Road Humps and 20 mph Speed Limits

Robin Millar Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I must begin by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) on securing this debate. As ever, his finger is on the pulse of what people are thinking in his constituency and across the country, and his determination to respond to that is undimmed. I echo his clear statements that this is not about opposition to the proper application of speed limits for reasons of safety or health. I should add that there is an important debate to be had about the balance between private and public transport, but that is for another day.

Even a short while ago, I would not have guessed that transport and the politics of urban speed restrictions would be an issue to energise the public at large. I can only assume that this was the view of the Labour Government in Wales earlier this year, when they swept such a restriction—a presumption that 30 mph limits would become 20 mph limits across Wales—through the Senedd. How wrong they were. Within 24 hours of the new restrictions being imposed, a petition to abolish them became the most signed in Senedd history—that is 25 years. Since then, some half a million aggrieved residents have put their names to the call to axe this limit. That is more people than who voted for any political party in the last Senedd election.

Indeed, polling today reveals that Welsh voters now back repealing the new restrictions by two to one. When we dig into those figures, we see that opposition outweighs support in every age bracket, every income bracket, every language grouping, every regional grouping and even every 2019 voting group. If anyone were to ask me what political issue unites the people of Wales today, it is opposition to the speed restriction.

That also raises the question: why? The Welsh Government have claimed that this restriction is moderate, even trifling, and is driven by concerns for safety. So why are voters so upset about it? Are voters in Wales foolish? Are they all careless petrolheads? No and no. We have strong communities that feel as deeply as any other when one part is hurting. We see plenty of tragedy on our roads each year—innocent, often young, lives cut short through road accidents where speed is a factor. But the truth is that the effects of this legislation are real, and its impact on services for households, families and businesses runs deep.

Already, businesses that make regular call-outs or that offer delivery services have complained that the 10-minute delays for normal journeys is impacting on the service they can deliver. I have had tradesmen come up and tell me they are losing an average of one job a day because they cannot move quickly enough between contracts. We have also heard of bus services having to skip stops to keep to the timetable for the services they are contracted to deliver.

I want to dwell on care services for a moment. Some 27% of people in my constituency of over Aberconwy are over 65 years old, compared with a UK average of 18%. One might therefore suspect, correctly, that the care services and agencies supporting vulnerable people in their own homes are vital; but the tens of thousands of visits made each year all take time and cost money. Extending that time by just a few minutes per call imposes a substantial cost on an already stretched public purse.

For a rural area such as Aberconwy, let us assume a very modest three-minute delay per round trip. That suggests an additional cost of over 1,000 hours of fuel and wages per year—that is eight-and-a-half to 10 wasted work weeks. If we also assume average UK engine efficiency, current fuel prices and the minimum wage, it is at least £3,500 in additional fuel costs alone, and £11,000 in wages. That is an annual penalty in the region of £15,000 for doing the same work—more than any business can afford, and further than many budgets can stretch.

Costs will, of course, be higher if the pay is above the minimum wage or uses less fuel-efficient vehicles such as vans, trucks and minibuses. Most such businesses and public services will simply be forced to cut back on provision where they cannot charge more or pay their workers less, and those already struggling to break even will go under. In short, these new rules could almost have been designed to diminish services, reduce wages and increase the fatigue associated with running a business or a complex public service.

But what about other workers, parents and families? The vast majority of people in Wales rely on cars to go about their daily lives; for example, 83% per cent of Welsh residents rely on such vehicles to get to work. Similar proportions use them to visit friends and families, to shop, or to take their children to school. For such people the slower journey times are not trivial. Long journeys represent lost time at home with the children, with a partner, with friends, or less time out enjoying the things that bring meaning and enjoyment to our lives. In many cases, restrictions will mean that some weekend visits to friends and family will simply no longer happen. At the margins, the restrictions mark the difference between a home being a commutable distance from work or not. In other words, these speed restrictions take away what the car provides: an ability for many rural constituents to maximise the good things in life.

I will turn briefly to the subject of lost opportunity. The Labour Government in Wales have assessed the potential impact of this policy. They concluded that there would be a “substantial” economic disadvantage to car-based communities, with costs to business and households of up to £8.9 billion, and a central estimate of £6.4 billion. The total cost to the public so far has been £34.4 million. If we applied a simple cost-benefit analysis, we would conclude that, for the cost of this policy, we might have employed hundreds of nurses or doctors, or invested in vital transport upgrades that communities across this country are crying out for.

The suspicion across Wales is that this rule was not passed because it represents a good return on investment, or because Labour leaders believe it would improve the lives of Welsh residents. No, I suspect that at the heart of this move is a general disdain for cars, exuded by those who do not have to rely on them for their daily lives. For my rural community, cars are essential. They dramatically expand our choice of where we can live and work. They expand our social spheres, bring us closer to people we love, and save us valuable time for the things that really matter to us. They are indispensable to the economic and social life of Aberconwy communities. At a fundamental level, they also embody an ideal of Conservative politics: empowering the individual.

