Summertime (Scotland)

Debate between Ben Bradshaw and Tom Harris

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harris]

That is a valid point. It will have to be met head on by the supporters of the campaign, because there is no doubt that in the 1968 trial, although road deaths throughout the vast majority of Scotland reduced significantly, there was a small increase in the number of road deaths in the far north of Scotland. Of course that has to be taken seriously, and I will say as much later on, but let us remember that when it comes to generating publicity on a particular campaign, it is far easier for the media to publicise deaths and injuries on the road than to publicise deaths and injuries that were avoided.

We, as parents and—all of us, I think—as former children, know that when children head out to school in the morning on, say, a 10-minute journey, they allow almost exactly that amount of time for the journey. The return journey, however, is a different matter. It may sound counter-intuitive to suggest that children will be in a bigger hurry to reach school in the morning than to get back home again in the afternoon, but it makes perfect sense. Children adopt a more relaxed approach as they head home, perhaps taking diversions to friends’ homes, popping into a shop or chatting with friends at the school gate.

We see exactly the same phenomenon in our working lives. I saw it as a Transport Minister and when I worked in transport planning before being elected to the House. The evening rush hour is being extended every year and becoming longer and longer, as flexible hours mean more people leaving the office later, more people perhaps heading to the pub or to the shops on the way home, and evening buses and trains carrying the same total number of commuters on their return journeys as they did in the morning rush hour, but over a significantly longer period.

However, too much time in this debate—too much attention—is focused on the journey to and from school. In any one year, children in Scotland spend as much time travelling between home and their friends’ homes, and walking to and from various places of recreation, as they do travelling to and from school. Indeed, during the very darkest mornings in December and early January, children are on holiday from school and do not have to make those journeys at those early times, but they still make journeys later in the day, when the light is fading and they are far more at risk from passing cars.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend consider the remarks of the former Prime Minister, our right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), who, at a regional Cabinet meeting in my constituency earlier this year, told a representative of the tourism industry that he saw real benefits of £3.5 billion in the move that my hon. Friend advocates and thought that there were merits in the idea of a three-year trial? I hope that my hon. Friend will feel that those comments are helpful to his campaign in Scotland.