Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bassam of Brighton and Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 22nd March 2018 Grand Committee

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

Yes, absolutely. We will look further into it and see what other data we can find.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords who have supported this amendment. I am disappointed by the Minister’s response, although I am grateful for it and for the information she has given us. I think that one death is one death too many, and the case I mentioned was particularly tragic. Let us be clear about this: it involved a tonnage lower than the 3.5 tonnes level. Nevertheless, it was clearly sufficiently heavy to be fatal. As I understand it, the victim was crushed by the weight of the trailer, and that was obviously the cause of his death.

The circumstances of the crash are such that although the driver, who was brought to court, was clearly responsible for the death, he received a sentence of 200 community hours and a six-month driving ban, whereas had he been over an alcohol limit we all know that he would likely have faced a term of imprisonment, because that is what is applied. Had he been on his mobile phone, quite possibly a similar penalty would have been imposed, but because it related to a defect, the penalty was rather different. One can understand the anger and frustration of the parents: they want a sense of justice. That is why they have a web page calling for justice for Freddie. While we can all express sympathy, we will never bring Freddie back, but they are very compassionate people and they want to make sure that something is done that drives down the number of fatalities, however low it is. I accept that 2% is quite low, but there are a large number of accidents: 5,000 was the figure given, and 1,700 killed or seriously injured is in itself no small number.

I accept the general point that road safety has been steadily improving over the years, largely because of improvements in vehicles and because we have become better drivers as a consequence of improved training and so on. But I think there is still an issue here. The weight level needs to be lower. More work needs to be done on this. Although obviously I will withdraw the amendment today, it would helpful if we could have some further discussions before the next stage of the Bill, and I retain the right to bring a similar amendment back—perhaps an amendment that the department and the Minister would find more agreeable—on Report. This is a significant issue and we should always try to do as much as we possibly can to improve safety. After all, it is the steady accretion of intelligent regulation that has driven down the number of road-related accidents and deaths over time. For instance, going back to the 1960s, people were not that happy when safety belts were introduced but they have made a massive difference to the outcome of road traffic accidents, as have many other features that have mandatorily been imposed on motorists, including alcohol limits, which have made a very significant difference as well.

We should always look for those opportunities and, as the impact assessment says, this is one. It is a question of getting the balance right between regulation and continuing as we are. I make a strong appeal to the Government, the Minister and the officials to give that some further thought, because there is more we can do here.