M5 Motorway Accident

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I very much hope that we will be able to have an ongoing dialogue with local MPs about the effectiveness of any measures that end up being proposed. Frankly, I would expect that about any key proposals that affect any Member’s local public transport.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady says that the road death figures are still heading in the right direction, but my reading of the latest figures was that, even before this terrible crash, we were looking at the first annual increase in road deaths that this country has seen for 20 years. As she will know, that is deeply worrying to road safety campaigners and others. Will she at the very least have another look at her predecessor’s plan to encourage faster speeds on the motorways by increasing the speed limit?

[Justine Greening]

To go back over the figures on road safety, of course it is concerning that the most recent quarter’s figures that have been released showed such a rise, but we should still not lose sight of the fact that the trend is in the right direction. We should also be conscious of the fact that levels of road safety can, of course, be affected by the weather, so it is not quite as straightforward as simply saying from looking at those figures that there is an underlying reduction in road safety compared with previous quarters.

One key point to recognise in relation to those numbers and the right hon. Gentleman’s point about speed is that people can drive unsafely at any speed and in any weather conditions. It is important that we do not jump to a conclusion when the police still have to examine the causes of the accident, and that we ensure that we have a measured discussion about action that could be taken in future months to improve road safety. We as a House need to have that discussion in a responsible and balanced way.