My Lords, these amendments set out requirements to report on a range of matters related to road haulage, from the allocation of permits to forecasting how a permits regime will affect the efficiency of road haulage, what our future arrangements will be for transporting goods, the cost to the road haulage industry and the permit arrangements for foreign hauliers. As noble Lords have made clear, road haulage is essential to our economy. It is an
indispensable enabler of much of the wider economy, too. I appreciate that the Committee’s concerns here are how the permits system may affect the movement of haulage between the United Kingdom and the EU, and any impacts on UK hauliers and the wider economy—the direct financial impacts to industry and the wider economic effect.
The key impact for hauliers alongside the use of permits, as highlighted by many noble Lords, will be any restriction of trade and the possible friction at borders, which is why we are obviously doing what we can to reduce that. I am afraid I cannot give any further information on the wider negotiations currently taking place, and can only repeat that a future partnership is in the interests of both sides.
In implementing this legislation, we will bring forward a straightforward system that minimises any additional burdens or costs for business arising from the scheme. I previously set out that there will be no new transport checks required at borders. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, proposes that we produce a report outlining the content of any agreement on the allocation of permits, if they are required. When our agreement with the EU is settled, we will of course ensure that the haulage industry is properly informed and educated. As he predicted, I can say that we will publish the details of that scheme as soon as it becomes available. I am not convinced of the need to enshrine in the Bill the requirement to lay such reports before Parliament, as the information will be in the public domain.
Within the other amendments, Amendment 12 proposes that one month after the Bill comes into effect, and thereafter on an annual basis,
“the Secretary of State must lay a report before both Houses of Parliament containing a forecast of how the permits regime will affect the efficiency of haulage”,
while the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has tabled an amendment about reporting within three months of the Bill coming into effect on the arrangement of the allocation of permits. I will address those together.
Although I cannot provide detailed forecasts of the impacts on the haulage industry while we are in negotiations as we do not know the final deal, as I have said, we are aiming to continue the existing liberalised access we have today. Again as predicted, this time by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, I do not believe that a requirement in legislation to produce a report containing analysis of how the permits scheme has impacted haulage is appropriate, or indeed even possible, one month or three months after the Act is passed as suggested, as negotiations may still be concluding.
However, I absolutely agree that it is incredibly important that the impact of any EU permit scheme—if that is required, and we are obviously all keen that it will not be—is assessed at an appropriate stage to take into account the application of the agreement itself, the administration of the scheme and the effect it will have on industry. If we need any new permit scheme, it is unlikely to have gone live within the timescales suggested, and we would not be in a position to provide any evaluation of its impacts. As I have said, we will publish details of the scheme as soon as they
are available, but I absolutely recognise that there is a need to review the impacts. I will consider how best to do this ahead of Report and come back to noble Lords on that.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, made a point about information. Where possible, we aim to use existing information provided as part of the operator’s licence, and of course we will consult on all additional information needed and will aim to minimise that. He helpfully highlighted previous requirements, which certainly seem excessive to me. If we can use the negotiations to simplify the information needed on permits, we should certainly do that. As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, this should be as simple and straightforward as possible.
I turn to the amendments on foreign hauliers. The Bill is not directly concerned with the operation of foreign hauliers in this country, except to the extent that Clauses 10 and 11 allow for derogations from a permitting scheme in emergencies. With the exception of Clauses 10 and 11, the Bill is solely concerned with requirements on UK hauliers operating internationally and provides powers only for the UK Government to issue permits to UK hauliers. But in light of the amendments, and because how EU hauliers are treated in the UK is incredibly important, it is probably helpful to outline the Government’s current thinking on international hauliers operating in the UK.
As noble Lords have pointed out, foreign hauliers play an essential part in freight movements between the UK and the EU. Foreign-registered HGVs carry more than five times as much freight as UK-registered HGVs, hauling 40 million tonnes between Great Britain and the other 27 EU member states. While the UK remains an EU member state, we participate in the Community licence scheme, an EU-wide scheme that permits a haulier licensed in one member state to operate across the Union, including some cross-border and within-border trade in other member states. The arrangements we make with the EU should, of course, be reciprocal. Whether we will require a permit scheme for foreign hauliers, and how it will work, will be subject to negotiations with the EU in the same way as whether UK hauliers will require a permit in the EU.
If future arrangements require permits for UK vehicles to travel to the EU, it follows that EU vehicles would require permits to travel to the UK. If we did require a permit scheme it would be for other member states, rather than the UK, to organise the issuing of their own permits. That would not be something the UK Government did. How they allocate these will be up to them, but we will discuss this with them in detail. I would be interested to hear their thoughts on first come first served and random allocation. That is why the Bill does not address this.