Road Traffic Law Enforcement

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes, I think for the first time. I cannot claim to be a West Ham supporter—I very much hope you will forgive me for that.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)]

You should claim to not be a West Ham supporter.

[Richard Burden]

I will not rise to the Minister’s bait, even though he tempts me to do so. I congratulate the Transport Committee and its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), on securing this debate and on considering the Government’s road safety strategy and, in particular, the issue of enforcement. I thank the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) for their important contributions to the debate. My hon. Friend’s contribution was remarkable. As he observed, he managed—according to the annunciator—to achieve omnipresence, being here in Westminster Hall and speaking in the Chamber simultaneously.

This is a really important report. We all know—it has been mentioned several times in the debate—that the UK has a proud road safety record. At least, it had one for almost two decades, when deaths and serious injuries fell sharply, but the worrying reality is that since 2010 that progress has stalled. The latest rolling figures show that there has been no reduction in total road deaths and a 2% increase in serious casualties in the past 12 months. Meanwhile, even though a great deal was achieved over those decades, drinking and driving-related casualties have been effectively stuck at about 240 a year since 2010.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside, and all hon. Members who spoke, drew attention to the situation regarding mobile phone use at the wheel. I know that at the end of last year the Government introduced more stringent measures on mobile phone use, which are welcome. However, is that really enough when the RAC’s latest report on motoring estimates that almost one in three drivers still thinks it is okay to check their phone while at the wheel? In the way that it was made socially unacceptable to ignore having seatbelts in a car or to drink and drive, we must use every tool at our disposal to change the culture of drivers using mobile phones at the wheel.

Personally, like my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse, I do not doubt the Government’s sincerity on road safety. However, the reality of their record has been one of disappointment in recent years. They are failing on their manifesto commitment to reduce casualties year on year. Some important causes of that failure have already been alluded to. The first, which my hon. Friend was right to mention, concerns road safety targets. They were introduced under Labour, and I have no doubt that they successfully reduced the number of KSIs—those killed or seriously injured. The reduction was about a third. Road safety targets focused minds and attention, and I still do not see the reason and logic behind the Government’s persistent refusal to bring them back. As my hon. Friend mentioned, why, when we support international targets at the UN and European level, do we still reject them as far as our own country is concerned?

We also need to think about whether the Government’s 2015 road safety statement was really up to the mark. I do not think it was. There was no clear statement of resources or guidance for local authorities, and there were no objective measures to improve young drivers’ safety. Throughout virtually all of the last Parliament we were eagerly awaiting a Green Paper on young drivers that never materialised. It was going to be published “next year”, then “at Christmas” and then “shortly”, but then it never came at all. The 2015 statement also had no mention of the “Vision Zero” goal that other countries have adopted—the goal of eliminating deaths as part of a safe systems approach to road safety. As for measures to protect vulnerable road users, we are still waiting for the fully funded cycling and walking strategy that the Government have been promising “shortly”—in their word—for quite an extraordinary length of time.

The fact is that the Government’s approach on this issue has been piecemeal and limited in effect. Central to that failure is the title of today’s debate and the key recommendation underlined by the Transport Committee in its report last year: the question of enforcement. According to the response to my written question on 1 February, official figures show that since 2010 the number of officers outside the Metropolitan police with road policing functions has fallen from 5,337 to 3,436. That is a cut of about one third; it is actually a bigger cut than that identified by the Transport Committee. The Committee is right to say that a combination of education, engineering and penalties is key to improving safety conditions, but also that those things

“must be backed up by effective enforcement with road users knowing that infringements will be detected.”

That brings me to the question of how policing priorities are set and the constraints in that regard. The Government can say that policing priorities are a matter for local forces, and in a sense that is right—it is important that they are set locally and reflect local conditions—but they cannot be in any way meaningful if the police up and down the country simply do not have the resources to deliver the priorities that they want to deliver across the piece.

