Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-04-07-Speech-1-071"
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"en.20030407.5.1-071"2
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"Madam President, Members of this House need no formal training, no examination and no specific qualifications, yet in this instance they are pronouncing on the qualifications required by other people who do a job for which they themselves are unqualified and which most of them could not do.
In any regulatory system not all controls have equal impact. As regulation increases in complexity and breadth, the law of diminishing returns kicks in. As control further increases it then becomes counterproductive. The case has not been made that these controls, already applying in France and the Netherlands, will make goods vehicles safer. In fact some countries which do not require these additional qualifications already have higher safety values. At the very least therefore, the law has reached the point of diminishing return.
In my own country, as the ordinary driving test has become more stringent, it becomes harder for working class youngsters to afford. As a result, driving legally has become the privilege of the sons and daughters of the wealthy, while the number of people driving without any licence is estimated at over one million. With increased training and education requirements, driving goods vehicles will similarly become the exclusive domain of the privileged middle classes or of those who are fortunate enough to work for employers who feel obliged or are possibly legally bound to pay all of their training fees, plus the cost of replacement drivers while they take time off work to complete their training courses.
For small employers, that would be a considerable financial burden which could lead to bankruptcy and subsequent job losses. In the United Kingdom most employers agree that their drivers have already taken strict tests, have undergone thorough medical examinations, and consider themselves quite rightly to be the elite amongst drivers on our roads. They would be insulted by a requirement to constantly improve their driving. Safety is of course paramount, and limits on permitted driving hours make good sense, but that is a completely different subject. Thus what we have here is reverse social engineering. This House is contributing to the process of making more and more jobs unattainable for those who traditionally did them and benefited from so doing. If it carries on in this way, we had better increase the number of places in this House, since that will be the only occupation left that unqualified people would be allowed to do."@en1
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