Bus Drivers’ Working Hours

Debate between Jim Fitzpatrick and Andrew Jones

Thursday 6th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Jones]

That is an important point. The traffic commissioner is the regulator and responsible for the licensing and regulation of public service vehicles, which includes enforcement and prosecution where appropriate. We also have the DVSA—the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency—which carries out monitoring and compliance checks. Those can include not only routine checks, but reactive or proactive checks where there is evidence that an operator is non-compliant or an issue has been reported.

There are methods in place, with checks and balances, to be reactive in response to information or proactive if necessary. Those checks can include looking at the logs of drivers’ rosters and considering the health and wellbeing of drivers. Those are the two methods through which the regulations can be enforced.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I am grateful to the Minister for that further explanation of the checks and balances in the system. Given the numbers of complaints that he catalogued that were recorded against this driver in the days, weeks and months preceding the tragic crash, is he reassured by the traffic commissioner and the other authorities that cases of drivers such as the one responsible, who got away with so much for so long, will not be able to be repeated because of the example of this case, where clearly the system did not work?

[Andrew Jones]

That is at the heart of what is happening. The system has not worked here, and the points about how we take that forward and improve the enforcement and vigour of the regulation are central to where we need to go. That is a point that I will be taking from this debate and taking to my hon. Friend the bus Minister in our meetings next week, when she is back from overseas.

It might be helpful if I updated the House on some of the data involving buses. We all need to see a continuation of the long-term trend of improving road safety in the UK. Colleagues in the House have made a significant contribution to that over a sustained period, and we all owe them a duty of thanks. It has led to the UK—along with, I think, Sweden—having the safest roads in the world. There are still significant areas where we need to make more progress, but we should look at that sustained cross-party initiative with some pride, although we recognise that there is no room for any complacency anywhere at all.

On that point, the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse asked about the new Minister with responsibility for road safety. My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for Transport, is not here and I should be a little cautious about putting things in his diary, but I am absolutely confident that he will wish to engage strongly with the all-party group. I will also pass on to him the comments made about the updated road safety statement.

Fatal road accidents involving buses have been falling over time. The number of buses involved in fatal road accidents, per billion vehicle miles, has fallen by 36% in the last 10 years, so there is a positive downward trend and we want it to continue. It needs to be kept in mind that the GB domestic drivers’ hours rules set maximum limits, to give some flexibility to the bus industry, and do not reflect drivers’ normal working patterns. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that, on average, in 2017 bus drivers worked 42 hours a week, which is within the 48 hours average limit allowed in the general working time rules. The bus Minister has promised to look into the robustness of these figures, and it is of course some of the outlying figures, rather than the average, that we need to focus on here. The average is perhaps not showing the entire picture, which is why that further work needs to be done.

Road Traffic Law Enforcement

Debate between Jim Fitzpatrick and Andrew Jones

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Jones]

We look at all the ingredients that combine to influence road safety. On penalties for use of mobile phones, for example, it was highlighted that the number of penalties issued had fallen significantly—that is a fact—but during that time the number of people who have suddenly lost their lives in incidents in which handheld mobile phone use was considered a factor has remained exactly the same. The figure has been consistent. That tells us that mobile phone use is an ingredient, but that there is no direct causal link between one fact and another—a number of factors are in play. Do I think that enforcement matters, however? Yes, I do. I agree entirely with the principles of education, engineering and enforcement. Are we reviewing that? Yes, it is one of the many ingredients that we review constantly.

To go back to the big four, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside, the most common traffic offence is indeed speeding. We know that excessive speed kills, and I agree with the Select Committee that cameras are an important and effective technology in detecting speeding offences. We use technology in every other part of human life, so why on earth would we not use it in something as critically important as road safety? I occasionally get letters saying, “We need to remove cameras. They are an infringement of civil liberties”, or that we are unfairly targeting motorists. That is absolute nonsense. It is, however, for local authorities and local police forces to determine where cameras should be sited for their best effect.

The best effect lies, I agree, in getting drivers to respect the speed limits, not in simply generating revenue. Where a camera generates significant ongoing revenue, the local safety partnership should be asking why and whether, for example, the speed limits are clearly signed. The Government are not generally in favour of hypothecating tax revenues—we are no different from Governments of all colours over many years—but, having said that, we are working to hypothecate the vehicle excise duty to Highways England and the road investment strategy. There is not, however, a parallel between hypothecating speed fines and road safety.

