§ 7.28 p.m.
§ LORD BELSTEAD rose to move, That the Draft Road Traffic (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 1973, laid before the House on May 9, be approved. The noble Lord said: The main purpose of this Order is to bring the law more closely into line with that in Great Britain on a wide variety of miscellaneous matters, including several of some importance to road safety. The Order also proposes certain changes as the result of local government reorganisation.
906§ In the field of driver licensing, the six county councils and the two county boroughs of Belfast and Londonderry are at present the responsible licensing authorities. Following local government reorganisation on October I of this year, the local licensing authorities will cease to exist and Article 15 of the Order provides that the Ministry of Home Affairs will become the single licensing authority for the whole of Northern Ireland.
§ Local government reorganisation also has an effect on the organisation of road safety in Northern Ireland in so far as the existing permissive powers of local authorities to incur expenditure on road safety will cease to be appropriate. At present there are four full-time road safety officers currently employed by local authorities in Northern Ireland, and the aim is to try to expand the number of road safety officers in order to provide a comprehensive programme of road safety education and training throughout the Province. Towards this end the Ministry of Home Affairs in Northern Ireland will assume direct responsibility for the road safety officer service and for the expenditure of road safety committees under Article 7. In this respect the position in Northern Ireland will be comparable with that in Great Britain when the new county authorities are given a statutory road safety duty.
§ Although road deaths for 1973 in Northern Ireland are down compared with the first four months of last year, the number of children killed has increased somewhat. There are, of course, a variety of ways in which road safety can be improved. I must say I hope that the raising of the school-leaving age is now going to provide an added opportunity to develop road care and driver training in schools. I would also, if I may, pay a tribute to the work carried out by the voluntary road safety movement in Northern Ireland, which has continued with its task in a spirit of community co-operation undeterred by all the troubles. Following local government reorganisation the road safety committees will continue to function, but in future they will be based on the 26 new district council areas and will provide a link with local government at that level. Each committee will in turn be represented on the Road Safety Council for 907 Northern Ireland, which corresponds to the Accident Federation in Great Britain.
§ My Lords, without keeping the House too long, perhaps I may turn for a moment from the structure of the Order to some of the detailed provisions. In Great Britain we do not take the view that epilepsy should necessarily be a reason for banning, a driver, provided that it is established that this condition is adequately controlled. However, in Northern Ireland the condition of epilepsy is an absolute bar to the granting of a driving licence. Article 3 will, therefore, enable regulations to be made to enable a driving licence to be granted to a person suffering from epilepsy, with controls similar to those in Great Britain, which will be prescribed in regulations.
§ In the field of vehicle inspecton, which takes up several pages of the Order, the present position is that Northern Ireland has schemes in operation which provide for the annual inspection of goods vehicles and public service vehicles, but there is no scheme in existence for the annual testing of private cars. Many of the cars currently used on the roads in Northern Ireland are clearly not in sound mechanical condition, and it is possible that some of them ought not to be allowed on the road at all.
§ Article 4 therefore provides for the introduction of a scheme of annual inspection for private cars to be carried out in Government inspection centres. This will be a comprehensive examination of the vehicle carried out by an independent and impartial Government examiner. Initially it is proposed that the scheme will apply to cars over 10 years old, but the Order permits the scheme to be extended progressively down through the age range. In addition to providing for annual inspections, the Order also extends the powers for authorised officers to carry out roadside checks of all vehicles in all age groups, and provides for the issue of prohibition notices in respect of vehicles which are so defective as to constitute an immediate risk to public saftely.
§ In Great Britain the powers of traffic wardens have already been extended to enable them to carry out additional duties, and in this respect Article 6 pro 908 vides for a similar extension of powers in Northern Ireland. This will, of course enable the traffic warden service to carry out additional duties and to relieve the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
§ Article 5 of the Order extends the existing powers to regulate drivers' hours. Your Lordships may recall the lengthy debates we had in 1968 on Part VI of the previous Government's Transport Bill, during which fears were expressed about the practical difficulties of reducing drivers' hours. However, the Regulations for Northern Ireland are slightly more generous than those in Great Britain, and both sets of Regulations will need to be modified for the E.E.C. Regulations after 1976. What the Order does is to give powers with respect to drivers' hours which may well be needed by 1976 for Northern Ireland.
§ Finally, Article 8 of the Order will enable Northern Ireland to follow suit with Great Britain by providing for the compulsory registration of professional driving insructors. At present, although standards required of an instructor for registration as an approved driving instructor are the same as in Great Britain, the Northern Ireland scheme is still voluntary. Compulsory registration will not preclude the giving of free driving lessons or practice by a friend or relative, but professional instructors giving driving lessons for payment will be required to maintain the high standards required of an approved instructor. The object of this scheme is to raise the standard of driving instruction in the interests of road safety, and at the same time to provide a measure of consumer protection for the public.
§ This is a lengthy and detailed Order to which, I am sure, this House would wish to give detailed attention if it were presented in the form of a Bill. However, it has been studied with care by the Secretary of State's Advisory Commission. It contains provisions which are urgent for the good of road safety in Northern Ireland, and I hope that the House will agree that it should be passed and become effective as soon as possible. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That the Draft Road Traffic (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 1973, laid before the House on May 9, be approved.—(Lord Belstead.)
909§ 7.37 p.m.
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, we strongly support this Order and welcome its introduction. It has been increasingly the practice that we have followed from this side of the House on these rather technical Orders to call in a spokesman who is particularly concerned in that partiscular area, but unfortunately those of my noble friends who are expert on road traffic and transport matters have been otherwise engaged. At least the noble Lord, Lord Belstead and I probably start equal in this subject in not originally knowing very much about it. He has given us a very clear explanation.
