Road Safety: Young Drivers

Tuesday 28th January 2025 Westminster Hall

09:30

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

Before I call Julia Buckley, I wish to make a short statement. I have been advised that she wishes to raise relevant cases that are not currently sub judice but have been subject to a completed police investigation and a coroner inquest. Caution must be exercised by any Member wishing to raise the specifics of relevant cases.

[Julia Buckley (Shrewsbury) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered road safety for young drivers.

Thank you for chairing this Westminster Hall debate on road safety for young drivers, Sir Desmond, and for allowing me to present the opening statement to our Minister for the Future of Roads, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood). I thank her for giving up her time today to engage in this discussion.

Road traffic collisions are the biggest killer of young people aged 15 to 29 worldwide. In 2023, 290 young people were killed in the UK as a result of a road collision, and nearly one quarter of all road collisions involved young people. Although drivers under 24 make up only 6% of total licence holders, they represent 18% of all car drivers killed and seriously injured. That is because one in five newly qualified drivers will have an accident in their first year. For any other leading cause of death of our young people, we would declare a public health emergency and prioritise resources to tackle the crisis.

Unfortunately, young people are also more likely to be involved in crashes causing multiple injuries and those that involve a greater number of people. There is much evidence to suggest that younger and less experienced drivers carry a heavier risk. The road safety campaign Brake points to some development-related risks, including the level of brain development, overconfidence and poor assessment of hazards, that make young drivers more prone to serious accidents.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for the way she is laying out her case. Does she agree that preventing young people from speeding is one way to prevent accidents? Like me, she knows that it is very difficult to get fixed speed cameras in place. The current Government guidance says that three serious accidents or deaths must occur before a fixed speed camera can be installed. Does she agree that a preventive approach would be much more successful than a punitive approach?

[Julia Buckley]

I agree that all measures that can prevent collisions, injuries and deaths should be explored. Prevention is often not only better but cheaper than dealing with the consequences of doing nothing.

Research from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has shown that young drivers have poorer visual awareness. They display a smaller range of horizontal scanning of the road, they check their mirrors less, and they focus more on stationary objects than moving objects.

In rural areas such as my constituency of Shrewsbury, the statistics are compounded by the disproportionate danger on countryside roads. According to National Farmers Union Mutual’s 2024 “Rural Road Safety” report, there were nearly 1,000 deaths on rural roads that year. Tragically, collisions on rural roads are four times more likely to end in a fatality. That report showed that rural hazards are often entirely different from those on urban roads, and require a specific set of skills and awareness—including the need to look out for livestock or agricultural vehicles, the lack of lighting or road markings, narrow passing points, the lack of visibility, blind corners and poor road quality. It highlighted the need for improved road maintenance and infrastructure.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. Will she join me in congratulating charity groups such as Life After, in my area, which deals with people who have suffered trauma and the loss of partners or close relatives in road traffic accidents? It does so much to help people after the traffic accidents that she is so eloquently talking about. That type of education would help young people.

[Julia Buckley]

I agree, and it is absolutely excellent to hear of any support for families who have been bereaved as a result of a collision. That can be used to educate others, so that we can try to prevent accidents in the future. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

However, a majority of drivers wrongly assume that urban roads are more dangerous. That leads to an underestimation of the risks involved in driving on rural roads. NFU Mutual produced a code for countryside roads to support education and awareness-raising of the specific driving skills that would help. That could be incorporated into the driving test or a follow-up course of additional learning as part of the driver’s probationary period.

Many young people who live in rural areas feel isolated and, as a consequence, feel compelled to start driving as early as possible because of the lack of public transport, which leaves them unable to access college work, social or sporting activities. In Shropshire, we have lost more than 5,000 bus routes since 2010 and 17-year-olds are increasingly driving their first car out of necessity—something that would be anathema to a teenager growing up in London or Manchester, where public transport is so easy and cheap to use.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

I congratulate my constituency neighbour on securing this critical debate. She is making an excellent case for improving road safety for young people. Does she agree that putting public transport infrastructure in place is critical to giving people options, and to enabling them to have a social life and feel less isolated in rural areas without having to get in the car at a very young and very risky age?

[Julia Buckley]

I could not agree more, and I think that particularly affects young people living in rural areas. It is not surprising that between 2019 and 2023, nearly half of casualties in young car driver collisions occurred on rural roads. Each of those numbers is a person—a young person with their whole life ahead of them, a son or daughter whose family love and cherish them.

[Michelle Scrogham (Barrow and Furness) (Lab)]

My constituent, Sharron Huddleston, has been campaigning after tragically losing her daughter Caitlin in 2017. She was one of those children on rural roads who tragically lost her life as a passenger in a young novice’s car. Sharon founded the Forget-me-not Families Uniting group. They campaign for restrictions on the number of passengers that young drivers can carry in the car, and on night-time driving. What haunts me is the fact that had we listened to people campaigning on this issue more than 40 years ago, Caitlin would still be here today. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is time we looked at this issue seriously and put in place restrictions to protect young drivers and other people on the road?

[Julia Buckley]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I think we are going to be hearing lots of suggestions today about all the measures that could help prevent such tragedies, because each death is an avoidable tragedy that freezes these young people in time, forever prevented from growing up to fulfil their full potential.

Harvey Owen, the son of my constituent, was killed in a fatal car crash while travelling from Shrewsbury with three other young men, all of whom were killed in the accident. Four young lives were taken too soon, leaving their families behind with an unbearable void where their child should be.

Crystal Owen, Harvey’s mother, has taken that raw pain and channelled her energy into a focused campaign. She is dedicated and selfless in her advocacy of young drivers and their families. It is on behalf of Crystal Owen that I requested today’s debate. She is sitting with us here today, surrounded by other families of young people killed in serious car crashes. I thank them all for coming today for what cannot be an easy day. We really appreciate their presence. They have formed the Forget-me-not group to campaign together so that nobody else has to suffer as they have. With Crystal’s permission, I will read out the story of Harvey Owen written in her words, because nothing I could say could do justice to her personal tragedy. This is Crystal’s story:

“My kind-hearted son Harvey had just turned 17 in November 2023. A couple of weeks later, he asked me if he could go to Wales with two friends he had known since school. It was to be his first weekend away with friends, and as a parent, I felt it was time to give him a little freedom. He and his friends planned to stay at one of their granddads’ houses, and when I heard this, I thought, ‘What harm can come to him?’ It was a trusted friend’s family, in a safe place. It felt like the right thing to do, to let him experience a bit more independence. At this age, you need to give them a little freedom, right? So, I agreed.

After seeing a video of one of the parents confirming where they were staying, I had no reason to doubt Harvey’s story about who was driving. We had always known Harvey’s friends. Our home was often where the boys would gather to play music for many years. As far as we knew he had no friends who had even passed their driving tests, so we felt comfortable with the situation. Harvey seemed so grown-up now...mature and responsible.

I thought to myself, he was ready for this.

Before he left, Harvey sat in his bedroom playing ‘Ring of Fire’ on his guitar, knowing I loved this song. I told him how proud I was of him, how talented he was, and I gave him a hug, telling him I loved him. He jokingly told me to stop being weird, but he said he loved me too, and not long after, he left. It was the last time I would ever see my beautiful son.

