The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)
It is an honour and a privilege to respond on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government to the debate introduced by the right hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire) on such a serious subject.
I do not know whether the right hon. Lady knows this, but in a previous incarnation I was a firefighter. All too often, I was called to road traffic incidents—they were called something slightly different in those days, but I am more politically correct now. It is heartbreaking for families to lose a loved one, and my thoughts and prayers are with Andrew’s family.
Let me say at the outset that I hope that we can arrange a meeting with the family, because our time this evening is quite short and what we can discuss is limited. I passionately believe that, in many cases, what families bring to the road safety debate is a lot more than the “professionals” bring. It is important that families feel involved. I think it is a shame that we have not debated the matter before. I fully respect the right hon. Lady’s point about how limited the statistics are; I am all too aware of that. When I answered her parliamentary question, I tried desperately to open it up as much as possible. She will recall how long that answer was. I was disappointed that the statistics that I gave did not tell the whole story. For instance, the deaths per year figure could have included a driver from another country in Europe or anywhere in the world, inexperienced at driving on the left, who was driving a right-hand drive hire vehicle on UK roads. We are looking into whether we can make the statistics clearer. As the right hon. Lady suggested, the police have to form an opinion on whether that was a contributing factor. In Andrew’s case it obviously was. I feel for the family when a court makes a decision that does not feel to them or to us like natural justice. I know that we are not allowed to go into the court’s decision, although we have powers as Members of Parliament to appeal against leniency in some cases, and very good lawyers sometimes get results from the courts. We need to make sure that the legislation on the statute book fits the circumstances.
The title of the debate covers a broad spectrum, but as we were preparing for it I guessed that the right hon. Lady would raise a very serious issue. I thank her for the fact that her office contacted mine earlier today to give us an indication of what she would be speaking about this evening.
On dangerous driving offences, we are tightening up. In a serious case resulting in death, such as the one the right hon. Lady spoke about, there is in my opinion only one charge that could have been brought, but that is entirely up to the police and the Crown Prosecution Service in England or the Procurator Fiscal Service in Scotland.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the right hon. Lady on bringing the matter to the House today. I spoke to the Minister earlier. With reference to the information and the statistics that the right hon. Lady asked for, will that include the relationship that Northern Ireland has with the Republic of Ireland and the relevant statistics? When it come to pursuing those who were involved in accidents and who flee the country, how will the Government deal with that?
Mike Penning
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He indicated to me earlier that he would intervene. There are reciprocal agreements between the Republic and not only Northern Ireland but the rest of the United Kingdom. Interestingly, the Commission is looking at those reciprocal agreements to see whether they are fit and proper. I think the agreements work well between the Republic and the Province and the rest of the UK. We have very good relationships so prosecutions do take place. In the case of an offence as serious as the one described, it would not matter where the driver came from. They would be arrested on the spot if the police thought that they were responsible for committing an offence, and they would be prosecuted through the courts, as is right and proper.
I accept that there is an issue with minor offences, though not so much with commercial vehicles because of the system whereby we hold a deposit. If the vehicle is overweight or the driver has worked more hours than he should, we take a deposit so that they do not pay the fine. There is much more of a problem with cars. We have to be slightly careful that we do not damage our tourism industry. We want people to come to this country, drive responsibly and enjoy the wonderful countryside of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. I have seen what the devolved Parliament in Scotland has put out.
The difficulty arises at port. We cannot in any way delay someone at port under the existing agreements. In the case of some of the heavy goods vehicles that come into our ports, which we know have a track record of not being as roadworthy as they should be, I would like to detain them before they get on to UK roads. We are working with the Commission on the problem, but at present we have to let the vehicles get on to the road before we can stop them, which seems a somewhat perverse way of dealing with the problem.
There are things that we can do. The right hon. Lady referred to Lanesafe. Technology is moving on enormously. I recently drove a mid-range vehicle at the manufacturer’s test track—I must not advertise the company, but it is well known in the UK. It had lane awareness, so as I started to drift from the lane it pulled me back, although it is possible to override that. It had distance awareness, in case I got too close to the vehicle in front. More frighteningly, for those of us with daughters who drive, it had independent parking, so I was able to take my hands off the steering wheel and the car parked itself. I am not being sexist about my daughters’ driving abilities, but both my girls have had great difficulty with lateral parking—they will not mind my saying that. That is not one of the most expensive cars, a dream car or a concept car; it is a mid-range vehicle available in showrooms today.
