EDITORIAL
Page 13
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Permit, please
As if road transport were not cramped and confined enough by official statute, it is also becoming a target for private Members' legislation. The most far-reaching recent example of this was the "Dykes Bill", inspired and supported by a wave of popular feeling which captured Parliament's imagination as well, but which needed some hard detailed slogging to turn into a measure acceptable to industry and transport.
The latest example is not so wide in scope but, in attempting to make a fundamentally abhorrent system less open to abuse, the International Road Haulage Permits Bill, put down in the name of four MPs, looks likely to put even more unnecessary obstacles in the way of efficient operation. For instance, it requires that vehicles or trailers on international journeys shall carry with them the relevant haulage permit. This is no problem with single-journey permits but the increasing number of operators who have period permits will find it a vexing requirement. An operator in Manchester whose traffic is passing through Dover will often arrange, for instance, for the permit to be exchanged between inward and outward bound drivers at the port, a sensible way of getting maximum use from the permit. If the hew Bill becomes enforceable as an Act in its present form, the permit would have to be carried all the way to the Manchester base and back — a ridiculous waste of operating time and permit validity.
One can also see a whole raft of delays resulting from the powers given to the police to stop vehicles to examine and copy the documents, and detain them for as long as necessary.
Although this is down as a Private Bill it can be assumed to have Departmental backing. A DoE Under Secretary, Mr Neil Carmichael, is one of the members of the Standing Committee on it, and we suspect he is in for a busy time, trying to translate valid road haulage objections into acceptable amendments. They certainly need to be made.