I agree that there is a high level of compliance—the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) called it “obedience”, but it is compliance. That is the word we are looking for when we see the use of average speed cameras, because a marked change in driver behaviour results. That is a personal observation. He also asked if we had information from communities on local camera use and so on. I do not have that information, but I will see whether we can find some. If we can, I will share it with the hon. Gentleman.

Drink-driving is clearly a critical issue. We certainly take seriously the threat that all dangerous drivers, including drink and drug-drivers, pose to the safety of other road users. However, I must be up front and say that we have no plans to change the drink-drive limit. The rigorous enforcement of the limit and the serious penalties for drink-driving in this country are a more effective deterrent than changing the limit. We may have a higher drink-drive limit than other countries, but we also have a more successful culture of enforcement and of removing the issue than other countries.

It is also fair to recognise that we have made other changes. We changed drink-driving legislation in April 2015 to require high-risk offenders to undertake medical tests before they are allowed to drive again. We have also removed the so-called statutory option that allowed suspected drink-drivers the choice of an evidential breath test or a specimen of blood or urine, which afforded the potential for people to sober up during the time lag between the two. That option has now gone. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) is correct in saying that the average blood alcohol level for those stopped and convicted is not in the 50 to 80 mg category, which represents about 2% of those stopped. The average is in the 150 to 180 mg category. The people causing drink-drive problems pay absolutely no regard to drink-drive limits; they just do not think that the limits apply to them. The limits are not the issue here.

The Select Committee report did not explicitly consider drug-driving, but the Government’s response did, noting that drugs in a driver’s bloodstream can pose as much of a danger as alcohol. We have provided £1 million to police forces in England and Wales to support drug-driving enforcement. The evidence so far is that it has been highly successful, and for 2016 we are expecting an eightfold to tenfold increase over the previous year. When the data come out, we will be able to confirm that properly, but that is the indication thus far. We have some time to go before we get the final data, but it is clearly a successful policy.

The anecdotal feedback from police services around the country is that it has been a great addition to their toolkit, and that they have used the drug-driving laws to disrupt far more criminal activity, such as drug-dealing rings, tackling the drivers to take the rings out of circulation for a period. That is interesting. It is not exactly why we introduced the drug-driving rules, but it is a welcome side effect nevertheless. In March last year, just as the Select Committee report was being published, we launched a THINK! campaign to educate people about the dangers of drug-driving and send a clear message that it is unacceptable. A point was made about social unacceptability. We want drug-driving to be as socially unacceptable as drink-driving. We as a society are a little further back on that journey, but it is clearly the direction that we want to go in. I want everybody to know that the consequences for drug-driving will be serious.

We talked a little about mobile phone use, particularly under the heading of distractions. I know that the Select Committee welcomes the higher penalties that Parliament has approved for drivers who use their mobile phones. Whether they are calling, texting or using an app, motorists caught using a handheld device will receive a fixed penalty notice of £200 and six penalty points on their driving licence. The changes will come into effect next week, on 1 March, making it one of the toughest fixed penalties. Drivers risk losing their licence after two offences, totalling 12 points, and new drivers who reach six points in one offence will lose their licence right away and have to retake both theory and practical driving tests. Such penalties will be effective only if drivers believe that an offence will be detected.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse asked whether fixed penalty notices were still appropriate. Our police service has operational independence. It is fair to say, though, that the Government would like more fixed penalty notices to be issued, particularly at the start of this major change to the penalty regime, so that the heavy penalties are understood and widely communicated and are used to effect behaviour change, because that is what this is about. If people see others losing their licences, it will effect a behaviour change.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

Does that not reinforce the point that the Select Committee made about devolving some responsibility for fixed penalty notices to local authorities and other bodies, so that there can be allies in the field to detect and punish the people who breach the regulations that the Government want enforced?

[Andrew Jones]

I will come to the local enforcement of moving traffic offences, but the hon. Gentleman’s underlying point is correct. Do we need alliances? Progress on road safety issues is achieved by campaigners—they often lead the way—local government, national Government and various agencies, such as Highways England and High Speed 2, which have road safety budgets, all working together. That is how we have made progress as a country, and I see that as the way forward, too.

