rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 16 April be approved.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, the draft order is made under Section 19 of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. I should first explain why we are making these amendments. In short, a power has been created in the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 for the Lord Chancellor to make regulations. However, no provision has been made for those regulations to be subject to any parliamentary procedure, or to be made by way of statutory instrument. This was an omission in the legislation which created the power and, as this is a function of the Lord Chancellor, we are able to remedy it by subordinate legislation using the powers in the Constitutional Reform Act.

The legislative background is as follows. The Traffic Management Act 2004 inserted new Section 101B into the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. This enables the Lord Chancellor to make regulations relating to representations and appeals against charges for the removal and disposal of illegally parked vehicles found in areas that are civil enforcement areas for parking contraventions. Prior to the insertion of Section 101B, the 1984 Act did not confer any power on the Lord Chancellor to make regulations. Accordingly, Section 134 of that Act, which contains general provisions with regard to the making of regulations, did not refer to the Lord Chancellor. This is why, under the legislation as it stands, if regulations were to be made under Section 101B they would not be subject to any parliamentary scrutiny and would not fall to be made by statutory instrument. This was not the intended result of the amendments introduced by the 2004 Act, and it is undesirable that this should remain the case. A consequential amendment to the 1984 Act making such provision should have been made by the 2004 Act, but was not. The draft order before you rectifies this omission and, in particular, provides for the appropriate parliamentary procedure to be followed when regulations are made.

A similar power to Section 101B and contained in the body of the Traffic Management Act, which also provides for regulations to be made by the Lord Chancellor with respect to representations and appeals, was considered by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee during the passage of the Traffic Management Bill. That committee considered that the regulations were of such importance as to warrant the approval of both Houses of Parliament. By analogy, the appropriate parliamentary procedure for regulations under Section 101B of the 1984 Act is also by affirmative resolution.

In addition, this order also makes amendments to the 1984 Act to provide further consistency across the legislation. Subsections (1) to (3) of Section 89 of the 2004 Act allow for different provisions to be made for Greater London from those made for the rest of England, to make different provisions for Wales from those made for England and to contain incidental, consequential and transitional provisions. As it stands, the 1984 Act does not make any such provision, so those subsections of the 2004 Act are expressly applied to the power under Section 101B of the 1984 Act.

To summarise, and taking the amendments in the order in which they appear in the draft: Article 2 inserts a new subsection (6) into Section 101B of the 1984 Act. By applying subsections (1) to (3) of Section 89 of the 2004 Act to the 1984 Act, it allows for regulations under Section 101B to make different provision for different regions. Article 3 of the order amends Section 134 of the 1984 Act to provide that regulations under Section 101B may not be made unless a draft has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament. It also provides that such regulations are to be made by way of statutory instrument. I commend the order to the House, and beg to move.

Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 16 April be approved. 15th Report from the Statutory Instruments Committee.—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining this order so clearly. When I read the title, I was surprised that the Lord Chancellor has more than a passing involvement in road traffic, except perhaps by obstructing it when his shiny, stately official limousine emerges sedately from the palace gates. However, like that other Chancellor, he apparently gets his fingers in everywhere.

I note that any orders that are laid will now be subject to affirmative resolution in your Lordships’ House. That is a welcome change, but why is this necessary at all? It implies that the Government are admitting that they pushed through the 2004 Act without enough thought. I am sorry to say that it has a worrying smell of incompetence about it. I note that one of the effects of the order is to enable Greater London and Wales to be prescribed rules that are different from those for other parts of the United Kingdom, but that has surely been inherent in the intent of the existing legislation. The Minister explained the omission in the 2004 Act at some length, but was he saying that Section 101B, which concerns rights of appeal and the duties of drivers whose vehicles are removed because they are abandoned, was defective and did not allow different rules in London? Was Section 89 of the 2004 Act not designed to allow that? If the Act was defective, why has that only now—three years later—come to light?

Few of us will have any sympathy with those who leave their cars on the public highway, but is the Minister aware that there are very serious public concerns about the way in which the management of traffic enforcement, appeals and adjudication are conducted in London? There are too many stories of overzealous, often obtuse, enforcement, such as the fine recently levied on a young girl in Twickenham whose car had broken down. She was ticketed because she pushed it partly onto the pavement to reduce obstruction.

Too often action is taken, and when appeals are made, letters go unanswered. Even if appeals are upheld, money and time are seen to have been wasted on a process that common sense would have avoided. I have twice in recent months encountered this directly, and I cannot believe that other noble Lords have not had similar experiences. Drivers are never compensated for the unnecessary time, worry and expense. They are subject to criminal conviction under Section 101B if they do not conform with requests from an adjudicator, so it is essential that we see that the whole system operates fairly, efficiently and sensibly.

If regulations are brought forward under this order relating to Section 101B powers, I hope that first an opportunity is taken to look at the frequently oppressive and insensitive administration of traffic regulations, especially in the Transport for London area. Traffic enforcement is becoming a seriously alienating issue between the public, businesses and public authorities, particularly in Greater London, and it needs to be looked at.

Subject to those comments and to the assurance that the Government will consider carefully the licence given to Transport for London, which is not subject to effective democratic accountability, we welcome any effective and proportionate action that deals with the nuisance of abandoned vehicles.

My Lords, it is a pity that we need this order, but I thank the Minister for bringing it forward. The fact that it has been brought forward by the affirmative procedure is to be welcomed because it gives us a better opportunity to scrutinise it. Appeals are possibly some of the most irritating things that can happen to anybody who owns a car. You feel that you have been wronged when you get a ticket. There is something about the human condition that means that you are affronted when you get a ticket, and there is probably a PhD waiting for the psychologist who works out what is happening in that process. We do feel like that, and a clear appeals procedure should be out there for everybody. If this order is the appropriate vehicle for that, I welcome it.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, asks why this order is necessary. It is necessary because errors were made in the original Bill which were not spotted. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, shakes her head. I am sure that never happened under the last Conservative Government, but it has happened. These points have to be rectified and that is the sole purpose of the order. There was a minor error that had to be corrected, and the order that we have spent however many minutes talking about does precisely that.

The noble Lord asks what the connection is with Section 89 of the 2004 Act. Section 80 of the Traffic Management Act 2004 enables the Lord Chancellor to make regulations providing for the making of representations and appeals by individuals who have been asked to pay a penalty charge. Section 101B, which was inserted into the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, closely resembles Section 80. It confers powers on the Lord Chancellor to make regulations about representations and appeals against charges for the removal, storage and disposal of vehicles.

I note the points that the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, made on various matters relating to transport, particularly around London. These will be on the record, but they are not really part of the order in front of us. I am sure the noble Lord realises that but has had his views put down in the record. I am grateful for the support for the order and I commend it to the House.

On Question, Motion agreed to.