Safety of Riders and Horses on Rural Roads

Debate between Cat Smith and David Amess

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Cat Smith]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I have a keen interest in this issue as an Opposition Member who has a constituency that includes a lot of rural areas. Indeed, my constituent Susan Armitage has raised the issue with me on a great number of occasions. It obviously affects the whole country, although the demographics of constituencies represented by Opposition Members might be considered to be more urban than rural.

By contrast with the Government’s manifesto, ours stated very clearly:

“Labour will reset the UK’s road safety vision and ambitiously strive for a transport network with zero deaths, reintroducing road-safety targets”.

We implore the Minister to follow our lead and reintroduce the targets that were brought in under the last Labour Government. I have no doubt that those targets successfully reduced the number of those killed or seriously injured by about a third. During a Westminster Hall debate on road traffic law enforcement in the previous Parliament, the Minister at the time, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, stated that while other countries might wish to have road safety targets, his belief was that we did not need them. However, road safety targets focus minds and attention, and the Opposition simply do not see the reason or logic behind the Government’s persistent refusal to bring them back. When we support international targets at the United Nations and European level, why do we still reject them for our own country?

The Government have also overlooked the significance of road safety figures with their failure to release the 2016 national road safety statistics on time. The release has been pushed back to the end of September this year. As a consequence of the delay, casualty figures for the first quarter of 2017, previously scheduled for release in August 2017, will now not be published. The next quarterly update is expected in October, covering the period from January to June 2017.

If the Minister is determined to disregard road safety targets and figures, perhaps he can provide us with some assurances that the Government are progressing with other policy ideas. He may be aware of the petition mentioned earlier that has gathered more than 100,000 signatures on Change.org. It calls for a law to be introduced that would require road users to pass a horse with at least two metres’ distance and to slow to a maximum speed of 15 mph, as well as ensuring that all road users abide by horse riders’ hand signals. Have the Government considered any of those proposals? If not, what other policies can the Minister lay out today to safeguard riders and horses on rural roads?

We must see some action from the Government on rider and horse safety and the safety of road users in general. Opposition Members are determined to keep pressure on the Government until we see a return to the progress made under the last Labour Administration. It must be stressed again: inaction risks lives. The Labour party wants to reduce risk on our transport network to zero. The Government should be prepared to show the same ambition and act accordingly.

[Sir David Amess (in the Chair)]

Before the Minister responds, I want to ask that a little bit of time be left at the end for Mr Thomas to wind up the debate.