House of Commons Hansard Debates for 29 Mar 1996 (pt 12)

Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham): If the hon. Gentleman goes into the House of Commons car park, especially when it is absolutely full, such as before a Division, he will see some vehicles fitted with bull bars. I am not saying that they belong to Members, because other people can park there, but should we not set an example by ensuring that no car can enter the Palace of Westminster if it is equipped with bull bars?

Mr. Spring: I take the hon. Gentleman's point. Largely as a result of the campaign of the hon. Member for Newport, West, I understand that there has been a substantial diminution in the number of vehicles in the House of Commons car park fitted with bull bars. I wish that there were none at all.

The two major road organisations, the RAC and the AA, have made very negative comments about bull bars. As I have said, the RAC released a report in February showing that the number of fatalities is twice what it was previously estimated to be. We have heard the oft-repeated and ghastly story of 12-year-old Victoria Moule, who was thrown no less than 30 ft up the road as a result of being hit by a Vauxhall Frontera, and a piece of her pelvic bone was broken.

The RAC has said that bull bars can cause injuries to drivers--this is the other significant point--by transferring the impact of a collision away from the

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car's crumple-zone panels so that the impact of the crash is felt around the car. Not only are bull bars dangerous externally when they hit people; they enhance the danger to passengers in and drivers of cars to which they are fitted. On both counts, they are extremely dangerous. Regardless of whether bull bars kill 70 people or one person per year, they are wrong. They are not a fashion accessory; they are a killing accessory. Tests in Germany suggest that the impact of a bull bar trebles the destructive impact on a human being. That is a terrifying statistic.

As I said earlier, I know that my hon. Friend the Minister is essentially sympathetic to what I am saying.I also know that there are difficulties in trying to integrate our procedures with European law. My hon. Friend will recall that he and I corresponded on the subject of fitting seat belts in minibuses carrying school children. Again, such provision could not be brought into British law unilaterally without European agreement, and I understand that in principle. I know that my hon. Friend is doing everything possible to persuade the Transport Commissioner, Mr. Kinnock, to speed up the process so that whatever blockages there are can be cleared and the legislation put in place.

The hon. Member for Newport, West mentioned--I am not clear about it--that Cyprus, and more recently Jersey, have banned bull bars. I understand that they may have a different relationship to the European Union than we have. Perhaps that is the point. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will want to comment on that in due course. I very much regret, however, that it would appear that we cannot take unilateral action, which would be very popular. I hope that my hon. Friend will explain exactly why. However, that is no reason why others--such as organisations--cannot act.

I am pleased to see that the number of bull bars in the House of Commons car park has reduced substantially.I wish that it were zero--perhaps it is already. I am gratified that police authorities such as the Lothian and Borders police have banned bull bars on their vehicles and that many delivery organisations have done likewise.

I was delighted to receive last night a letter from DHL, an enormously successful and widespread organisation. Knowing that I am a sponsor of the Bill, DHL wrote saying that it would like to express on behalf of DHL International (UK) Ltd. its support for the forthcoming Bill for the prohibition of bull bars and saying that, following the public concerns about the safety implications for pedestrians posed by bull bars fitted to vehicles, DHL had removed the bull bars from all its vehicles to which they were fitted.

DHL has a good safety record; none of its vehicles had been involved in an accident, so it is not as though it was reacting to pressure from that quarter. It began the process of removing bull bars in October 1995. It took about three weeks and 250 man hours and was not cheap. It cost the company £60,000, but DHL felt that it was the right thing to do, not simply to improve its public image but because of the possibility that one of its vehicles might be responsible for a fatality. I endorse that sentiment.

Bull bars were originally fitted to 300 of DHL's vehicles out of a total of 627, but by October 1995 the figure had increased to 500. I am therefore very encouraged by the fact that that organisation, so well

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known world wide, has taken the initiative. Other organisations, not only delivery organisations, should take that route.

Mr. Rowe: If what my hon. Friend said earlier about the manifest increased risk to passengers is true, should not insurance companies consider that? Perhaps my hon. Friend was about to refer to that.

Mr. Spring: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Several insurance companies are preparing or have begun to go down that route. We are having this comprehensive debate to bring the issues to light on the Floor of the House of Commons, after which they will no doubt be widely reported, especially in specialist magazines.I hope, therefore, that insurance companies will pick up my hon. Friend's point.