The following morning, Harvey sent me a picture message of the view from the cottage, and everything seemed fine. However, what I didn’t know at the time was that the boys had decided to go on a camping trip. It later transpired that another 18-year-old boy Harvey had recently met at college, a newly qualified driver, had also gone and was actually the one driving. Just over an hour later, after sending me the text, my son and his three friends were dead.

After some of my texts didn’t go through, I started to get concerned. The next thing I knew, we were frantically driving around Snowdonia, having discovered they were missing. Our worry soon turned to panic, and we made our way to Bangor police station. The feeling of being told they had found four bodies, and one they believed to be my son, is indescribable. The pain of that moment felt as much physical as it did mental. It was as if my world had stopped right there in that instant.

A suffocating numbness washed over me, and I felt I was being ripped apart from the inside. Time felt like it froze, like everything around me became a blur. It was as though the world was no longer a place I wanted to be. The life I had known, filled with my son’s laughter, his music, his dreams, was ripped away in an instant. It is an unbearable shock and pain. I wanted to die myself, just to escape the nightmare I was now living. The thought of facing a world without my son, without his presence, was too much to bear. I don’t remember much after that moment; my partner said I was howling, saying on repeat that it couldn’t be Harvey. I knew in that instant I would only ‘exist’ for the rest of my days.

It later emerged that the young driver had lost control of the car on the bend of a rural road. The vehicle ended up in a water-filled ditch, and despite their attempts to escape, all four boys tragically drowned. The news of their deaths was overwhelming. To know that Harvey and his friends had suffered such a tragic end, unable to survive and escape the car, is a pain I cannot put into words. The grief I feel in the wake of this loss is all-consuming, and the loss of my son has left a permanent aching void in my life. It is something that, unless you are unfortunate enough to ever experience yourself, you will never even come close to understanding the pain.

In the months following Harvey’s passing, I could barely function, only leaving my bed to attend the funeral. The circumstances surrounding his trip have weighed heavily on me. I would never have allowed him to go if I had known the full details. A friend informed me that in some countries newly qualified drivers are not allowed to take peer-age passengers for a set period, and are required to gain experience on rural roads first. It seemed like common sense to me, and I thought it was a no-brainer.

After weeks of research, I began my campaign to make driving safer for young drivers, advocating for change in the light of the shocking statistic that 76% of fatalities in crashes involving young drivers are not the driver themselves. Anyone could be affected. I’ve had to publicly share my grief, putting it on display for the media, in order to leverage their coverage and raise awareness about the horrifying statistics around young driver crashes. All of this, while I still haven’t had the time or space to process my own pain.

In October 2024 at the inquest, we learned that the boys had all been practically unharmed by the crash. They were conscious and tried to escape the car. Thanks to the manual back windows, Harvey was able to wind his window down. However, due to the lack of a simple safety hammer, something that could have shattered the glass in seconds and cut through seat belts, precious time was lost. The thought of Harvey’s and the boys’ final moments will haunt me for the rest of my life. I strongly believe that such a safety tool should be made mandatory in all cars. While it is difficult to determine how many lives such devices could save in the long run, in cases like Harvey’s it would have made the difference between life and death.

Although ultimately I feel it is a reactive solution to a more deep-rooted problem. If my son wasn’t able to get in the car, due to safety measures in place to protect newly qualified drivers and their passengers, then he would not have needed the hammer, as the crash would not have taken place. My campaign is not about punishing young people but about protecting them. Implementing these safety measures would help safeguard their lives by addressing the risks associated with inexperience and impulsivity, allowing them to enjoy their freedom without facing unnecessary danger.

During the course of the inquest, the evidence revealed matters giving rise to concern, which the coroner published, stating that he felt there is a risk that future deaths will occur unless action is taken where younger people are carried in motor vehicles driven by newly qualified and/or young drivers, and that preventative action should be taken.

After nearly a year of campaigning, I should have felt relief when the coroner issued this ‘Preventing Future Deaths’ report. But sadly, as part of the Forget Me Not Families Uniting group, I know that similar recommendations have been made in the past, with no real change.

Unfortunately, there will never be a victory for families like ours, because our children are gone forever. If people truly understood the depth of our pain, along with the level of commitment we parents put into researching the overwhelming evidence, we might be taken more seriously in our fight for change.

I hope this debate forces everyone to confront the scale of the problem. Every day without action means more families torn apart, more lives lost.

Protecting young drivers, their passengers, and other road users should never be a matter of political division. It’s a moral issue. The evidence is clear: young people’s brains are still developing, making them more prone to risky decisions behind the wheel.

Protecting young drivers is not just about statistics; it’s about lives lost.”

Thank you, Crystal, for your story—we really appreciate it.

To conclude, how can we keep young people safe on our roads? There are many calls for additional training or support for newly qualified drivers. The Association of British Insurers concludes that over two thirds of insurers now employ some form of telematics, or black box, to monitor driving behaviours by new drivers to reduce risk factors. We have heard proposals to increase training and awareness of the risk on rural roads, and about the need to invest in and maintain those roads to reduce hazards. We could invest more in public transport in our rural areas to offer our young people a viable alternative mode of transport so that they can access services. Finally, there are proposals for specific safety measures, such as mandating the carrying of an emergency glass hammer in every vehicle as a new standard.

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Julia Buckley]

I will not. Such a device can smash the window or cut the seatbelt in case of emergency. We could call it Harvey’s hammer, in memory of one young man from Shrewsbury whose legacy has brought us all here today.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

There will be a three-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.

09:47

[Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for calling this important debate. That is an incredibly difficult speech to follow, and I am feeling very emotional. I also thank all the families here today.

I have two teenage children, one of whom is now 18, and he is about to learn to drive. It is really helpful if young people in my constituency can drive themselves around, because—especially in villages such as the one he lives in—they are often at the mercy of unreliable and infrequent bus services. As his mum, I am of course encouraging him to learn: he will be able to be more independent, and it is an important life skill. But I have some really serious concerns about his safety when he starts to drive.

My constituency has a lot of A roads that are windy and fast, and they often have junctions off to the side, from which drivers are trying to pull out on to the main road. We have a history of accidents in the local area, including a horrendous one in 2023, when two young sisters were killed by an oncoming vehicle driven by someone who was high on drugs. That accident took place on a very dangerous junction outside Frome, and I am campaigning for traffic lights to be installed there, but I am coming up against a lack of council or Government funding to get the new infrastructure installed. We cannot put in the preventive measures my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) mentioned if we cannot fund them.

We know from figures provided by Brake that one in five drivers crash within a year of their test, and more than 1,500 young drivers are killed or injured on the roads each year. We know that carrying passengers or driving at night are major risk factors for younger drivers. I certainly remember careering around the roads where I grew up as a teenager, in cars packed with friends, listening to music too loudly. The thought makes me shudder when I look back on it.

Sadly, we also know that younger drivers are more likely to be involved in a crash caused by speed. Serious consideration needs to be given to graduated driving licences.

[Robin Swann]

I thank the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for securing the debate. In Northern Ireland, we still have restricted driving, where a newly qualified driver must display an R plate and is restricted to 45 mph for one year after passing their test. Not everything has to be new; there are places where restrictions are working along the lines of the graduated scheme suggested by the hon. Member for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine).

