Road Safety

Graham Leadbitter Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I wish to open my contribution to the debate with a tribute to a young man from Pwllheli who was killed in a hideous two-car collision on the Porthmadog bypass just days before Christmas. While we await the inquest, I hope it is some comfort to his family that so many people in our home community want to see changes to the law as a memorial and mark of respect for the life of Mathew Hardy. He was 34 years old and the only child of Simon and Glenys. Mathew’s partner, Mari, is expecting a baby in three months’ time—too many lives shattered by irreplaceable loss. While many of us treat the right—the license—to drive a car with a familiarity verging on contempt, such tragedies remind us how dangerous vehicles can potentially be for all road users. Heaven knows, as Mathew’s father says, that people lose their gun licences, their guns and gun paraphernalia at any suggestion of police concern, but people keep their driving licences far, far too easily.

It is a sad fact that inexperienced young drivers remain disproportionately at risk of being killed or injured on the roads. We had the tragic case in my constituency of Harvey Owen who was a passenger in a car driven by a friend, along with two others, all of them teenagers, who lost their lives in 2023 when their car came off the A4085 near Llanfrothen and overturned in a ditch. Harvey’s mother Crystal—I am sure many Members will know her—is campaigning for graduated driving licences.

Northern Ireland has just committed to a full graduated driving licence system from October this year, which includes post-test restrictions that are designed to reduce exposure to high risk situations, such as carrying peer passengers. Evidence from other countries shows that graduated systems significantly reduce young driver casualties, and they save lives. Safer roads mean fewer accidents, and they also mean lower insurance premiums for young people, which is a message the Government should engage with. The Government should monitor Northern Ireland’s approach as a pilot for the rest of the UK.

[Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)]

My colleague in the Scottish Government, Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Transport, has indicated a strong willingness to engage with the UK Government and other relevant bodies to trial things such as graduated licences and other road safety measures. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is something the UK Government could proactively engage with to make positive progress across the home nations?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful suggestion. It is interesting that we are all talking along the same lines.

I welcome that the road safety strategy includes consultation on proposed changes to penalties for motoring offences. For families who have lost loved ones to repeat drink-drive and drug-drive offenders, it is incomprehensible why those drivers do not lose their licences at the point of providing a positive test. At the very least, that should happen automatically at a second or further offence. Such a policy would ensure that there was swift preventive action when there is clear evidence of risk.

My last example is that of Amanda Peak, who lives in Brithdir, near Dolgellau. She lost both her sons, Arron, aged 10, and Ben, aged eight, and her husband was badly injured. The driver who inflicted this on the family was drunk and driving at speed. Amanda begs the Government to bring down the alcohol limit and to address sentencing. When the drunken driver was sentenced, Amanda was told that this man would not even have been sentenced to imprisonment if he had killed only one child. Imagine that—it took two children to be killed for this man to be sentenced to imprisonment. I urge the Minister to meet lobbyists and to meet families as well, because this might well be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make a change that will benefit very many people’s lives.