Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 13th March 2018 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Simon) (Lab)]

My Lords, if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.

Amendment 1

Moved by

Road Traffic Accidents: Hand-held Mobile Devices

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Simon (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register.

Due to the cost of purchasing and maintaining vehicles, police forces have had to cut the number of traffic officers to help achieve the financial cuts imposed on them. The noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, said that the number of these offences in connection with using mobiles had stayed the same over a 10-year period. This could well be due to the cut in the number of traffic officers. I wonder how often noble Lords present today have seen traffic officers’ vehicles on a motorway—not many, I suspect. It is easy to see a driver who is using a hand-held mobile, and this applies to vehicles of all sizes. However, the driver is not only distracted by using the hand-held device; the person at the other end has no idea of the traffic conditions, which adds to this distraction. Therefore, this issue needs to be attended to.

While slightly wide of this debate, would it not be a good idea if drivers were forbidden to have both ears covered by a device, so that they can hear emergency vehicles? Perhaps such a measure should be applied also to cyclists.

Road Safety: Eye Tests

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Viscount Simon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to encourage drivers to have their sight checked regularly in the interest of road safety.

[Viscount Simon (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interests, which are in the register, and beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency’s driving licence application form makes clear the importance of meeting the required eyesight standards. The Department for Transport also makes clear the eyesight standards for driving in its leaflets and forms, as well as on the GOV.UK website. The department supports the NHS recommendation that adults should have their eyes tested every two years. This advice was promoted through a communication campaign in 2013, supported by the BMA, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and Brake.

[Viscount Simon]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. Given that in 2014 the driver eyesight survey estimated that crashes resulting from poor driver vision caused 2,900 casualties in the UK per year and that three-quarters of the adult population require either contact lenses or glasses, will the Government do more to alert drivers of the dangers of not getting their eyesight tested regularly, and can consideration be given to using motorway electronic signs to display this message? Road safety week starts on 21 November. Would that not be an excellent time to start running a trial to establish whether these actions have a beneficial effect?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I congratulate the noble Viscount. He has been a vociferous and devoted campaigner for road safety, and I know that he recently received an award from the Police Federation recognising his achievements and service in this area. Highways England uses electronic variable message signs but, as the noble Viscount is aware, these are intended primarily to advise drivers of immediate safety issues and journey information. With regard to road safety week, we are intending, with Highways England, to use other forms of media, such as social media, to promote the importance of getting your eyes tested.

Drug Driving (Specified Limits) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2015

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2015 Grand Committee

per litre of blood, should be the limit. That does not actually say what answer was given to the question that was asked of the medical community regarding what amphetamine blood concentration levels would typically result from legitimate medicinal usage. What was the specific answer to that question, on which the Government came to the conclusion that the limit should be 250 micrograms? Was the answer 250 micrograms, or was it a different figure to the one that the Government have now fixed the limit at?

[Viscount Simon (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister gave a very interesting outline to the order and, as usual, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked some very interesting questions. I do not intend to ask any further questions but, purely out of academic interest, it may amuse the Minister to learn that last week I happened to be in the garage of a police traffic centre where they were giving instructions on the use of the drug-screening equipment. I was present for the whole course, and the inspector said that I had passed. He said that each kit cost £16 and therefore that they would not be used very often, because they cost so much. So who knows when they will be used. However, if they are used and they fail, they can still be used under the old legislation.

