My Lords, “first come, first served” implies immediately a limited number of permits, a shortage of permits and problems in the industry. I want to read the general conditions from one such permit issued nearly 35 years ago, which civil servants may find useful during the negotiations. It is quite short, but raises a number of issues. Under “General Conditions”, it states:
“This authorisation, together with the journey record mentioned below, must be carried on the vehicle and be produced at the request of any authorised inspecting officer. It authorises only the number of journeys indicated. It is not valid for national transport. It is not transferable. The carrier is required to comply, in the territory of each Member State, with the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of that State, and in particular with those concerning transport and traffic. This authorisation must be returned to the issuing agency within fifteen days of date of expiry. Before each transport operation, the holder of this authorisation is required to prepare any journey record provided for in bilateral agreements. Such journey record must be returned at the same time as this authorisation”.
So it is a fairly complicated process for the hauliers.
If it is not used within 15 days of the date of expiry, it is returned, but that permit has already been allocated to a specific journey—if that is what it says in the terms and conditions. Is that permit then written off? Does it affect the total number or permits that are allocated, or can we simply allocate a substitute permit, having declared that permit to be written off? I am asking this because, if a limited number of permits are allocated, there is going to be some argument about where they are going. I am trying to establish how we calculate the total numbers that are allocated.
I have been thinking about the earlier intervention by my noble friend Lord Snape. He talked about it being of benefit, in certain circumstances, to our haulage industry. There is a problem there, because we want to avoid that. If we are going into these negotiations on the basis that we want enough permits to supply all the demand, the last thing we want to do is starve the Irish of permits. If they need them, they should be given them, because that helps our case in the negotiations with the European Union.