As the Transport Committee noted in paragraph 7 of the report, road policing is not a nationally set strategic priority, and the variation in strategies appears to be continuing. For example, in quarter 1 of last year, seven forces did not even submit casualty reports to the Government on time, forcing the DFT to estimate the figures. Meanwhile, across the country we have seen fixed penalty notices for mobile phone usage plummet by not far short of 90% over five years. I would like to think that that reflects a sea change in the attitude of motorists to using mobile phones, but I think we know from the RAC report and elsewhere that the reality is likely to be different. In evidence to the Select Committee, the Institute of Advanced Motorists noted that the falling levels of enforcement risk developing a culture in which being caught is seen as a matter of bad luck rather than bad driving.

I therefore ask the Minister to address the question that has been put to him twice in this debate so far. Will he reveal what impact assessment he has done on the effect of falling police numbers on road safety, and if there has been no such impact assessment, will he please undertake one? Can he also assure us that he will speak to his Home Office colleagues to ensure that forces send through accurate and timely casualty reports, which are essential? What meetings has he had with the Association of Chief Police Officers following the report from the Transport Committee and the latest statistics for the number of officers involved in road safety duties?

I have no doubt that every police and crime commissioner and every chief constable in this country wants to see safe roads. I have no doubt that every single one of them wants to devote as many officers as they can to achieving safety on our roads. However, if they do not have the resources to do that, all too often it is road traffic policing that ends up falling off the end of the list of priorities. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse was right: the Department for Transport has a key role to play if that culture is to be turned around.

There needs to be a cross-Government strategy. It is vital that central Government does not work in silos on this issue and that the DFT steps up to take the lead on how we can ensure that the necessary resources are made available for effective enforcement. I hope the Government will think about how road safety can be integrated into their third attempt at producing a clean air strategy, and will they also think about whether the second road investment strategy can allocate a specific budget to road safety?

I hope that the Minister will address the important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside about ensuring that cross-border work on road safety, particularly in relation to the European Union, is maintained at a high level and that Brexit does not jeopardise or undermine that.

Will the Government also think about what levers can be used to incentivise further the uptake of telematics or black boxes and the use of technology to deter mobile phone use at the wheel, which various hon. Members have mentioned? Could the recently published Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill, which has clauses on automated vehicles, be used as a vehicle—pardon the expression—for pursuing some of those agendas?

I hope the Minister will recognise, from today’s debate and others, that there is cross-party concern about this issue. I hope he will agree to take full stock of his Government’s road safety approach and recognise that despite their sincere pledges to improve road safety, the strategy is falling short as things stand. This is a cross-ministerial challenge for not only his Department but the Ministry of Justice and, equally, the Home Office. I hope he will ensure that the Home Office, police and local authorities are all on the same page and have the capacity, in practice, to enforce the law as we all want to see it enforced.

I would like to end with four further questions to the Minister on improving road safety. Will he commit to ensuring that all police forces have sufficient support to deliver reductions in all forms of casualties? What work is he undertaking to review the Scottish drink-drive limits that the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South mentioned? We need to look at what the impact has been of reducing the limit there and whether we can learn any lessons.

Will the Minister give us a timeframe for when the cycling and walking investment strategy will be published and an assurance that it will have the resources to back it up when finally it is published? Finally, will he listen to campaigners within the road safety community and do what my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside has urged him to do, and which I urge him again to do, by reinstating road safety targets? They can perform a valuable role in achieving the vision of nobody being killed or seriously injured on our roads in future.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)]

I am not sure I have served under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I am not a West Ham supporter; I have to put that on the record right away. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) on securing this debate. Before we go any further, I must say that I will relay the comments on road policing to the Minister responsible in the Home Office. I have regular meetings with colleagues in the Home Office. This is very much a cross-departmental initiative, and we have had some very positive moves. I expect to see that continue.