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, thank you very much. I shall talk through the questions in reverse order, with the latest being freshest in my mind. I can say to the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, that the cost of these screening devices is around £16 or £17—obviously there is some variation in price. He will be glad to know that at this point 35 of the 43 forces have purchased mobile screening devices, with 5,000 purchased in total. He is right that it is more expensive than testing for drink-driving, which costs something around 17p or 18p per device. I think that the normal pattern will be to test for drink-driving but, in those cases where drink-driving is not established as the cause of concern, police forces may well choose—on many fewer occasions—to then do a roadside test for drug-driving, the penalties being identical. They can of course always require the individual to go to the police station for a blood test. Indeed, the blood test is always a necessary step when there is a prosecution. With that kind of gradation, police forces should find this to be an affordable strategy. In fact, the feedback that we have is that they are very pleased to have a tool to help them to deal with drug-driving, which is an issue of very significant concern.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, raised several issues. I think he has heard me speak many times on the issue of precision in forecasts. I do not think that there is any such thing as precision in forecasts, and I sometimes wonder why we do not generally round numbers up, although in this case we did not go to the right of the decimal point. However, a forecast enables people to get in the ballpark, to use an American term, of what we think that the impact will be. That is an important piece of information to include when we do an assessment.

The noble Lord asked why we have not had a third consultation. I am afraid that I cannot tell him the exact date we decided that it would be too frustrating to go ahead with the third consultation. There was a general awareness that, having asked people the same question twice, we were unlikely to get a different answer when we went back for a third time. Informal consultations had been happening on an ongoing basis, making it even more redundant. However, more to the point, as he will know, the offence came into force under Section 5A on 2 March, and going through a round of consultation and then creating a much greater gap before amphetamines came on to the list seemed the greater evil. A third consultation would essentially confirm the information that had already been extensively received. It strikes me that it was a rather logical decision of the kind that government sometimes does not make.

Motor Vehicles (Wearing of Seat Belts) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2015

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2015 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)]

My Lords, this Motion will allow a new type of child seat to be used in motor vehicles in Great Britain. This has already been discussed in another place. It has long been an established fact that wearing seatbelts is an important safety mechanism. Seatbelts are a significant factor in saving lives in collisions. In a crash, individuals not wearing a seatbelt are twice as likely to die as those wearing a seatbelt. Therefore the Department for Transport takes this matter very seriously.

It is especially distressing when a crash involves young children. Safety for children in cars has improved in recent years but, unfortunately, car crashes are one of the leading causes of child fatalities. This is why the department has been involved in developing, under the auspices of the United Nations, the new standard which has been adopted by the European Union. Child seats currently come in an array of overlapping size groupings which confuse many parents and can encourage them to switch to a forward-facing seat too early. This new standard of child seat is known as i-size, and has many advantages over the existing designs currently allowed. As well as requiring a child to travel in a rearward position until the age of 15 months, it also provides side impact protection for better protection of the head and neck, with a more rigorous testing procedure for new designs, including an improved crash-test dummy. Furthermore, by doing away with the overlapping groupings and moving to a system based on the child’s height, it will be much easier for parents to choose the correct seat.

The new standard does not replace the current one. Both standards will run in parallel. Therefore, car seats complying with either standard may continue to be sold and used safely and will not require parents to purchase a new design of child seat if they are using one which meets the current standard. With the introduction of i-size, consumers will be given an extra option to choose a seat that conforms to the latest standard when purchasing a new car seat for their child. This also means that manufacturers will not have to stop making existing designs. However, many manufacturers have already designed and tested i-size products and are ready to bring them to the UK market. Indeed, they are pressing us to make this change. While it is anticipated that approvals for the old standard will eventually be phased out, it is not the intention to prevent existing products being used.

This issue is an important aspect of designing safer vehicles, which was a major challenge identified in this Government’s strategic framework for road safety. I therefore commend the regulations to the Committee. I beg to move.

[Viscount Simon (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness the Minister described this very well. It makes perfect sense. It will help maintain the health and safety of very young children. I have only two questions but I do not know whether she will know the answers. How has the new type of child crash-test dummies been changed? How has the new side-impact test been changed again?

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

Perhaps I may raise just one or two points on these regulations. In particular I refer to the impact assessment. Impact assessments quite often contain little gems that are not actually set out in the Explanatory Memorandum. This impact assessment sets out the policy objectives and states that:

“The policy objective is to reduce the number and seriousness of injuries to child vehicle occupants whilst keeping any additional burden to industry or vehicle users to a proportionate level”.

