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Mr. Chope: That is very helpful. Obviously, for the sake of 10 minutes or quarter of an hour, I hope we will not have to adjourn for an hour and a half, but I am conscious of the fact, as you will have seen this afternoon, that the debates on individual issues sometimes take longer because of the responses, or lack of them, that we get. There is no guarantee that we will finish by 6 o'clock, although we might if all goes well, but hopefully we will do so within a reasonable period thereafter.
The Chairman: Let us see how we go. We will try and work to that. I understand exactly what the hon. Gentleman says. I have made it quite clear that if the Committee wants a tea break and a dinner break and to go on until midnight, it is fully entitled to do so, since I have no wish to curtail the debate. We will work on that basis.
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Clause 39
Disclosure of information about insurance status of vehicles
Question proposed,, That the clause stand part of the debate.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendment No. 66. If there is a debate now, I will put the stand part question with the question formally on amendment No. 66 when we reach it in, I hope, not too long a time.
Mr. Chope: How will the clause work in practice? It talks about a register of people who have the right to drive a vehicle and are covered for insurance against third-party risks. Obviously, many of those people can drive vehicles of which they are not the main keeper or the owner as a result of the conditions set out in their insurance, which says that they can drive the car for which they are insured and the vehicle belonging to someone else with their permission, but if they do so they will be insured only for third-party risks.
Let me give a practical example. If I drive my wife's car using my own insurance, how is the information that it is insured for third-party risks conveyed to the register? We have a different system from the continent. In this country, it is the driver rather than the vehicle that is insured.
Mr. Jamieson: Clause 50 that the disclosure of information, under clause 39, about the insurance state of vehicles extends only to England and Wales. That is an error, as it should provide that clause 39 extends to England, Wales and Scotland. So here we go again, Mr. Pike. Amendment No. 66 rectifies that error by providing that the clause extends to England, Wales and Scotland.
In layperson's terms, clause 39 ensures that the police have a database showing vehicles that are no longer insured. Through the automatic number plate reading system, they can pick up the vehicles on the database that are actually on the road. The police officer does not have to stop the vehicle to do that. He can do it using new technology.
As for the example given by the hon. Member for Christchurch, there is usually a condition that one cannot drive another car unless somebody else has insurance on that vehicle. One of the conditions of driving somebody else's car is that it has current insurance. It cannot be a vehicle that has no insurance. For the time that someone drives the insured vehicle, any claim would be made against his insurance rather than the keeper or owner of the vehicle who had taken out separate insurance. He may be driving the car and, although he has insurance that covers him for driving other vehicles, unless valid insurance is held on that car by somebody else, he may be driving uninsured.
The police, through the ANPR, would pick up those vehicles that did not have specific insurance on them. I am sure that hon. Members will agree that it is an excellent method for the police to dispose quickly of
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those people who are insured. They would not have to bother with them, but the people who are not insured would be picked up rapidly and brought to book.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 39 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 40
Motorway picnic areas etc.
Mr. Jamieson: I beg to move amendment No. 50, in clause 40, page 46, line 18, at end insert—
'(aa) in subsection (3) (power to manage), after ''picnic area'' insert ''(including, in particular, by enforcing controls on parking there and recovering the costs of doing so)'','.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendment No. 51.
Mr. Jamieson: Amendment No. 50 concerns section 112 of the Highways Act 1980, which deals with the Secretary of State's power to manage picnic areas. Public areas beside motorways will be designed to provide motorists with the opportunity to take a short break in the course of their journey. The Secretary of State is already able to limit the stays at picnic sites as part of his general power to manage sites. However, some individuals may wish to use these sites on a long-term basis. The picnic area would then be unavailable for the legitimate use of motorists. There may also be a risk of damage to the facilities on the site.
The proposed amendment would strengthen the Secretary of State's power by allowing the enforcement of waiting restrictions by removing vehicles and the recovery of costs of doing so. The power will extend to all trunk road picnic sites, not just those on motorways. Amendment 51 is a consequential amendment to the title of the clause; a motorway is a trunk road but a trunk road is not necessarily a motorway. The amendments strengthen the clause but this clause is necessary to ensure that we can remove people who want to squat on the site for long periods of time.
