HL Deb 22 July 1968 vol 295 cc664-86

2.52 p.m.

THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM)

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill. In so doing, I think I might suggest that it would help the Committee in its consideration of Part IX which deals with regulations for road traffic, if I drew your Lordships' attention to the fact that there are in the Printed Paper Office copies of the text of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967, as it would appear if the Amendments to Part IX were to be carried. In the print additions and substitutions are shown in heavy type and omissions by dots. The purpose of doing things in this way is so that the effect of the provisions of Part IX can be more readily understood.

Part IX has been deliberately drafted by way of Amendments to the 1967 Act, which is an Act consolidating a number of Statutes relating to the regulation of road traffic so that the benefit of this consolidation of the law will not be lost. May I suggest that it will help our discussions when we come to Part IX of the Bill and the rather complex legislation that exists in the traffic sphere if we were also so far as possible to refer to the sections and subsections of the amended text of the Road Traffic Regulation Act. I and my noble friends mean to proceed in this way ourselves, and by adopting this suggestion I think your Lordships may find it easier to follow the flow of the law as it is proposed that it should be if the provisions of this Bill are carried through. I beg to move.

Moved, That the House do again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Stonham.)

LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD

My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for his statement and for his suggestion that we should make use of the provisionally amended version of the 1967 Act. I also thank him for kindly sending me a copy which has enlivened my week-end reading. I am bound to say that it greatly helps this complex process of legislation by reference which we all loath, but it is a very great convenience and I am sure that it will be a convenience to all noble Lords in the proceedings in Committee when we reach Part IX, which I hope we shall reach as speedily as possible.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]

Clause 96 [Installation and operation of recording equipment in vehicles]:

THE EARL OF SELKIRK moved Amendment No. 241AA:

Page 130, line 8, at end insert— ("Provided that in the case of vehicles which have to keep their engines running for driving ancillary equipment the mechanical equipment for recording information shall be attached to the road-wheel drive of the vehicle.")

The noble Earl said: We now come to Clause 96 which imposes an obligation to put on vehicles which fall under this Part of the Act a recording instrument to record the use of the vehicle, and like everything else in the Bill it is subject to criminal sanctions. So we are here imposing another possible crime. By my Amendment I propose that this recording instrument would not be used in cases where vehicles were using only ancillary equipment. Whether or not the Amendment is necessary depends on what recording is going to be called for.

The words in the clause are very wide, "recording information as to the use of the vehicle", That could mean anything —the weight of the load, whether the roads were rough and whether it went uphill or downhill. And, of course, it probably deals with speed and distance. If the phrase deals only with speed and distance, clearly that has nothing to do with my Amendment. But if it deals with hours, then clearly it might have something to do with my Amendment. I am wondering whether the noble Lord could tell us a little about what really is intended here. The Ministry of Transport have imported the word "tachograph", and I notice that the draftsman, in his wisdom, does not include the word either in the Explanatory Memorandum in the main clauses of the Bill, or, indeed, under the Schedules. I do not really blame him because, so far as I am concerned, I have not heard the word before and I am not a bit clear what it means.

What I can say is this. It has, so far as I can see, a different meaning is the Oxford English Dictionary from that which is generally used by the Ministry of Transport. The Oxford English Dictionary says that it is practically nothing more than a speedometer. I gather that the Ministry of Transport like to give it a wider connotation. It may be that they are right; it may be that they are not. That does not matter. What I should like to know is the extent of the information that is to be recorded. I think it is important that we should know this. The Government have tabled here, as they have elsewhere, very wide powers and we should like to know as fully as we can just what it is that they have in mind. I beg to move.

LORD HILTON OF UPTON

It is my job this afternoon to open the batting. For the last day or two that we were on this Bill, we did not make extra good progress. I hope that we shall do a little better to-day. When moving his Amendment, the noble Earl questioned whether it would be necessary or unnecessary. I hope to prove to the noble Earl that the Amendment is unnecessary and I trust that at the end he will be able to withdraw it.