Studying comments made elsewhere, it appears that this Order is even more necessary than it was at one time. I understand that the standard of driving may well have deteriorated, and the police and the authorities have naturally been much involved in other matters and have been able to devote less time to controlling and policing road traffic performance. Certainly when one looks at the casualties in Northern Ireland resulting from road traffic accidents they are rather horrifying. It is a commentary on the extraordinary indifference that we all show to road traffic accidents that whereas none of us would do other than express horror when a bomb goes off and somebody is injured, many more people are killed at the weekends on our roads—and I gather that in Northern Ireland the figure is proportionately the same. Therefore, anything this Order can do must be welcome. Indeed it is clear—and I do not wish to say this critically in the Northern Ireland situation—that some of the provisions in the Great Britain Act might well, desirably, have been introduced a good deal earlier. Take the matter of car testing. As I understand it, there is one quite important difference (and I must admit that I pick up my information partly by reading what is said in another place) in that testing is to be done by public authorities and the private garages will not themselves be doing the road testing.
Again, I wondered what the noble Lord meant when he said that hours were a bit more generous with regard to drivers in Northern Ireland. It crossed my mind, "Generous to whom?" Generous to the driver in shortening his hours or generous to the employer or those who benefit from his services? I take it that 910 he means that drivers have more scope for driving longer hours, and I am glad to hear the noble Lord say that this matter is being tightened up. It is worth noting that one of the benefits of entering the European Community—and the fact that there are so few of my noble friends present is not the reason why I am emboldened to say a word in favour of it—is that we shall hope to bring ourselves into line with what I understand is the more civilised approach of the Cornmunity with regard to length of drivers' hours.
I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, recognised that in other circumstances this would have been a Bill. On the other hand, one is bound to say that, much as my conscience has smitten me in regard to the lack of consideration we have given to Northern Ireland business, one does note sometimes, despite the enthusiasm of Scottish noble Lords, that Bills that parallel closely United Kingdom Bills, unless there is some particularly Scottish point, tend to proceed rather more rapidly than do United Kingdom Bills. Certainly it is worth mentioning for those who may forget the extent to which the Government have sought to make efforts at proper scrutiny, that, as the noble Lord explained, this proposal will have been through the Advisory Committee. In passing, I wonder whether, at some stage, one could know a little more about the work of the Advisory Committee. It has been explained to us, and occasionally we have even asked a question about their proceedings. I do not ask the noble Lord to make any promise now, but it is rather interesting that there is this extra Parliamentary scrutiny.
I apologise for branching so widely, conscious, as I am, of the growing inability of Parliament to provide as effective a scrutiny as we should like over a great deal of matters that directly concern ourselves. In regard to the European Community we are to have a debate, but we still are in a position where there is a great flood of Orders which none of us is examining. We get Papers on them, but I wonder how many Papers noble Lords read and see what they are about. I do not want to branch into that wider issue, but I should be interested if, at some time, the noble Lord's right honourable friend, if he has not done so 911 already, would consider giving some sort of a report on the workings of the Advisory Committee, which is something that has been designed to help fill in the gap until such time as presumably the Assembly will have certain further powers transferred back to it. I apologise to noble Lords for making those rather wider comments. There is no doubt that this is an Order that we should welcome. It will be to the definite benefit of people in Northern Ireland, and the sooner it comes into force the sooner lives will be saved.
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, once again I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for what he has said, because he has thrown some more light on different parts of what is indeed a very long and complicated Order. The noble Lord referred to safety on the roads in Northern Ireland, and he is absolutely right when he indicates that the numbers killed on the roads there are unacceptable, as indeed they are in most European countries. My honourable friend, in moving this Order in another place, pointed out that in the last three years more people had been killed on the roads in Northern Ireland than had died owing to the disturbances.
I would not like to let this Order pass and give a wrong impression, however, about vehicle testing, to which both the noble Lord and I have linked many of our remarks in the last few minutes. In some ways I think that Northern Ireland has led this country in vehicle testing. For many more years they have tested both passenger service vehicles and goods vehicles. Certainly they tested goods vehicles back in the early 1930s. In Northern Ireland they have not had compulsory testing for cars, and that is what this Order now provides. It will be at centres, of which there will be fifteen initially, and it will be up to the Government, or to the relevant Ministry, to see whether the centres should be increased in number. There will be one great advantage over this country—and I must admit this—in that it will mean that there will be continuity between one centre and another as to the way the tests are carried out. This is because in Northern Ireland they will be able to do this from centres, and instead of 912 saying that the test will refer to particular aspects of car safety, such as steering, brakes, and so on, it is clearly put into the Order that these will be "general tests". Therefore, I submit to the House that the tests will probably be more comprehensive than perhaps we find at the moment in this country, and they are more likely to be consistent. In saying that, I am in no way making any reflection on the garages which do the tests in this country.
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, perhaps this is the first fruits of that powerful debate we had yesterday on socialism.
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, the limits on driving hours are more generous, in that they provide for 11 hours at the wheel of a vehicle in Northern Ireland and, as the noble Lord correctly divined, a lesser time in this country. Both Northern Ireland and Great Britain will, however, have to keep an eye on 1976, when the relevant E.E.C. regulation will come into force, and we have agreed that we will abide by it. This Order will certainly allow Northern Ireland to do that. May I finally say that I will certainly draw the attention of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to the noble Lord's remarks about the work of the Advisory Committee. If I am able to do so, I will certainly see that either I, or my right honourable friend, writes to the noble Lord on that matter. With that, I hope that the House will agree to the passage of this Order.
§ [The Sitting was suspended at 7.47 p.m. and resumed at 8.15 p.m.]