As has been pointed out throughout this debate, there are appropriate roads on which to restrict car speeds to 20 mph, for reasons of health and safety and the environment. The sweeping restrictions we see creeping into parts of the UK, however, appear to be the vision of a managerial minority without heed to the expanse of the majority. It is for this reason that I, too, must urge a roll-back of these restrictions. I started by commending my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green for his awareness of what people were thinking. This Saturday, two mums from my constituency, Tina and Debbie—the two people, if I might say, least likely to arrange a protest—will be holding a rally of “Conwy against the 20 mph limit”, in Llandudno. I will be there to support them.

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[Peter Dowd]

As I said, I do not disagree with that. I am all for it being evidence-based. There are road bumps outside my house. They do not particularly bother me, I have to say, but that is my view. I do not think they particularly bother my neighbour either. They were introduced before I moved into the house over 25 years ago, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson). It was called the village entry scheme, because people in the village got sick to death of people speeding through at 60 or 70 mph. The price that we as residents pay for that, to some extent, is road humps outside our houses. If that is the way we want to dress this up, that is the consequence. The alternative consequence is people speeding through, which is more dangerous and more disruptive than the speed humps.

That is my personal perspective. It is a perspective as a Member of Parliament, as a councillor and former chair of highways, and as a resident. I want to take this in the round. I welcome the debate introduced by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green; I just hope that we deal with it in the spirit in which it is intended and, as he said, that we do not politicise it. When we start to politicise things like road humps, speed humps or pelican crossings, there lies—excuse the pun—the road to perdition.

[Robin Millar]

The hon. Gentleman makes some strong points, and subsidiarity is key to this issue. The point is that those road humps are there because of decisions, and those decisions are taken by politicians, so how does he suggest that this is not a political matter?

[Peter Dowd]

There is a difference between a political matter and a party political matter. I felt that a bit of party politicking was coming into the debate with talk about the Welsh Government, or this council or the other. I accept that it is a political decision; almost every decision we make is political, but when we make them, we have to balance them in the round.

Without repeating myself, I completely acknowledge what the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green said. But when we get the evidence—and we have been here many times in this place—we do not like it, so we try to ignore it. We ignore facts and we do not like experts. I exhort people: if we have a full, clear, unambiguous, independent examination of this matter, once we get the results and the evidence, in my view, it is for the local communities to have their say as part of the consultation process about when particular traffic-calming measures come into place, and whether they be 20 mph speed limits, 10 mph speed limits or whatever they might be.

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[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Robertson. I agree with several right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken in this debate: traffic cameras and speed limits should not be applied in a blanket fashion. I am a liberal partly because I believe in individual responsibility and partly because I believe that the state should not have overweening power and should not dictate what every single person must do.

[Robin Millar]

Would the hon. Gentleman consider crossing the Floor, in that case?

[Richard Foord]

I am grateful for the invitation. I think back to the new liberals at the beginning of the 20th century, who were very proud of the notion of the independence of the individual. However, they also recognised that there were times when the state does have to intervene to protect citizens. I want to talk about that sort of notion.

I would like to start with an anecdote. Ken Cooper lived in Newton Poppleford. During the Christmas period of 2020, he tried crossing a dark road; imagine a dark Devon rural road where the speed limit is 30 mph. He was walking across, in admittedly dark clothing. A car came along doing no more than 30 mph, and it killed him. It killed him on 23 December, which made for an absolutely tragic Christmas period for his family. If the traffic on that road had been travelling at 20 mph, he might have survived. His local councillor, Councillor Chris Burhop, pointed out to me last week that a collision with a pedestrian that occurs at 30 mph has a 47% likelihood of fatality or severe injury, but a collision that occurs at 20 mph has a 17% likelihood of fatality or severe injury.

That is just one illustrative example, but there are many others in my constituency. Since 2019, there have been 971 collisions in my constituency in which someone was hurt, including 246 this year alone. As a result, 12 people have lost their lives and 168 were seriously injured.

I did not anticipate this being an issue that was agitating many of my constituents until I went on a summer tour of village and town halls. I spoke to lots of residents and was struck by just how many villagers independently raised the matter with me. I represent a part of rural Devon where the towns and villages are on the coast or nestled in among the green countryside. Members will appreciate that Devon has one of the largest road networks in the country, and we use our cars every day to get around. It is false to distinguish between the interests of pedestrians and those of car drivers, or between those of cyclists and those of van drivers. We are one and the same—we use all modes of transport. As we do not tend to have facilities on our doorstep, we might drive to the supermarket rather than be able to walk to a local shop. If we commute, there probably will not be a bus for us, so we have to drive. Getting to school also often requires the use of a car. I do not like the idea that this is somehow a wedge issue where we pit urban pedestrians against rural car drivers, as it is just not that simple.

Obviously, on subsidiarity, local authorities should be trusted to rule on this issue. Clearly, local government is far better suited than national Government to weigh in, provided it has the resources to do so. Let me illustrate the point by referring to Devon County Council. In May, it announced that there would be six new 20 mph zones across the county, but 105 parishes applied to have a zone. It was reckoned that it would take £25,000 to introduce a zone—a change of speed limit—and Devon County Council could afford only six. When I went on my village hall tour, I spoke to villagers in Wilmington and Kilmington who have tried to cross the A35 and have found it next to impossible even just to get a bus on the other side of the road. These people are not typical agitators or rebellious people, but they are really cross about this. I had to get out to the villages and go to those village hall meetings to see the issue for myself.