The Amendment would require tachographs, when fitted to vehicles which use their engines to drive ancillary equipment for loading and unloading, to be attached to the road wheel drive, so that when engines are so used the time concerned does not count as driving. The Government accept that this time should not count as driving time, but intend to give effect to this purpose more satisfactorily than would this Amendment. The Government's proposals have the advantage over this Amendment in that they will enable time spent with the engine running but the road wheels motionless—for example, in a traffic jam—to be counted as "driving time", which is clearly right; whereas, if the tachograph had to be operated only by the road wheel drive, it could not show such time as "driving time". I am pleased to give the assurance that tachographs, when fitted to vehicles equipped with engine-driven ancillary machinery, will be required to be capable of distinguishing, when the vehicle is stationary with its engine running, between time spent in operating the ancillary equipment—which does not count as "driving"—and time during which the engine is merely idling, for example, in a lengthy traffic holdup, which does count as "driving time".

It has yet to be decided how exactly tachographs would be constructed to achieve this requirement, whether automatically from the drive to the ancillary equipment or whether by the driver pressing a button on the tachograph whenever he uses the ancillary equipment. Either method is technically possible and would provide a record which could he produced in any proceedings in which it was alleged that a driver had exceeded his permitted hours of driving. The requirements as to the fitting of tachographs to vehicles are in any event to be prescribed in regulations under the provisions of Clause 96(1)(a), and it would be inappropriate to try to deal with such detailed matters in the Bill. All concerned, including the unions, have been sent a copy of the specification for suitable tachographs, towards their being available in adequate numbers when required.

This draft specification, which in due course will be embodied in and re-circulated in the form of draft regulations, already provides for tachographs, when fitted to a vehicle to which engine-operated ancillary equipment is fitted, to be capable of identifying periods during which the engine of a stationary vehicle is being used solely to drive such ancillary equipment. The time during which the ancillary equipment is in use while the vehicle is in motion, as in the case of mobile concrete mixers, counts as driving in any event. The Amendment is therefore unnecessary, and I trust that the noble Earl will withdraw it.

LORD TEVIOT

I feel that I cannot let this clause go by without making a few pungent remarks. The whole idea of having a machine-made snooper sitting in the cab beside him is to a driver complete and utter anathema. The very principle spells mistrust and I cannot help feeling that it sets up a new precedent for interfering with the individual's liberty. The purpose of Clause 6, as your Lordships are well aware, is to reform drivers' hours in the interests of safety. I have previously made my thoughts on Clause 95 well known and I will not repeat myself. Just cutting drivers' hours and installing recording machines might be suitable if drivers were machines and you were dealing with metal fatigue, but drivers are human beings, with quite a different metabolism. Therefore, the idea of thinking that you will solve all your problems by cutting hours and having machines to make drivers adhere to those hours is completely inconsequential and ridiculous.

In an earlier debate, I mentioned that considerable reform could be made by having more intensive medical check-ups, but the Government do not seem to be interested in that. Also, the Government have not queried the safety of a driver of 69 years of age driving the maximum hours. This whole clause has been ill-conceived, is extremely badly constructed and is thoroughly impracticable. Therefore I urge the Government to look at the problem much more realistically and, above all, to remember that they are dealing with human beings and not machines.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hilton of Upton, for giving an assurance, as I understand he has, that the tachograph will not be attached to ancillary equipment. Nevertheless, I should like to ask the noble Lord a non-technical question. Just what is the tachograph going to record? Will it record only hours? If it does, it is simply a timepiece. The other question I wish to ask is this. The noble Lord has suggested, quite rightly, that there are technical problems. Is he saying that this device will not be installed until all the technical problems that he has mentioned have been satisfactorily solved?

LORD HILTON OF UPTON

My information is that what it will record is speed and distance while the engine is running.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

Then it is not recording hours at all. This seems to be important, because the Bill deals entirely with hours, and not with distance or speed. Therefore it seems to me palpably ridiculous to put in an instrument to deal with distance and speed—matters that have nothing to do with this Bill at all.

LORD HILTON OF UPTON

I apologise to the noble Earl. I should have added that it does record time. It is time, distance and speed.

LORD BELSTEAD

I am not trying to press the noble Lord personally, because he is not personally responsible for the tachograph, but as I understand it he agrees in spirit with the Amendment that in regard to the ancillary equipment, when it is working, it will be not only desirable but absolutely necessary that if the engine is not in any way propelling the machine the tachograph should not clock up. Carefully as we all listened to the noble Lord, we did not get the practical answer which the noble Earl tried to press for: namely, how this is going to be done. The noble Lord mentioned a button. Is this already in production somewhere? Is there a trade name which the noble Lord can give us for a particular tachograph which works like that?