Mr. Chope: Will the Minister let us have a list of trunk road picnic sites? We are obviously familiar with the motorway service area network, but there is no list of trunk road picnic sites that I am aware of, and they would be affected by this amendment. I understand if the list is not immediately available, but it would be useful to have such a list, with which we could inform the motoring public.
Mr. Jamieson: If such a list existed I would make it available to the hon. Gentleman. Some of the sites are privately owned. These usually tend to be picnic sites/cafes. I will look into it to see if there is anything that we can provide that will be of any help. But as I understand it, there is no list of these sites available. Once we start experimenting with bringing these in on motorways it will be a different matter. Of course the
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sites by motorways will have to be controlled much more rigorously owing to the nature of the road and the regulations that go with it.
Amendment agreed to.
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Chope: This is a very significant clause in the Bill. The problem of people killing or injuring themselves or others through fatigue on the motorways is desperately serious and has been the subject of an important survey by the advanced drivers association. It has also been the subject of a lot of concern and coroners' inquests and so on. The Minister is proposing, under the powers being taken in this clause, to have one—and I emphasise one—experimental picnic area which might be up and running by 2008. That is a pretty inadequate response to what is an issue of growing concern among those interested in road safety.
My next point is that, as I understand it, there has been no consultation on this with the existing motorway service area providers. If these picnic areas were to be set up they would be competing with the existing motorway service areas. It may well be that the existing motorway service area providers would be in a strong position to build, design and commission picnic areas if they were given a bit more flexibility to enable them to do so. At the moment, establishing a new motorway service area costs the best part of £25 million. About 80 per cent. of that is the cost of constructing the exit from the motorway, the slip road back on to it, the hard standing and surface areas, lavatories and so on. The other 20 per cent. is the cost of providing the other facilities, such as the food, restaurants or amusement arcades.
The Minister will remember the initiative taken by the Conservative Prime Minister, the former right hon. Member for Huntingdon, under the citizen's charter. Establishing more frequent stopping places on motorways was one of the first initiatives under that charter.
Mr. Jamieson: What did they do about it?
Mr. Chope: As a result of that, quite a lot of extra motorway service areas were constructed, with the emphasis on 15-mile rather than 30-mile intervals. However, the Minister will know that, under his Government, there has been a substantial tail-off in the development of motorway service areas. I think that only one can be described as being anywhere near the M25, so there is still a big gap on the M25, and there are gaps on other roads. Meanwhile, a highly competitive industry with a great deal of expertise in providing motorway service areas wonders why there has been no consultation with it about this proposal and why it will not be involved in the delivery of new areas, instead of it going back in-house as the Minister suggests.
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Under the existing arrangements for developing motorway service areas, the planning rules are rigorous. One reason why so few have been developed is the enormous difficulties in obtaining planning permission, through an inevitable public inquiry and all that goes with it. Most of the sites are in the green belt or in rural areas. What planning regime will apply to motorway picnic areas? Will local people have a bigger say in opposing them than they have now? Will there be a competitive site selection process, as there is now? At present experts are going round the country identifying possible sites and using that expertise to make proposals. The Minister seems to think that there should be a top-down, Government-know-best approach to setting up the new picnic stops.
While the Minister is thinking about improving the attractiveness of stopping places on the motorway so that motorists suffer less fatigue, can he think about the need to deregulate some of the existing rules relating to motorway service areas, which inhibit the operators' ability to develop them in accordance with popular demand? Members of the motorway service area industry have made a range of suggestions. I shall not go into them now, but they are designed to ensure that motorway service areas are more attractive places to stop and more in keeping with the needs of the modern travelling public. It is their belief that the number of people who would stop on the motorway for a rest and/or refreshment would be significantly increased if the service areas were made more attractive. They think that that might be a better, more direct and quicker way of increasing the number of people who stop on motorways for a rest than the establishment of just one new picnic area.
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