Road Safety Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 128:"After Clause 32, insert the following new clause—"    ““YOUNG DRIVERS’ SCHEME: PASSENGER CARRYING VEHICLES    Schedule (Young drivers’ scheme: passenger carrying vehicles) shall have effect.”” The noble Lord said: Training of people for the road passenger industry, aviation and the railways, but not goods vehicles, is in the hands of the Sector Skills Council for Passenger Transport. This has been welcomed by the Minister’s right honourable friend in another place, David Miliband, who, when it was launched, said that he ““very very very”” much approved of the professionalisation of training in the whole of the passenger industry. The council has been set up for this purpose. There is a huge shortage of bus drivers. Drivers are coming here from eastern Europe and elsewhere to take up jobs, but that supply cannot be guaranteed. We ought to be training our own young people to be the next generation of bus drivers. A lot of people in the industry are going to retire in the near future. One problem is entry into bus-driving. The purpose of this amendment is to give the Government the opportunity to bring forward on Report amendments to the regulations regarding what vehicles young people can drive. There seems to be a case for allowing younger people than at present to drive smaller vehicles so that they might begin to gain expertise, because much of the work in the road passenger industry needs you actually to be on a bus. We do not have bus conductors any more. In fact, the last bus conductors in London are to be phased out within the next few weeks. So we have a problem in getting people who are coming out of education into the world of work. We cannot put those skills in place unless steps are taken to allow them to drive smaller, less heavy vehicles, obviously after having passed the tests to ensure that those skills have been imparted. That is why we are proposing the amendment. I will not be very prescriptive at this stage, in the hope that the Minister will say that the Government will look at the amendment with a view to bringing their own amendment back on Report. If they do not do so, I will—and I will then run the risk of the Minister saying that what I have drafted is not as good as the amendment he might have drafted. I beg to move.