Road Transport Topics
Page 32
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In Parliament
By Our Special Parliamentary Correspondent
PROVISIONS OF THE FINANCE BILL.
•
HE Finance Bill has three clauses
dealing, under Customs and Excise, with road vehicles. One relates to the exemption from duty of vehicles used for road construction. The second deals with the remission of duty in the case of motor vehicles used on roads only for subsidiary purposes. The third makes provision for facilitating the prosecution of persons using vehicles without excise licences. Three of the schedules provide for the money for road schemes to be supplied by Parliament instead of from the Road Fund.
ROAD-CONSTRUCTION-VEH1CLE CLAUSES.
rLAUSE 9 of the Bill provides that
no duty shall be payable, under Section 13 of the Finance Act, 1920, in respect of any mechanically propelled road-construction vehicle, if the road-construction machinery, built in or permanently attached to the vehicle, be used for no other purpose than the construction or repair of roads. It is proposed that the exemption from duty of such vehicles shall take effect from October 1, 1936.
Clause 10 provides that the licensing authority may. exempt the.vehicleqroin the duty payable under. Section-13,of the 1920 Act if the vehicle fs to be used an roads repairable at the public
522 expense, only in passing from land in occupation to other land in the occupation of the licence holder and for distances not exceeding, in the aggregate, six miles in any week.
FACILITATING EXCISE-LICENCE PROSECUTIONS.
WHERE it is alleged that a vehicle . has been used in contravention of Section 13 of the Roads Act, 1920, which provides for the punishment of persons who use vehicles without the appropriate excise licences, Clause 11 of the Bill makes the following provisions;—
That the owner of the vehicle shall give such information as may be required regarding the identity of a driver, and, if he fait to do so, shall he guilty of an offence unless he show to the satisfaction of the Court that he did not know, and could not have ascertained who was driving.
That any other person shall, if required, give any information he can which may lead to the identification of the driver, and, if he fail to do so, he shall be guilty Of an offence. •
Under; this clause, any person 'guilty of an offence • shall be liable on S rn a ry conviction to. a finenot exceeding :£20.