Transport Infrastructure
Paul Goggins Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Mr McLoughlin
My hon. Friend is a very big advocate of more infrastructure investment in Reading, where we are currently spending some £880 million on a major refurbishment of Reading station, which will greatly enhance the capabilities for surface access to Reading. However, I note his early applications for even more investment in his area.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
One issue that merits greater consideration than the half page given by the commission is the proposal for a temporary exemption from air passenger duty for new long-haul routes from airports outside London. Such an exemption would help airports such as Manchester to develop new routes to China. Will the Secretary of State make sure that this idea stays on the table?
Mr McLoughlin
The right hon. Gentleman, by his mentioning the proposal, has just done exactly that.
High Speed Rail
Paul Goggins Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr McLoughlin
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour. As I have said, capacity is one of the key reasons for building the new route. It will be the first railway line to be built north of London in 120 years. We need extra capacity. By freeing up capacity, the line will enable there to be better services elsewhere.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
I, too, welcome the proposed station at Manchester airport, which will help to sustain many new jobs across the city region and particularly within airport city and other parts of the Manchester enterprise zone in my constituency. Will the Secretary of State ensure that those who are responsible for HS2 continue to work closely with the local authorities and the airport so that these different initiatives are properly linked together and bring the maximum possible benefit to local communities?
Mr McLoughlin
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support and for his attendance at last week’s meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on high speed rail. I can give him that assurance. As I said earlier, this is the start of the process, not the end. We want to get the maximum possible value out of the investment.
HGV Wheels (Safety)
Paul Goggins Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr Scott. I am not sure whether I have served under your chairmanship before, but I look forward to it.
I regret having had to apply for this debate, and believe that the exchange that will take place over the next half hour could just as easily have taken place in the Minister’s office. Indeed, such an exchange might have benefited from a more informal setting, and we could have heard from industry experts who would have had much to offer.
I applied for this debate because I received a letter from the Minister on 11 November. The letter, which was dated 9 November, stated:
“Unfortunately, I am sorry to say that due to pressures on my diary I will not be available in the near future to meet with you.”
I was surprised to receive such a letter from the Minister, because I have always found him approachable and responsive, particularly on the important issue of HGV wheel safety. I know that he takes his responsibilities seriously, so I was extremely disappointed.
I was also shocked to receive such a letter because it was written on 9 November, less than a week after the tragic crash on the M5 in which seven people lost their lives and in which I know the Minister took a close personal interest. That the Minister should send such a letter at a time when the issue of road safety was so high in his mind and in that of the public and Parliament, and refuse to meet me and those expressing concern about the issue, was disappointing and shocking. We are, however, having our meeting in the Chamber this morning, and Hansard will write the report rather than someone from the Minister’s private office.
I first raised the issue of HGV wheel safety in June 2010 in a letter to the then Secretary of State. It followed my visit to Motor Wheel Service, a company based in my constituency that is the largest distributor of HGV wheels in the United Kingdom and across Europe. I remain grateful to the managing director of MWS, John Ellis, and to Matthew Wells who kept me briefed on issues that have concerned them for a considerable time. He also ensured that I was briefed for today’s debate, and both he and John Ellis remain vigilant and active across the industry on issues of wheel safety.
On 9 November last year—just over a year ago—we had a constructive meeting with the Minister in his office at which he willingly agreed to review the data available in his Department concerning accidents, failures and defects involving HGV wheels. We parted company after that meeting on agreeable and friendly terms, and we returned to the issue on 29 March this year in the first Westminster Hall debate on HGV wheel safety at which I made two suggestions to the Minister. My first suggestion was that he should consider holding a year-long trial in one region of the country, so that enhanced testing of HGVs could take place with particular emphasis on wheel safety. The Minister listened carefully, attentively and thoughtfully to my comments, but the answer was no at the end of the debate.
The Minister was slightly more encouraging about my second suggestion, which was that he should identify a senior official in his Department to be a point of contact between the Department and the wheel supply industry. If people in the industry had specific concerns or evidence about faulty wheels, they could report it to that named individual, who could then investigate and produce any necessary report. That would be an inexpensive way of dealing with any concerns raised, and it would help the Minister to separate speculation from facts—I accept that there may be speculation in this area, and it is important to establish the facts precisely. If only a few faults were discovered through such a reporting mechanism, confidence would be maintained and that would be good. If, however, faults were discovered, the Minister and representatives from the industry could sit down together and work out an appropriate way to ensure proper checks and reports on wheel safety.
