§ Mrs. Margaret EwingTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether, in relation to the EEC directive on drivers' licence requirements, any exemptions or dispensations will be made in requirements for volunteers driving community service vans with more than eight seats.
§ Mr. Peter BottomleyAt present drivers of these vehicles need to have an ordinary driving licence. The licence requirements in the new system will not be known until the second EC Directive on driver licensing is published. The rights of existing licence holders to drive minibuses should not be affected by the new arrangements.
The responses to the Department's consultation paper on proposals to bring the driver licensing system into line with the EC licence category system have clearly indicated that tighter controls on new minibus drivers would cause serious problems for voluntary and community service operations.
We shall be pressing the EC to preserve the existing arrangements for these vehicles in the negotiations on the forthcoming directive.