide of the Draft Order now before the House.

We do not think that in practice, as is feared in some quarters, the lack of such powers is likely to handicap the wardens. A.A. and R.A.C. staff and others carry out this kind of duty without difficulty. We have therefore decided, after four years' experience of the use of traffic wardens in various parts of the country, that the time is ripe to widen the field within which traffic wardens operate, by making use of the powers that the Home Secretary has under the Act and without waiting for further legislation. We shall, of course, watch its working in practice very carefully, and if further powers are seen to be necessary the Home Secretary will reconsider the whole position together with the Minister of Transport. Meanwhile it is the Home Secretary's wish, and I am sure that of your Lordships, that chief constables should endeavour to make the best possible use of the services of wardens in their particular areas in order to release the police for more important duties.

In 1960 the establishment of the traffic warden organisation was a considerable innovation and, as I am sure your Lordships will recollect, fears were expressed by a good many people about the acceptance of traffic wardens by the public; about the level of efficiency that they would attain; and about the effect of their employment on relations between the police and the public. That was five years ago. In fact, although theirs can never be a popular job, traffic wardens have been quickly accepted by the public in the areas where they have been employed; and they are now employed in no fewer than 33 police districts in England and Wales. They have—and I think this is beyond dispute—played a most worthwhile part in helping to keep the traffic flowing, and have convinced the public at large that they have carried out their duties of enforcement in the tradition of the police service of impartiality and courtesy. I say that in the face of the knowledge that a number of noble Lords have not hesitated to inform me of incidents which lead to the contrary opinion. I am quite sure that, as a general statement, what I have said is true. They have built up a high reputation for themselves. This is, I believe, generally acknowledged, and is greatly to their credit and to the credit of those who have organised and trained them.

After the encouraging progress that has been made in dealing in the main with stationary vehicles, we thought that the time had come for further development, in the direction of conferring on the wardens functions of controlling and regulating moving traffic. Chief constables and the police authority associations have been consulted and have agreed. These functions would include point duty at the simpler junctions where there are nevertheless peak periods of heavy traffic, as occurs regularly, for example, during the holiday seasons on the approaches to seaside resorts.

My Lords, this is an important Order, but I do not want to exaggerate its likely effects. I have seen headlines: Wardens to take over point duty". This is fair enough; I have seen a headline: Wardens to act as coppers' narks"— and I do not think that is a bit fair. But I have no doubt that, in the exercise of their discretion, chief constables will feel that there are complicated and difficult crossings where for one reason or another lights have not been installed at which police officers would have to continue to carry out this duty. But there are many crossings, especially where some temporary control at particularly busy times is required, where wardens could perform most valuable work, often in combination with their existing tasks in relation to parking. The object of this order is to make it clear that it is right and proper for the functions of the wardens to be extended, where the chief officer of police has them available in sufficient numbers, as auxiliaries to the police on duties connected with traffic regulation that do not require specific police powers.

Your Lordships will have noticed that the Draft Order includes a provision that traffic wardens shall not exercise their new functions in a moving vehicle. This is to make it clear that wardens are not to be employed as members of traffic patrol crews. Traffic patrols perform a wide range of duties which require special training as well as the exercise of their powers as constables, and it would clearly not be right for traffic wardens, with their different training and absence of police constable powers, to be employed as traffic patrol crews. The Draft Order makes a large extension, we know, in the fields in which traffic wardens can be employed. In the present situation of a hard-pressed police service and a steadily mounting total of motor cars on the roads, we believe that it is essential for the police to be given every reasonable aid which will help them to do their job properly. It must be borne in mind that it is estimated that, on a normal eight hour patrol, on an average some three hours is spent in duties connected with regulation of traffic in some form or another.

The number of traffic wardens employed throughout the country has grown somewhat slowly, but experience shows that they have a vital part to play as auxiliaries in this very important field, and the Home Secretary is anxious that police authorities and chief constables should make the fullest possible use of their services. He wishes no one to be in doubt that he regards the effective use of traffic wardens on all proper occasions as an important element in the modern policing of an area. Indeed, it may well be that, with the proposed extension of the wardens' functions, authorities that have been hesitant about the setting up of a unit of this service will feel that it is worth while to do so, and we hope that this will be the case. The Order will emphasise that wardens are not exclusively linked to parking meters, useful though they are where there is a parking meter system in operation. This Draft Order is a positive indication that we regard traffic wardens as an established auxiliary arm of the service, and one with a growing future in the efficient and safer control of traffic and thus, in turn, indirectly to reduce the dreadful toll of injury and death on the road. In this expectation, I am sure we shall not be disappointed. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Draft Functions of Traffic Wardens Order 1965, laid before the House on 14th April, be approved.—(Lord Stonham.)

3.34 p.m.

LORD NEWTON

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for the care he has taken to explain the provisions of this Order. As he said, it is now more than four years since traffic wardens were invented as an experiment, and he has reminded the House that at the time when the idea was being mooted there were various misgivings on various scores. For my part, I would agree with him that the experiment has been a success. I say "for my part" because I noted that he said there were some Members of your Lordships House who have expressed to him their dissent.