Following that debate, there was a bit of a delay before the Minister got back to me, although he did reply in a letter dated 3 June. He thanked me for my e-mails of 15 April, 10 May and 27 May, in which I asked for further information, and crucially he confirmed that the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency has a specific team, the vehicle safety branch, that is responsible for HGV wheel safety. He also gave me the name and contact details of the head of the vehicle safety branch, who was clearly the senior official I hoped would be nominated. So far, so good. However, the Minister went on:
“The vehicle safety branch looks at issues of design or construction…and will request the manufacturer, producer or supplier to start an inquiry if there is evidence that a design and construction defect exists.”
That rather limited approach adopted by the Minister caused me some concern, so I sought clarification. The Minister wrote back to confirm that the vehicle safety branch
“will not investigate faults that have arisen due to the use of the product, for example poor maintenance or accident damage.”
The quality of wheel design and construction was never a problem for me or those in the industry who raised the issue. The United Kingdom has a high standard of HGV wheel manufacturing, and it is no surprise that few faults have been reported. My concern, which I raised in the earlier debate and raise again today, is the 10,000 second-hand HGV wheels that enter the UK market every year. The Minister has never disputed that figure, and the industry certainly believes it to be true. Some of those second-hand wheels may be damaged as a result of various incidents, and I will come on to that point in a moment. My principal concern, however, is the 10,000 second-hand wheels that enter circulation every year in the UK.
An HGV wheel can be damaged in several ways. Dents and cracks can be caused by over-tightening the wheel nuts or by any collisions in which the vehicle has been involved—road traffic accidents are an obvious example, but vehicles can also hit kerbs or potholes, which is sadly becoming more frequent given the condition of some of our roads. Damage can also be caused by rust, general wear and tear due to the weather, road surface conditions or age, or if the wrong tyre is fitted to a wheel. There are, therefore, various ways in which wheels can be damaged, and 10,000 second-hand wheels are in circulation and not being properly checked. That is my central concern.
Clearly, there is a lack of confidence across the wheel-supply industry concerning the checks carried out by VOSA. The VOSA inspection manual, which covers inspections carried out as part of an MOT and more random roadside checks, indicates that an inspector should look for missing wheel nuts and ensure that the wheel is appropriate for the load being carried. It is, however, of concern to me and the industry that insufficient emphasis and detail has been placed on the search for cracks and other damage.
You and I, Mr Scott, can only imagine the damage that would be caused by a 45-tonne truck travelling at 55 mph should there be a major tyre blow-out. It could cause a catastrophe, which is why we have a stringent system for checking and monitoring the tyres on all vehicles—cars as well as HGVs. Catastrophic wheel failure would produce exactly the same impact as a tyre blow-out, yet the Government seem unmoved by the concerns being raised by me and the industry.
Where is the evidence? As I have made clear, part of the problem is that the evidence is not being gathered as systematically as it should be. That is why I suggested in the first Westminster Hall debate both a year-long pilot project in one region of the country where more stringent tests could be carried out and a named official to be the point of contact between the Department for Transport and the industry.
Today, I shall give the Minister three recent examples that should concern him. The first is the evidence that I saw with my own eyes on a recent visit to MWS in my constituency. I do not pretend to be an expert on wheel safety, but it seemed to me, as I examined with my own eyes the wheel that was shown to me, that there was clearly a crack in the wheel. As an amateur—a non-professional—I would certainly want and expect a wheel damaged in that way to be thoroughly checked and examined. I sent a photograph of that wheel to the Minister. In the rather short reply in which he refused to meet me, he did not refer to that evidence, although he might want to comment on it today. I hope that he will recognise that if a wheel is damaged and is in the hands of people who are less reputable than the company in my constituency, it could be attached to a lorry in a hazardous way that could cause a catastrophe.
The second piece of evidence is an October 2011 press report in Truckstop News. It raises concerns that the Minister must respond to this morning. The headline was “Killer Wheels”. The article stated that
“wheel manufacturer Alcoa has warned there are fake wheels on the market that are failing early. Cracked wheels were sent to Alcoa’s distribution network by end users trying to have them replaced under the Alcoa wheel five-year warranty agreement. Alcoa says the imitation wheels are a good copy, making it difficult to see the difference between these and the genuine article. The manufacturer wants to ensure customers are not fooled and end up with worthless and potentially dangerous forgeries.”
Counterfeit items across the whole of society can cause great damage. That is the case whether it is counterfeit cigarettes damaging people’s health or counterfeit wheels. If counterfeit wheels were fitted to a lorry, they could have catastrophic results if they failed, and they almost certainly would fail if they were not built to stringent design and manufacture standards. I would like to know what the Minister makes of the report to which I have referred. If he has not had a chance to see it yet, he should check it and come back to me and others with his observations.