The noble Earl, when he was moving his Amendment, referred to the fact that this would be a criminal offence under Clause 96. Perhaps it would not be out of place to point out that under Clause 69(4)(c) the result might mean loss of an operator's licence and a transport manager's licence, in certain circumstances, and under this clause, by subsection (4), a maximum of £200 fine for permitting this to happen. Perhaps we could at some stage have a little more information about, for instance, the button. It is extremely easy to fiddle about with buttons, and I think everybody deserves a little better explanation than this, bear- ing in mind that tachographs are mentioned in the White Paper, which shortly will be a year old.

LORD HILTON OF UPTON

I can tell the noble Lord that tachographs are in production and have already been fitted by some firms. I am assured that technically they are not at all difficult. I know that buttons can be a nuisance at times, but these are no more difficult than I have already explained.

LORD BELSTEAD

With respect, does the noble Lord mean tachographs of this sort? I am well aware, as no doubt are other noble Lords, that tachographs are used at the moment. Some go by the vibration of the vehicle. But are these the sort of tachographs to which the noble Earl is referring in his Amendment?

LORD SOMERS

I think I heard the noble Lord say that these instruments would be driven from the engine. Do they then record at the time when the engine is merely idling, but the vehicle standing still?

EARL FORTESCUE

Before we leave this subject, could the noble Lord say what the tachograph will cost and whether one pattern will do for all vehicles?

LORD HILTON OF UPTON

I regret that I am unable to give an answer to that question. However, the answer to the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Somers, is Yes.

LORD BOOTHBY

Is not everybody talking a great deal of nonsense at the moment?

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

This matter will, of course, come before us in a document at some time. I do not press the matter further now, but I hope that before this provision is brought into operation—it establishes a criminal offence—we shall have a full explanation of what we expect drivers to do. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

THE DUKE OF ATHOLL moved Amendment No. 241B:

Page 130, line 13, at end insert— ("( ) a vehicle of any class wholly engaged in agricultural, horticultural or forestry operations;").

The noble Duke said: When I put down this Amendment I was hopeful that the Government would accept my Amendment to Clause 95(9) to include forestry with agriculture and thereby exempt it from subsection (1) of Clause 95. I think it might be useful, notwithstanding the fact that my Amendment is obviously defective in the regard in which the noble Lord, Lord Hilton, said he would look at the position of forestry, if we had a short discussion on the Amendment as it stands, on the understanding that I will withdraw it latter.

At the moment, agricultural vehicles are exempted from the provisions of Clause 95(1) under Clause 95(9), provided that they spend less than four hours per day on a public road. I should have thought, therefore, that a tachograph in these vehicles would be of no interest at all, so far as hours are concerned, because the driver's defence, if the tachograph shows too many hours on a particular day, would obviously be that he was not driving on public roads but was driving about a field; and this is very likely. As these machines are somewhat expensive (I gather they are likely to cost in the region of£50, although I am open to correction on that) it would seem to me that this is adding unnecessary cost to any industry whose vehicles are exempt from the provisions of subsection (1) of Clause 95. I should have thought, therefore, that they could be exempt from having tachographs fitted under subsection (2) of this clause.

I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Hilton of Upton, will say that subsection (2)(b) enables the Minister to do this if he finds it is necessary and reasonable to do so. But I should have thought that it might be better if it were written into the Bill. I am not entirely happy about subsection (2)(b) because it says: a vehicle of any class exempted from that subsection by regulations made by the Minister; and it is not a vehicle "of any class" that I want exempted. It is only a vehicle engaged in the agriculture and forestry industries that I feel ought to be exempted. I am not sure whether the words "of any class" cover industry. I beg to move.

LORD HILTON OF UPTON

The Minister accepts that tachographs would be inappropriate for farm tractors and agricultural machines, and assurances on this point have already been given to the farming industry. And I repeat those assurances this afternoon. They are that regulations under Clause 96(2)(b) (and I noted that the noble Duke said that he is not altogether happy about subsection (2)(b)) will provide for exemptions in appropriate cases of this kind when tachographs are brought into force for other vehicles. Representative organisations will be consulted about these regulations in good time, and there is therefore no need to provide a specific exemption in the Bill itself. Goods vehicles used for agricultural, horticultural or forestry operations are, however, quite a different matter. Since this description includes ordinary lorries, the people driving goods vehicles for long hours during such operations can produce exactly the same dangers to the public as those arising from the driving of any other large goods vehicles for long periods. The limits imposed by Clause 95 on driving and working time for such vehicles must therefore be enforced in precisely the same way; that is, by the use of tachographs. With that explanation, I hope that the noble Duke will be satisfied, and will do as he said and withdraw this Amendment.