[Anna Sabine]

That is exactly right. I am keen that when we discuss this issue, we look at good practice from other places.

Graduated driving licences can be set up in a number of ways, but typically might involve minimum periods for learning to drive, and reducing the number of passengers a young person can have in the car. In the UK, we already have a version of this system for motorbikes. We recognise that young motorcyclists probably should not ride the most powerful bikes straightaway, and we restrict them accordingly. Even motoring groups such as the RAC have supported moves towards a graduated driving licence scheme in recent times, and I intend to explore the idea in my own political party.

I totally understand why young people might resist or resent the idea of graduated driving licences. I can also see why, in rural areas such as mine or that of the hon. Member for Shrewsbury, really stringent restrictions on driving—such as preventing young people from driving at night—might make it hard for them to get to their jobs or educational settings if buses are not frequent enough. But I think the idea warrants a conversation, because young people have the most to lose if we cannot get this right.

09:50

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for bringing this really important debate to the House and for sharing so movingly the case involving the tragic death of her constituent Harvey.

Road safety is a serious concern for my constituents. In 2023, there were 183 reported injuries and one fatality on our roads. In early 2024, prior to being elected, I campaigned with local councillor Marcus Dearden and the Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, to address speeding issues in Bingley. We successfully secured average speed cameras on a 50 mph stretch of dual carriageway that was often used as a racetrack by young drivers, but it is challenging to get those sorts of road safety measures in place.

We have already heard from others about the higher risk that young drivers face. One in four deaths from collisions involves a young car driver, and we know that this is more prevalent among young men. We have also heard people speak movingly about the huge impact on families. When I was growing up, a school friend’s younger brother died tragically in a motorbike accident on the A65 between Ilkley and Burley in Wharfedale, in my constituency. His parents and brother have suffered a lifetime of grief as a result of that accident.

I strongly support the West Yorkshire Vision Zero strategy, which takes a partnership approach to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2040. It brings together the combined authority, the local authority, the emergency services and National Highways, as well as victim support services and road safety campaigners. I really hope that such approaches are implemented and supported nationally by my hon. Friend the Minister.

We need to make it easier for local people to identify speeding hotspots where speed cameras are needed and to push for them. In addition, I urge the Minister to give some consideration to post-test licence restrictions, possibly through an amendment to the Road Traffic (New Drivers) Act 1995, which has already introduced a new driver probation period of two years.

In closing, I emphasise that we must also recognise that older drivers pose a risk to themselves and others, with those over 86 posing a similar risk to young men. Perhaps I will bring that forward as a topic for future debate.

09:53

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I commend the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for securing this important debate.

Just three weeks after the 2024 general election, four young men were killed in Ullenwood, just outside my constituency, when their car collided with a tree. They were three 20-year-olds and one 18-year-old. “This is Andrei, my child full of dreams,” his mother said in a tribute to her son.

Of course, it is not always young people who suffer such accidents, but many suffer vicariously through the loss of their loved ones. I recall the deaths of two motorcyclists, which happened separately but within 90 minutes, on the same stretch of road on 30 August 2023. One lost his life near Ashchurch, and the other near Evesham. One was a friend of a friend. Let the record recall Philip Beer, described by his lifelong friend Richard Price as an ex-Conservative councillor in Longlevens ward, but the good type of Tory—very moderate and centrist—and someone who had voted for Labour and the Liberal Democrats in recent years. He was a Spurs supporter. He left behind his wife, Louise, and his children, Izzy, Charlie and Henry.

I have previously spoken of my admiration for members of the emergency services, who selflessly put themselves in harm’s way to protect and treat others. I hope everyone in this room will spare a thought for our police officers, paramedics and firefighters who arrive at the scenes of road traffic collisions.

In July, I learned a truly shocking statistic: one in five young people will be involved in a reportable road traffic collision in the year following their driving test. In 2023 alone, there were 281 road collisions in the Tewkesbury constituency, and just under 20% involved people aged between 17 and 24—that is one young person per week, just in Tewkesbury.

Driving is popular among all demographics in my constituency. Many young people use cars to travel to school, to see their friends and to play for local sports teams. Like Shrewsbury, Tewkesbury, with its broadly dispersed towns and villages, suffers from irregular and unreliable public transport, so driving is heavily relied on. According to the Department for Transport, there has been a 24% decline in passenger journeys on local bus services in the Gloucestershire region since 2015.

We should acknowledge that, for many young people, learning to drive is a significant milestone and a source of immense pride. But it is one that exposes them to significant risk. Men aged 17 to 25 have higher rates of fatal road collisions than almost any other age group—they are second only to over-85s.

One initiative that I proudly endorse is the under-17 Pathfinder Initiative, which is active in Gloucestershire, West Mercia, Yorkshire and Humberside. It is a low-cost and socially mobile initiative, with various bursaries available so that young people of all socioeconomic backgrounds can benefit. Volunteers guide aspiring drivers through theoretical and practical training in a controlled environment, away from public roads. In August 2024, I visited the initiative in South Cerney and was driven around safely by a young lady under tuition, alongside her father.

The reduction of speed limits is controversial among drivers, and I myself sometimes find the practice frustrating. However, this cannot be about our own frustrations; rather, it must be about our children. A reduction in the speed limit on high-risk routes in Lincolnshire resulted in a 75% reduction in collisions in which someone was killed or seriously injured. For that reason, I would endorse the practice in Gloucestershire. I hope the Minister will take those statistics back to her Department, alongside my endorsements.

09:57

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond—I miss our Tuesday morning meetings. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for securing the debate. I am speaking because road safety for young drivers is a crucial issue in my constituency.

My constituency is semi-rural, and learning to drive is a huge part of becoming independent from one’s parents; indeed, my parents forced me to learn to drive at the age of 17 because they did not want to drive me around any more. Local transport links are not good enough: buses do not run regularly enough or late enough for young people to rely on them in order to play sport, go to college, see friends or visit local town centres at weekends. By the age of 17, many of my constituents want to be able to drive to school without having to rely on their parents. Unfortunately, that also means that my constituency has far too many tragic accidents involving young drivers.

In 2000, four teenagers died after Adam, a 17-year-old newly qualified driver, crashed his car. Adam, Jonathon, Craig and James were planning to celebrate the birthday of one of their friends just a few hours after Adam crashed. An inquest found that defects in the vehicle’s condition, tyre pressure imbalance and a comparative lack of driving experience were contributing factors to Adam’s crash. In 2017, Trudi-Mae Kennell, Ryan Barber and Will Louch died on a journey back from Snowdonia to Atherstone and an unnamed 18-year-old was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving. Most recently, in 2024, a teenage boy suffered serious head injuries after his car hit a tree and caught fire in Polesworth. It was reported as miraculous that he survived the crash. All those young people had so much ahead of them, and it is sad to see that their crashes belong to a pattern.

There is so much discussion about what policies to propose to tackle this issue, but the first must be to push for our young people to wear seatbelts. Between 2019 and 2023, 16% of younger car drivers involved in serious collisions did not wear seatbelts. We need to make sure that our young people know that if they do not feel confident driving with passengers, they should not do so. We need to make sure that before passing a driving test, young people have experience of driving in the dark and with passengers. And we need to make sure we, as adults, challenge risky driving behaviour whenever we see it.