In the Government’s road safety statement in December 2015, we welcomed the fact that the Transport Committee was looking at this topic, and I am happy to reiterate that welcome in today’s debate. This debate is extremely timely. Three weeks ago, my Department published road casualty statistics for the third quarter of last year. The figures for those killed and seriously injured on our roads showed an increase of 6% in the year ending 2016 compared with 2015. That is clearly a move in the wrong direction, and we must not in any way be complacent, but we must also be cautious before jumping to conclusions. There is not enough evidence yet to conclude that the change can be explained by statistical natural variation in deaths over time. I am very aware that we will want to keep that under close review.

We have a manifesto commitment to reduce the number of road users, including cyclists, who are killed or injured on our roads every year. Enforcing road traffic laws to ensure that offenders pay the penalty for their wrongdoing can help to get that statistic on a downward trend again. I was asked whether I met regularly with the police service on the matter, and I do. The police lead is Chief Constable Suzette Davenport from Gloucestershire. I have also written to each of the forces around the country about their reporting, so I am happy to give confirmation right away on some of the questions asked.

[Richard Burden]

Before the Minister leaves the question of the police, I accept and am pleased about what he said before—that he will talk to his Home Office colleagues—but he was also asked a direct question on at least two occasions today about whether he had undertaken any review of the reductions in police numbers devoted to road policing and the impact on road safety. If he has not undertaken any such review, will he do so?

[Andrew Jones]

We look at all the ingredients that combine to influence road safety. On penalties for use of mobile phones, for example, it was highlighted that the number of penalties issued had fallen significantly—that is a fact—but during that time the number of people who have suddenly lost their lives in incidents in which handheld mobile phone use was considered a factor has remained exactly the same. The figure has been consistent. That tells us that mobile phone use is an ingredient, but that there is no direct causal link between one fact and another—a number of factors are in play. Do I think that enforcement matters, however? Yes, I do. I agree entirely with the principles of education, engineering and enforcement. Are we reviewing that? Yes, it is one of the many ingredients that we review constantly.

To go back to the big four, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside, the most common traffic offence is indeed speeding. We know that excessive speed kills, and I agree with the Select Committee that cameras are an important and effective technology in detecting speeding offences. We use technology in every other part of human life, so why on earth would we not use it in something as critically important as road safety? I occasionally get letters saying, “We need to remove cameras. They are an infringement of civil liberties”, or that we are unfairly targeting motorists. That is absolute nonsense. It is, however, for local authorities and local police forces to determine where cameras should be sited for their best effect.

The best effect lies, I agree, in getting drivers to respect the speed limits, not in simply generating revenue. Where a camera generates significant ongoing revenue, the local safety partnership should be asking why and whether, for example, the speed limits are clearly signed. The Government are not generally in favour of hypothecating tax revenues—we are no different from Governments of all colours over many years—but, having said that, we are working to hypothecate the vehicle excise duty to Highways England and the road investment strategy. There is not, however, a parallel between hypothecating speed fines and road safety.

I agree that there is a high level of compliance—the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) called it “obedience”, but it is compliance. That is the word we are looking for when we see the use of average speed cameras, because a marked change in driver behaviour results. That is a personal observation. He also asked if we had information from communities on local camera use and so on. I do not have that information, but I will see whether we can find some. If we can, I will share it with the hon. Gentleman.

Drink-driving is clearly a critical issue. We certainly take seriously the threat that all dangerous drivers, including drink and drug-drivers, pose to the safety of other road users. However, I must be up front and say that we have no plans to change the drink-drive limit. The rigorous enforcement of the limit and the serious penalties for drink-driving in this country are a more effective deterrent than changing the limit. We may have a higher drink-drive limit than other countries, but we also have a more successful culture of enforcement and of removing the issue than other countries.

