Traffic Management Permit Scheme (England) Regulations 2007

I, too, welcome the order; it has been a long time coming. There has been a lot of representation from the utilities about this, a lot of which has been somewhat febrile. The utilities basically make a lot of money: they post huge profits and get sold to one another for large profits. Against that, we are talking about permits—as the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, has just said—where the fines are almost derisory. In preparation for today, I have a note from the police on this issue. Some of the penalties currently levied, such as £30 for no seatbelts or driving a heavy lorry through country lanes, are ludicrously low. In fact, the operator, in the case of a heavy lorry, recoups that on one illegal journey, of which he makes many. Similarly, along with the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, I believe that the penalty level for not observing the permit regulations is too low and hope that it will be taken into account in the review. The Minister mentioned that the schemes would have to be authorised by the Secretary of State. Why? If the permit scheme is designed in accordance with the regulations and put before a local authority—a county council in many cases, or a metropolitan authority—surely its officers should be able to decide whether the scheme has been advanced in accordance with the regulations before it. I deplore the Government’s attitude that everything has to go to the highest level. I know that the Secretary of State does not sign it, but an official on his behalf—but is that official any better qualified, for example, than the chief executive or director of a local authority? Will the Minister ruminate on this making a cumbersome process? I hope—again, with the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield—that a lot of people take up this system. I hear what the noble Lord says about a permit scheme possibly being needed within three months. However, from my knowledge of utility schemes, they are several years in the planning, as is a new estate. Utility companies would be well advised to get in their applications in a timely fashion and not resort to the use of emergency powers. They often do that, and say that they must dig up the road because of floods, gas leakage or electricity failures, and are therefore not properly controlled by any permit scheme. I do not take the views of the utility companies into consideration any more. The Government have listened long and hard to them, and have possibly erred too far on their side. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, I represent people who have to use the roads, whose journeys are constantly disrupted. They want to see proper planning of the highway brought in so that it can be managed in the most effective way.