09:59

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for securing this important debate. Just a few weeks after my election, I received a letter from my constituent, Jane. She is a mother who has had to endure the unthinkable pain of burying her 17-year-old son. Will died in a collision in June. He was a smart and popular young man, with a passion for judo, maths and computers. My heart goes out to Jane and her family.

Jane’s son had passed his test just one month prior to his death. She told me:

“As a mother, I did everything I could to protect him. I persuaded my son not to drive with his friends in his car for the first month...I felt I could not request this for longer when his friends didn’t have such rules and it wasn’t law.”

I remember myself, when I passed my test and first went out with a group of teenage friends, how intimidating that was.

Why has the UK not taken action already? Under the coalition Government, the potential adoption of graduated driving licences was discussed, but various issues arose. One problem was the impact on less affluent young people, who may be more adversely affected by restricted driving hours—for example, working 17-year-olds who need access to a car to work at night or for early-hours shift work. How can young people who rely on carpooling to cut transport costs do so if there are passenger limitations? There are obstacles, particularly in rural areas such as the villages in my constituency of Horsham.

I support the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and my constituent Jane by joining their call for the Government to take action. We should see an impact assessment of the various graduated driving schemes, many of which are already in operation around the world, so we can make the right choice for the 60% of the public who, as polls suggest, already support them.

Finally, I thank Jane for bringing her heartbreaking story to me. It cannot be easy to campaign with a wound so recent. I would like Jane to know that it is only because of individuals such as her that we are able to have this debate, and perhaps because of them, change will come.

10:02

[Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I wholeheartedly commiserate with the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) about the distressing tale that she has had to tell and that the parents have had to bear.

In constituencies such as mine, Tiverton and Minehead, getting a car can often be the only way young people get to meet their friends without relying on the taxi service of mum and dad. It is integral to growing their sense of independence and self-sufficiency. Rural areas such as mine are not blessed with good public transport systems, so cars are the predominant means of transport, whether for business or leisure.

In Tiverton and Minehead, where we have almost no sixth form provision, young people often need a car to get to their place of learning. When the buses are overcrowded and sometimes late, and journeys are always long, those cars can be a powerful vehicle, literally, of academic and vocational aspiration.

Nationally, Government figures estimate that one in five young drivers will crash within a year of passing their test, and that more than 1,500 young drivers are killed or seriously injured on this country’s roads each year. In Tiverton and Minehead, over the past five years, there was a total of 244 casualties in accidents where at least one participant, not including pedestrians, was under the age of 26. Of those, 35 were serious and three were fatal.

The Government must support measures to reduce the number of tragedies caused by road traffic accidents, including investment in road safety, infrastructure and maintenance, better enforcement on speeding and law breaking, education programmes, and better safety technology in the modern industry.

To conclude, I admit that I do not have the solutions, but I have faith that we, as a Parliament, and more widely through a national conversation, can move the dial on the issue. We can find a way to protect our young people without blocking them from cars, which can provide a route to community for them. We owe it to our young people to do that, and to all those affected by road collisions. I know we can rise to the challenge that it poses.

10:04

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. Before I start, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for her incredibly moving story, particularly her story about Harvey. The hearts of everyone in this Chamber today will go out to Harvey’s family for what must have been an absolutely terrible ordeal. Sadly, one does not have to go far in my constituency of Harlow to see signs of a road traffic incident—a damaged traffic island, a crushed crash barrier, a single bunch of flowers or a football scarf tied to a lamppost.

I also agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury about the issues on rural roads. Like previous speakers, my constituency is made up of urban areas, Harlow, and rural areas, such as Roydon. I have met the Roydon community speed watch team to talk about the issues they face; I will go into some of my suggestions as to how we can solve those if I have time.

In 2022, there were a total of 228 casualties in Harlow, two of which were fatalities and 51 were life-changing serious injuries. There have been over 1,000 incidents since 2018. I recognise that I do not have a lot of time, but I will briefly mention the two young gentleman who I had the pleasure to teach and who I mentioned in the Chamber a few weeks ago. The impact of losing someone so young is huge for those families and for everyone who knows and cares about them. Later in the week, there will be a debate about road safety around schools, which I look forward to taking part in, but I agree with what hon. Members have said about education.

I will finish by mentioning my pet peeve—I am sure many campaigners in the room will agree—that when an issue of road safety is raised with the relevant authority, it takes so long to get the necessary road safety interventions in place. I ask the Minister to give that some consideration.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

I am afraid I must reduce the time limit to a formal two-minute limit.

10:07

[Mrs Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for securing this debate.

In the words of my constituents Mark and Mandy Ogden, whose daughter Georgia died on 26 June 2020:

“The last thing we want is to parade our grief, but we need people to understand the devastation these road deaths cause.”

Georgia, known as Gee to her family, was 17. She had been out for the evening and was in a car with another teenage passenger, driven by a third teenage girl. They were all wearing their seatbelts. Mandy talks about the pain of four years now without hearing Gee’s voice, her cute laugh, her silliness and random outbursts of singing, her tantrums over something and nothing, her sassiness, her incredible dancing and performing. She speaks of a gaping hole at the loss of her daughter and of the loneliness and emptiness that she has left. It is indescribable. Mandy told me of the knock at the door and the immediate realisation of what had happened, and that the day that Gee was killed will haunt her for the rest of her days.

Sadly, there are several tributes on A roads around my constituency to other young people who have been killed in surprisingly similar circumstances. Roads in our area are dark, fast and dangerous. We cannot change the entire rural road network, certainly not in the short term, but we can change the law. Mark and Mandy are now part of Forget-me-not Families Uniting, the campaign group alluded to by previous speakers, which is calling on us to save young lives through the introduction of graduated driving licensing and through the creation of an expert panel to advise the Government on how graduated driving licensing in the UK should look.

The Department for Transport’s 2019 road safety statement noted there is evidence that graduated driving licensing schemes, where they have been introduced elsewhere, have proved very effective at improving the safety of young drivers. For example in California, where drivers aged under 18 cannot take passengers under 20 unless supervised, and in New Zealand where young and newly qualified drivers go on to a restricted licence, which means—

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Jim Shannon.

10:09

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for setting the scene, and I convey my sympathies to the families in the Gallery on the loss of their young ones. I am very sorry to hear of the horrific accident that occurred in north Wales where four young boys died.

I am concerned to put forward the issues relating to Northern Ireland. Due to the lack of experience, young people are more at risk of being in accidents. Addressing those challenges requires a combination of legislative action and educational awareness. Those are the two things I want to speak about.

In 2019, young people aged between 16 and 24 accounted for almost 21% of those killed or seriously injured in road traffic collisions in Northern Ireland. Young drivers are taught to expect the unexpected and to remain cautious on the road. There have been conversations in Northern Ireland regarding enhanced driver education and whether it would benefit young people to take further driving training after they have passed their tests. That is one of the things that we are looking at.

What are the challenges on the road for young people? There is peer pressure, drug and alcohol use, and mobile phone use, but sometimes road accidents are pure misfortune. The use of mobile phones while driving can cause excessive speeding, lack of concentration and ultimately distraction, leading to an increased likelihood of a crash or collision. There is the issue of young motorists travelling late at night, which the previous Government were prepared to look at, as well as excessive speed.