My third piece of evidence is an ITV news report from last Friday, which the Minister may have seen. The report was on the impact of potholes and said that there is an average of 15 potholes in every neighbourhood. I do not know about your constituency, Mr Scott, but that figure seems on the low side to me. Anyway, that is what the report said. The camera crew went to a tyre fitter in Gateshead, who showed them the impact on a wheel of a major tyre blow-out that had resulted from a collision. As viewers saw the picture of the wheel and compared it with how a wheel should be, coming from the manufacturer, they could certainly see the difference. They could see very clearly the damage that had been done. Again, I refer the Minister to that evidence, if he has not yet had the chance to see it.
The Minister has a choice this morning. He can tell me once again that the failure rate is 0.0006% and that if anyone supplies defective or faulty items to be fitted to a vehicle, they can be prosecuted; or he can take a rather more engaging approach—as I hope he will, even at this stage—and meet me and representatives of the industry to consider the need for more rigorous checks. The Minister may have gathered from the fact that he is here this morning—I am grateful to him for being here—that I am certainly not going away on this issue. There have recently been a number of presentations on the issue to important industry bodies. ATS Euromaster has had a presentation, as have the National Tyre Distributors Association, the Northwest Automotive Alliance and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. I can tell the Minister that further discussions are planned with those bodies about these concerns, which I can attest are growing concerns in the industry.
Indeed, such is the level of anxiety in the industry that when the Minister wrote to me to say that he was not prepared to go beyond the very limited offer that he had made, the industry was prepared to put in place its own reporting mechanism, so that it could say to companies throughout the wheel supply industry that if they had evidence of any wheel failure, they could report it through a specially designed industry reporting system and it could be passed on to the Department for Transport. That was the request that I made of the Minister: given that the industry was prepared to put in place its own self-reporting system, could we have a meeting to discuss how best to make the arrangements for that industry reporting structure to link to his Department? He has made it clear up to now that he is not engaging with the industry in relation to that question, but I urge him to reconsider that position and to be prepared to have a meeting or at the very least to be prepared to talk to the industry about its own ideas for self-reporting and how that could be linked to and engage properly with officials in his Department. As I have said, I hope that the Minister will reconsider. I am pleased to see him in his place today and I look forward very much to listening to what he has to say.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship on this important day, Mr Scott. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) on securing the debate, although I am slightly disappointed by his saying that I have not engaged. We had the previous debate in this Chamber, but before the debate we had meetings in my office; I think that that is engagement. I have said throughout that as the Minister—the right hon. Gentleman used to be a Minister himself—I have to have an evidence base to go forward. In the letter to him, I was trying to be as honest as possible: I did not have a slot in my diary between now and Christmas, and that is why I said that at this stage I cannot see him; I could have given him a date after Christmas, but I thought that such a long delay would have been an insult to him. However, like any other colleague, he can stop me at any time and I will engage at any time. My officials are also engaging.
It is important to talk about who is representing whom in the very important UK logistics industry. The Freight Transport Association and the Road Haulage Association, whose representatives I meet very regularly and with whom I have a very good rapport, have not raised this issue with me once. I was at a major haulier’s yesterday—in fact, I was going along the A13 in Essex in a 38-tonne articulated truck. I make those visits so that I can engage with the industry. I was feeling slightly jealous yesterday because I have only a class 2 licence, not a class 1. I have been very close to this issue for most of my career, especially when I had a licence in operation myself.
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I am going to quote the 0.0006% figure. I will answer the specific points he raised, but if anything has changed the position since the previous Adjournment debate—if more evidence has emerged—of course we will look at it and at the specific details to which we have alluded.
The right hon. Gentleman sent me a photograph of a damaged wheel. One of the facts I wanted to ascertain was when that vehicle was last tested, because the crack should and would have been brought up in the test. It is illegal to have that sort of damage on a vehicle, as he knows, and it is illegal to run the vehicle with it. The operator’s licence would be affected should they run a damaged vehicle; it is an offence under the Road Traffic Act 1988 as well as under the operator’s licence. However, the crack would have been picked up at the annual check. Unlike cars—we are to review the situation of cars in relation to MOTs—lorries are checked annually from when they are new.
I would like to know, and I would have hoped that the right hon. Gentleman might have told me because he was using this as evidence today, what vehicle the wheel came off and when the vehicle last had a check. It could have been the case that the damaged wheel on that vehicle was picked up and then removed, as we would all expect—so that it was not on the road at all.