It is also fair to recognise that we have made other changes. We changed drink-driving legislation in April 2015 to require high-risk offenders to undertake medical tests before they are allowed to drive again. We have also removed the so-called statutory option that allowed suspected drink-drivers the choice of an evidential breath test or a specimen of blood or urine, which afforded the potential for people to sober up during the time lag between the two. That option has now gone. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) is correct in saying that the average blood alcohol level for those stopped and convicted is not in the 50 to 80 mg category, which represents about 2% of those stopped. The average is in the 150 to 180 mg category. The people causing drink-drive problems pay absolutely no regard to drink-drive limits; they just do not think that the limits apply to them. The limits are not the issue here.

The Select Committee report did not explicitly consider drug-driving, but the Government’s response did, noting that drugs in a driver’s bloodstream can pose as much of a danger as alcohol. We have provided £1 million to police forces in England and Wales to support drug-driving enforcement. The evidence so far is that it has been highly successful, and for 2016 we are expecting an eightfold to tenfold increase over the previous year. When the data come out, we will be able to confirm that properly, but that is the indication thus far. We have some time to go before we get the final data, but it is clearly a successful policy.

The anecdotal feedback from police services around the country is that it has been a great addition to their toolkit, and that they have used the drug-driving laws to disrupt far more criminal activity, such as drug-dealing rings, tackling the drivers to take the rings out of circulation for a period. That is interesting. It is not exactly why we introduced the drug-driving rules, but it is a welcome side effect nevertheless. In March last year, just as the Select Committee report was being published, we launched a THINK! campaign to educate people about the dangers of drug-driving and send a clear message that it is unacceptable. A point was made about social unacceptability. We want drug-driving to be as socially unacceptable as drink-driving. We as a society are a little further back on that journey, but it is clearly the direction that we want to go in. I want everybody to know that the consequences for drug-driving will be serious.

We talked a little about mobile phone use, particularly under the heading of distractions. I know that the Select Committee welcomes the higher penalties that Parliament has approved for drivers who use their mobile phones. Whether they are calling, texting or using an app, motorists caught using a handheld device will receive a fixed penalty notice of £200 and six penalty points on their driving licence. The changes will come into effect next week, on 1 March, making it one of the toughest fixed penalties. Drivers risk losing their licence after two offences, totalling 12 points, and new drivers who reach six points in one offence will lose their licence right away and have to retake both theory and practical driving tests. Such penalties will be effective only if drivers believe that an offence will be detected.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse asked whether fixed penalty notices were still appropriate. Our police service has operational independence. It is fair to say, though, that the Government would like more fixed penalty notices to be issued, particularly at the start of this major change to the penalty regime, so that the heavy penalties are understood and widely communicated and are used to effect behaviour change, because that is what this is about. If people see others losing their licences, it will effect a behaviour change.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

Does that not reinforce the point that the Select Committee made about devolving some responsibility for fixed penalty notices to local authorities and other bodies, so that there can be allies in the field to detect and punish the people who breach the regulations that the Government want enforced?

[Andrew Jones]

I will come to the local enforcement of moving traffic offences, but the hon. Gentleman’s underlying point is correct. Do we need alliances? Progress on road safety issues is achieved by campaigners—they often lead the way—local government, national Government and various agencies, such as Highways England and High Speed 2, which have road safety budgets, all working together. That is how we have made progress as a country, and I see that as the way forward, too.

I certainly want to ensure that we get this message across, and there will be a strong THINK! campaign to warn drivers as part of the launch of the changes on 1 March. We are also working with the police on an enforcement campaign, but prevention is better than cure, and we have the opportunity through that advertising campaign to make clear the risk that drivers take. I want to make using a handheld mobile device at the wheel—including texting—as socially unacceptable as drink-driving. I am sure that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside is absolutely correct that technology can help. Indeed, I will meet mobile phone companies next week and have already met other technology companies. Technology is moving pretty fast in this area. I am not normally at the cutting edge of technology, but I am happy to learn and I certainly see that technology can help here.

