The upcoming Brexit will not mean the end of EU-legislation such as the Driver CPC in the UK, according to industry experts.
Panellists at Commercial Motor’s Brexit debate earlier this week discussed the likelihood of legislation introduced by the EU being scrapped, with unanimous agreement that it was unlikely schemes such as the Working Time Directive or Driver CPC would change drastically.
Rothera Sharp transport and motoring law solicitor Laura Newton said: “A lot of EU legislation has been enshrined in UK law, so unless other legislation comes along before exit day, the government won’t remove those UK regulations that have already been implemented.”
Delegates at the event at the Scarman conference centre at Warwick University also heard from MP for Stoke-on-Trent South Rob Flello (pictured), who said that the industry needed to find a single voice on its Brexit wishes or the government would ignore its input.
Flello said: “This industry has got to have a single voice. Whatever discussions and passionate disagreements there might be, when it comes to talking to the government it’s got to speak with one voice.
“I know from years of experience that when it [the government] has more than one voice coming at it from an industry, all it does is say: ‘if you can’t agree we’ll just do what we think is right’.”
Flello added that it was critical for industry representatives to be meeting and “arguing passionately, maybe coming from opposing angles to start with, but in the end to find common ground”.
This could be achieved if the industry’s trade associations took the lead, he said.
“The associations need to be consulting their members, as they do on a regular basis,” he said, “but then they need to have meetings like today and come up with agreed positions on tachographs, drivers’ hours and Driver CPC”.
