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The following amendment to the Road Safety bill was a fishing expedition highlighting the situation in respect of unlicensed Limousines. The amendemnt was subsequently withdrawn.
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Lord Bradshaw moved Amendment No. 43:
After Clause 38, insert the following new clause—
"LIMOUSINES
(1) The Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981 (c. 14) is amended as follows.
(2) In section 13(1) (classification of licences), omit the word "either" and before the word "or" insert "limousine licence".
(3) After subsection (1) insert—
"(1A) A limousine licence authorises the use (whether on national or international operations) of—
(a) limousines not adapted to carry more than eight passengers, or
(b) limousines not adapted to carry more than sixteen passengers."
(4) After section 13 insert—
"13A DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION OF LIMOUSINES
Subject to the provisions of this section, in this Act "limousines" means a motor vehicle which being a vehicle not adapted to carry more than sixteen passengers, is used in the course of a business for the purposes of carrying passengers with the services of a driver for hire and reward where the arrangements for the payment of fares by the passenger or passengers carried are made before the journey began."
"13B ADAPTED LIMOUSINE
(1) A limousine adapted to carry more than eight passengers shall not be used on a road unless an examiner appointed under section 66A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 has issued a certificate (to be referred to as a limousine certificate) that the prescribed conditions as to fitness are fulfilled in respect of the vehicle.
(2) If a vehicle is used in contravention of subsection (1) above, the operator of the vehicle shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale."
(5) Sections 8, 10 and 11 of Part II shall apply to limousines adapted to carry more than eight passengers.
(6) Section 12 of Part II shall apply to a limousine operators' licences.""
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Minister will be pleased to hear that this is a probing amendment which we certainly do not wish to press to a Division. It concerns the issue of what are known as "stretch limousines". These are the huge white vehicles that you see cruising around the streets. If you go to places such as Blackpool or Brighton, you will see even longer ones with even more people in them, who are notable for their consumption of alcohol and the few clothes they wear.
This is an unregulated section of road traffic vehicle legislation and the object of the amendment is to ask the Minister whether it is the Government's intention to introduce regulation into this sector, particularly in regard to the number of people who can be conveyed in the vehicles and the total length of vehicle allowed. These vehicles tend to get longer and longer and to carry more and more people. There must be a limit
somewhere. I beg to move.
Lord Hogg of Cumbernauld: My Lords, perhaps I may make a brief intervention. I declare an interest as an adviser to the Confederation of Passenger Transport UK. This is a serious matter. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, have done the House a favour in bringing it to the attention of the Government.
I recently attended an exhibition of buses and coaches at the National Exhibition Centre which was organised by the CPT UK. At that event I was asked to chair a number of seminars on the problems facing the industry, and the issue that recurred and recurred—it was raised by coach operators in the main—was that of stretch limousines.
The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is absolutely correct: these vehicles are of
indeterminate length; we are not certain about the quality of their construction; and we are not satisfied about whether the skills of those who drive these vehicles are suitable for driving what is essentially a public service vehicle. There is also the serious question of the safety of passengers, particularly children. Apparently it is quite a thing to give a
ride in a stretch limo as a present at a birthday party and so on. The whole question of the safety of these young passengers should exercise us.
I wrote to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport, Mr Alistair Darling, and got back a personal reply very quickly, assuring me that the Government would look into this important matter. I should like to reinforce what the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, has said. I am grateful that he will not test the opinion of the House on this matter because of the assurance I have received from the Secretary of State that it is under active consideration. I hope that when the Minister replies to this brief debate, he will reinforce what we know to be the Government's position.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, there are two issues, among others, that interest me. The first is whether these vehicles are properly regulated because they often have more than eight occupants. The second is whether they have adequate insurance and, indeed, whether it is possible to get adequate insurance for that type of vehicle.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. Personally, I would not be seen dead in one of these vehicles, but I am worried about their construction. Some of them may have been modified, so they will not have been built in that way by the original vehicle manufacturer, and inadequate attention may have been paid to their strength. They are rather like a very long bridge; they are terribly long, and I doubt
whether the chassis is strong enough to support the load, especially if there are a lot of people inside, getting up to all sorts of mischief, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogg, pointed out. What approval requirements are applicable to such vehicles? Is it the single vehicle approval scheme or are we merely relying upon a North American-type approval? Is the
approval related to the vehicle's original design or its design when it is stretched?
Lord Bridges: My Lords, the points raised by the noble Earl are very real. We should be aware, as I am sure we all are, that these vehicles are mostly out of Detroit, they are made to American standards and they are running on our roads which are generally less wide and have different conditions. But if we pass an amendment to this effect, it might be seen by some in the United States to be directed at a particular American artefact,
and they might think we were doing it to annoy them, which I am sure is not the intention. Let us make it clear that such an amendment would be made on the basis of security, not for any other reason.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken on this issue, and I say this with my customary genuine approval. This issue did not come up in Committee and it is causing the Government concern. It is clear that we have work to do in the licensing of stretch limos. I recognise fully the concerns that have been outlined. We do not believe that a new category of licensing is required. What is necessary is that those who operate these vehicles know what the licensing regime is and are compliant with it.
