§ [No.28.]
§
Clause 12, page 12, line 30, leave out lines 30 to 33 and insert—
'(a) for requiring manufacturers or importers of cars to carry out officially approved tests, or to arrange for such tests to be carried out (by making available a car to officers of the Secretary of State's department for that purpose, or otherwise);'
§ 10 p.m.
§ Lord STRABOLGIMy Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 28. This is essentially a drafting Amendment intended to clarify the way in which the scheme will normally operate. In the great majority of cases cars will be tested by the manufacturer or importer, and only rarely should it be necessary for the Department of Energy to arrange to carry out any testing. Nevertheless, it seems desirable to have express power to provide in an order under the clause that if in particular circumstances the tests are to be carried out by the Department the manufacturer or importer has a duty to 798 make a suitable vehicle available for the purpose.
§ Moved, That this House cloth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.— (Lord Strabolgi.)
§ Lord LUCAS of CHILWORTHMy Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I speak to Amendments Nos. 28, 29 and 30 as being all related. At the same time I express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, for having conducted further consultations with the industry with regard to this clause, the net result of which is a much more modified clause than we had previously. I still have to express my disappointment that it was still found necessary to include in a Bill of this kind the testing of motor cars. The Bill expressly sets out to conserve energy, and there is nothing whatsoever within this clause that is going to make any contribution to that object. Were it not for the almost impossible programme of legislation that has now built up I would certainly have been tempted to move an Amendment to remove this clause. There can only be one reason for its inclusion and that is that of international obligations, and those obligations could be met by inclusion in another Bill.
The testing of motor vehicles, the imposition which these regulations will put upon the motor industry, is more in the nature of consumer events. That is the kind of Bill in which it should be included, and it could have been debated in that concept. Even re-written—and I have expressed my gratitude for the re-writing—the clause is heavy, clumsy and incomplete. Surely, if we are going to introduce a new piece of legislation covering an industry and those people engaged in the industry, it is beholden upon the Government to set down those people whom it will affect. If one looks at the last Amendment, No. 30, we have this extraordinary expression in page 13, line 46,
(b)'specified' means specified by such orders; and the orders may specify the cases in which a car is to be regarded as a new car and those in which a person is, or is not, regarded as one who deals in new cars".Really the draftsmen, if it is the draftsmen's reponsibility, and I suppose it is the Government's responsibility, should have by now worked out what is a new 799 motor car. It does not really change. Having once decided what is a new motor car, that remains almost for all time. Having decided what kind of person deals in new cars that also stays.At the present moment there are a great number of people in the industry who are now going to have to wait for an order to set down whether they are to be included or not included. That seems to me an extraordinarily clumsy piece of drafting. The noble Lord, Lord Lovell-Davis, who first introduced this Bill into your Lordships' House, gave his views as to the worthwhileness of the "Save it" campaign. I certainly do not think that since March of this year, when the Bill was introduced, this particular clause has done anything to contribute to a saving campaign. Neither do I think that the campaign has done anything to save fuel used in motor cars, because I understand that in the period ended in September gasoline usage has moved up just over 5 per cent. over the previous year. Somewhere, I have not yet found out where, there is another underlying reason for this clause. No doubt in the fullness of time it will be revealed to us.
In conclusion, I wish to say that I am grateful to the noble Lord for having continued the consultations with the industry. I am sorry that the original consultations were so abortive and that 800 we had to go through all this performance through three stages of the Bill to get something which the industry has now found tolerably acceptable. I can only hope that the Government's dealings with the motor industry in terms of consultation will have provided a lesson which has been learnt, and that those consultations for the future will be more meaningful. I cannot find anything else to commend these Amendments. The disappointment to me is that the clause is in the Bill at all.
§ Lord KIRKHILLMy Lords, I am always grateful for even a minor commendation from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, and I thank him. I think that he might acknowledge that the Government have been flexible and have gone some way to meet a number of points which the noble Lord and others—but frequently the noble Lord—made in earlier debates. I want to make one particular point; namely, that certainly one of the needs for the clause is the international obligations which may be imposed upon the Government, and mention has just been made of that. I have been advised just now that with regard to the comment about the imprecise definition as it relates to new cars, this concept has been reserved for an order to allow flexibility and, frankly, to enable trade opinion to be sounded out.