Drink-Driving

Lord Harper Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I said that we are consulting on the first comprehensive road safety strategy for many years. It is right to consult, because a number of things in the road safety strategy—not just this one—affect many people, we need to hear from everybody, and we have heard from many people what they think of the proposals in the road safety strategy. I would say to him that it is worth waiting for, because it is not right to legislate before you understand what all the evidence is.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I might ask the Minister, given that there have been questions both about reducing the threshold for drink driving but also about enforcement from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, what is the Government’s assessment, because it was not clear from the road safety plan, of the biggest contributor to deaths and injuries on the roads? Is it people who do not obey the existing limit, or is it people who obey the existing limit but are none the less not safe to drive?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I have to say there is a whole range of factors that go into it. The reason for the road safety strategy is that the death and serious injury rate has plateaued, rather than going down. The strategy has made it clear that there are a number of reasons for that. If there were only one issue in the strategy, with one consultation, that would be different, but there is a wide range in there intended to make all road users, including pedestrians and cyclists, safer. I think it is right, if the noble Lord reads the whole thing, to look at a number of solutions to this.