Seatbelts were mentioned. We recently had the 50th anniversary of seatbelt legislation, and I do not think any other single policy has generated a better return in terms of improving road safety than seatbelts. I am pleased that compliance with seatbelt wearing remains very high. The awareness-raising work that has been done over a long period has clearly struck home, and wearing a seatbelt is now automatic for the vast majority of us. However, we are not complacent, and we will conduct a roadside survey later this year to establish whether there has been any significant change from the last time we conducted a survey, which was 2014.

Many colleagues mentioned vulnerable road users. It is a tragedy that three cyclists were killed on London’s roads in just a week earlier this month—two of them in just 12 hours. I will come to that later, but the stories that one learns are truly tragic. All road users have a responsibility to those with whom they share the road. That responsibility is all the greater to road users whose mode makes them more vulnerable. London leads the way on cycling, ensuring that goods vehicles are properly equipped for seeing other road users and keeping them apart. We believe that decisions about restricting vehicle movement are best taken locally, although we recognise that having different standards in different places could be operationally quite difficult for road users.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse highlighted the THINK! Hang Back campaign, which actually had two strands. He mentioned the strand for cyclists, but there was a further strand of communication targeted at HGV drivers, including through trade organisations. That campaign was developed because research revealed that around 30% of cyclists were unaware of the dangers of being on the inside of an HGV that might turn left. Given that so many people thought that was a safe space to be in, we were quite robust in some of our communication to get the message across. There was no suggestion of apportioning blame—that is obviously ridiculous. We are trying to make people aware and get them to take responsibility for themselves and other road users. I made the point earlier that people have a responsibility to those with whom they share the road.

On fixed penalty notices and diversionary courses, the Sentencing Council has announced that penalties for people found guilty of serious speeding offences will increase on 24 April. Most speeding is not wilfully over the posted limit, and in such cases a fixed penalty notice is often the best way to remind drivers of the need to monitor and control their speed. The last increase in fixed penalty fines for speeding was in 2013. We keep them under review. Where there is a clear case for change, as with mobile phones, we have acted and will continue to act.

Police officers have discretion to decide how to dispose of an offence. Where an officer believes that the driver will benefit, the offer of a diversionary course is an effective way to proceed. What we are seeking to do is to change behaviour. The police officer makes a call on how that might be best achieved and we want to maintain the operational independence of our police.

As the Committee noted, we are evaluating the national speed awareness course, the most widespread of the diversionary courses that are offered. We hope to complete that work later this year. The Committee recommended that the costs of diversionary courses be standardised. I have some sympathy with drivers faced with a range of different costs for the same course, without any explanation for the variation. However, I can also see that the cost of delivery will vary from place to place. Where courses are delivered by an external provider, contractual commitments may need to be taken into account. For the time being, therefore, we do not intend to mandate a single national charge for each type of course.

The Government’s response to the Committee’s report noted the objective of 188,000 vehicle compliance checks this year. So far, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency has checked 167,555 vehicles at the roadside, so it is well on track to meet that target. It has also found just over 20,000 serious defects and offences, which is well ahead of where it expected to be at this point in the year. We are therefore confident that the agency will meet both targets by the end of this financial year. The London industrial HGV taskforce uses the combined powers of the two bodies to target those identified as at the biggest risk of non-compliance. That targeting is working well, but we have not yet been able to develop similar programmes in other parts of the country.

On the cross-border enforcement directive, in our response to the Committee report, we stated that we would attempt to influence the European Commission to amend the directive in the future. Quite a bit has happened in policy in this area over the last few months. The purpose of the directive was to support member states in the investigation of eight different kinds of offence committed by drivers when driving in other member states and the legislation mandates sharing information about vehicle keepers. However, the UK prosecutes only drivers for the offences in question—a point that was made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside. There is nothing in the directive that obliges member states to compel their citizens to admit liability or to name the driver.