THE DUKE OF ATHOLL

I think the noble Lord has slightly missed the point, in that I feel that these machines are unnecessary on agricultural vehicles because under subsection (9) of the previous clause agricultural vehicles are in most cases exempted from subection (1). Therefore it will not do any good to fit tachographs to agricultural vehicles. I agree that the dangers of excessive hours of driving of agricultural vehicles are obviously just as great as those in any other industry if the vehicles are on the road, but under subsection (9) of the previous clause they are exempted when they are not on the road. I should have thought that the chances of tachographs' being of any use in any proceedings which might be brought against a driver, or an operator for allowing excessive hours to be driven, would be absolutely nil, because there will always be the defence that the vehicles were not on the roads for much of the time recorded on these machines. As the tachographs are quite expensive machines and would add to the cost of the industry, I should have thought that they could well be exempted. I should just like a little further explanation from the noble Lord.

LORD STONHAM

I think my noble friend Lord Hilton of Upton made it quite clear that what he is really providing for by the assurances given is that tachographs will not be required to be fitted to these farm vehicles. I do not see how there is any doubt about the matter at all.

THE DUKE OF ATHOLL

But the noble Lord said, I think, "farmlike tractors and suchlike vehicles". There are also such vehicles as lorries, which spend a large amount of their time not on public roads—for instance, when they are being used for both farming and, particularly, forestry. And when I put this Amendment down I was thinking more particularly of forestry, because I agree that the number of lorries used by farmers is fairly limited. But there certainly are some, and they spend a certain amount of their time not on public roads. I should have thought that to require tachographs to be fitted to them was just adding to the expense involved. Moreover, I gather that to begin with there is going to be a shortage of tachographs, and we might be able to bring the whole of this clause into operation rather sooner if we were able to exempt the class of vehicles used in the agriculture and forestry industry.

I do not feel that I am being unreasonable about this. I am absolutely with the noble Lord in that I should be in favour of requiring these tachographs to be fitted if they would do any good, and if he felt that they would help to enforce the law. I agree that this provision is going to be difficult to enforce, but I cannot see how, in the case of the agricultural industry, due to subsection (9) of Clause 95—of which I might say I thoroughly approve—tachographs will help. This is the point I am trying to get at. I want to ask the noble Lords who have spoken for the Government whether they think that the requirement to fit tachographs really is going to help, or whether they just feel that, in order to keep all lorries on a par, even lorries entirely used in agriculture, they should be fitted with tachographs.

LORD STONHAM

The difficulty about a definition such as "lorries used entirely in agriculture" is that it would include lorries used for market gardening which spend a great deal of their time going to and from cities, and we could not possibly agree that there should be an exemption, so far as the use of tachographs is concerned, for such lorries. There is a difficulty of definition. There is a great appeal in the suggestion that in regard to vehicles which are virtually entirely used on the land, on the farm and on private roads—the use of the word "private" may not be the proper one, but I refer to farm roads and the noble Duke knows what I mean—this requirement should not be necessary; and certainly these are the kind of questions which cause us considerable concern and which we shall discuss with the farming interests. Our difficulty, however, is that if we had in the Bill any overall exemption such as the kind the noble Duke envisages, we should thereby exclude from these provisions a substantial number of lorries which are just as much in need of regulation as are any other lorries on the road. That is our difficulty. All I can say at the moment, without being very hopeful of the outcome, is that I will look at what the noble Duke has said.

THE DUKE OF ATHOLL

I should like to thank the noble Lord for saying that. As I think my noble friend, Lord Selkirk, has down in the next two Amendments a much better definition which probably gets to much the same point as do my Amendments, and as my Amendment is at the moment obviously defective, I beg leave to withdraw it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

3.18 p.m.

LORD STONHAM moved Amendment No. 242: Page 130, line 16, after ("regulations") to insert ("(a)").

The noble Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Shepherd. I should like your Lordships to consider with it Amendments Nos. 243, 244 and 247. Amendment No. 242 is of course only paving the way for Amendment No. 243, which enables the Minister to make regulations laying down rules for the preservation of tachograph records. Amendment No. 244 deletes subsection (5), the first part of which is no longer necessary because No. 243 makes the preservation of records subject to regulations, instead of being a direct requirement under the Bill. The Amendment also corrects an anomaly arising from the second part of subsection (5) between the penalty for failure to preserve tachograph records and failure to preserve written records. Amendment No. 247 is consequential on No. 243.

