Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Tope Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Monday 8th November 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Tope]

156: Clause 68, page 65, line 9, at end insert—
“(c) a local authority or traffic authority;”

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 156, I will also speak to Amendment 163.

First, I must declare my interest, particularly for these amendments. I am the co-president of London Councils, the body that represents all 32 London boroughs and the City of London Corporation. I am also a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

Amendment 163 is the substantive amendment. It seeks to start the legislative process that would enable London borough councils and/or Transport for London to enforce speed limits of 30 mph or below—I have in mind the 20 mph speed limits in particular—on roads for which they have responsibility and, if they so wish, to apply to the Secretary of State and receive consent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister, particularly for revealing how close he came to a criminal conviction on this. The fact remains, whether we like it or not, and generally the public do like it, that there are 20 mph speed limits not just all over London but all over the country, which are by and large not enforced, and drivers know it. Their being disregarded in such a way brings the law into ridicule. As I said in my opening comments, I accept that we have an issue here. I have discussed it with my noble friend Lord Paddick, who I first had discussions with when he was borough commander in Lambeth and I was chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority’s finance committee, when he told me Lambeth was not sufficiently resourced.

These issues must be tackled. We cannot go on with a lot of 20 mph speed limits which most motorists take no notice of, and absurd and ludicrous enforcement rates. I said this is the start of a process; I hope the Government will engage in debate and conversation about how to tackle this, and work with London borough councils and others—as this is a nationwide issue—to see how we can better solve this problem. We do not want this to be batted back and forth like the parking debate in London 30 years ago, when the Met believed they would be severely disabled if they were not enforcing parking in London. I bet they would not say that now. If we asked the Met to take back responsibility for parking in London, your Lordships know what the reaction would be.

I will withdraw my amendment, but this debate will not go away. I hope that the Government, local authorities and others engage in positive thinking about how we solve this and make local authorities, which are by and large responsible for getting the 20 mph speed limits introduced, responsible—I stress the word—for their enforcement too. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 156 withdrawn.