I certainly want to ensure that we get this message across, and there will be a strong THINK! campaign to warn drivers as part of the launch of the changes on 1 March. We are also working with the police on an enforcement campaign, but prevention is better than cure, and we have the opportunity through that advertising campaign to make clear the risk that drivers take. I want to make using a handheld mobile device at the wheel—including texting—as socially unacceptable as drink-driving. I am sure that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside is absolutely correct that technology can help. Indeed, I will meet mobile phone companies next week and have already met other technology companies. Technology is moving pretty fast in this area. I am not normally at the cutting edge of technology, but I am happy to learn and I certainly see that technology can help here.

Seatbelts were mentioned. We recently had the 50th anniversary of seatbelt legislation, and I do not think any other single policy has generated a better return in terms of improving road safety than seatbelts. I am pleased that compliance with seatbelt wearing remains very high. The awareness-raising work that has been done over a long period has clearly struck home, and wearing a seatbelt is now automatic for the vast majority of us. However, we are not complacent, and we will conduct a roadside survey later this year to establish whether there has been any significant change from the last time we conducted a survey, which was 2014.

Many colleagues mentioned vulnerable road users. It is a tragedy that three cyclists were killed on London’s roads in just a week earlier this month—two of them in just 12 hours. I will come to that later, but the stories that one learns are truly tragic. All road users have a responsibility to those with whom they share the road. That responsibility is all the greater to road users whose mode makes them more vulnerable. London leads the way on cycling, ensuring that goods vehicles are properly equipped for seeing other road users and keeping them apart. We believe that decisions about restricting vehicle movement are best taken locally, although we recognise that having different standards in different places could be operationally quite difficult for road users.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse highlighted the THINK! Hang Back campaign, which actually had two strands. He mentioned the strand for cyclists, but there was a further strand of communication targeted at HGV drivers, including through trade organisations. That campaign was developed because research revealed that around 30% of cyclists were unaware of the dangers of being on the inside of an HGV that might turn left. Given that so many people thought that was a safe space to be in, we were quite robust in some of our communication to get the message across. There was no suggestion of apportioning blame—that is obviously ridiculous. We are trying to make people aware and get them to take responsibility for themselves and other road users. I made the point earlier that people have a responsibility to those with whom they share the road.

On fixed penalty notices and diversionary courses, the Sentencing Council has announced that penalties for people found guilty of serious speeding offences will increase on 24 April. Most speeding is not wilfully over the posted limit, and in such cases a fixed penalty notice is often the best way to remind drivers of the need to monitor and control their speed. The last increase in fixed penalty fines for speeding was in 2013. We keep them under review. Where there is a clear case for change, as with mobile phones, we have acted and will continue to act.

Police officers have discretion to decide how to dispose of an offence. Where an officer believes that the driver will benefit, the offer of a diversionary course is an effective way to proceed. What we are seeking to do is to change behaviour. The police officer makes a call on how that might be best achieved and we want to maintain the operational independence of our police.

As the Committee noted, we are evaluating the national speed awareness course, the most widespread of the diversionary courses that are offered. We hope to complete that work later this year. The Committee recommended that the costs of diversionary courses be standardised. I have some sympathy with drivers faced with a range of different costs for the same course, without any explanation for the variation. However, I can also see that the cost of delivery will vary from place to place. Where courses are delivered by an external provider, contractual commitments may need to be taken into account. For the time being, therefore, we do not intend to mandate a single national charge for each type of course.

The Government’s response to the Committee’s report noted the objective of 188,000 vehicle compliance checks this year. So far, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency has checked 167,555 vehicles at the roadside, so it is well on track to meet that target. It has also found just over 20,000 serious defects and offences, which is well ahead of where it expected to be at this point in the year. We are therefore confident that the agency will meet both targets by the end of this financial year. The London industrial HGV taskforce uses the combined powers of the two bodies to target those identified as at the biggest risk of non-compliance. That targeting is working well, but we have not yet been able to develop similar programmes in other parts of the country.

