Local Transport Bill [HL]

Of course, the problem is that the Shire horse that would be transported to the Lambeth Agricultural Show might go in a Bedford TK truck that cannot be made compliant. It is not worth spending £200 to go there; it is a totally disproportionate cost. Another example is the historic London to Brighton run; again, the problem is that the vehicles cannot go. During the passage of the Road Safety Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, was extremely helpful to me when I moved the amendment about the effect of EU regulations on preserved vehicles. This is a similar problem, because I and many others operate preserved lorries and trucks. They are taxed as private heavy goods vehicles, with very low mileage and utilisation. The insurance is only £100 per annum, so we cannot be using them very much or our insurance premiums would be much higher. Yes, of course there is a 1973 exemption for vehicles built earlier than that, but a lot of preserved vehicles are much younger. What tends to happen, for example—which is much better—is that a vehicle is taken out of fleet use for preservation, rather than preserve a complete wreck. We need to preserve our transport heritage. There is a huge vehicle preservation movement in Greater London, and it should be supported not penalised. Of course, these vehicles are based within the LEZ, so what are they to do? There are similar arguments for vehicles in the taxation class ““special vehicles””. Again, these are very low-mileage vehicles, mounting specialist equipment which can often be more valuable than the chassis; again, the cost of complying with the LEZ’s technical requirements is far more than is worth doing to the vehicle. The amendment is recent, so I do not expect a detailed and definitive answer from the Minister. I lay down a marker at the moment, but advise the Committee that I intend to return to this in more detail at a later stage, perhaps with a better thought-out amendment. I beg to move.