WESTM NSTER
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HAUL /I Lord Lucas of Chilworth is no slouch when it comes to road transport.
After all, he served an apprenticeship with Vauxhall, was managing director of a couple of motor firms, spent quite a few years as a Council Member of the Institute of the Motor Industry, and is President of the Institute of Heavy Goods Vehicle Driving Instructors.
And if his Army service in tanks taught him that obstacles were there to be driven over, then his presidency of the League of Safe Drivers showed that he had learned to mend his ways.
But even he was baffled by the letter he received from the Government dealing with fees for testing once-faulty lorries.
It was, apparently, extremely tong, and, he admitted to his fellow Peers, "Frankly, I do not understand it."
Of course he had not had much time to digest it, for it was nearly two o'clock when he received it, and he had to be in the Lords by half past four to do battle Lord O'Hagan, who had led Opposition Peers during the Bill's progress, was all sympathy. After all, during debates on the Wales Bill he had been promised letters, but had not received them.
"There comes a point at which Parliament cannot, do its job when Ministers do not chase their civil servants enough to produce the requisite information," he declared.
But Baroness Birk, Under Secretary for the Environment, was not letting him get away with that.
She agreed that the letter was long and complicated, and she had found it rather difficult to understand, but Parliamentary Council, who had produced it, were very busy and had not given their advice until two days earlier.
After that came further discussions to see whether this was a definitive answer.
Lord Lucas was somewhat luckier with his second Government communication — he had received the draft notes of guidance for vehicle examiners at the weekend. He understood it all right. But he did not like it.
All in all it must have been quite a week for official letters. Lord Cockfield also got one, about the financial reconstruction of the NFC—but it did not stop him going into the subject at length.
There was one general point of agreement, however—that Baroness Stedman, who had initiated the letters, and spoken for the Government throughout, was not well, and could not be there for the last day.