It goes on to talk about UN-ECE Regulation 129, to which the Minister has referred, as intending to provide additional safety benefits over and above the existing standards. As I understand it, this regulation, which has been accepted by the EU, is not compulsory. However, I note that when the impact assessment goes on to look at the policy options, it sets out the first one as “do nothing”, which is fairly obvious, while the second option would allow the use of regulation 129 covering standard child restraints in vehicles as well as the existing regulation 44 standard. It states that this is the favoured policy option, and that indeed is what the Minister has said.

The assessment then goes on to set out that a third option to require all new child seats sold from the date of implementation to be of regulation 129 standard was dismissed, which is fairly strong language, on the basis that this would go beyond the requirements of the EU directive and would be considered to be gold-plating and not be deliverable. Am I to understand that implementing a directive in a gold-plated way means that you implement it in such a way so as to reduce the number of child fatalities, as well as the number of serious and slight injuries, on the basis, as we are told, that the new restraint under regulation 129 is safer?

Further on in the impact assessment, on page 5, two policy options are set out, excluding the do-nothing one. The second one, which I think is the one that has been dismissed—I should like to know by whom—states:

“Require all new child seats sold from date of implementation (early 2015) to be of Regulation 129 standard”.

It continues:

“This would ensure that all new units sold would be of a higher safety standard, and also ensure that these safer child restraints permeate the market quicker than would be the case under option 1”.

That is the option that the Minister, on behalf of the Government, has said is favoured and is indeed provided for in these regulations. Can the noble Baroness confirm that, given the reference to the fact that this would constitute gold-plating, the definition of “gold-plating” would ensure safer child restraints being required and that they would also,

“permeate the market quicker than would be the case under option 1”?

It would be an interesting example of what gold-plating means. Perhaps a rather happier wording could have been used in the impact assessment instead of this enthusiasm for dismissing something as gold-plating. It might have been a bit more open to have said, “Yes, we have made a decision not to go for the safest option, the one that would reduce the number of fatalities, serious and slight injuries. We have decided to go for the option that does not make it compulsory but which we recognise might not achieve the same reduction in fatalities and injuries to young children”. As that is my understanding, I think it would have been better if it had been put in that way rather than this enthusiasm for using the word “gold-plating”.

I also notice that the option which was looked at was the one that would:

“Require all new child seats sold from the date of implementation (early 2015) to be of Regulation 129 standard”.

If I have understood this impact assessment correctly, it estimates that, without it being a requirement, the take-up of the enhanced car seats will still be between 70% and 100% by 2020, with what is described as a “best uptake of 85%”. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that that is the case. If it is expected that there will nevertheless still be a high uptake of child restraints that conform to the higher standard set by UN-ECE Regulation 129 over a period of five years, why was it not considered that the second option—a requirement that all new child seats sold from the date of implementation are to be of regulation 129 standard—should be brought into force in two, three, four or five years’ time? At least we would then have had a guarantee that it was going to come in.

I am sure the Minister will correct me if I am wrong but, as I understand it, under these regulations there is no date when it will actually become the required standard. If we are expecting such a high uptake of the new, higher-standard child restraint by 2020, what is the objection to saying to what would appear to be the relatively low percentage that would not conform to the higher standard that, by that time, you will have to conform to the higher standard? I do not understand why that has not been incorporated into the regulations. I can appreciate why the regulations do not require everyone to conform from early 2015 but, bearing in mind the high uptake that is expected, I do not understand why there is nothing in the order to say that from a certain date—two, three, four, five years’ ahead—it will become the required standard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kramer]

I suppose that we could theoretically require parents to go out and buy a new car, which is why we have used phrases such as gold-plating. It is clearly not feasible to bring in the new standard and require parents to have a car that meets it. They may be in the second-hand market for cars, or they may have an older car which, because of family finances, they are not in a position to replace. But as I have said, existing car seats offer a great deal of safety to children, and parents have been very satisfied with them. The industry has demonstrated their quality, but that does not mean that we do not keep on improving, and it is the rationale for running the two standards in parallel.