As has been said in this debate, the vehicles are meant to carry eight persons within the framework of the existing licence and it is known that more persons than that are carried in some of them. Virtually any motor vehicle used in Great Britain to carry passengers for hire or reward on a commercial basis needs a licence of some kind. The type of licence required depends upon the capacity of the vehicle and the type of hire or reward operation undertaken rather than the type of vehicle used. Operating without the requisite licence is a criminal offence. Hire or reward includes indirect forms of payment in cash or in kind. For vehicles constructed or adapted to carry more than eight vehicles, the licence
required is the public service vehicle operators' licence issued by the traffic
commissioner. For vehicles which are adapted to carry eight vehicles or fewer—
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, the Minister has twice said, "For vehicles adapted to carry eight vehicles to more". He perhaps means, "Eight passengers or more".
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I apologise; I meant "eight passengers" or more. I am grateful to the noble Countess for clarifying that. I was seeking to identify that if the vehicle carries more than eight passengers, a public service vehicle licence is required. If the vehicle is to carry eight passengers or fewer, the private hire vehicle licence is the appropriate one. That is the one that applies to taxis and other private hire vehicles that can take only pre-booked hirings. Those licences are administered by the relevant local authority, which has discretion on which vehicles they will licence. It is therefore at present a matter for local decision. I think that the noble Lord is indicating that these local licensing authorities have some difficulty with regard to stretch limousines, which is why we need to address the issue.
A vehicle can also carry these numbers of passengers if they are separate fares and are being carried, "in the course of a business . . . of carrying passengers".
In that case, however, a public service vehicle operator's licence would be issued by the traffic commissioner. So we are clear on the two categories of licence that are issued. As noble Lords will recognise, some stretch limousines arguably are constructed to carry more than eight passengers. However, because of the nature of their current construction, they are allowed to be registered for use on UK roads only if they carry no more than eight passengers. That is the restriction. To carry more than eight, they would need to comply with Schedule 6, on minibuses, of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986. Vehicles of the stretched limousine type currently do not comply. In particular, they do comply with the minibus requirement because minibuses have emergency exits. One of the obvious problems that we have with stretch limousines is that they do not have any form of emergency exit. Schedule 6 could not be modified unilaterally so as to authorise non-conforming stretch limousines as a separate class without the absence of objections from right across the European Community. We think that that would be unlikely given the arrival shortly of a new European-type approval regime for large passenger vehicles which does not specifically provide for stretch limousines to the numbers that would be required. If constructed to meet the required standards, there is absolutely nothing to stop a limousine from operating as a public service vehicle. But it would need to meet the
required standards. Some manufacturers are looking at how they can adapt their stretch limousines to meet the public service vehicle requirements, which would need to include some element of emergency exit.
Because of the construction requirements I have just outlined, limousines on our roads today can in practice operate only as a vehicle constructed or adapted to carry eight passengers or fewer. They are not constructed to carry more. As I have already explained, vehicles adapted to carry eight passengers or fewer which are used for carrying passengers for hire or reward can be licensed by either the local authority or the traffic commissioner, depending on the type of operation undertaken. The type of
operation envisaged by the noble Lords in the amendment—that is, a vehicle provided with a driver and arrangements for payment of fares made before the journey—is already provided for under the private hire vehicle licensing system. Creating two types of licence for the same type of operation would be far from ideal and create significant confusion and difficulties for both the licensing and the enforcement authorities. So we
do not want two types of licence. We want to get the stretch limousines within the existing framework of licensing arrangements.
We recognise that proper enforcement is an important issue on a number of safety grounds, not just in relation to the type of vehicle but also in terms of the type of driver. After all, the driver is responsible for a significant number of people in his charge.
I should just say that the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency takes to court those operators found to be carrying nine or more passengers and thus operating illegally, and those cases are resulting in successful prosecutions. So we are concerned enough about the situation to seek to monitor the successful prosecution when these vehicles are being used illegally.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, will the Minister explain how you will be able to tell whether there are nine or more people in the car? I see those vehicles all the time, and they have black windows. Will the police have the right to pull the vehicle up?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, that is certainly an interesting point, although they are not the only vehicles on the road with opaque windows. There is no opacity with regard to the driver's window, for a start—so the police can make a challenge. It is also the case that if a police officer suspects that something illegal is being done, he is perfectly entitled to make the necessary checks. It would not take him long to open a door to discover how many passengers there were inside.
So I do not believe that enforcement is a difficulty. What is at stake here—and what the noble Lord is trying to resolve with his amendment—is how the vehicles are rendered safe and proper and meet out licensing requirement, which is to guarantee safety on the road. We believe that the current legislation fully provides for any form of operation envisaged. We are aware of concerns in this area and officials are actively looking at
what can be done to clarify the position for all parties. We recognise that we will need to get the licensing regime absolutely clear so that the licensing authorities know what kind of vehicles they are dealing with and deal with them properly. But we are absolutely certain that, when vehicles are operating illegally, prosecutions are occurring, because we are concerned about that.
Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that fairly lengthy explanation of the current situation and his assurances that officials are aware of the problems. We particularly draw his attention to vehicles carrying more than eight passengers, because some of the longer vehicles that are supposed to carry 16 are carrying considerably more. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Regards
JD
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