Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of establishing a nationwide independent Road Collision Investigation branch.

The Department has sponsored the RAC Foundation to conduct the Road Collision Investigation Project which is ongoing and will report by Summer 2022. This project is seeking to establish whether there is a business case for putting more resource into the investigation of road crashes and if so, to identify how best to develop it. Considerations will include whether the future service should be nationwide and independent among other options. Their recommendations, together with learning from the ongoing Roads Policing Review which will report in 2021, will provide the evidence base necessary for an informed assessment to be made.