Clause 97 was extensively revised by Government Amendments in another place on the Report stage in response to the argument put forward by the Opposition that all matters concerning the keeping and preservation of written records should be the subject of regulations instead of being required directly under the Bill; and two of these Amendments carry the same principle into effect for the preservation of tachograph records. These are matters which the Government accept can best be worked out in consultation with industry, as I indicated to the noble Duke a moment ago, and they can be changed again after consultation with industry if circumstances change. This is the important thing, and therefore they are eminently suitable for regulation.

Amendment No. 244 also has the effect of substituting a maximum penalty of £200 for the offence of failure to preserve these records, and this brings the penalty into line with Clause 97(4) for failure to preserve written records. There are clearly no grounds for distinction between the two cases. The figure of £200 is the standard maximum penalty. I beg to move.

LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD

I should like to thank the noble Lord for explaining the purpose of this series of Amendments, which seem to me to be quite acceptable. I am sure he will not be surprised if I make the observation that this part of the regulations and arrangements with regard to drivers' hours seems to be in a rather incomplete state of preparation and, like a good many other parts of the Bill, has been hustled along on to the Statute Book before the Government were really ready with this scheme. I think my observation is given weight by the resistance of the Government to the Amendment which I put down last time, that the appointed day for Clause 96 should precede the appointed day for Clause 95.

It is clear that the right kind of tachograph in the right numbers is not yet available, and it is clear that consultation between industry and unions is not complete, nor has agreement been achieved all round. Yet we all know that enforcement is absolutely vital if these new regulations are to be effective, and I again make the observation that the Government should give more time and thought to such very important legislation before they come and lay it before Parliament. There is so much in this Bill, and so much of it has not yet been sufficiently prepared. I am not blaming the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, who, heaven knows! has struggled with the complexities of this Bill most successfully in order to try to make them clear to us, but the general observation is a fair one, and I hope the noble Lord will convey to his colleague the point I am making.

LORD STONHAM

I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, for the reasonable tone of his remarks, and I will certainly convey the general sense of them to my right honourable friend, with whom I will be conferring in the near future. But I really cannot agree that this Bill has been, as the noble Lord said, "hustled along on to the Statute Book". It is a mammoth Bill with an enormous amount of detail, but a great deal of parliamentary time has been given to it and it certainly was not the fault of the Government that in another place, despite the great amount of time that was allowed for it, some matters were not considered. I am sure the noble Lord will concede that in your Lordships' House we have considered every point, and are still doing so.

With regard to his "throw away", as it were—his reference to not implementing Clause 95 until we can implement Clause 96—I think this would be retrogressive in the extreme. The Sunday newspapers carried the statement that there were 500 fewer people killed on the roads and 17,000 fewer injured in the first six months of this year. If, somewhere in the world, we had received the dreadful news that by an earthquake or some other catastrophe 500 people had been killed and 17,000 injured it would have been front page news all over the world. There would have been relief schemes set up all over the world and everyone would have been shocked. But we have saved these 500 lives and prevented these 17,000 people from being injured, and that is why I have been so concerned about these safety measures. I am glad noble Lords share that concern, and particularly the noble Duke.

Therefore, while acknowledging these points and the difficulties that have arisen, and trying to overcome them and to get agreement in your Lordships' House, I think we should keep paramount in our minds at all times the great need for added safety measures. Even if it does pinch some toes sometimes I am afraid they will have to be pinched, because the important thing is that we alone of the countries of the world have reversed the trend for increased deaths on the roads we are saving lives and we ought really to co-operate to the full in that way.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD STONHAM

I beg to move Amendment No. 243.

Amendment moved—

Page 130, line 20 at end insert— ("(b) imposing or the owner of any vehicle in which equipment is installed for the purposes of this section duties as to the preservation of any records produced by means of the equipment.")—(Lord Stonham.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD STONHAM

I beg to move Amendment No. 244.

Amendment moved— Page 130, line 40, leave out subsection (5). (Lord Stonham.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 96, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 97 [Written records]:

3.28 p.m.

LORD STONHAM moved Amendment No. 245: Page 131, line 6, leave out from ("keep") to end of line 7 and insert (", and employers of employee-drivers to cause to be kept, in such books as may be specified in the regulations records ".

