Road Traffic Law Enforcement

Richard Burden Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes, I think for the first time. I cannot claim to be a West Ham supporter—I very much hope you will forgive me for that.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)]

You should claim to not be a West Ham supporter.

[Richard Burden]

I will not rise to the Minister’s bait, even though he tempts me to do so. I congratulate the Transport Committee and its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), on securing this debate and on considering the Government’s road safety strategy and, in particular, the issue of enforcement. I thank the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) for their important contributions to the debate. My hon. Friend’s contribution was remarkable. As he observed, he managed—according to the annunciator—to achieve omnipresence, being here in Westminster Hall and speaking in the Chamber simultaneously.

This is a really important report. We all know—it has been mentioned several times in the debate—that the UK has a proud road safety record. At least, it had one for almost two decades, when deaths and serious injuries fell sharply, but the worrying reality is that since 2010 that progress has stalled. The latest rolling figures show that there has been no reduction in total road deaths and a 2% increase in serious casualties in the past 12 months. Meanwhile, even though a great deal was achieved over those decades, drinking and driving-related casualties have been effectively stuck at about 240 a year since 2010.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside, and all hon. Members who spoke, drew attention to the situation regarding mobile phone use at the wheel. I know that at the end of last year the Government introduced more stringent measures on mobile phone use, which are welcome. However, is that really enough when the RAC’s latest report on motoring estimates that almost one in three drivers still thinks it is okay to check their phone while at the wheel? In the way that it was made socially unacceptable to ignore having seatbelts in a car or to drink and drive, we must use every tool at our disposal to change the culture of drivers using mobile phones at the wheel.

Personally, like my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse, I do not doubt the Government’s sincerity on road safety. However, the reality of their record has been one of disappointment in recent years. They are failing on their manifesto commitment to reduce casualties year on year. Some important causes of that failure have already been alluded to. The first, which my hon. Friend was right to mention, concerns road safety targets. They were introduced under Labour, and I have no doubt that they successfully reduced the number of KSIs—those killed or seriously injured. The reduction was about a third. Road safety targets focused minds and attention, and I still do not see the reason and logic behind the Government’s persistent refusal to bring them back. As my hon. Friend mentioned, why, when we support international targets at the UN and European level, do we still reject them as far as our own country is concerned?

We also need to think about whether the Government’s 2015 road safety statement was really up to the mark. I do not think it was. There was no clear statement of resources or guidance for local authorities, and there were no objective measures to improve young drivers’ safety. Throughout virtually all of the last Parliament we were eagerly awaiting a Green Paper on young drivers that never materialised. It was going to be published “next year”, then “at Christmas” and then “shortly”, but then it never came at all. The 2015 statement also had no mention of the “Vision Zero” goal that other countries have adopted—the goal of eliminating deaths as part of a safe systems approach to road safety. As for measures to protect vulnerable road users, we are still waiting for the fully funded cycling and walking strategy that the Government have been promising “shortly”—in their word—for quite an extraordinary length of time.

The fact is that the Government’s approach on this issue has been piecemeal and limited in effect. Central to that failure is the title of today’s debate and the key recommendation underlined by the Transport Committee in its report last year: the question of enforcement. According to the response to my written question on 1 February, official figures show that since 2010 the number of officers outside the Metropolitan police with road policing functions has fallen from 5,337 to 3,436. That is a cut of about one third; it is actually a bigger cut than that identified by the Transport Committee. The Committee is right to say that a combination of education, engineering and penalties is key to improving safety conditions, but also that those things

“must be backed up by effective enforcement with road users knowing that infringements will be detected.”

That brings me to the question of how policing priorities are set and the constraints in that regard. The Government can say that policing priorities are a matter for local forces, and in a sense that is right—it is important that they are set locally and reflect local conditions—but they cannot be in any way meaningful if the police up and down the country simply do not have the resources to deliver the priorities that they want to deliver across the piece.

As the Transport Committee noted in paragraph 7 of the report, road policing is not a nationally set strategic priority, and the variation in strategies appears to be continuing. For example, in quarter 1 of last year, seven forces did not even submit casualty reports to the Government on time, forcing the DFT to estimate the figures. Meanwhile, across the country we have seen fixed penalty notices for mobile phone usage plummet by not far short of 90% over five years. I would like to think that that reflects a sea change in the attitude of motorists to using mobile phones, but I think we know from the RAC report and elsewhere that the reality is likely to be different. In evidence to the Select Committee, the Institute of Advanced Motorists noted that the falling levels of enforcement risk developing a culture in which being caught is seen as a matter of bad luck rather than bad driving.

