My Lords, it is the tradition in Grand Committee to agree to withdraw amendments, and I shall shortly do so. However, I am disappointed with the Minister’s response. I thought I gave her a rather generous invitation to accept Amendment 1.
There is something I find more puzzling still. Over the weekend I extended my reading to take in the international road freight permits policy scoping document. While it does not give us a lot more information, paragraph 1.6 says that the Bill is intended to support the Government’s aim of continuing the liberal access for commercial transport to the EU. It goes on to say that the importance of keeping essential trade flowing is recognised by the EU and is strongly in the mutual interest of both sides, and the industry is therefore confident that a deal will be secured to ensure that essential trade flows will continue without any restriction on access.
I take the argument that this is an opportunity for the Government to look at other ways in which haulage could be permitted, not just in the EU but more widely. I welcome the observation made by the Minister about the way in which they are going to try to simplify the permit scheme and, it seemed to me, bring schemes together to look for a simple way forward in the future. The beauty of the Community licence approach is that it is very simple. Once the primary point has been satisfied and you get the standard international operator’s licence in place, things flow from that. Therefore, I do not think that it is too big an ask to try to have that as an objective in the negotiations.
I will obviously undertake to read what the Minister has said in her reply, but I think it likely that I shall want to bring back this amendment, or one very similar, at Report. I do not think we have heard enough from her to persuade me otherwise, hard though she has tried this afternoon. Our haulage industry requires a bit more certainty and a sense of the Government’s direction of travel, what they have in mind and what their objective is.
If I have one fundamental objection to the Bill, it is that it is only a framework and is entirely skeletal. That much is very clear, not least from the reports that have been prepared by the Constitution Committee and the DPRRC. It is not a very satisfactory Bill, because we will end up having something skeletal as a contingency—that is what this Bill is. If we have to press the button and make it go live—to make it work and make it govern the way in which haulage operates as an industry—the Government will end up having to
colour in a lot of the blanks that the Bill leaves, and will have to take rather urgent action to do that at a time when most of us, not least the industry itself, will be worrying about issues relating to Brexit.
I am grateful to the Minister for her response and to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for his help in attempting to clarify things for her. I am grateful for the support I have had this afternoon for Amendment 1, across the Committee. I therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment.