Road Safety

Stephen Hammond Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Ellman]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. He was a member of the Committee when we conducted our inquiry, and I clearly remember him raising the matter in his questioning. The views that he expressed in the Committee are on the record, as his comments today will be.

We were informed during our inquiry by the then Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), that a consultation period would begin soon. However, to date there has been no formal consultation on this proposal and there have been rumours in the media that the Government no longer wish to pursue that policy. Will the Minister update us on the Government’s position? I would be grateful if he also told us what work the Department has carried out to assess the impact of trialling this proposal, which was one suggestion. Will he assure us that any decision to increase the speed limit will follow a debate in the House on a votable motion, as the Committee requested?

In conclusion, road safety is a vital issue. Behind every casualty statistic is a human tragedy. Road safety is a matter on which the Government should show more leadership. It is immensely regrettable that 2011 saw the first annual increase in the number of people killed in road accidents since 2003, and that the number of people killed or seriously injured also increased in that period.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)]

I am sure the hon. Lady wants to put on the record the fact that, although she is absolutely right that the figures for 2011 are entirely regrettable and unacceptable, the provisional figures for 2012 show a welcome drop back to the trend that we saw before the blip caused by the bad weather in 2011.

[Mrs Ellman]

I am aware of the provisional figures. We need to see the official figures so that we can analyse them properly and ensure that they are the start of a return to the trend over a number of years of reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads. I know that the Government are firm in their commitment to bring more safety to our roads and to reduce casualties, and I look forward to hearing more proposals about how they will put their commitment into practice.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)]

It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr Bayley. I can only echo the sentiments of the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick). It is always a pleasure to follow him; he has a sensible and pragmatic approach to the present subject and to others in his portfolio. I shall of course probably not be able to deal with all the points that I have been asked about.

I welcome the Select Committee report, and listened carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman). As I have mentioned, I suspect that I shall not, in the relatively short time that will be available to me, cover all her questions or those of the shadow Minister; however, because of that, should they care to write to me, I shall make sure that those questions are answered fully.

The number of fatalities has now returned to a downward trend. There was a 7% decrease in the 12 months to the end of September 2012, in comparison with the previous 12 months. There were 1,770 deaths, and that is the lowest number on record for a 12-month period. However, as I have often said, and as the Opposition have said too—it is not a party political issue—road fatalities are not statistics, but someone’s mother, father, brother, sister, son or daughter. Those are real lives, cut short. I accept that the strategic framework does not carry targets, but that does not mean that there is not a clear vision for continuing to avoid complacency and drive down the number of casualties. We will be judged on the actions that we take, and the outcomes.

I want to talk briefly about enforcement. We are creating a new offence of driving with a specified drug in the body, above certain limits, to make it easier to enforce the law against drug-driving. We are consulting on improving the enforcement of the drink-driving laws, and changing the treatment of fixed penalty notices. I expect to make a further announcement about that relatively shortly. We shall make it easier for the police to tackle careless driving, by consulting on making it a fixed penalty notice offence.

I shall use the bulk of my time to talk about young drivers. That continues to be a matter of paramount concern. One fifth of the people killed or seriously injured in collisions on the roads in 2011—those are the most recent absolutely accurate numbers—were aged 17 to 24. As pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) and others, it is not only young drivers whom we need to educate; we should educate young people about the roads before they become drivers. I appreciate, welcome and encourage initiatives by charities and car clubs to start people thinking at 14 about how they should interact safely with the road. We shall put continuing funding into Bikeability for the next two years before the general election.

Our forthcoming young drivers Green Paper will consider a range of innovative proposals for reforming young driver training and thus improving safety. I do not want to prejudge the options or the outcome, but I expect the Green Paper to include temporary restrictions on young drivers after they pass their test; there is a delicate balance between making those drivers safer and not impinging on their freedoms. I expect that it will also include a minimum learning period before candidates are allowed to sit the test; allowing learners to practise some form of motorway driving; and providing incentives for young drivers to continue their training once they have passed their test.

That is one area in which we are working with the insurance industry. We want to consider measures to reduce premiums and improve safety. Research shows that telematics can significantly reduce crash rates and risky driving behaviour. I welcome the increase in the number of insurers using that technology. Improving the safety of young drivers will not only reduce casualty rates, but make insurance more affordable, so that fewer people will commit an offence in that respect.