There is much more that can be done, especially in our schools. My key ask of the Minister is for young people to be taught the importance of road safety. Once people hit 17 and can start driving, the freedom is immense, but we must remind them of the importance of being cautious on the roads, because they can be faced with complex and dangerous situations every day. I look forward to hearing the Minister and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), speak about their commitment to young people and to ensuring that our road safety legislation is as tight as possible.

10:11

[Mr Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for securing this important debate and sharing the tragic loss of young Harvey. Ahead of this debate, I met Gillian and John McGrath, constituents of mine in Southend East and Rochford, whose daughter was tragically killed in March 2009 by a newly qualified driver. Eleanor Grace McGrath was hit by a 17-year-old driver who was showing off to his friends when he struck a crowd of children, 14 of whom experienced severe injuries. Sadly, the story and the loss of Eleanor Grace are not unique.

Following Eleanor’s death, two of her closest friends and Gillian and John set up the campaign Driving with Grace, which produced a documentary to educate our young people on the devastating impact of road collisions. The documentary has been shown to young people across Essex and has had a significant impact. I welcome the announcement of the new national road safety strategy. Will the Minister consider a P plate system, which is a key recommendation of the Driving with Grace campaign, in the next steps of the strategy? It would mean that new drivers must display a P plate for the first year after passing their test, encouraging other drivers to give them space and potentially making new drivers less likely to show off.

As a parent, I understand the constant conflict between granting young people the freedom they deserve and worrying about keeping them safe. Tragedies such as the loss of Eleanor Grace are far too common. Moving forward, we have to make changes. I am sure all Members present will join me in commending my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury on securing this debate.

10:13

[Josh Dean (Hertford and Stortford) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for securing this important debate.

I want to put on record the story of Sonny Crane, whose family live in my constituency, Hertford and Stortford, and whose mother, Naomi, is here in Westminster Hall today. Just over three years ago, Sonny was tragically killed in a road traffic accident, and the impact on Sonny’s family since his loss has been simply devastating. I was struck by his mother’s words when we first met:

“he went out that day, a young 19 year old boy going to enjoy Topgolf with his friends, never to return.”

Across the country, there are far too many cases like Sonny’s. We know that crashes are more likely to happen when young drivers are carrying friends in the car at night-time, and when driving conditions are difficult, but it does not need to be that way. Any death on the road is one too many. I am therefore confident that the Minister appreciates the seriousness of this issue and the need for action.

I would be grateful if the Minister could look into the best practices on young driver safety used in other countries and seek to incorporate them into her road safety strategy. I would also be grateful if she could detail in her response how the Government are supporting local leaders and communities to make our roads safer, particularly in semi-rural constituencies such as mine. Naomi told me that Sonny’s favourite phrase was, “I’m here for a good time, not a long time.” Tragically, Sonny was not with us for a long time, but I know that he is lovingly remembered by his mother, who describes him as, “Sonny by name, sunny by nature.” We can honour his memory by working to ensure that no young person is taken too soon because of a road traffic accident.

10:15

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair today, Sir Desmond. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) on securing the time for this debate today and also for reading Crystal’s testimony, which was incredibly moving.

This is a timely debate, because the road safety strategy is currently under development. Like this debate, I hope that strategy takes the approach that we should never see deaths or serious accidents on our roads as an acceptable consequence of the perceived freedoms that car ownership can bring. For young drivers in particular—although this applies to all drivers when learning—there is a focus on passing the test rather than learning how to drive. That is why the graduated approach to learning to drive is so important, because it slows things down and forces those who want to drive to focus on learning.

Globally, the graduated driving licences work. In New Zealand, they have reduced accidents for people between the ages of 15 and 19 by 23% and for those between 20 and 24 by 20%. That is quite incredible and is within the context, as has been repeated here today, that one in five new drivers will crash in their first year—an absolutely incredible statistic, if we are honest with ourselves. There will be arguments against this approach, but it should never be the case that the implementation of a graduated driver's license is framed within that argument about restricting young people’s liberty, because poor public transport should never be an excuse for exposing our young people to danger. I know action in this area will be difficult, but I really hope that the road safety strategy presents us with an opportunity to do something.

10:17

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Suffolk Coastal) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I start by warmly congratulating my good and hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) on securing this important debate, and saying thank you for the stories that have been shared this morning. In Suffolk Coastal we are proudly rural, with A and B roads stretching the full 40 miles of the constituency. I could use my speech today to describe in great detail the danger of rural roads, but everyone has done that well and, with just two minutes, I will resist the urge. Instead, I will throw my weight behind the call that we have heard this morning for a graduated licence scheme. In places such as Suffolk, the problem is incredibly severe and our many rural roads give impetus to the need for such a scheme. Some 38% of collisions in Suffolk were a result of a young driver behind the wheel. This problem is real.

A graduated driving licence scheme would put a set of restrictions on new drivers who have recently passed their practical test for an initial period. Some of these restrictions are important for us to properly debate and give real consideration to. As we have just heard, not everyone will be in agreement, but we must accept that we need to do more to challenge these horrific statistics and to make sure that lives are saved going forward.

I will not take up any more time, but may I just personally thank everybody who has come in today and who has shared their personal stories? They have been hugely touching: as my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury said at the beginning, you have put your grief on the line to share these stories and we are deeply moved by it. Thank you so much.

10:19

[Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham Erdington) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for securing this important debate. Road safety is not just a policy issue but a matter of life or death, and one that affects all our communities, including Birmingham Erdington.

Last October, a young driver in Erdington lost control and collided with a tree on Tyburn Road. The accident resulted in one fatality and life-changing injuries for the other person involved. Only weeks ago, near Castle Vale, a driver and a passenger fled the scene after a serious accident, leaving another young man hospitalised. Just last night, a railway bridge, which I have talked about before, was hit again, leaving trains cancelled in the area. Those incidents highlight the urgent need for action.

Every single day, five lives are lost on UK roads. That means that five families are affected and five entire communities are forever changed due to road safety failures. For young drivers, road crashes are the leading cause of death. That shocking reality demands immediate action. There are many reasons for that. The pitfalls in early adulthood include overconfidence, inexperience and the wish to take risks.

The West Midlands has appointed two commissioners to advise on road safety, so I hope we will finally start to treat these issues with the urgency they demand. We cannot wait for another tragedy to drive action. Let us honour the memories of those we have lost by making our roads safer now.

10:21

[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

Once a person has passed their driving test in this country, they are simply released on to the roads. This new Parliament must act to change that.

On Boxing day 2017, a 17-year-old from Suffolk crashed his Ford Fiesta, his first car. His friends William Smedley and Jake Paxton, just 18 years old, both from Bury St Edmunds, died.

Men who have recently learned to drive are at high risk of accidents. Graduated drivers licences have been adopted in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden and Australia. They work so well at reducing accidents that they are being expanded all over the place and states are progressively adopting stricter rules. From December 2024, Western Australia, which previously had the most lenient system of licensing in the country, placed limits on the number of passengers that someone could carry. The legislation is known as Tom’s law, in reference to Tom Saffioti, a 15-year-old boy who died in a crash while a passenger in a car driven by a new driver.

In the UK, drivers can display a P plate after passing the test, but those come with no additional rules. Let us graduate the licence for drivers in the UK. That is not the nanny state; it is simply good government. Everyone in room seems to agree, so let us make it happen.