Killer wheels are an interesting topic. The question of copies or snides has been around for a long time, particularly regarding aluminium wheels on cars. The failure rate for aluminium wheels, if they are not constructed right, has worried me for many years. The focus is often on design rather than function—people want them to look flash. That is something that we are looking at robustly, but legislation already exists to make sure that that sort of thing does not happen again. If the manufacturers are picking up copies being brought into the country, I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we will work with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on that.
The ITV report on potholes was interesting, because there are myriad reasons why a wheel could fail. Those who follow Formula 1 will know that during the race before last, a wheel failed on the first corner; there was an instantaneous puncture. Central Government have invested a huge amount of money in repairing potholes, which is why the number of potholes is as low as the report suggested. The right hon. Gentleman will have to wait until later today for further announcements on road infrastructure. It is absolutely right to say that failures take place when vehicles hit potholes or hit the kerb. I had a failure in an aluminium wheel when I attempted a U-turn, misjudged it and caught the wheel wrongly on the kerb. Not only did the tyre give way but the aluminium wheel broke.
Paul Goggins
During the first five minutes of the Minister’s speech he has not even glanced at his folder, which demonstrates both his enthusiasm for road safety and the fact that he is completely on top of his brief. He has responded to the three pieces of evidence that I gave him without looking at a note, so he clearly has the information at his fingertips.
If the hon. Gentleman had written to me on 9 November to say that he was dealing with a lot of pressing matters and would not be able to meet me until the new year, I would have understood and accepted that. I would have done so reluctantly, because before Christmas would have been better, but if he makes that offer again this morning I will be happy to accept.
Mike Penning
I apologise for the fact that I am not reading the speech that was written for me—I rarely do—but I hope that I am on top of my brief. Road safety is paramount for me, especially as I come from a fire service background. While I was in the fire service, I attended road traffic collisions regularly as the driver of a rescue vehicle. I never once encountered an incident in which the wheel had failed, although there were lots of other problems, particularly on some older cars where the hub structure had failed. In the evidence that we have looked at, which I will not read out, there were 23 failures over a 15-year period, but such problems were often due partly to accidents where wheels had been struck and damaged.
I will write to the right hon. Gentleman in the very near future and offer him a slot after Christmas. I think that something positive has come out not only of today’s debate but of my saying no the last time we met in this Chamber, because the trade associations have stepped up to the plate. Rather than Ministers telling people what to do, the right approach is often for the industry to realise that it has a responsibility as well and that reform is needed.
There might be a certain amount of semantics on the part of both myself and the right hon. Gentleman about the wording of the letter and who the official responsible for these issues is, but the simple answer is that the buck stops with me. If the trade associations want to present evidence to me, rather than an official within VOSA, they can do so and I will be more than happy to provide that point of contact. This is not only about the manufacturer; if the failure rates are increasing, and that is what this is all about—I am not disputing that one way or the other because, frankly, we do not know, and there is no point disputing something that is not disputable—do I still want there to be a second-hand market? I do, because that is important for people who cannot afford to buy brand-new wheels every time, but those wheels must be safe. The operators have a responsibility to make sure that that happens, and I do not want to take that responsibility away from them.
When I was in that truck yesterday, I felt comfortable not because it was brand spanking new—it was not; it was about 18 months old—but because of the robustness of the legislation governing VOSA and its testing regimes. I have been at the side of many a road with the new VOSA testing and enforcement officers, and I know how remarkable the current equipment is. We can estimate the weight on an axle while the vehicle is travelling at 56 mph down the motorway; we can pull it over and put it on a weighbridge, and we know accurately what the result will be. When inspections take place, on overseas vehicles as well as our own, checks on wheels and brakes are carried out, there and then, to the best of the officers’ ability. Obviously, most of the weigh stations do not have a pit facility.
If the right hon. Gentleman—let me call him my right hon. Friend—has called this debate as a direct reaction to my letter, he should have pulled me over in the Tea Room, where I would have addressed the matter straight away and we would have had a meeting after Christmas. He will understand, because he was a Minister himself, why I do not like making appointments way into the future. Events take over and I might not even be at the Department any more; someone else may be doing this job if we go too far past Christmas, or even before Christmas.
Paul Goggins
I sincerely hope that the Minister is still in his position in the new year, not only because he has now promised me a meeting, but because he is clearly on top of his brief and doing a good job. I commend him for that. He has mentioned twice that I was a Minister, which I was for seven years, and I never, ever refused a meeting with a Member of Parliament. The message that I am sending to the Minister and the Government is that when Members of Parliament are pursuing issues that concern them and their constituents and they want to meet Ministers, it should be an absolute given that those meetings take place. Of course Ministers are always busy, but their busy diaries must not get in the way of their fundamental accountability to MPs and to Parliament.
