Oral Answers to Questions

Graham P Jones Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Simon Burns]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that question, and I know he has campaigned vigorously for improvements to that rail service. I understand that the Scottish Government decided to reroute funding allocated for improving sleeper services to capital investment in Scottish Water—a short-term measure taken, apparently, for accounting reasons. The future funding of Scottish Water will be fully adjusted to ensure the commitment to fund the sleeper improvement programme is met, although I think it is sad that there has been this delay. I would be more than happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman if he felt that would be useful.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

My constituent, Mrs Hinet, suffered the tragedy of losing her daughter and grandchild. They were pedestrians who died when a car driven by an 89-year-old who had had a heart attack at the wheel mounted the pavement. There seems to be a lack of assessment of drivers such as that 89-year-old, compared with that of those who are 70. I know that regulations are in place for drivers who are over 70, but there seems to be a problem in that the deciles of the 70s and 80s are aggregated in the data. Will the Minister look at the data and how they are collected for those in their 70s and 80s and accidents on the roads?

[Stephen Hammond]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. We have looked at that data and at some of the evidence from some incidents, particularly a number of tragic incidents such as the one he describes. The most important thing is that the current plans and regime are backed by the evidence, and I will review that. More importantly, it is a question of experience and not necessarily of the driver’s age.