10:22

[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for her eloquent and emotional speech.

The issue being discussed today is not new. Many years ago, when I attended a school reunion, I was told that two of my schoolmates had died in road traffic accidents very young. One was on the way to see his son. Those young lives were lost, and the families were devastated.

Young male car drivers are four times more likely to be killed or seriously injured than other car drivers aged 25 or over. We have already discussed the prospect of having a graduated driving licence, and there is precedent for that in countries that have already been mentioned. We could have a two-year probation period with N plates, lower drink-drive limits and monitoring to ensure that young drivers do not drive late at night. Other measures we could take include having limits on engine sizes to reduce the driving of powerful vehicles and making the use of P plates mandatory for a set period after passing the test.

Young drivers represent just over 5% of those who have a full UK driving licence, but 20% of drivers involved in fatal or serious collisions. Although the Department for Transport rejected a graduated driving licence in 2020, it is time to reconsider that proposal. Young drivers have their whole lives in front of them in which they can drive as many cars as they want, so let us help them to do that without being killed and without killing others in the process.

10:24

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

I do not want to rehearse the points that have already been made so eloquently by my colleagues from across Westminster Hall. I merely want to say that education has been mentioned briefly, but given that almost all road collisions, and therefore deaths and serious injuries, are preventable, I hope the Minister will do everything she can, as she considers the road safety strategy, to ensure that all available resources are given to local authorities, to police and crime commissioners and to police forces so that they can into schools and reach our young people.

I will also just mention that Warwickshire county council has a safe and active schools programme that looks at primary school age groups and “The Journey” for secondary schools. The police and crime commissioner has a focus on young people in his road safety strategy. Every effort must be made to make an impression upon impressionable young minds from as early as possible, so that we can reduce the risk of these tragic deaths.

10:26

[Claire Hughes (Bangor Aberconwy) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for securing this important debate, and specifically for mentioning road safety on rural roads.

Sadly, nowhere is the devastating impact of crashes on rural roads better demonstrated than by telling Olivia’s story. Olivia Alkir, a much-loved 17-year-old, was denied her bright future when she was killed in the passenger seat of a friend’s car. The driver had been racing on another rural road when he lost control and crashed head-on into an approaching vehicle at 80 mph. He had only passed his driving test the day before. Olivia’s tragic death in 2019 devastated her family, of course, but also the wider community of Efenechtyd, near Ruthin.

Olivia’s mother, Jo, is determined that her daughter’s story will save other people’s lives. I am sure that it already has saved lives, because Olivia’s family decided to work with North Wales Police to create a hard-hitting film designed to warn other young people about the dangers of reckless driving. Olivia’s story has been shown to learner drivers in schools all across Wales and indeed in this House, thanks to the work of my predecessor, Simon Baynes, who represented what was then the constituency of Clwyd South.

Olivia’s story brings into sharp focus the need for action. I welcome the new Government’s road safety review and I implore the Minister to leave no stone unturned in her mission to improve road safety for young people, including learning from other countries, listening to campaigners such as Crystal Owen and considering the use of emerging technologies, such as AI and telematics, which are developing all the time.

I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the debate and to seeing further action in the coming months.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

I call Alison Bennett, spokesperson for the Lib Dems.

10:27

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Desmond, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) on securing this really important debate. I also thank Crystal for sharing her heartbreaking testimony.

I am now old enough to have been driving for 30 years and during the debate I have been reflecting on the joy I felt when I passed my driving test, aged 17. I grew up in Gloucestershire, so to pass my test and be able to travel around the county, meeting friends in Gloucester, Stroud and Tewkesbury, truly was a liberation. How lucky I was. However, two of my classmates, Paul Torrington and Lee Mortimer, were far less lucky than me. A few years after leaving school both were killed, in separate road traffic accidents, and I also reflect today on the opportunities I have had in the past 30 years that they have missed out on.

Between 2004 and 2023, fatalities involving younger drivers decreased by 60%—a true testament to the effectiveness of education, awareness-raising and the tireless efforts of campaigners. Despite that improvement, however, last year road traffic accidents still claimed the lives of 1,624 people across the UK, so there is clearly still work to do. As we have already heard, young drivers—especially young men—aged between 17 and 25 are over-represented in such statistics.

[Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)]

May I express my sadness and join others in commemorating constituents lost? I would like to name Sammy Phillips and Lewis Moghul, who died in Bix, just metres from where I lived at the time. As a father, I can express sympathy, but I can never really, truly understand such pain. Other Members have spoken of the particular hazards that drivers face on rural roads, including the darkness, narrowness, higher speed limits and other dangers. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be helpful to look specifically at the dangers on rural roads?

[Alison Bennett]

I absolutely agree that, as we have heard from a number of Members this morning, the risks of rural roads are particularly profound.

We need to find ways to protect people on rural roads and all other people who share those roads with drivers, and today we have had the chance to reflect on the tragic deaths of Hugo, Harvey, Wilf and Jevon. We are also here to remember every other one of those 1,625 people who lost their lives on British roads last year and the countless more in years gone by.

In my own constituency of Mid Sussex, I recently met Marie, who lost her 22-year-old son in December 2014 to a road traffic accident. He was a backseat passenger in a car being driven by a newly qualified driver, who was 21. He was driving in excess of 100 mph on a country lane when he lost control. The car landed on its roof, and the two passengers in the back lost their lives. Marie’s son left behind two young boys; one was eight months old at the time, and the other was five years old. As we have heard, we can and must learn from these terrible events.

With our remarkable progress in reducing road fatalities over the past few decades, the UK now boasts one of the lowest road death rates per 1 million people in Europe. However, every death is one too many, and we must use this improvement as inspiration that better is possible and that change saves lives, not as a reason to sit on our laurels and say, “Job well done.” My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I are firm in our belief that we need the Government to publish a road safety strategy without delay. Such strategies have previously delivered significant improvements in road safety. For instance, the Road Safety Observatory has noted a significant decline in road fatalities since the 1990s thanks to the 2000 road safety strategy, which delivered campaigns, such as THINK!, infrastructure improvements and more rigorous driving tests.

An updated strategy would surely be transformative in further reducing accidents and saving lives. Crucially, it would need to focus heavily on rural areas, where 60% of fatal collisions occur. We have seen success with the introduction of measures such as stricter drink-driving laws, seatbelt legislation and tougher driving tests, but we absolutely must improve public transport options to reduce our reliance on cars.

Young people, particularly those in rural areas, should not have to rely on dangerous journeys to get to work or education or to see friends, yet the sharp decline in bus services under the previous Government coupled with rising fares has made it harder for many young people to get around safely. In West Sussex, for example, we have seen a nearly 20% drop in available passenger journeys since 2015. Young people are simply so much more likely to end up driving when there are no decent alternatives. We can solve that by maintaining the £2 cap on bus fares, reopening smaller train stations and offering on-demand services where conventional buses are not viable.

Rural roads would also benefit greatly from better infrastructure, such as the installation of more overtaking lanes, as the RSO has suggested. As well as broader infrastructure strategies, we must embrace new ideas. One of the standout proposals today is Harvey’s hammer, which could be a game changer in saving lives and creating a more safety-conscious culture, especially among young drivers. New technology, coupled with better enforcement of speed limits, education programmes for all road users and investment in safer roads and vehicles, all of which have a proven track record of success, provide hope that we can do so much more in the years to come.