Mike Penning
I have a reputation in the House for being approachable, and this is the first time that I have ever been reprimanded by a senior Member. My letter was written in the best possible faith; a series of events to do with lots of things, which I will not go into now, meant that I could not guarantee a slot that I would be able to hold on to. The worst thing in the world is to make an appointment and cancel it, but that is what tends to happen. When I was in opposition, promises were made to me and they were not kept. If I make a promise, wherever possible and subject to business, I keep it, so the right hon. Gentleman and I will meet. I hope that the trade associations will do what they said they will do—that they will get the submissions together and come as a united body to present their evidence. That will allow me to go away and ask why we have certain failure rates coming from all the different expert bodies mentioned in the speech that I have not used, and to compare that with what is happening on the front line.
Whatever happens, I will not increase the burden on businesses. I think that the haulage industry, with the margins that it works on, is already heavily burdened, and I am trying to take some of that burden away. Road safety is paramount for me, but operators have responsibilities, which they must never forget.
Road Vehicle Wheel Safety
Paul Goggins Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
It is good to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Miss McIntosh, and I am very grateful to have this opportunity to highlight the growing concerns about wheel safety, in particular in relation to commercial vehicles. I do so having been alerted to the lack of an adequate system for checking and inspecting heavy goods vehicle wheels by a company based on the Sharston industrial estate in my constituency. Motor Wheel Service is the largest distributor of HGV wheels in the UK and across Europe.
I am also grateful to the Minister for how he has responded thus far to my concerns. We have corresponded, and have met industry representatives to discuss the issue. Although I have yet to convince him of the need to take further action, I know that he is still listening and that he takes road safety extremely seriously.
I had always assumed that wheels and tyres were regulated in the same way, since the safety of one clearly has a direct impact on the other. Tyres are closely regulated; they all have an E-mark, which is a number printed on the tyre wall confirming that it is approved and meets certain standards. When it comes to wheels, however, there is no registration or marking, no regulated standards, and no testing or checking. It is an offence to fit and supply defective or unsuitable parts, but the problem is that people do not know whether a wheel is defective because the monitoring system is so weak.
As it stands, a wheel could be damaged in a serious accident and yet be back out on the road the very next day fitted to a different vehicle, without any inspection or accountability. The Vehicle and Operator Services Agency has never been tasked with routinely inspecting wheels when checking HGVs and, although I have no doubt that it would view the loss of a wheel in an accident very seriously, in other incidents it rarely looks to see if wheel failure has caused the problem. I accept that in the past there might have been less to worry about because of the very limited number of manufacturers and suppliers in the field, but the situation is changing, and wheel suppliers suspect that over the past three years there has been an annual increase of approximately 10,000 substandard and potentially hazardous second-hand HGV vehicles entering the UK market. The fear is that in difficult times companies will be tempted to cut costs and use wheels that are not fit for purpose, which would not only undercut legitimate business but put public safety at risk. There has also been a rise in the number of commercial vehicle wheels sourced from the far east entering the UK without any requirement to meet minimum standards of design, safety or maintenance. These wheels have no history or traceability but can be sold by anyone in the UK, with no requirement for technical procedures to assess their history.
An HGV wheel can be damaged in a number of ways. Dents and cracks can be caused by over-tightening the wheel nuts, and wheels can be involved in collisions or constantly pounded on kerbs and in the potholes with which we are all too familiar. They can also rust and suffer wear and tear as a result of age, weather or road surface conditions. The implications of purchasing a faulty wheel are enormous. A 45-tonne lorry travelling at 55 miles an hour can cause serious damage if a tyre fails, and numerous measures are in place to prevent that. It simply cannot be right that similar measures are not in place to prevent wheel failure from causing exactly the same type of damage.
Burton Copeland, a leading criminal practice in the north-west of England, has warned that the absence of regulation and testing would be no defence if HGV wheel failure caused a death and if an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive found that the company concerned had not carried out its own risk assessments or, perhaps as a cost-cutting measure, had fitted faulty second-hand wheels to the vehicle. In Burton Copeland’s view, if there was evidence of negligence, the company director responsible could face a police investigation, and even a charge of corporate manslaughter.
People in the industry should take their responsibilities seriously, and I know that wheel suppliers are playing their part in educating their customers about the risks of failing to adopt high standards. Nevertheless, the Government’s own monitoring and testing system should do more to hold companies to account and to prevent accidents from happening in the first place.
