Commercial Vehicles: Safety

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

There is only one person here who holds a passenger-carrying vehicle licence, which is a broadly similar experience, although the payload complains more often than it does with a commercial vehicle. The noble Earl’s question has nothing to do with commercial vehicles at all. This matter is frequently debated in here, and I will leave it to the Leader of the House to answer that properly.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister enlighten me as to how many people were killed last year—or the latest date that he has—on the roads by HGVs? I have the numbers for 1929.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

The 2019 numbers! I have been here too long. There were 178 road users and 82 vulnerable road users. Surely he needs to bring in the protections that my noble friend described, ahead of waiting for some strategy, because people are dying on the roads daily.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I have those statistics somewhere and I have up-to-date ones. I will send them to her. Many of the 19 new vehicle technologies are already being applied, because the commercial vehicle industry is international. I also referred to this being under really active consideration, which means that shortly we will be able to say which of the 19 technologies this Government propose to introduce. When we do, that will be conclusive.