Road Transport Topics in Parliament
Page 56
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By Our Special Parliamentary Correspondent
BID TO AMEND CONTAINER CLAUSE.
WHEN the Finance Bill was in 1■1' Committee an important and outspoken debate took place on the proposed clause 7, which provides that " the unladen weight of a goods vehicle shall be taken to include the weight of any receptacle placed on or in the vehicle . . . if any goods or burden are loaded into, carried in and unloaded from the receptacle without the receptacle being removed from the vehicle."
BLOW TO DOCK TRAFFIC.
APROPOSAL was made by Colonel andeman Allen to substitute for the latter part (starting at "if ") these words—" unless goods or burden are ordinarily carried on or in the vehicle without such receptacle being placed on or in the vehicle." He understood the clause, had been inserted to reverse a judgment in the High Court of justiciary in Edinburgh. The position appeared to be ,that, if a container were put on a lorry, under this clause the amount paid in licence would be
• considerably increased.
As the clause stood it would make an enormous difference to hauliers in ports. He gave particulars of the operation of one specific lorry in the Liverpool district. It worked, during a recent period, for six days, without a container, with loads of rice, cotton, soap and barrels of oil; for four days with a container with loads of meat; and for one day partly with a container with a load of meat and partly without a container with a load of cotton.
Surely it was going to make a considerable difference if the weight for taxation purposes w6re one figure and for the Traffic Commissioners another.
He hoped the Government would accept the amendment, but, if not, he asked that the Parliamentary Secretary would receive a deputation of men who really knew the difficulties of this business.
HARDSHIP IN RURAL AREAS.
ALARGE amount of rural traffic was affected, declared Sir J. Lamb. Lorries were freely used for carrying stock for farmers. He had particulars of the case of a lorry, taxed at £30 and permitted a speed of 30 m.p.h. If it were equipped with a rack for loading the weight would be increased to 3i tons, so that the tax would be £60 and the speed limit reduced to 20 m.p.h.
A man who now carried stock perhaps two days a fortnight, could say, if this clause became effective, that it would not pay him to cater for that class of traffic. Agriculturists would thus be deprived of the services of such lorries. There would again be livestock on the roads, which unquestionably constituted a danger.
With regard to industrial traffic, he knew of an operator who ran six B22
vehicles weighing under 2i tons and did haulage for an engineering concern. Certain goods were packed at the works into containers, which were put on the lorries and carried for some 300 miles. If a driver called, on his way, and distributed part. of the load from the container, or if at his destination he unloaded the container without taking it off the lorry, be would be liable.
Was this operator to refuse this container traffic because of the increased expenditure placed upon him? If he did so he would probably lose all the other traffic, too.
HIGHLAND SHEEP TRANSPORT HIT.
THE hardship which would ensue in the Highlands, in connection with the movement of sheep stock from the hill regions to the lowland farms in the autumn and winter seasons and back again in the spring, was referred to by Sir Murdoch MacDonald. The Government would, by the clause in the Bill, be doing an injustice to the trade.
AMENDMENT LITTLE LESS AMBIGUOUS.
THE Government, replied Captain Hudson, did not wish to be in any way unfair. The object of the clause was to clear up an ambiguous position. These vehicles with removable bodies were taxed in some parts of the country in one way and in other parts in another way. A case was mentioned in Scotland, but there had been others in England, in which completely different decisions had been giVen.
The amendment would leave the position just as doubtful as it was now. For instance, who was to decide whether goods were " ordinarily " carried with the container or not? If the container were always removed the clause did not apply. If it were never removed, the clause applied and the unladen weight included the container. If it were sometimes removed and somesometimes not removed the clause also applied, and the container was included in the unladen weight of vehicle.
Be thought this was the intention of Parliament. Section 26 of the 1930 Act said that " the weight unladen of any vehicle shall be taken to be the weight of the vehicle, inclusive of the body and all parts (the heavier being taken where alternative bodies or parts are used) which are necessary to or ordinarily used with the vehicle when working on a road." Subsection 1 of Section 14 of the Finance Act, 1922, also indicated the intention of Parliament that, where alternative bodies were concerned, the heavier body should be the one under which the vehicle itself should be charged. CONTAINER WILL NOT AFFECT SPEED LIMIT.
LIE could reassure members that the 'clause was worded so that it only applied for the purposes of taxation, and would have no effect whatever on the speed limit.
There was no obligation on any licensee either to apply to the Traffic Commissioner for extra tonnage, Of even to notify the Licensing Authority.
For -these reasons the amendment would defeat the whole object of the clause and he was afraid he could not accept it. He was, however, perfectly prepared to meet a deputation.
HAULIER PENALIZED ON PRINCIPLE.
GOODS hauliers, said Captain StrickV.land, would hear with great satisfaction that the Ministry was prepared to receive a deputation. How like the whole history of transport was the decision of the Government on this point. The only way to clear up an ambiguous position was by putting a further weight on road transport.
A haulier would have a number of lorries any one of which might be used
with a container. In order to be covered he had to pay the additional tax on the whole of his fleet. It was only the haulier who had to pay this tax, not the railway companies, which took the container on to their wagons.
He recalled that in the Standing Committee on July 11, 1933, the then Minister of Transport used these words: 'I can assure hon. members who believe, and rightly believe, in the increased use of containers in the future, instead of a large number of separate packing cases that that type of case is met by the wording of the 1930 Act, and that that type of container would not be counted in the unladen weight of the vehicle."
In view of the Parliamentary Secretary's promise to consider the matter further, the amendment was withdrawn and the clause agreed to.
FARM TRACTORS ON ROADS. D EPLYING to a question asked by I‘Colonel Goodman, Mr. Burgin appears to have interpreted regulation 5 (4) of the 1037 Construction and Use Regulations as forbidding certain agricultural tractors to be driven on roads. This regulation says that a large number of other regulations apply only to motor vehicles and trailers used on highways. One of them (No. 8) stipulates that all vehicles shall have springs, and its exemptions do not seem to include a steel-tyred farm tractor. The gist of the question was— were farm tractors motor vehicles used on highways—and it was stated in the reply that Regulation 5 (4) exempts, from the numerous provisionsreferred to, vehicles not used on roads, and that the exemption would not apply to land tractors.