I should like to say much more about young drivers, but because of time pressure I shall now move on to the THINK! campaigns. Those marketing campaigns continue to play an extraordinarily important role in reminding drivers of key road safety messages. In the autumn, we launched one for drivers and cyclists, reminding them to consider their behaviour towards others. We recently launched a campaign urging drivers to look out for motorcyclists, particularly at those junctions where they have been proved to be vulnerable. That campaign follows coherently from what we set up last autumn.

That is not all, however, and it should not be. The £107 million made available by the Government through 2012 to improve the cycling infrastructure in England includes £35 million for attention to those junctions that we have judged, and local authorities have presented, as the most dangerous for cyclists. As the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech) said, we have made it easier for councils to introduce zones with speed limits of 20 mph. We have also made it simpler for councils to install Trixi mirrors to improve cyclist visibility at junctions.

Improving cycling safety remains a key priority for the whole Government. I was delighted about attending the launch of the all-party group report, yesterday, and about the commitments that were made. My colleague as Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), continues to work with cycling stakeholders on what more can be done. As I pledged yesterday, he and that group will consider the recommendations of the report, and submit a Government response. We intend to treat it like a Select Committee report, as we committed ourselves to do at its hearings.

We are also improving pedestrian safety. The local sustainable transport fund is providing £600 million for projects to support local growth and reduce carbon emissions, but many of the schemes improve aspects of the routes that pedestrians most commonly use, and crossings. There are also schemes to boost safety awareness. We expect any further extension of the fund to include those benefits. We are also updating the THINK! education assets that we provide for use in schools. I expect when the next iteration is launched, it will have much more accessible material.

Last month, we launched the new research portal, the road safety observatory. It gives road safety professionals access to research on a variety of topics. The site is part funded by the Department and a board drawn from various road safety bodies. The observatory will be a live site, updated whenever new research is produced. Such sites help local authorities to assess their own progress, establish where action is needed and identify best practice. The project is not an attempt just to name and shame; it is intended to be positive, so that local authorities will see where best practice has been established, and follow it.

The Department is aware that several local authorities use such sites to look at their performance. We have been pleased with the response so far from road safety bodies, with respect to the value and validity of the research and statistics. We had not yet heard the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside, but I will ensure that we keep that matter under review when we are preparing any response. I do not have a list of the costs of establishment or maintenance that she asked for, but I undertake to provide those details to her in a letter.

As to the Green Paper time scale, I should perhaps have said that we intend to consult on the proposals before the summer recess, and hopefully by the end of June. I anticipate a full 12-week consultation. I now seem to have a little longer for my speech than I expected, so I may pick up some more points that were made in the debate.

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

My guess is maybe two or three minutes.

[Stephen Hammond]

I am grateful, Mr Bayley.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside asked me how often there are meetings of the cycle safety stakeholder group. It meets four times a year. It met in January and is next due to meet in May. The motorcycle test review was brought up, in particular, by the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse. There was a delay in the test review research, due to recruiting a number of candidates to ensure that the test had validity, but that difficulty has been overcome. I am expecting to receive the final report of those tests, again, in the month of May, and the Government commit to making a statement further to that.

It is fitting that this debate is taking place only a few days before UN global road safety week. That week’s very existence is a reminder of how tragically common, as the hon. Gentleman so rightly pointed out, road deaths are across the globe, and still are in this country. It is also a reminder of how preventable many of those deaths are and how much we still have to do. We welcome the UN’s launch of a decade for action on road safety, and the Government recognise that in our road safety policies.

We are proud of the country’s road safety record, but far from complacent and determined to improve on it: by training and testing drivers more effectively, particularly young drivers; by raising the awareness of road safety; by legislating in response to changing road conditions; by ensuring that the enforcement agencies and the police have the right ability to enforce the law with regard to drivers and vehicles; and by investing in our roads, particularly concentrating some of that investment on the most dangerous road junctions.

Road safety remains a top priority for the Government. The Transport Committee’s report makes an important contribution to the country’s strategy for road safety. We will continue to consider the Committee’s recommendations, as we look at ways in which lives in this country can by saved by preventing road accidents.

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

I thank all Members for co-operating to make sure that we could bring the debate to an end.

Question put and agreed to.