What solutions are available? The one currently offered to residents in my part of Devon is Community Speedwatch. Although it is helpful to have local residents trying to enforce the speed limits that exist at the moment, that is sometimes just not enough. I have been out there with the Community Speedwatch group in Dulford, pointing speed cameras while receiving gestures from passing car drivers or van drivers who are perhaps pushing 45 mph in a 30 mph zone. This is partly about enforcement, but it is also partly about having a lower limit, because if someone is going to exceed a 30 mph limit, they might push it to 38 mph or 40 mph, but if they are going to exceed the limit in a 20 mph zone, that is more likely to result in their pushing it out to 26 mph or 28 mph. As we have heard, the survival chances improve markedly for every 1 mph reduction. Of course, we would like more enforcement of the zones we already have, such as the one at Dunkeswell, where residents do not feel the 20 mph zone is enforced by the police enough. However, the sheer existence of the zone means that people are driving less fast through that village, so if collisions happen, lives will have been saved.

I ask Members to note that I have deliberately not used the term “accident” in this debate, as there is no such thing. These things do not happen by sheer happenstance. This is about mistakes made, mostly by those involved in the collision—often, not by the pedestrian —but we also have a part to play in this process. It will not be an accident if we can intervene and give county councils like Devon the resources that they require to have proper speed limits in place.

To give another couple of examples, I went to the village halls in Colyford and Chardstock. I am proud that there are people in those villages who have a sense of civic duty such that they want to get involved in making their communities safer and more liveable.

To finish on a more optimistic note, last month, I joined the headteacher of Honiton Primary School at the school after he had spoken to his pupils and invited them, as a council, to come up with ideas for what they might like to do—their school council was allowed to put forward ideas. One bright youngster called Eleanor said that a speed hump ought to be put in outside the school. It was therefore a privilege to lobby the local council to introduce the speed hump and to join Eleanor and the headteacher at its opening. The speed hump will make a real difference to children and families at drop-off time at Honiton Primary School.

I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for securing this debate. I am grateful to have been able to present the views of the people I represent in Devon.

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[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

This has been a very interesting debate, not least because we have heard a variety of opinions about the different approaches in different parts of the United Kingdom. Those demonstrate the vital importance of local decision making to reflect the different needs in different parts of the country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd), as he confessed, is a constituent of mine. He has speed bumps outside his house, in one of the villages in my constituency, but he made a point about his constituency, which is urban. Over the years—this also happens in the more urbanised parts of my constituency—people have used urban and suburban roads as rat runs and, in some cases, racetracks. For many people in residential areas where such things happen, it is entirely appropriate that road safety measures are introduced, and I am sure that nobody here today would disagree with that statement. He also made the point about there being 1,700 deaths a year and that thousands more people are seriously injured.

[Robin Millar]

I spoke at length about the situation in Wales. The hon. Gentleman talks about statistics and the impact of these measures. Does he agree with what the Labour Government in Wales have done with their blanket imposition of the presumption of a 20 mph limit?

[Bill Esterson]

The hon. Gentleman will know that compared with the Welsh Government’s approach, our approach in England as the Opposition—I will come to this in more detail—is to allow, enable and support local decision making and subsidiarity. Actually, that is also true in Wales, where local authorities can reinstate 30 mph zones, and my understanding is that that is happening. So the situation is not quite as simple as it has sometimes been portrayed in the media, as he well knows. However, it is for Parliament to set the framework that my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle discussed, and it is not for Parliament to tell local authorities what to do.

I thought that the hon. Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) made a very important case for local decision making, with her description of the rural roads and the A32 in her constituency. In contrast, I think the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) managed to mention every single village in his constituency during his speech. I cannot imagine why he might have done that, but I am sure that there is a very good reason. Nevertheless, he powerfully made the point about the difference in the likely outcome if somebody is hit by a vehicle travelling at 20 mph as opposed to one travelling at 30 mph. The likelihood of someone dying is five times greater if they are hit at 30 mph than if they are hit at 20 mph. He touched on the point that drivers are also pedestrians, and sometimes cyclists and bus passengers, too. This is not a straightforward situation.

Our approach as a Labour Opposition and, hopefully, as an incoming Government is that it is for local communities to decide where 20 mph zones are implemented. I agree that local authorities and the people in their areas are best placed to know what works and what does not. It should not be the job of officials or Ministers in Whitehall to meddle.

It is disappointing that the Government seem determined to undermine democratically elected representatives and their communities. That is the reading of what they set out in October 2023 in their proposals, which included phrases such as taking steps “to stop councils”. The removal of local authorities’ access to DVLA data, vital for enforcement through the use of cameras, is among measures that undermine and intervene in an unhealthy and divisive way.

The irony of what the Government set out in their proposals, as the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) said in his opening speech, is that it was a Conservative Government in the late 1980s and early 1990s who first gave local authorities the power to implement road safety measures, because they knew that people wanted to protect schools and some residential streets.