My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I have long championed road safety measures, and we will continue to do so. Marie, her son’s young family and the families of Hugo, Harvey, Wilf and Jevon are in our hearts as we strive for effective change. The Government must support measures to make these tragedies a rarity and support proposals such as Harvey’s hammer, which has the potential to save lives when these terrible events take place.

As hon. Members have set out today, we know that young people face disproportionate risks on the roads, but they should not be punished for it. Instead, we must give them the tools to stay safe. Let us focus on improving public infrastructure, enforcing road safety rules and providing better public transport options, using a new road safety strategy. We owe it to the memory of all young people whose lives have been cut short, to their families, and to all who care about saving innocent lives.

10:35

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) on bringing this important debate to Westminster Hall this morning. I thank all those who have contributed with powerful speeches. My heart goes out to any family who have lost a child or relative in a road accident. Every single death is a tragedy that should spur us on to do more to prevent future deaths and injuries, and make our roads safer. I cannot imagine the pain of any family getting the knock on the door from a police officer, or however the news is broken to them, to tell them that a child has died on our roads, as in this case, or under any other circumstances.

We must always look at practical measures to improve road safety through the lens of “To drive is freedom”. To drive brings opportunity. For many—I include myself in this—to drive brings pleasure. Our challenge is: what will protect those freedoms, opportunities and pleasures in a safer way?

[Mrs Russell]

Mandy Ogden said to me:

“Often, the main argument against this change to driver licensing is that it restricts freedom, but our daughter’s freedom has been taken away forever.”

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that, too, is an important point?

[Greg Smith]

In a few moments, I will come on to the measures that I think would protect the freedom to drive far better, as well as the safety of those who do so. There will perhaps not be agreement with every single point that hon. Members have made in the debate, but I repeat the point. Central to how I would like to look at this issue is not how we can restrict people more, but how we can make people safer in the first place by ensuring that they have the skills required to drive safely, be it in our cities and towns, on our rural roads and motorways, or indeed abroad, where often the rules can be very different. We all know the example of the German autobahns, many of which have no speed limit. It is vital to equip any British citizen going to Germany with the ability to handle a car at very great speed and be safe on those roads.

The challenge before us is how to make everybody—young people, for sure, but also old people, for whom the statistics are just as stark, as the hon. Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon) mentioned—safer and able to handle a vehicle in all conditions on our roads.

[Dr Arthur]

Back in 2020, an older driver caused a fatality in Edinburgh, killing a three-year-old boy. The fatal accident inquiry found that drivers over 80 should perhaps be subject to cognitive tests if they want to continue driving. That inquiry is currently with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. Will the shadow Minister support action in that area?

[Greg Smith]

It is important that we look at all evidence suggesting a problem and explore the basis for solving it, but I am no fan of knee-jerk legislation. This House is at its worst when we jump to knee-jerk solutions to any problem presented. It is important to look at all the evidence, practical outcomes and potential unintended consequences. The case that the hon. Gentleman raises and the point that he makes are important and should be looked at—as he referenced, it is being looked at by the DVLA at the moment. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to that point.

I double-underline that we should bear in mind that every death on our roads is a tragedy, but there has been significant improvement in road safety over recent years.

[Anna Sabine]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Greg Smith]

I will just expand this point and then give way to the hon. Lady. Since road user casualties peaked in 1965, with nearly 8,000 deaths, there has been a concerted efforts to reduce the numbers. Thankfully, that effort has largely been successful, across successive Governments of all political persuasions.

According to Department for Transport figures, released in September last year, Great Britain ranked third out of 33 countries reported on in 2023 for the lowest number of road fatalities per million of the population. Of course, that number is still too high, but the direction of travel is positive, and we need to take further action—

[Andy MacNae (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Greg Smith]

I promised to give way to the hon. Member for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine), and will just finish this point. Mindful of time, I may then take one or two more interventions.

Although the claim of a 13% fall in casualties accurately reflects the raw data between 2010 and 2023, it fails to account for the context of vehicle miles, which have significantly increased. During that time, the number of vehicle miles increased from 306 billion to 334 billion. When adjusted to that context, the Department’s data indicates a decrease in the casualty rate from 681 casualties per billion vehicle miles in 2010 to 398 in 2023, which is a 41% reduction. I repeat that we must still take action to get the number down to zero, but the direction of travel has been good.

[Anna Sabine]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the personal tragedies of road accidents and refers to Members of all political persuasions. Does he agree that it is brilliant to see cross-party support for these campaigns, but that it might be more helpful for campaigners if His Majesty’s Opposition were better represented in today’s debate?

[Greg Smith]

I hesitate to go there, on what is a political point. When we are having a serious debate, comments like that are not necessarily helpful to the spirit of trying to engender cross-party working.

I have a history of looking at this subject, including with the Minister for the future of roads. In the previous Parliament, we both served on the Transport Committee, which conducted a deep inquiry into novice and young drivers and the implications for safety. We looked carefully at graduated driving licences and other things, such as the Under 17 Car Club, which was referred to earlier, and which I am a huge fan of. I am a huge fan of trying to get young people—potentially very young people—in an off-road, safe, private-land setting and starting to understand how to drive and control a vehicle safely.

[Cameron Thomas]

I did not manage to make this point in my speech, but whereas one in five young people will be involved in a reportable road traffic collision in the year following their test, that figure is reduced to one in 33 for those who complete that course. I invite the hon. Member to agree.

[Greg Smith]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, and I entirely agree. The younger we can get people into any sort of powered vehicle, so that they can learn how to control it safely in different conditions in a safe, off-road, heavily supervised setting, the better. That work is all to the good and powerful, and I was certainly impressed by the evidence I heard in that Select Committee inquiry.

That raises a wider point that I invite the Minister to reflect on. I think it was encapsulated well by the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) when he said that young people are focused on passing a test rather than learning to drive. Our testing and learning system is too focused on a very limited set of circumstances that any individual seeking their first driving licence has to go through. Testing is done very often in an urban environment, but rarely on the rural roads that we have heard so much about, and learner drivers never go on the motorway and learn to control a car at significant speeds. My challenge to the Minister is this: how can we ensure that when a young person—or any person, for that matter—is granted their pass certificate and gets their full driving licence, they are properly equipped? To me, the solution is not putting in a graduated system afterwards; it is having the confidence that, when someone is issued with their licence, they are able and safe to control any motor vehicle to the best of their ability.

Graduated driving licences would take away too much from young people. We heard from young people in the Select Committee inquiry that I spoke about. What if a young person wants to go into the world of work? What if they want to do night shifts but are told they cannot drive at night? What if they wish to go into one of the emergency services and have to attend night-time emergencies, be that as a police officer—

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter]

With the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Greg Smith]

I have limited time, but I am happy to take up the debate afterwards.

What if the path that a young person wants to go down requires them to be able to drive a car at night? There have to be answers to these questions. I gently say to all hon. Members here this morning, including the Minister, that a driving licence must be equal for everybody, and that we must look most of all at how we can improve our confidence that everybody who is issued with one can control a vehicle in all circumstances, in all conditions and on all road types. That will involve a significant change, which will improve road safety for everybody.