In our meeting last November, the Minister promised to review the available evidence. I was very grateful that he commissioned a review, and in a subsequent letter he confirmed that over a 15-year period there had been 23 accidents and a total of 103 cases involving heavy commercial vehicles with recorded wheel defects. It would be helpful if the Minister gave more details of the kind of problems that were identified in the search that his officials carried out. The Minister also told me in that letter that VOSA had identified 60 incidents of defective or fractured wheels. That was in a sample of 197,000 inspections, but the fact that the numbers are small is no reason for complacency. One catastrophic wheel failure could be enough to cause a very serious incident and loss of life.
VOSA’s findings are not really a surprise, as it is hardly likely to identify many wheel failures when it does not set out to look for them in its inspections. A hairline crack in a wheel could have disastrous consequences, but would not be picked up in a routine VOSA roadside check. Therefore, although the Department for Transport does not currently believe that wheel failure is a significant factor in accidents involving HGVs, the truth is that no one really knows, because the checks are inadequate. It is not possible for the Minister or his officials to be absolutely confident when the checks are not carried out as thoroughly as they should be.
I pay tribute to my colleague Brian Simpson MEP, who has been raising this issue in the European Parliament, where a draft report on European road safety up to 2020 is currently being considered. As I understand it, paragraph 33 calls on member states to monitor imported accessories and spare parts more closely, to ensure that they meet European consumer protection standards. In the absence of adequate standards and checks, it would be interesting to know what the UK’s response would be to such a call, and perhaps the Minister can tell us what the current thinking is. It certainly would not present a problem to his counterpart in the German Government, because there they have adopted a system known as TÜV approval, which includes a comprehensive system of wheel certification—the kind of system that we should seek to develop in the UK.
In order to make progress, I want to put to the Minister two practical suggestions, to at least make a start down the road to better safety. First, he should identify a senior official in the Department for Transport to act as a point of contact for the wheel supply industry, so that the industry can forward directly to that named individual any evidence of defective wheels. I have learnt from briefings by industry representatives that there are those on the front line of the HGV wheel supply industry who hear stories and come across evidence of faulty second-hand wheels being used irresponsibly. It would be a positive and inexpensive move in the right direction if those concerns could be reported officially and investigated properly, rather than remaining as mere anecdotes. We all know that when tales get told in that way and there is no point of reference for their investigation, confidence can be undermined unnecessarily. We need to have those reports made and proper investigations carried out.
Secondly, I would like the Minister to consider commissioning a year-long trial in one area of the country, in which VOSA would operate an enhanced testing programme, including greater scrutiny of wheel safety. He will argue—perhaps reasonably, based on his evidence—that moving to a full-blown system of enhanced inspection throughout the country is not warranted, especially at a time of difficult decisions about public expenditure, which neither his nor any Department can escape. However, a limited trial of one year in one part of the country could be justified, and would test his assertion that the problem is not widespread.
I do not argue completely against the Minister, as I do not have the evidence, but neither does he. If he were to commission the trial, we could begin to gather evidence to test his assertion. If he is right, I am happy to accept and abide by that, but if a trial such as the one I have suggested produced evidence to the contrary, it would argue for a more developed and widespread scheme across the country. I hope that the Minister is prepared to put his current view to the test. If a trial confirms that there is no major problem, I will be happy to accept the findings. Better that than waiting for a catastrophe before taking action.
When we are elected to this place, we come with our own experience and background, and we have the opportunity to raise issues that have become important to us in debates and questions. We meet constituents who reveal issues and problems that we can then bring to Parliament on their behalf. We also learn lessons from companies in our constituencies. I had never even considered wheel safety until a year ago. As I said, I assumed that wheel safety and tyre safety were bound up together, but I have discovered differently. When we find out such information, we are duty bound to bring it before Ministers and ask them to respond. Even when a conscientious Minister such as this one does not want to take action immediately, we do not give up easily. We persist and continue to look for evidence. If, in the end, the evidence does not exist, we accept that, but at least we know that a proper search has been carried out.
The company is based in my constituency on the Sharston industrial estate, close to the M56 and M60, and five miles from the M6. Every day, HGV vehicles pass in front of my house. I am only too aware of what could occur in all those scenarios if something went wrong. I now have nagging doubts about wheel safety, and I believe that it is important that the Minister follows up the matter. As I said, he is a conscientious Minister who has responded constructively and positively to the questions that I have raised. I look forward to hearing what he has to say and hope that we can take the issue forward in a more thorough way, so that the public can be satisfied that everything is being done to make the vehicles on our road as safe as possible.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)
It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs McIntosh, for the first time as either a Back Bencher or a Minister of the Crown. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) on securing this debate. I am not surprised that he put his name into the ballot for a debate after our meetings. It is natural for a Back Bencher to follow up meetings and correspondence with Ministers in that way. I gave him some assurances, which I followed up in correspondence, and I have more evidence today regarding what I promised when I met him and industry representatives.