That sort of technology is becoming available and car manufacturers are producing products such as Lanesafe, which the right hon. Lady mentioned. We would have to be very careful, because the Commission would come down on me like a ton of bricks if I in any way discriminated against another member of the European economic area who has a free right of travel here. In other words, I would have to make that available across the board, so the compulsion part would be quite difficult.
The right hon. Lady said that she had had a meeting with the Association of British Insurers. I have many such meetings. I must be honest and admit that this was not at the top of its list when it raised the matter with me. There are many other things it is concerned about, particularly the cost of insurance for young people and how we can make that transparent, but we must ensure that any ideas out there are listened to and that we work on an evidence base and ensure that our roads, which are some of the safest in the world, continue to be so.
We are very conscious of the concerns that the right hon. Lady raised about HGVs and overseas drivers, not least because they come here with their belly tanks full of diesel and compete with our hauliers. Even with the existing cabotage rules it is difficult for our hauliers to compete, so we are going to introduce lorry road user charging in this Parliament so that there is a better balance in the legislation and our truckers can compete with foreign hauliers.
However, the figures on actual incidents are very interesting. Only about 5% of the whole haulage industry is affected by overseas hauliers, and that is at the top end of the range, with the larger 44-tonners. The right hon. Lady is absolutely right that they are disproportionately represented in accidents, but not necessarily the most serious ones, which is the point I think she was making. The word “incident” is there for everyone to see. Some are reported and some are not. We are trying to ensure that foreign haulage vehicles are as rigidly maintained and as safe as our vehicles.
The Vehicle and Operator Services Agency does an excellent job of enforcement in this regard. Only recently I was on a motorway with VOSA staff when a foreign-registered 45-tonne truck went under a bridge that we had a monitor on. The electronic monitor showed that two of its axels were overweight, so the technology is simply outstanding. We pulled the vehicle over and got it to follow us back on to the weigh bridge. We identified that it was not only over its cabotage but over its hours, so we tend to pick up other things as well. What we must ensure is that exactly the same rules apply to our hauliers as apply to others.
The right hon. Lady touched on a really important point about gathering evidence. We gather unbelievable amounts of data from the police, VOSA, DVLA, ports, the Highways Agency and the courts, but do we make sure that we gather the data that we really need and are not just form-filling for the sake of it? Do we focus on exactly what we require so that, for instance, we can get a better answer to the parliamentary question she asked me? The answer is that we try. I think I am right in saying that the police fill in more than enough forms—I was on patrol with the police in my constituency on Friday night, and the amount of form-filling was mind-boggling—so we do not want them to fill in more forms; we want the forms to be as accurate as possible to give the information we require but not to be too opinionated. The evidence is absolutely crucial. The right hon. Lady says that the figures are often skewed because the police officer may think, at the time of the incident, that something was a contributory factor, but later, after looking at the evidence, that it probably was not.
We are trying to take the issue very seriously. The right hon. Lady was part of, and had a ministerial role in, the previous Administration, and such work is difficult, but that does not mean we should not do it. I am conscious that we need to do everything that we can to ensure that our roads continue to be some of the safest in the world, and that when we have visitors to this country, whether for pleasure or for business, we give them as much assistance as possible to ensure that they know what their obligations are on our roads.
We have reciprocal agreements with some countries, and I think we could develop that much more to ensure that prosecutions take place. In the case of serious offences, prosecutions do take place because the person is arrested there and then and often their bail conditions make it difficult for them to leave the country before they return to court.
The one thing that we must do, however, is to listen to the families—both the families who want, for understandable reasons, to walk away when a loved one has been lost or seriously injured, and the families who want to campaign and to make things better so that such incidents do not happen to others. I have done that with many families, by bringing them in to work with the Department, and we have actually funded some of their campaigns, rather than just those of larger organisations.
If we can do that, we can make our roads much safer, we can have fewer terrible incidents such as the one involving Andrew, and we can protect our tourism industry and allow, as we have to under EU rules, free movement, which is what we would all expect.
Question put and agreed to.