10:47

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Lilian Greenwood)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair this morning, Sir Desmond. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) on securing the debate and thank her for continuing to raise the vital issue of road safety. It is clear from the number of hon. Members present— I counted 26 contributions, but I may be wrong—that this is, rightly, an issue of huge public concern. I thank all those who made moving and compelling contributions. I also congratulate my hon. Friend for championing the excellent work that her constituent Crystal Owen is doing to highlight young driver safety following the tragic death of her son, Harvey.

In recent months I have been grateful to have the opportunity to meet with my hon. Friend, with Crystal and other members of Forget-me-not Families Uniting, including Sharron Huddleston and Dr Ian Greenwood, both of whom are here today, and with a number of other families whose lives have been affected by road death. Crystal, Ian, Sharron and many other families are in the Public Gallery, and my heart goes out to all of them. I thank them for taking the time to meet me, for their courage in sharing their heartbreaking stories, either with me or with their constituency MPs, and for their determination to make sure that other families do not face the same grief. It is vital that victims’ voices are heard and their experiences shared, as they have been so movingly today. I am committed to continuing to engage as we develop our policies in this area.

I am sure that many of us remember reading about the deaths of Harvey Owen, Wilfred Fitchett, Jevon Hirst and Hugo Morris in November 2023, and no one could fail to be moved by hearing that terrible story again today in Crystal’s own words. It is literally every parent’s worst nightmare. The deaths of those four young men have had a devastating impact on their families and community, as have the deaths of other young people we have spoken about today. I am determined to take action to prevent such deaths in the future, and improving road safety is one of my Department’s highest priorities.

Despite the two-year probation period for all new drivers that was introduced in 1995, in terms of population and number of miles driven, 17 to 24-year olds, and particularly young men, remain one of the highest fatality-risk groups, both as car drivers and as passengers. Although the latest statistics show that the number of young drivers killed on our roads has fallen by 80% since 1990, that cannot be a reason for complacency. The number of deaths in 2023 was 90, but that is 90 too many. Every one of those young lives lost leaves a devastated family, and often many families, including those of the passengers and other road users. There is a pressing need for action.

Although we are not considering graduated driving licences, we absolutely recognise that young people are disproportionately the victims of tragic collisions on our roads, which is why we are exploring options to tackle the root causes of the issue without unfairly penalising young drivers. The Government want to ensure young people’s access to employment, education and other opportunities while keeping them safe on the roads.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and other hon. Members, particularly those representing rural and semi-rural areas, said, that means giving young people more choices by investing in public transport and active travel. The Government have already begun to do that by announcing additional funding for buses, walking and cycling in the Budget, but of course that goes alongside specific road safety measures.

Those efforts are supported by Driver2020, the Department’s largest young driver research project, which evaluated a range of interventions to improve the safety of young drivers. The project tested the effectiveness of five non-legislative measures aimed at improving safety for young and novice drivers, including keeping a log book, extra hazard perception training, classroom-based education, mentoring agreements and telematics. Driver2020 began in January 2019, and more than 28,000 participants were recruited. The project was delayed by the pandemic, but the Department has now received the final report, which will inform our considerations. As a number of hon. Members said, we can also look to international experience. For example, a number of countries have a lower or zero alcohol limit for young drivers, or a minimum learning period.

Our THINK! campaign does important work to encourage safer attitudes and behaviours among young drivers. Its innovative campaigns are highly targeted to reach young men aged 17 to 24. People sometimes tell me, “I don’t feel that I have seen some of those campaigns,” but that perhaps is because they are not on the channels of the people we are most keen to target. Hon. Members will be pleased to hear that we have just launched the latest phase of our speeding campaign, which highlights the risk of driving too fast for the conditions of rural roads. As hon. Members have said, those circumstances contribute to high numbers of young driver casualties.

A number of hon. Members also talked about action to reduce speed, including lower speed limits, and to enforce speed limits, such as speed cameras. Improving our roads, changing speed limits and installing speed cameras are decisions for local traffic authorities. Obviously, they want to make those decisions in consultation with local communities and the local police. They know their roads best, and I cannot and should not dictate to them from Whitehall. However, I agree that such partnerships are essential and that they should be looking at local-level interventions to make our roads safer. The Department will look at what more we can do to support them, and we stand ready to work with all those working at a local level.

THINK! campaigns have shown positive results, but we know that changing ingrained attitudes and behaviours takes time. This year, we are doing even more to land the vital messages, including working with content creators and influential platforms such as LADbible to tackle speeding via the voices that young audiences trust. Before Christmas, THINK! launched a major new drink-driving campaign, which highlighted the risk of losing one’s licence after drinking even a little before driving, and the subsequent impact on the freedoms that we know mean a lot to young drivers. As a number of hon. Members have said, we also need to address other dangerous behaviours, including failing to wear a seatbelt, using a mobile phone while driving and taking drugs before driving, which sadly is a growing problem. We need to use every opportunity to educate young people about road safety, and that involves working with mayors, local councils, police and crime commissioners, police, schools, colleges, charities, and the many parents and families who have generously used their tragic experience to try to help others make better choices.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency delivers a wide range of support targeted at keeping young drivers safe. The Ready to Pass? campaign helps learner drivers to assess when they are ready to take their test, and provides lots of useful information about safe driving for life. Many people have talked about the importance of driving in different road conditions, on rural roads, at night and in the dark. Pass Plus provides further education for drivers once they have passed their test. It is clear to me that we should consider what more can be done to support learner drivers and newly qualified drivers to be safe. My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury raised the potential for measures to improve vehicle safety, such as the installation of a Harvey’s hammer device. I will take that suggestion back to my officials for further consideration and write to my hon. Friend.

In my short time as Minister for the Future of Roads, I have heard too many heartbreaking accounts of loss and serious injury. We have been very moved to hear during this debate stories of hon. Members’ constituents who have lost loved ones. I again thank all those Members who came to the debate to share them. It is vital that we hear the voices of those who have been most impacted by road deaths. I assure them that I am listening.

I want to assure everyone listening, but especially those who have been affected by road deaths and injuries, that this Government treat road safety with utmost seriousness. We are committed to reducing the numbers of those killed and seriously injured on our roads. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) said, we can never regard road deaths as inevitable. The majority of road crashes are avoidable, and that is why the Department is developing our road safety strategy. It will be the first in over a decade, and we will set out more details in due course. We will adopt a safe system approach. We need all partners working together—policymakers, road engineers and designers, vehicle manufacturers, the police and road users.

I will be pleased to keep in touch with my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and other hon. Members as we progress our work on road safety and young drivers. I congratulate her once again on securing this important debate.

10:59

[Julia Buckley]

I thank all Members who have taken the time to listen and contribute to the debate, and I thank the bereaved families and campaigners for their time and for listening again to stories that can only be upsetting. I also thank the Minister for her time. I could hear in her summing-up that she was clearly listening to the messages that we put forward today, and we thank her for that. I am particularly pleased to hear that she might consider Harvey’s hammer as a safety measure. I hope that she made note, too, of the local initiative that the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) described. I do not know whether it features in Driver2020, but that educational IT piece takes the rate of post-test driving collisions from one in five to one in 33.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).