It is a pleasure to set out the Government’s position on wheel safety. Having held an HGV licence for the past 34 years, I have been conscious of the issue for a long time. However, in all the time that I was driving, I never experienced or saw a wheel give way in normal service, except in a road traffic accident. In my 11 years of attending road traffic accidents with the fire service, I never saw a wheel buckle, unless—I will discuss this later—it was due to an ill-fitting tyre or to the vehicle’s being overweight. I have seen overweight vehicles on which a wheel could not take the pressure.
Road safety is crucial, and I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman has raised it. It is one of my passions in life, given my background, and it is a priority for the Government. We have the safest roads in the world, but according to the most recent figures, 2,222 people were killed on them last year. Our roads are not safe enough yet. We intend to build on our history and safety programme. We are developing a new safety strategy, which will be published in the next few months. The overall approach of the framework is to focus on localism and targeted education, particularly remedial education, wherever possible. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned how we educate the industry. The industry has a role to play as well as the Government. We will be publishing on many other road safety issues at the same time, not least the problem of drink and drug driving. I know that the industry is looking particularly at drug driving, and I recently met the representative bodies of the haulage industry to discuss it.
On the specific points, I agreed when we met that I would consider carefully what existing data had been published and what had not. We considered the data for the past 15 years, as the right hon. Gentleman said, and they were fascinating. Of 197,000 roadside inspections, 60 found defective wheels. Admittedly, we do not know at present exactly what those defects were. They may well have been due to over-tightening of nuts or to incidents in which the vehicle was not involved; the wheels could have been transferred. It happens all the time. In salvage yards around the country, one can see it on cars as well as HGVs.
When I met the industry and the right hon. Gentleman, I said that I had considered the risk. That is crucial. We cannot wrap everybody in cotton wool; we must consider the risk. Out of 197,000 roadside inspections, 60 found defective wheels, which represents a failure rate of 0.006%. I am not saying that any risk is acceptable, but that is a pretty low rate. At the same time, we considered an analysis of more than 4,000 heavy commercial vehicle MOTs—in my time, it was called plating, but we have moved on, and everybody understands MOT terminology—in which no wheel was found to be defective. In considering the evidence, it is important that we consider the risk. I have kept an open mind throughout. In 2009-10, the last year for which figures are available, there were 198,000 inspections. We expect the figure for the first eight months of this year to be about the same, and we have found only 33 problems involving wheels. There were a similar number the previous year, and it looks as though the figure this year will be lower, unless we have a surge in evidence, but it does not look as if that will happen.
The reason is, I think, the rigour of annual testing on HGVs. Unlike MOTs, an HGV must have a test every year, no matter how old or young the vehicle is. A brand-new vehicle must have an MOT after 12 months. Anybody in the industry who says that the test is easy or that it is not taken with due rigour has not attended one. If the right hon. Gentleman likes, I will arrange for him to do so, either at VOSA or elsewhere—we are now outsourcing tests to the industry—to see for himself how rigorous they are. Defects are found on a regular basis. I remember vividly how, when I used to come home on leave and do part-time work, I would be asked to take one of the lorries down to the testing centre. It was one of the most frightening experiences that I had ever had. The lorry had been jet-sprayed and sandblasted, everything was spotless and still they found something wrong. That is why, as the junior guy, I used to be sent; the others were frightened of going down there. It is right and proper that the test should be rigorous.
Paul Goggins
The Minister makes a generous offer, and I would be happy to take him up on it, because I would like to test precisely what questions are asked and what examinations take place. I contend that the close scrutiny applied to tyres is not applied to wheels. That is the problem. Will he comment further? It is not surprising that the numbers are so small considering that those questions are not asked and those issues not investigated in the same depth as for other aspects of the vehicle.
Mike Penning
I understand where the right hon. Gentleman is coming from, but there is a difference between a tyre and a wheel—in manufacturing and in actual product. The key to knowing what is going on is not what questions are asked, but visual inspection. Anyone can say whatever they like about where the vehicle has come from, what sort of work it has been doing, and whether it has been off-road or on-road. By the time a vehicle arrives for its plating or MOT, it has been jet-blasted, cleaned and painted, and everything looks immaculate, but if the inspectors get deep into the vehicle, they will find any defects.
