No Govt budge
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NIOR Environment Minister, Lord Bellwin, last week refused to rmise that a single non-profit making organisation would always responsible for the testing of commercial vehicles. He said this ring the report stage of the Transport Bill.
■ Ithough the Government ex:ted that the talks currently ng on with Lloyds Register
would be successful, it did not mean that the system could only be organised in one way. In any case, no system involving private sector testing could be implemented unless Parliament approved.
The nearest the Government came to defeat was over the issue of who should be allowed to be involved in the testing.
Tory peer Lord Lucas narrowly failed to persuade the Lords that anyone "engaged in the manufacture, sale or repair of motor vehicles", should be allowed to carry out the testing.
Lord Lucas said it was the haulage industry which was concerned to keep commercial interests out of the testing authority. There was a fear that at some time the people who sold the industry lorries, and who repaired them, would end up by being testers.
Lord Bellwin insisted there were sufficient safeguards in the Bill to cover the operators' fears. A computer analysis of test results would continue and would reveal any abnormal pattern which might indicate an improper influence on testing standards.