My Lords, when I was 17, I owned a motor car which was six years older than I was. It was in the days when a good tyre was one where you could not see the canvas. I was happy with my motor car. Suddenly the dreadful news of the MoT fell on the world. My motor car, which cost £7 and 10 shillings—about 200 quid, I suppose, in today’s money—had to have an MoT. In the early days of the MOT, you still did not need tread to get through, you just needed not to have canvas. We were terrified: this was going to be the end of the world for the motoring community. In the real world, it has not turned out like that at all. The MoT has progressed and become more refined. As we were discussing on another Bill in a similar area, 90%-plus of road accidents are now down to the driver. Vehicles are now extraordinarily safe because of this progressive legislation.
We talk about a small trailer, but even the smallest trailer weighs about half the weight of the vehicle pulling it. It will have kinetic energy similar to the car. We have a system to manage the kinetic energy of the car called the MoT, drink-driving rules, and so on, and we have created safety in the car. Here we have on the back an almost unregulated vehicle with its own kinetic energy. The case for managing that at first sight looks overwhelming.
Conversely, we need to understand the incidence. This goes to the centre of modern lawmaking, because if it is sensible, it is about proportionality. We do not have the data in front of us, and therefore we will not formally support the amendment at this stage. The arguments made by my noble friend about the nanny state effect and the community feeling that it is unreasonable are real.
I hope that the amendment will secure the Minister’s attention on how to reach proportionality. If there are few accidents and very few fatalities, then arguably the proportionality argument says, “Don’t interfere any more”. If that is not true, however, then the Government of the day have to look at it very carefully, explain to us what the research is, convince us that it is top of the agenda in terms of progressing regulations and come to a situation where society accepts that if there is to be regulation it is worth while.
2.45 pm