The noble Lord said: I should be grateful if we could take with this Amendment, No. 246, because the two are interrelated and are intended to improve the existing provisions concerning the duties of employers to see that proper written records are kept by their drivers and for providing a defence for them in cases where, despite their having taken all reasonable steps in this direction, such records are not maintained 1): their drivers.

Amendment No. 245 rectifies the situation under Clause 97 as it is drafted in the Bill at the moment, wherein an employer who causes or permits an employee driver to contravene the regulations concerning the keeping of records is liable to a penalty under subsection (4), but no duty is directly imposed on him to cause his employees to keep such records. The Amendment I am proposing imposes such a duty.

Amendment No. 246 is related directly to the duty to be imposed on etnp1Dyers, and subsection (4), as amended, provides a penalty for the contravention by an employer of regulations to he made requiring employers to cause written records to be kept. Since such a contravention is an absolute offence—and we are often concerned about this "absolute offence"—it is desirable that there should be a defence for employers in genuine cases where an employer has made it quite clear to his drivers what is expected of them but they have ignored his instructions. A defence of this kind was sought by Her Majesty's Opposition in another place in Committee and at Report stage, and at the latter stage a Government Amendment was made to provide the defence at present contained in the second part of subsection (4) of Clause 97. The second Amendment revises the wording of the defence, making it more appropriate to the direct duty now to be imposed on employe7s to see that proper records are kept. This Amendment obviously embodies a joint agreement and is another example of the advantages of discussing these matters together. I hope you will approve it. I beg to move.

LORD MERRIVALE

May I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, especially for Amendment 246, which meets the point which my honourable friend moved in another place? I think it meets it very admirably.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE DUKE OF ATHOLL moved Amendment No. 245A: Page 132, line 3, leave out from ("fit") to end of line 6.

The noble Duke said: This is largely a probing Amendment. I should have thought it was better to leave the traffic commissioners with entire discretion in the light of local circumstances as to what exemptions they should make from the provision that written records should be kept. I agree, however, that it is almost essential that written records should be kept, and I think it is the case now that vehicles covered by Clause 97 have to keep written records. I should like to know why the Government have not given the traffic commissioners complete discretion—as I think they have at the moment—about what exemptions they will make to this provision. I should also like to know what exception they anticipate the traffic commissioners will be able to give under the words which I wish to delete, other than the very obvious one, which I must say I hope never arises; that is, that the person, the employee concerned, cannot write. I beg to move.

LORD STONHAM

As the noble Duke has made clear, the effect of his Amendment would be to remove from the Bill any guidance at all to the traffic commissioners or licensing authorities on the circumstances in which they should grant a dispensation from any of the provisions of Clause 97, which deals, of course, with obligations on employers and drivers to keep and preserve written records. On the whole, we think the Amendment would be unhelpful to people who are subject to the hours rules, because it would give no guidance to the traffic commissioners or the licensing authority on when they should use their powers to modify or dispense with any of the requirements concerning written records.

Of course, it is true, and I confess we have argued it ourselves on other Amendments, that licensing authorities are reasonable people and are therefore likely to grant dispensation in cases only where insistence on complying with the requirements in full would be wholly impracticable. Nevertheless, we think there is some merit in employers and drivers knowing from the very beginning that traffic commissioners and licensing authorities are going to need strong evidence before a dispensation can be granted. I think there is some inconsistency here, because the words used in the Bill follow a similar provision in subsection (4) of Section 186 of the Road Traffic Act 1960. It has worked for eight years, it has not been found offensive and it has not created difficulties. I think there is an advantage in following that.

THE DUKE OF ATHOLL

I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for what he has said. I agree that this provision has worked for eight years, but I still wonder whether it is really necessary. However, there is obviously little disagreement on this point, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD STONHAM

I beg to move Amendment No. 246:

Page 132, line 7, leave out subsection (4) and insert: ("(4) Any person who contravenes any regulations made under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £200; but the employer of an employee-driver shall not be liable to be convicted under this subsection by reason of contravening any such regulation whereby he is required to cause any records to be kept if he proves to the court that he has given proper instructions to his employees with respect to the keeping of the records and has from time to time taken reasonable steps to secure that those instructions are being carried out.")

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 97, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 98 [Inspection of records and other documents]:

LORD STONHAM: I beg to move Amendment No. 247: Page 132, line 36, leave out from ("by") to ("to") in line 37 and insert ("regulations under section 96 or 97 of this Act").