Parliament has seen our explanatory memorandum on the European Commission’s review of the directive, which recognises that there is an issue for member states that have driver liability in place. We have some support from other member states on the topic and we continue to press for change.

My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South made an important point about sharing best practice. We feel that there is a role for the Department in sharing best practice. I have attended and spoken at roads policing conferences, which bring together enforcement leaders around the country. The sharing of best practice is not just carried out in this part of our departmental activity, but is spread much more widely.

We made clear in the Government’s response to the report that the devolution of parking enforcement has not been without considerable concerns from motorists—a point that was noted by the Committee in its 2013 report, which expressed concern about the way in which local authorities used CCTV for parking enforcement. There have been concerns about revenue raising, penalty levels and the number of penalty charge notices issued. In response to that, new legislation was enacted in March 2015 to restrict the use of CCTV for parking enforcement. I received a letter in the last few days from a councillor suggesting that the powers be granted so that they could use them precisely for revenue raising. That is not quite what we were seeking—this is about safety and behaviour change.

Against that backdrop, the Government remains to be convinced about the case for giving authorities the powers to enforce moving traffic contraventions. I am not keen to see local authorities installing a raft of new cameras on yellow box junctions and elsewhere, only to see penalty charge notices issued. Equally, I have seen freedom of information requests, often from the media, that indicate that some councils have made large sums of money from some specific box junctions. We therefore have no plans to change the current position to give local authorities outside London greater enforcement powers, and in that context we do not consider it appropriate to give London further powers either. However, I have met the Local Government Association to discuss the issue, and will continue to do so to see if we can find areas on which we agree.

I will highlight a few of the questions from hon. Members. Is this a matter for cross-departmental activity? Yes, of course it is. One only has to see the Treasury’s positive response to road safety issues, with a £175 million budget announced in the autumn statement to tackle the top 50 problem roads in the EuroRAP assessment, or the way the Ministry of Justice is consulting on increasing sentencing. Do we have a publication date for CWIS—the cycling and walking investment strategy? I cannot give the House a specific date yet, but I can say that it will be published very shortly.

I am aware that the Government have signed up to the sustainable development goals. I am actually very keen to see us share some of our expertise and insights to help other countries to learn from the journey that we have been on over many years. I have spoken at conferences with representatives from many countries around the world, and I have said repeatedly that, if somebody would like information from my Department, we will make it available. We are happy to help as they go on the journey that we have been on. Equally, I am also happy if we can steal ideas, too; I am acutely aware that not all ideas will come from this country. I do not really mind where the ideas come from, so long as we make some progress.

A number of points have been made on whether to have targets. If other countries wish to have targets, that is obviously fine, but frankly I do not think that we need them. I do not think that targets have a direct cause and effect on policy in quite the same way that some colleagues here do. I do not need a target to tell me that this is an important issue or to bring forward ideas and initiatives: I just do not think it is related. We are bringing forward ideas because this is an issue that matters. It is simply not the case that policy is as simple as publishing a target and then seeing a cause and effect like that. We have seen many other areas of Government policy in which targets have even had a perverse effect—most notably in health targeting. We have no plans to introduce targets, but we have plenty of plans to continue what we are doing to make our roads safer.

The Select Committee report noted that effective enforcement was one of the three E’s, and a necessary adjunct to the engineering and education initiatives that help to deliver our road safety initiatives. The report also noted that road users should know that infringements will be detected. I agree, and I hope that I have demonstrated to the House that the Government take road safety seriously. I am grateful for the comments about my personal commitment to the subject from colleagues across the House. It is actually the first policy area upon which I commissioned work when I became a Minister, which I hope gives an indication of my personal commitment to it.

I am acutely aware of the importance of this issue. Behind every statistic is a shattered life or a shattered family. I have met many such families, and those are hard meetings, but they spur me on to do more in this area. It is clear that we have taken and are taking action. We have some of the safest roads in the world, and I will work to make them ever safer.