Mix-up on Foreign Vehicles Act
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from our Parliamentary correspondent
• For the first few weeks of its life the Road Traffic (Foreign Vehicles) Act will be legislation that cannot be completely enforced.
As a result of a half-expected change of mind by the Government, some of the powers to deal with offending vehicles will be based on another Act that does not come into operation until July — some weeks after the Foreign Vehicles measure is implemented.
This change -first suggested by the Opposition was explained by Mr Eldon Griffiths, Under-Sccretary DoE, when the Commons last week gave its final approval to the legislation.
He pointed out that, as it stood, the powers necessary for the Department's examiners arose from the Road Traffic Act of 1960, which would be superseded in July by the Road Traffic Act of 1972.
He had come to the conclusion that the arguments in favour of relying just on this year's Act, put forward in Committee by Mr Fred Mulley, were right and so the Government was suggesting a tidier and shorter measure.
It was hoped to begin implementing the powers to deal with foreign vehicles some time in early June, and so there would be a matter of weeks before the Road Traffic Act, 1972, came into operation.
But, explained Mr Griffiths, the whole rigour of the law would not be enforced immediately — the Department hoped to operate in a fashion of escalating the inspection gradually — and so he thought it right to accept the spirit of Mr Mulley's suggestions.
Mr Mulley replied that he was sure both he and Mr Griffiths would have preferred the Foreign Vehicles Bill to have become law at an earlier date, but it had been held up through no fault of Ministers or the Opposition.
It would be much tidier not to have this complicated overlapping arrangement of the two Road Traffic Acts, and he hoped that the Department would not be exercising any powers before it was legally entitled to have the powers. He would not want the Department to suffer from excess of zeal in that sense.
Mr Mulley repeated his earlier doubts about the fact that no additional enforcement officers would be involved.
This could well nullify what both sides of the House wanted to secure — the effective enforcement of British traffic regulations as to weight, and so on, with regard to foreign vehicles.