LORD STONHAM

They expressed their disgruntlement in regard to particular instances which affected them personally.

LORD NEWTON

I appreciated that, but I did not want to rub it in, although the noble Lord has chosen to do so. Certainly I should have thought that, on the whole, traffic wardens have discharged their not very agreeable task with efficiency and tact.

I do not say that only because, so far, I have not myself had any dealings with traffic wardens, either directly or by ticket. I should have thought that, quite apart from what the noble Lord has just told us about the success of the scheme, it is implicit in the fact that this Order has been presented to us to-day that the Home Office and, indeed, the chief constables are in agreement on this point. I have always imagined that it was hoped that, if the traffic warden experiment proved successful, it would be possible to extend their functions. And that, of course, is what this Order does. I certainly welcome this extension of functions. Indeed, I should have thought that one must nearly always welcome, at any rate in principle, any steps which are taken to relieve the police of some of their routine duties.

Having said that, however, I must go on to advance two criticisms of this Order. The first is that I am afraid I cannot congratulate the noble Lord, or his Department, on the verbal content of the Order. I should have thought that it was axiomatic that any Statutory Instrument, like any Statute, should be as clear, and precise in its terms as it possibly can be. But when one looks at this Order, I think one must take the view that, in part at any rate, it is extraordinarily woolly. I invite your Lordships' attention to Article 1(1) of the Order. This says: Without prejudice … the following functions are hereby prescribed as appropriate for discharge by traffic wardens, namely, the control and regulation of road traffic at road junctions or at other places, whether on the highway or not, which are or are likely to be congested with traffic"— those words, so far, seem to be perfectly clear, precise and fully comprehensive. But the Article goes on: and any other functions normally undertaken by the police in connection with the control and regulation of road traffic. I wonder what on earth those words mean. I listened carefully to the noble Lord, and I do not think he explained them.

An explanation was given in another place by his fellow Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office when the Order was debated there. The explanation given by Mr. George Thomas (and I am now quoting from column 408 of the Hansard of another place on May 11) was as follows: We could not possibly be expected to list all the occasions on which it would be useful and sensible to use traffic wardens. The draft Order therefore also includes a general form of words referring to 'any other functions normally undertaken by the police …' which I have already read out. With great respect to Mr. George Thomas, that does not seem to be a satisfactory explanation, because this Order is concerned with the functions of traffic wardens. It is not concerned with the occasions on which in the future chief constables may think it appropriate to use traffic wardens to fulfil the functions which this Order provides.

Again, I would draw attention to the fact that Article 1(1) does not say any other functions in connection with the control and regulation of road traffic". What it says is: and any other functions normally undertaken by the police in connection with the control and regulation of road traffic. This prompts me to ask the noble Lord (and perhaps when he comes to reply he will be good enough to give me the answers): Are these "other functions" which the police normally undertake specified in any Act or Statutory Instrument? If they are specified in an Act or Statutory Instrument, why are they not named in this Order? I can think of no possible reason why they should not be. If on the other hand, these other functions normally undertaken by the police are not specified in any Act or Statutory Instrument, how on earth does anybody know what these other functions are? And if nobody knows what they are, what is the point of referring to them in this Order which refers to traffic wardens?

I am subject to any correction which the noble Lord may give me in due course, but I am bound to say that I suspect these words are meaningless and were included only to cover any possible defect in the drafting of the earlier definition of functions in the first part of Article 1(1). But if that is so, I would hardly think that is a sufficient reason for including them. I recall that there is a cardinal rule, which I have always thought a very good one, that in the drafting of Statutes and Statutory Instruments all unnecessary words should be avoided in order to avoid the risk of casting doubt upon the interpretation of other words elsewhere.

I now come to my second criticism and this relates to the position to which the Special Orders Committee has drawn attention, in other words to Article 1(3). The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, read this out to us, but I should like to read it again. It says: Nothing in this Article shall confer on a traffic warden a function conferred expressly on a constable as such by or under any enactment. I understand from that that traffic wardens will not under this Order be given the power to arrest without a warrant—that was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham; they will not have the power of investigating road accidents; they will not have any power in connection with traffic offences; they will not have power to demand production of a driving licence or certificate of insurance or anything like that, and they will not have power to ask for a driver's name and address. I accept these limitations; other members of this House may have different views, but certainly I accept them. It seems to me right that traffic wardens should not have these powers, at any rate at this moment of time.

But, as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, explained to us, no power is being given to require drivers to obey the directions of a traffic warden, and the reason for that is that it is not now, or is not being made, an offence to disregard a traffic warden's signals. I am bound to say that this seems to me to be a serious omission and a serious criticism of this Order. If I understood the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, correctly, the Government at the moment have not the power under any Statute to make it an offence to disregard the signals of traffic wardens under an Order of this kind. I must accept that that is so, but I should have thought that the Government ought to take power to make it an offence, and furthermore that they ought to have taken power—it would not be a very difficult thing to do—before laying this Order.