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 98, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 99 to 101 agreed to.

Clause 102 [Interpretation, supplementary provisions etc., for Part VI:

3.37 p.m.

LORD MERRIVALE moved Amendment No. 247A: Page 136, line 25, insert (""off duty" in relation to any driver includes any period during which he is enjoying a rest break statutory or otherwise.")

The noble Lord said: The object of this Amendment is to clarify a situation regarding rest breaks. Without such a clarification it will be impossible to be certain that these rest breaks will be excluded from the working day. I believe I am right in saying there is insufficient legal precedent to establish the position with any certainty. For instance, after a five-and-a-half hour working period, there will be a half-hour rest period. Could the Minister therefore give a legal clarification of this point? Will this half-hour period be excluded from the working day or not? I beg to move.

LORD LEATHERLAND

The noble Lord has asked for a legal definition, and no doubt he will get it, but from an ordinary layman and motorist's point of view I see grave danger in accepting the Amendment put forward by the noble Lord. Let us assume a lorry driver is driving down from Lincolnshire to Covent Garden, as so many do every morning, and let us assume that 20 miles out of London his time becomes due for a rest break and that he pulls his lorry into a lay-by and proceeds to eat his sandwiches. While he is sitting in the lorry, eating his sandwiches, another lorry collides with him and breaks both his legs. If he is to be defined as being off duty during that half-hour rest break, he probably loses quite a lot of civil rights vis-à-vis the employer. I certainly would invite my noble friend to take that possibility into account before he gives his legal verdict.

LORD STONHAM

I think my noble friend Lord Leatherland has proved that he is no ordinary layman. The example he quoted was no ordinary example, but a very apt one. The noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, by his Amendment, has attempted to define "off duty" as any period during which a driver is enjoying a rest break, statutory or otherwise. In reply to the noble Lord I must decline to do as he suggests and define this, because we think it is impracticable to lay down hard and fast rules as to what exactly constitutes being on or off duty. To try to define "off duty" would only introduce anomalies and unfairness, as my noble friend has so clearly indicated. The Bill therefore deliberately avoids defining "off duty" and "rest", since these are matters which can best and, indeed, in many cases can only, be deter mined by the courts in disputed cases in the light of the individual circumstances. In any case, it is possible for a person to be on duty while taking a rest break.

A driver might, for instance, have stopped for his half-hour statutory rest break as required under Clause 95(2)(a). During the rest break he must be able to obtain rest and refreshment. He does not have to get out of the vehicle to obtain it, although of course the choice is entirely his, but he could pull into a lay-by and eat his sandwiches, in which case he probably remains responsible for the vehicle and therefore remains on duty. On the other hand, he might leave the vehicle at the depot and spend the half-hour's statutory break in a café; half a mile away. In that case he would be regarded as being off duty. But there can be a variety of factors, which determine whether a driver is on duty or not at a particular time and in particular circumstances. The experience we have had with the 1960 Act suggest; that leaving these matters to be dealt with by the courts on an individual basis, without a definition such as Lord Merrivale Amendment suggests, would result in generally satisfactory solutions. I hope the noble Lord will accept that.

LORD MERRIVALE

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for his reply so far as it goes. I am grateful t the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, for his few remarks and for the example he gave. I am a little disappointed that it is not possible to define quite accurately whether one is on or off duty and that one has to leave that to the court; for an interpretation. But if that is the way it is and the way it is going to he, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

LORD SOMERS

Before my noble friend withdraws this Amendment, may I ask whether this does not provide a very strong case for the point I pressed before, and that is that these instruments should be on a time basis rather than for speed and distance, as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said. Obviously the engine will not be running while it is in the lay-by and therefore that time will not be recorded but if during that time the driver is officially in charge of the vehicle —and I quite agree that he is—surely these instruments should he worked on a time basis rather than by speed and distance.

LORD STONHAM

I think the noble Lord, Lord Somers, is under a misconception. These tachographs do record the time that the engine is running; but if the engine is stopped and the driver is sitting in his cab in a lay-by having a rest break, and, as I said, eating his sandwiches and drinking his flask of tea, the tachograph would not then be recording; it would not be running, and it would take up again only when it resumed running. It would not then show whether or not the driver was in charge of the vehicle although having his rest break. That is why I have said to the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, that it would be better not to adopt and rigidly define what is a rest period and when a man is off duty; because there are often times when a man is having his rest break but is on duty, and no machine yet devised has been able to show when that would be. It is very often a matter of the man's own judgment, and that cannot be recorded by machine. He has to keep his records, and good men—most of them are good men—act responsibly to their employers. if such a man was involved in an accident, such as my noble friend has suggested, and was on duty in a stationary vehicle having his rest break, the facts would come out, and whatever compensation was awarded, if it could be affected by the fact of whether or not the man was on duty, would be affected accordingly. I hope that covers the noble Lord's point.