Parents are very concerned about safety of their children. As the new car fleet turns over, take-up of the new standard will obviously overrule the old standard and we will reach a point—I cannot tell the noble Lord in which year—at which it will be possible to phase out the old standard.

[Viscount Simon]

I thank the Minister for her reply on side-impact testing. From a purely academic point of view, side-impact testing has been taking place privately for many years for research purposes by TRL, the universities and the manufacturers. It is an interesting point of view that it is now being used as a logistic point of view, and it is very good that it now forms part of the legislation.

[Baroness Kramer]

I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, for those comments. We are all very focused on the issue of safety and we have to give credit to the industry and the consumer for constantly driving forward the technical progress that makes cars safer. That is something we all want and it is an important part of the work that the Government have done on a whole series of fronts. With that understanding, I hope that this is a sensible way in which to bring in a new standard for car seats which gives parents the opportunity to move to the new standard without making life impossible for those for whom it would be unaffordable for a whole variety of reasons. Having addressed the range of issues, I hope that noble Lords will be able to agree to the regulations and that they can be brought into force.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I did not give notice of my intention to oppose the question that Clause 2 stand part of the Bill because I had not heard all this debate before.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Simon) (Lab)]

I am putting the question.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I am sorry if I was out of order. The point has been made that the Bill incorporates, amends and transfers a great deal of earlier statutes. At some stage, this legislation might be consolidated. I made a study a year or two ago of how this could be done. I had a long—not frustrating, because I learnt a lot—meeting with the chairman of the consolidation committee, a High Court judge. It all depends on whether the department concerned is prepared to put up the cost.

We have occasional consolidation Bills. I was particularly concerned about the consolidation of the Gas and Electricity Acts, which have now become hideously complicated because of the constant amendment of earlier legislation. It was simply said: “Well, if the department in charge of those Acts is prepared to pay for it, the consolidation committee can make sure that the consolidated document is produced”. Is there any chance that the Department for Transport would contemplate this on a matter that obviously affects very large numbers of people over the whole of the administration of this Act? Might it in future contemplate agreeing to pay for consolidation?

Queen’s Speech

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Thursday 5th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Simon (Lab)]

My Lords, I should declare my interests as in the register, as I will be speaking about practical matters of concern which some might consider as coming into the subject of transport, but which were not covered in the gracious Speech.

The number of deaths and serious injuries on our roads was predicted to fall by 2030 in an academic study published by the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety. I hope that that proves to be correct, but I have my concerns about sufficient suitably trained roads-policing officers being available to enforce the laws. I suspect that few noble Lords will have seen a marked traffic car on a motorway for a long time, and that is the same for criminals, who go from A to B knowing that the chances of being stopped are very remote. The number has been reduced and is being reduced further. In some areas, driver training has also been reduced. I wonder whether, in the not-too-distant future, there will be enough officers to train other officers in the special investigatory skills required following a road death or serious injury.

Further, as more emphasis has been placed on investigating serious accidents, the resource that does that has been withdrawn from roads, meaning that there is less deterrent to prevent such accidents. That is set, as I have already said, against a background of reducing the number of trained officers. Why are those reductions taking place? All police forces are having to reduce operational and administrative costs and, as the cost associated with running traffic operations is high, it is an area that is financially attractive to chief constables in assisting them to achieve the Government’s requirements.

The Institute of Advanced Motorists, under a freedom of information question on excessive speed, has drawn attention to the fact that there is a good need for a deterrent presence of roads-policing officers out there on the road, ready and willing to deal with those who misbehave deliberately. Driving at 149 miles per hour, which was the speed of one of the drivers mentioned in the article, is a deliberate act, not an error.

We all think that it is awful when we read of drivers with points over the maximum of 12, but there are some out there with more than 40 points on their licences. The information available to the courts needs to be up to date, but that is not always the case, I have been told. I draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that not only the DVLA but the courts need to be both efficient and quick in updating their records accurately.