Why do I say that? I say it for the following reasons. Perhaps your Lordships realise that it is already an offence to ignore the signal of a park keeper in a Royal Park when he is directing traffic, and he of course is not a constable. Furthermore, it is already also an offence for a driver to ignore the signals of a school crossing patrol who is controlling the traffic, and he or she—very often it is a woman—is not a constable either. Moreover, traffic wardens may already, before this Order—under the 1960 Order—act as school crossing patrols. And so we are presented with this absurd situation. If a traffic warden is controlling traffic at a school crossing then drivers must obey him and if they do not they have committed a specific offence. But if, on the other hand, the traffic warden is controlling traffic at any other crossing drivers will be able to ignore his signals safely because it will not be a specific offence.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, if I may intervene—

LORD NEWTON

I hope the noble Lord will be good enough to possess himself in patience. It is, after all, one of the penalties Ministers have to pay for the privilege of being Ministers. I want to ask your Lordships what is the sense of this absurd distinction resting entirely upon where the traffic warden happens to be standing when he is controlling traffic. In the first case I instanced the traffic warden can report the driver for committing an offence by not obeying his signal. In the second case he cannot report the driver because there is no offence to report.

Will your Lordships for a moment consider what is the function of a school crossing patrol? The function is exercised by a man or woman wearing a long white coat, and the duty is to walk into the middle of the road carrying a long pole on the top of which is a white disc upon which is inscribed the word, I think it is, "Stop". That is a very important duty in these days and an essential duty. But I would not think it was a very difficult one to perform, and I venture to think that you and I could perform it perhaps without very much instruction and even without very much practice. But here is this duty and those who perform it are buttressed by the provision that to ignore them is an offence. On the other hand, we are in the position, so far as this Order is concerned, that traffic wardens, who are going to have to exercise many more functions of directing traffic than school crossing patrols and are going to be trained specially and carefully for the purpose, I understand, will not be buttressed by this same power of law.

I know it has been suggested—it was suggested in another place—that the traffic warden will be in a position to lay information so that the police, the number of the driver's car having been taken, can prosecute the driver for careless or dangerous driving. But I personally would not agree—and I have some experience in this, being myself a justice of the peace—that magistrates' courts will accept that failure to obey the signal of a traffic warden automatically constitutes either careless or dangerous driving. Nor, I suggest, is it good enough to argue, as it has been argued, that we can be pretty certain that nine out of ten motorists will in fact obey the signals of traffic wardens. Moreover, it will not have escaped the notice of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that the Civil Service Union, which represents traffic wardens, has said publicly it is not good enough for them, either. I should have thought that it is accepted by everybody that it is not good enough, in the case of school crossing patrols, for it not to be an offence to ignore their signals. Why on earth, then, do the Government think that, in the case of traffic wardens, it is good enough that they should not be buttressed?

As I said at the beginning, I support the purpose of this Order. I certainly would not dream of suggesting to your Lordships that it should be opposed, for the reasons which I have advanced. But I do think I ought to ask the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, to consider withdrawing the Order temporarily, in order to redraft Article 1(1); and, secondly, in order to put just a little teeth into the Order in the sense which I have suggested. I do not really think that is much to ask, because this Order does very little at the moment.

Again I am open to correction, but, as I understand the law at the moment, not only are A.A. patrols and R.A.C. patrols permitted to regulate traffic, but any member of the general public is permitted to do so unless he happens to be a traffic warden in uniform, acting officially. Traffic wardens are expressly disqualified from fulfilling any function not prescribed as appropriate by the Secretary of State. This Order removes one of their disabilities. That is in fact all it does. So I say again that I do not think it is really asking much of the noble Lord to ask him to consider withdrawing it and trying to improve it.

LORD AIREDALE

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask whether he was here yesterday, and whether he observed the unfailing courtesy of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, who gave way over and over again to every noble Lord who wished to interrupt him? And does it not make for a more interesting debate for other noble Lords to listen to, if noble Lords will give way from time to time?

LORD NEWTON

My Lords, I certainly was here for a little of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. I would certainly agree that, in general, it is proper and courteous to give way. It is certainly a thing which, from past experience, I recollect that Ministers have to do. I was trying to develop what I thought was a reasonably closely argued speech, and as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has the right to reply at the end of this debate, which is not always the case, I thought it was not unreasonable to ask him to wait until I had spoken, and then to reply for as long as he liked at the end.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Airedale. I cannot remember any occasion in your Lordships' House when I have not given way to another noble Lord, even in mid-sentence. I was only trying to assist the noble Lord, Lord Newton, on this occasion. The only purpose of my trying to intervene was, that I thought, in a sentence which he had used, he had said a "not" too many. When he checks with Hansard, he may find that he has uttered an affirmative when he meant a negative.