Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen Excerpts

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

[Earl Attlee]

I was the Opposition Front Bench spokesman for transport in your Lordships’ House; if I was in the noble Lord’s position again, I would make exactly the same speech.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for taking part in this debate. First, I will cap the stories of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, about tyres and MoTs. When I first got a car, also aged 17—I am probably older than the noble Lord—I was driving along quite happily and suddenly there was a nasty clunk and the car went down on one side. I looked out of the window, wondering what had happened, and saw a wheel going past me—it was mine.

Obviously, Freddie’s death was absolutely tragic. As a mother and a grandmother, I cannot imagine what those parents must be going through. Of course, we take trailer safety incredibly seriously. The issue was discussed at Second Reading, but I will go into it a little bit further to explain the point.

The UK has a world-leading road safety record, which extends to trailers. The number of casualties as a result of collisions involving a towing vehicle is relatively low compared with other road user groups. There has also been a steady decline in incidents and breakdowns involving a trailer since 2009. There were still around 5,000 incidents per year, equating to 13 incidents per day, as of 2015. The Government are committed to continuing to make progress on this.

The key safety issues for trailers generally relate to how vehicles towing trailers are driven and how securely the trailers are attached to vehicles, as the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said. It is important that we continue to improve safety through education, enforcement and improving the safety of vehicles. Almost all new trailers are already subject to type approval ahead of their entry into service, and in the case of larger trailers an annual testing regime is already in place. I appreciate that noble Lords may well be familiar with these measures, but it may be useful if I speak about this a little more.

The current type approval scheme applies in much the same way as motor vehicles are subject to approval before they can be legally sold in the UK. It has been in place since 2012. Approvals are generally issued for a type of vehicle on a model-by-model basis. I can give reassurance that overwhelmingly under this regime all new trailers are subject to type approval before entering into service, with very limited exemptions. These exceptions include certain agricultural and forestry trailers, and trailers not intended to be towed by a vehicle with a maximum speed over 25 kph.

In the case of imported units, or self-built trailers which have not been type approved, there is a scheme in place for individual approval. To ensure that this system operates correctly, the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency already has the power to undertake inspections or tests of a trailer as it sees fit. The annual testing regime applies to most commercial trailers weighing over 1,020 kilograms and almost all trailers weighing over 3,500 kilograms. As my noble friend Lord Attlee mentioned, commercial trailers in this category are subject to the DVSA issuing consent to sell prior to entering into service, at which point a ministry number associated with a manufacturer’s number is allocated to an individual trailer, and it is plated accordingly. This test is applicable on an annual basis from 12 months following the date at which the trailer is first sold or supplied. The test may be undertaken at a DVSA facility or an approved testing facility, although in all cases the test is completed by a DVSA inspector and to a consistent standard. In 2016-17, around a quarter of a million trailers were subject to the annual test.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

The Minister gave us a figure for the number of accidents. I wonder whether she could look at the number of fatalities and write to us with that information.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

Absolutely, I have that information here. Trailer and caravan-related collisions accounted for 2% of the 1,787 total number of those killed or seriously injured in collisions in 2015.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

But that does not tell us what happened or give us the explanation for the accident. It may well have involved a large trailer that was overweight; small trailers might be excluded. In case there are amendments on Report, perhaps the Minister can give us some information on that matter.

[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.