The failure rates are also an issue. We are not picking up defects at MOT stage. As I have said, 4,000 had no defects. I accept, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, that they might not be looking closely enough, but one would still expect more failures for vehicles that are in use on the roads. A failure rate of 0.0004% does not seem to be huge. I promise the right hon. Gentleman, however, that I will keep an open mind.
On priorities in relation to funding and to where we need to put our assets, the right hon. Gentleman asked me to go to the next stage and announce a year-long inquiry into or validation of the issue, but it is difficult for me to do that, because I do not have the evidence that that amount of failure is occurring. If I did, I assure him that I would do not only a localised inquiry, but a national one. However, it has to be evidence based and, at the moment, the evidence is not there.
I have made sure that a senior official at VOSA, which is part of my Department, will be responsible for dealing with complaints, and he will probably be inundated with them. Anecdotal complaints are always difficult. The gossip machine and tribal drums go on and people talk about things, but we will try to identify genuine complaints and concerns. Local authorities also have powers under the Road Traffic Act 1988, and I am more than happy for the Department and my office to be contacted directly. If anybody feels that they have a problem that is not being dealt with or that they think should be taken straight to the top, they can bring it to my Department or office and I assure them that it will be investigated. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, a lot of complaints are anecdotal, but I have to base everything that I do in the Department, especially on road safety, on my evidence base. We have three separate pieces of research. The first mentions 4,000, the second notes 1,900, and it looks as though this year’s figure might show that failure rates are lower than they were last year. It is, therefore, difficult for me to respond to the right hon. Gentleman’s request.
Trading standards have a role to play, particularly in relation to the concerns about foreign imports. There is a concern about the quality and standards of Chinese imports. We will continue to look at that. I am aware of what the German Federal Government are doing. Their form of Government is different from ours, and I will leave it to others to decide whether theirs or ours is right. We have safer roads than Germany and I am sure that that will continue to be the case. It is entirely up to the German Government if they wish to operate under their own legislation. The general product safety regulations fit in with this. If there is evidence that the products coming in from abroad are defective or sub-standard, we should be made aware of that and we, along with other Departments, will investigate it fully.
It is difficult for me to accept the suggestion that minimum standards like those for tyres be set. If we stand back from the issue, we will realise that tyres are a completely different product. Wheels are solid steel in most cases, particularly on lorries and public service vehicles, while there are myriad different types of manufactured wheel-product for cars. They are a different product. I do not want to ban products that are still serviceable from being transferred from one vehicle to another because of the sheer expense that would cause the industry as a whole. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the product must be safe. Salvage is a form of recycling. We have all done it over the years. I certainly have—I have been in many a scrap yard over the years to get products that I could not afford directly from the manufacturer.
Paul Goggins
I mentioned in my speech the “E” number system that operates for tyres. Does the Minister think that a similar system would help in relation to wheel safety? If that stamp was on a wheel that was transferred from one vehicle to another, it would at least show that it had met the industry standards.
Mike Penning
That is something that I am more than happy to look at. However, if we compare the failure rates of tyres with those of wheels, we will see that they are a very different product.
The right hon. Gentleman has asked me to look at two specific points, but I am sure that he will come up with more at a later stage. I do not say that in a derogatory manner, because that is the nature of a campaign. I cannot agree to do a specific year-long report, because the evidence from the three reports—this year’s report is about eight months in, so we will get its figure pretty soon, in about four months—do not show the failure rate to be as significant as the industry feels so passionately that it is. As I have said, I am more than happy for a senior official in VOSA to be the point of contact. If anybody thinks they have a defective product, not only do I encourage them to go to their local authority, but I am more than happy for them to report it to my own office and Department.
To reiterate, if there is a concern, we have to carefully look at the risk and make sure that it is evidence based. I know that this will be a disappointment to the right hon. Gentleman’s constituent and his business, and to the right hon. Gentleman himself, but I do not see the evidence to support Government expenditure on a further plan. I will, however, keep a close eye on the evidence that my Department receives. The way in which the right hon. Gentleman has raised the issue today, in correspondence and in meetings means that it certainly will not leave my eye for a considerable time. VOSA knows full well—my officials are present—that this is something on which I intend to keep a close eye, but the situation will not change unless the evidence changes to show that the failure rate is more significant. I apologise for citing the figure 0.0004% a few moments ago. The actual figure is 0.0006%.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman understands my and the Government’s position. I congratulate him on his campaign and on bringing it to the Chamber’s attention today. I will work closely with him, based on evidence, but at the moment, I think the industry is doing fine.
Question put and agreed to.