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Transport for London (Supplemental Toll Provisions) Bill [HL]

My Lords, it was not my personal initiative. I must ask the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, why he has introduced the Bill now. The Bill seems to spring from the requirements of the 1991 Act. Is it because of the prospect of the Thames Gateway Bridge? Perhaps the noble Lord will admit that someone has realised that the existing provisions are inadequate and that there is a need to expand them. The first thing that occurred to me when I read the Bill was the constitutional position. We have heard about the safeguards, which are the Greater London Authority, which will have to confirm an order, and then, as a long stop, the Secretary of State. The Mayor may be a member of Transport for London. If he is a member of the Transport for London board, he must be the chairman of that board. The Mayor also carries out the functions of the Greater London Authority. I admit that I have not quite got my head around the constitutional protections in Transport for London having to get confirmation of an order from the authority. Clause 5(3) sets out a number of steps which the authority ““may””, but not ““must””, do in terms of consultation, publication and so on. It may be that this is exactly the same as under the congestion charging provisions. I have not had an opportunity to look, but perhaps the Minister or the noble Lord can assist me on that today or subsequently. I am unclear too on the parliamentary procedure or, to put it another way, the democratic input. Secondary legislation would normally have to go through some sort of parliamentary procedure, inadequate as many of us have described it on a lot of occasions. I declare an interest as a member of the Liberal Democrat group on the London Assembly where we have considered the Thames Gateway Bridge frequently. If it is acceptable to us at all, it is acceptable only if there is a system of differential charging, so that vehicles such as international heavy goods vehicles are deterred from using the bridge as an alternative to the Dartford crossing. Very importantly, people who live locally want to be able to access employment opportunities and so forth on the north side of the river—the demand seems to be in that direction in particular—without having to pay as heavy a toll as those using it as a through route. I understand that local authorities, through the Thames Gateway London Forum, believe that this would be technically possible. On listening to descriptions of using new technology and vehicles, from a completely uninformed point of view, differential tolling seems likely, but I hope that that can be confirmed. Before I say my next remarks, I should say that I and my party generally see a great deal of benefit in developing road pricing. A short search of the internet has turned up, inevitably, fairly extreme ideas, as one tends to get from people who share theirs with the world through the internet. How accurate it is, I do not know, given that the first item I found, from the London Motorists Action Group, says that this Bill has passed through the House of Lords largely unnoticed. Quite what we are doing giving it a Second Reading today, I do not know. Perhaps the noble Lord would comment on an extreme, but possibly accurate, lay description of the Bill. It is a test bed for national schemes—I do not expect the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, to put his head on the block on that. Drivers will face six months in jail and a hefty fine if they tamper with spy-in-the-car tracking devices. There will be unprecedented stop-and-search powers to enter vehicles to check that devices have not been tampered with. Drivers who remonstrate with officials could face up to six months in prison—I do not imagine that they are fingered and put into prison immediately, but that is how this Bill reads. The same applies to obscuring registration plates or using false documents. Our discussions on the congestion charge have included quite a lot of debate on the obscuring of registration plates. Very muddy number plates are to be found on some vehicles. The Minister may be able to comment on the suggestion that the Bill gives the Secretary of State for Transport powers to prevent a toll scheme going ahead if the equipment is incompatible with a national standard. This may be a matter for the original Bill, but it also occurs me to ask whether the tolls we are talking about would apply to diplomatic vehicles, given the controversy over payment of the congestion charge by representatives in foreign embassies. I have said that these suggestions are being put forward in lay terms. Because this is an enabling provision, but perhaps not only for that reason, the language of the Bill is not readily understandable and therefore it is not easy to understand its impact. I agree strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that the legislative impact and legislative chains might well be made very clear.