On the cross-border enforcement directive, in our response to the Committee report, we stated that we would attempt to influence the European Commission to amend the directive in the future. Quite a bit has happened in policy in this area over the last few months. The purpose of the directive was to support member states in the investigation of eight different kinds of offence committed by drivers when driving in other member states and the legislation mandates sharing information about vehicle keepers. However, the UK prosecutes only drivers for the offences in question—a point that was made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside. There is nothing in the directive that obliges member states to compel their citizens to admit liability or to name the driver.

Parliament has seen our explanatory memorandum on the European Commission’s review of the directive, which recognises that there is an issue for member states that have driver liability in place. We have some support from other member states on the topic and we continue to press for change.

My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South made an important point about sharing best practice. We feel that there is a role for the Department in sharing best practice. I have attended and spoken at roads policing conferences, which bring together enforcement leaders around the country. The sharing of best practice is not just carried out in this part of our departmental activity, but is spread much more widely.

We made clear in the Government’s response to the report that the devolution of parking enforcement has not been without considerable concerns from motorists—a point that was noted by the Committee in its 2013 report, which expressed concern about the way in which local authorities used CCTV for parking enforcement. There have been concerns about revenue raising, penalty levels and the number of penalty charge notices issued. In response to that, new legislation was enacted in March 2015 to restrict the use of CCTV for parking enforcement. I received a letter in the last few days from a councillor suggesting that the powers be granted so that they could use them precisely for revenue raising. That is not quite what we were seeking—this is about safety and behaviour change.

Against that backdrop, the Government remains to be convinced about the case for giving authorities the powers to enforce moving traffic contraventions. I am not keen to see local authorities installing a raft of new cameras on yellow box junctions and elsewhere, only to see penalty charge notices issued. Equally, I have seen freedom of information requests, often from the media, that indicate that some councils have made large sums of money from some specific box junctions. We therefore have no plans to change the current position to give local authorities outside London greater enforcement powers, and in that context we do not consider it appropriate to give London further powers either. However, I have met the Local Government Association to discuss the issue, and will continue to do so to see if we can find areas on which we agree.

I will highlight a few of the questions from hon. Members. Is this a matter for cross-departmental activity? Yes, of course it is. One only has to see the Treasury’s positive response to road safety issues, with a £175 million budget announced in the autumn statement to tackle the top 50 problem roads in the EuroRAP assessment, or the way the Ministry of Justice is consulting on increasing sentencing. Do we have a publication date for CWIS—the cycling and walking investment strategy? I cannot give the House a specific date yet, but I can say that it will be published very shortly.

I am aware that the Government have signed up to the sustainable development goals. I am actually very keen to see us share some of our expertise and insights to help other countries to learn from the journey that we have been on over many years. I have spoken at conferences with representatives from many countries around the world, and I have said repeatedly that, if somebody would like information from my Department, we will make it available. We are happy to help as they go on the journey that we have been on. Equally, I am also happy if we can steal ideas, too; I am acutely aware that not all ideas will come from this country. I do not really mind where the ideas come from, so long as we make some progress.

A number of points have been made on whether to have targets. If other countries wish to have targets, that is obviously fine, but frankly I do not think that we need them. I do not think that targets have a direct cause and effect on policy in quite the same way that some colleagues here do. I do not need a target to tell me that this is an important issue or to bring forward ideas and initiatives: I just do not think it is related. We are bringing forward ideas because this is an issue that matters. It is simply not the case that policy is as simple as publishing a target and then seeing a cause and effect like that. We have seen many other areas of Government policy in which targets have even had a perverse effect—most notably in health targeting. We have no plans to introduce targets, but we have plenty of plans to continue what we are doing to make our roads safer.

The Select Committee report noted that effective enforcement was one of the three E’s, and a necessary adjunct to the engineering and education initiatives that help to deliver our road safety initiatives. The report also noted that road users should know that infringements will be detected. I agree, and I hope that I have demonstrated to the House that the Government take road safety seriously. I am grateful for the comments about my personal commitment to the subject from colleagues across the House. It is actually the first policy area upon which I commissioned work when I became a Minister, which I hope gives an indication of my personal commitment to it.

I am acutely aware of the importance of this issue. Behind every statistic is a shattered life or a shattered family. I have met many such families, and those are hard meetings, but they spur me on to do more in this area. It is clear that we have taken and are taking action. We have some of the safest roads in the world, and I will work to make them ever safer.