I therefore ask the Minister to address the question that has been put to him twice in this debate so far. Will he reveal what impact assessment he has done on the effect of falling police numbers on road safety, and if there has been no such impact assessment, will he please undertake one? Can he also assure us that he will speak to his Home Office colleagues to ensure that forces send through accurate and timely casualty reports, which are essential? What meetings has he had with the Association of Chief Police Officers following the report from the Transport Committee and the latest statistics for the number of officers involved in road safety duties?

I have no doubt that every police and crime commissioner and every chief constable in this country wants to see safe roads. I have no doubt that every single one of them wants to devote as many officers as they can to achieving safety on our roads. However, if they do not have the resources to do that, all too often it is road traffic policing that ends up falling off the end of the list of priorities. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse was right: the Department for Transport has a key role to play if that culture is to be turned around.

There needs to be a cross-Government strategy. It is vital that central Government does not work in silos on this issue and that the DFT steps up to take the lead on how we can ensure that the necessary resources are made available for effective enforcement. I hope the Government will think about how road safety can be integrated into their third attempt at producing a clean air strategy, and will they also think about whether the second road investment strategy can allocate a specific budget to road safety?

I hope that the Minister will address the important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside about ensuring that cross-border work on road safety, particularly in relation to the European Union, is maintained at a high level and that Brexit does not jeopardise or undermine that.

Will the Government also think about what levers can be used to incentivise further the uptake of telematics or black boxes and the use of technology to deter mobile phone use at the wheel, which various hon. Members have mentioned? Could the recently published Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill, which has clauses on automated vehicles, be used as a vehicle—pardon the expression—for pursuing some of those agendas?

I hope the Minister will recognise, from today’s debate and others, that there is cross-party concern about this issue. I hope he will agree to take full stock of his Government’s road safety approach and recognise that despite their sincere pledges to improve road safety, the strategy is falling short as things stand. This is a cross-ministerial challenge for not only his Department but the Ministry of Justice and, equally, the Home Office. I hope he will ensure that the Home Office, police and local authorities are all on the same page and have the capacity, in practice, to enforce the law as we all want to see it enforced.

I would like to end with four further questions to the Minister on improving road safety. Will he commit to ensuring that all police forces have sufficient support to deliver reductions in all forms of casualties? What work is he undertaking to review the Scottish drink-drive limits that the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South mentioned? We need to look at what the impact has been of reducing the limit there and whether we can learn any lessons.

Will the Minister give us a timeframe for when the cycling and walking investment strategy will be published and an assurance that it will have the resources to back it up when finally it is published? Finally, will he listen to campaigners within the road safety community and do what my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside has urged him to do, and which I urge him again to do, by reinstating road safety targets? They can perform a valuable role in achieving the vision of nobody being killed or seriously injured on our roads in future.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)]

I am not sure I have served under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I am not a West Ham supporter; I have to put that on the record right away. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) on securing this debate. Before we go any further, I must say that I will relay the comments on road policing to the Minister responsible in the Home Office. I have regular meetings with colleagues in the Home Office. This is very much a cross-departmental initiative, and we have had some very positive moves. I expect to see that continue.

In the Government’s road safety statement in December 2015, we welcomed the fact that the Transport Committee was looking at this topic, and I am happy to reiterate that welcome in today’s debate. This debate is extremely timely. Three weeks ago, my Department published road casualty statistics for the third quarter of last year. The figures for those killed and seriously injured on our roads showed an increase of 6% in the year ending 2016 compared with 2015. That is clearly a move in the wrong direction, and we must not in any way be complacent, but we must also be cautious before jumping to conclusions. There is not enough evidence yet to conclude that the change can be explained by statistical natural variation in deaths over time. I am very aware that we will want to keep that under close review.

We have a manifesto commitment to reduce the number of road users, including cyclists, who are killed or injured on our roads every year. Enforcing road traffic laws to ensure that offenders pay the penalty for their wrongdoing can help to get that statistic on a downward trend again. I was asked whether I met regularly with the police service on the matter, and I do. The police lead is Chief Constable Suzette Davenport from Gloucestershire. I have also written to each of the forces around the country about their reporting, so I am happy to give confirmation right away on some of the questions asked.

[Richard Burden]

Before the Minister leaves the question of the police, I accept and am pleased about what he said before—that he will talk to his Home Office colleagues—but he was also asked a direct question on at least two occasions today about whether he had undertaken any review of the reductions in police numbers devoted to road policing and the impact on road safety. If he has not undertaken any such review, will he do so?

[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.