LORD MERRIVALE

May I ask one final point of clarification following what the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has just said? I understand that by this Bill, when it becomes an Act, in effect a driver will be able to drive 5½ hours and then will have to stop. When he stops and has to take a rest for 30 minutes, is he at that point on duty or off duty?

LORD STONHAM

Again I do not think I can give a 100 per cent answer. There may be circumstances where, although he would be having a rest which was statutorily obligatory (I can say that at 3.45 o'clock, but whether I shall be able to say it at 11.45 to-night- I do not know) he might well be on duty. It is impossible to say. The noble Lord will be aware that the Bill provides for a working day which has an overall length, a maximum part of which will be spent driving. The answer, therefore, is included in the overall working day.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD STONHAM moved Amendment No. 247B:

Page 136, line 45, at end insert— ("( ) For the purposes of this Part of this Act a director of a company shall be deemed to be employed by it.")

The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 247B standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Shepherd. This Amendment is necessary because, as Part VI of the Bill stands at present, directors of companies who for the purposes of their companies' business drive vehicles to which the provisions of Part VI apply will in many cases not be subject to those provisions when they clearly ought to be. The reason for this is that a director of a company who has no service contract with his company is not a servant of that company and is not in its employment. It follows, therefore, that such a director is not an "employee-driver" as defined in Clause 94(3)(a), because he would not, when driving a vehicle on his company's business, be driving that vehicle "in the course of his employment", and, secondly, is not an "owner-driver" as defined in Clause 94(3)(b), because he would not in such a situation be driving a vehicle for the purposes of a trade or business carried on by him", since the trade or business would be one carried on by the company of which he is a director.

It is clearly wrong that the provisions of Part VI applicable to employee-drivers and owner-drivers should not apply to all directors of companies, as they would apply if those directors were treated either as employees or owners. It was certainly not intended that directors without service contracts should be excluded from Part VI, and the purpose of this Amendment is to make it clear that they are covered by that Part of the Bill. The Amendment is therefore, to that extent, one of a drafting nature intended to remove this defect in Part VI. It is intended to put all directors of a company into the category of persons who are employed by it, so that the provisions of Part VI which are applicable to "employee-drivers" will apply to the directors of the company as they will apply to those who are in fact its employees. I beg to move.

LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD

I thank the noble Lord for that explanation. I wonder whether this Amendment might occasionally produce some rather strange results. Suppose that a director was responsible for entertaining some overseas customers whose good will the firm was particularly anxious to keep, and took them in the evening to a theatre and dinner, driving them in one of the firm's cars, at the end of, let us say, a long day's work. This would make him on duty throughout that time, and if he had been driving for a number of hours during the day he would then be caught by this particular provision. I wonder whether the noble Lord would tell us whether this provision has been thought through, whether it would be entirely practical in the many and varied circumstances in which it might apply?

LORD STONHAM

It is difficult to answer a question like this off the cuff. I take it that the noble Lord is assuming that the person concerned would have been driving for more than four hours, because if he had not then he would not be caught at all by the Bill. The noble Lord's point, I gather, is whether the man, although a director of the firm, who has exceeded the statutory number of hours, either by driving for more than 51-hours in a stint, or for more hours than are to be permitted in the overall driving day, would have committed an offence? The answer is, Yes, because this Amendment makes it clear that, for the purposes of this Bill and of this clause of the Bill, we are treating directors in the same way as we do other employees. I think that is the right thing to do. I do not think that, by reason of a technicality, they should not he subject to the same regulations which the Bill provides in order to ensure that drivers should not be over-fatigued and thereby lessen the safety provisions. But so far as private cars are concerned, none of this would apply because in this ease "driving" means driving a vehicle to which this part of the Bill applies. For example, it would have to be a 30-cwt. box van or something like that the clause would not apply to a private car.

LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD

I thank the noble Lord, and especially for the last bulletin which arrived, which I think clears the position and leaves me quite satisfied.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 102, as amended, agreed to.

House resumed.