If the Transport Committee learned one thing on Monday, it is that the regulation, and application of regulations in the small vehicle sector are complex.
Whether after almost two hours of questioning they were any clearer is debatable – but they did learn that the issue has not been dealt with for some time.
Responding to questioning CPT’s Steven Salmon told the committee that it had raised the issue of unfair competition, due to Section 19 permit abuse, in 2009 but that it had to “agree to disagree” with the Department.
He reported that its approaches have been similarly rebuffed on a number of occasions since then.
The only alternative, he said, would have been to take the government to court, but CPT’s legal advice was that “it wouldn’t necessarily win.”
Now that legal action has been taken, the DfT has been forced to ‘do something’.
That ‘something’ was a letter on 31 July that sent shockwaves through the community transport (CTs) sector. It said that the current situation will be reviewed and that work where payment is involved – hire-or-reward – is likely to require an O-Licence.
But the perceived lack of clarity, pending the DfT’s yet to be published consultation, has panicked many CTs. There is little doubt that a few CTs have grandly abused the permit system, but if the then ministers had acted at the time, a lot of pain and heartache would have been avoided.