I was interested to read a newspaper article about young drivers being involved in more road accidents than others as a percentage of all drivers. We all remember when we passed our driving tests and thought that we were the best drivers in the world but, since those days, road and traffic conditions have changed. The time is ripe for introducing special conditions to be imposed on young drivers and for them to have graduated licences. This is a road safety proposal and not, as the Government have stated, a restriction on their driving. We all know that, in time, we learn by experience and I hope that the Government will introduce appropriate legislation.

On a completely different matter, which has been raised, the European Union has proposed that diagnostic software chips are placed in all new vehicles in the near future, which would enable authorised people to interpret what a car and driver was doing at a particular time. This would have extremely useful implications, which I leave noble Lords to work out for themselves. I imagine that the insurance industry, the police and some other departments would welcome this, whereas certain motorists would say that it was an invasion of their privacy.

The Government’s efforts to make speeding and other driver misbehaviour gain the stigma of being regarded as anti-social needs to be maintained and not allowed to decrease. Much of that is about the visibility of ministerial and government leadership. At the moment we hear and see little of this, despite the huge total cost of road deaths and serious injury collisions increasing every year.

The Law Commission’s final report and draft Bill retains and strengthens the existing, two-tier system between taxis and private hire and sets national standards, which are based on those currently in force in London under the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998. I understand that the private hire industry broadly welcomes the proposed reforms and I look forward to the Minister confirming that the Government intend to bring forward those proposals. It had been my intention to mention other disturbing matters, including the background to the proposed taxi demonstration on 11 June, but I think that I have said enough.

Driving: Blood Alcohol Limit

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, many European countries have a 50 milligram blood alcohol limit. However, they also have lower penalties at that level. Our policy is to have an 80 milligram limit but very severe penalties if you exceed the limit. This seems to have the right effect because our safety record is better than that on the continent.

[Viscount Simon]

My Lords, if the noble Earl is saying that 80 milligrams is the correct level for us, what about Scotland and Wales? Presumably they will decrease their level to 50 milligrams.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Viscount is quite right; Scotland has the power to set a lower limit. However, it cannot change the penalties. If it does change its limit, it will be very interesting to see what the effect will be on casualties.

Government: Cars

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My noble friend is ingenious as well. Government cars are issued to Ministers when they are needed.

[Viscount Simon]

My Lords, following the question from my noble friend Lord Davies of Oldham, and, again, I fear, being slightly wide of the Question on the Order Paper, is the noble Earl aware that the company that manufactures black cabs has ceased trading and that the companies that will replace them are, I believe, based in Germany?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am aware of the difficulties of Manganese Bronze and the cabs, but that is of course a little wide of the Question on the Order Paper.

Smoke-free Private Vehicles Bill [HL]

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Friday 29th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Simon]

My Lords, whenever we have a Bill before your Lordships where the issue of tobacco smoke is included, I always declare that I have severe brittle asthma and can become very ill, sometimes within a few seconds, when I inhale tobacco smoke.

I make no excuses for repeating what other noble Lords have said, because their comments are worth repeating. Some parents smoke without realising the damage that they can do to their children’s health, nor do they realise that, within the closed space of a car, the concentration of tobacco smoke is much greater than in other areas, resulting in a range of lung diseases. In the case of children, those diseases are aggravated because of their reduced lung functions. Moreover, children have faster breathing and less developed immune systems.

In many cases, people who smoke in cars are not aware of the dangers to their children because they rarely travel in the back of the car while others smoke in the front. Many children who are aware of the dangers feel unable to influence those who smoke in cars.

There have been a number of studies on smoking. Those on smoking in cars started in 2006. People who smoke will not agree with their findings, but the studies cannot be faulted. They are factually accurate and correct. In 1924, the city fathers of South Bend, Indiana, introduced a special ruling which has never been rescinded. It prohibits any monkey, orang-utan, chimpanzee or ape from smoking in a public place. If they can legislate for animals, is it not time that we protected our children from the effects of second-hand tobacco smoke?