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

Debate between Viscount Simon and Baroness Kramer

Wednesday 11th March 2015 Grand Committee

[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

Debate between Viscount Simon and Baroness Kramer

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?

--- 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.