With that matter in mind, on my own initiative I have written to several organisations in the county of Suffolk. Yesterday I wrote to the leaders of St. Edmundsbury borough council and the leader of Forest Heath district council, asking them to set a best practice example in my constituency by encouraging councillors attached to those authorities plus all employees to remove their bull bars.

Twice I have written to the chairman of the highways committee of Suffolk county council to ask him to do the same for the county council. I regret to say that the gentleman has a bull bar fitted to his own vehicle. I was on BBC Radio Suffolk this morning discussing the Bill when a quotation was broadcast in which he said that he believed that there was no reason for him to remove the bull bar because he had no convincing evidence that bull bars were unsafe. I do not wish to personalise this issue, but I believe that he is setting a poor example. I have asked him to consider disallowing reimbursement payments to any councillor or council employee attached to Suffolk county council who has fitted bull bars on their vehicle. I would very much like that action to be taken.

I talked about my car being severely damaged.I believe--I hope that I shall not be corrected--that Volvo is the one manufacturer to have banned bull bars from being fitted. However, other manufacturers are moving down the same route. The Land Rover Discovery, for example, has a foam plastic variant. Mitsubishi has introduced a polyurethane bar and I understand that other manufacturers are going down that route, very much driven on by public opinion and by the gathering feeling that bull bars are nothing other than very dangerous items. I wish that car manufacturers would remove bull bars now from the specified list of options; they are invariably options and are not fitted automatically. Let us make the United Kingdom, from a car point of view, a macho-free zone.

I now turn to the European dimension, an issue that my hon. Friend the Minister will wish to address. Frankly,I find the whole issue confusing. In September 1995,the European Parliament backed a motion to ban bull bars but nothing much seems to have flowed from that.The European Commission is somewhat inhibited from taking action because of the attitude of Finland and Sweden. I find that difficult to understand. If Finland and Sweden have a particular problem with reindeer accidents, why should not the principle of subsidiarity be invoked?

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Moreover, most people in those two countries live in major urban areas such as Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki, so it is not clear why they need to continue to have bull bars fitted to their vehicles. Even if they wish to have them, why cannot the principle of subsidiarity operate so that they can continue with bull bars while those of us who take a more sensible view are able to deal with the problem? That would be excellent.

There has also been talk, which I find rather disappointing, that an EC directive dealing comprehensively with the issue will not come through until October 1998. As the hon. Member for Newport, West said, the European Commission seemed to imply that the United Kingdom could take unilateral action, but only for a limited period of six months. It is not clear to me why that suggestion has not been taken up or why, as was hinted at the time by the European Commission, an extension could not be added. I understand that the British Government could ban non-approved bull bars, although I accept that that is a small number of cases.

Let us consider public opinion on the matter. Some87 per cent. of readers of Auto Express, when canvassed, wished to have bull bars banned. The evidence is that with bull bars the crumple zone, far from protecting the vehicle and passengers, actually increases the danger to them. That is why the readership of Auto Express took that view. I understand that local authorities in Kent, Hampshire and Surrey have banned vehicles with bull bars from cross-country driving.

What is to be done? Lord Kinnoull sought recently to introduce the Road Traffic (Amendment) Bill in another place. I was interested to find out exactly what their Lordships discussed. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will explain a little further what was meant by the following observation by Lord Goschen in reply to the debate:

"Preventing the use of bull bars on all vehicles would be difficult to achieve at the present time. Popular models with bull bars fitted as original equipment by the manufacturers are likely to have been granted European type approval in respect of external projections. The free circulation of such vehicles cannot be impeded. That point was taken up by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas . . . Such European considerations, and the fact that as yet there is no specific hard evidence as to the effect of bull bars on injuries to people, are partly why we have held back from proposing national action. We hope that when we have the results of the work that has been undertaken, we shall be in a much better position to judge the issues empirically."

I am nonplussed by all that, but I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will deal with it. Lord Goschen further said:

"The other approach on the European basis, as agreed byMr. Kinnock, is for the Commission to bring forward an amendment to the external projections directive. That is a separate measure from the general measure concerning softer car fronts. That could be achieved very much more quickly.