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Mr. Stinchcombe: I shall briefly explain why I endorse all the speeches that have been made thus far on the amendments. I understand the case of my hon. Friend the Minister that this is just an empowering provision and that he seeks flexibility. However, try as I might, I cannot understand why he would want the power or the flexibility to reduce the penalty points for speeding between the limits of 30 to 39 mph when there is a speed limit of 30 mph. After all, speed limits are not arbitrary. We have different speed limits for different areas to reflect the safe driving speed for that locality and the conditions that pertain there. Moreover, there is a clear relationship between excessive speeding and the frequency of accidents, and there is an even more clear direct relationship between excessive speeding and fatalities. We have seen the figures: 20 per cent. of people will die when hit at 30 mph, but 90 per cent. will
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die at 40 mph. I happen to believe that the penalties for driving offences should reflect that evidence of increased danger.
We are debating the Road Safety Bill at a time when there are adverts that explain the rationale for the 30 mph limit. Other hon. Members have alluded to them. How can we come to this place and argue to reduce the penalty for driving at that very cusp where there is so obviously an increased danger to life, especially when we know that the people who are most at risk are children in poorer areas—working-class areas? Those are the people who are dying. We should remember that 3,500 people die on our roads every year, leaving behind countless other victims: parents, in-laws, sisters, brothers and friends. For all those reasons, it seems inappropriate that we could send out a mixed message today.
Earlier this week, I was on a Radio 5 Live phone-in programme about road fatalities. I heard many chilling contributions from people who had lost loved ones, but in some respects the most chilling contribution of all was a text saying, ''Get a life—99.9 per cent. of us speed and none of us intend to kill.'' But the fact is that 3,500 people die every year. I wonder whether that is because people drive at excessive speeds, where there is a 30 mph limit in particular.
Mr. Mark Fisher (Stoke-on-Trent, Central) (Lab): I do not think, Mr. Pike, that I have served under your chairmanship before, and it is a pleasure to do so.
I also come to these debates as a complete novice. Unlike most other members of the Committee, I have not studied these issues before. Like almost all motorists, I was hugely impressed by the Government's campaign—the poster campaign to which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside referred—and even more so by the starkness of the television campaign. I confess to having been one of those drivers who thought that if I was driving at roughly 30 mph in built-up areas, I was doing all right. That campaign made me ashamed, and made me reassess how I drive in city areas. I found the campaign chilling and very effective.
I was equally impressed by the speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Riverside, for Caerphilly (Mr. David) and for Stafford and of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. Their understanding of the matter, and the points that they made in support of their amendments, are telling; I was impressed and persuaded by them. However, although I agree with them, is it not possible that debates about penalty points are slightly missing the point? The whole thrust of the Government's campaign was that it is speed that kills. The only radical way to address that problem, and to try to bring down the horrific figures of which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside reminded the Committee, is to reduce the speed.
If fewer children—and adults—are killed at 30 mph than at 40 mph, is that not a compelling reason, in built-up and residential areas where there is currently a 30 mph speed limit, for reducing that limit to 20 mph? Being a novice, I do not know whether there are compelling reasons for that being a naive approach.
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Perhaps a 20 mph speed limit would paralyse city centres, although I cannot imagine that that would be true, because in few city centres does the traffic move at anything like 20 mph.
Such a reduction in speed limit would not be a huge inconvenience to us as motorists, and I would have thought that it had a much better chance of being effective than playing around with the penalty points system or retaining the penalty point system and making it tougher. However, I propose that not as a substitute for the penalty points system, but in addition to it. I hope that, at various points in our consideration of the Bill, the Minister will address that problem.
There may be opportunities later in our consideration of the Bill to debate speed limits. In view of the excellent points that have been made in this short debate, I believe that there is a compelling reason for reducing the limit to 20 mph. The public might not like it, initially, and might view it as the nanny state, but if it saved a great many lives and only marginally inconvenienced us as motorists, there is a strong case in favour of it.
Mr. Chope: This has been an excellent debate, and it is great that, unlike on some Standing Committees on which I have served, everyone is joining in, with the exception of the Minister's Parliamentary Private Secretary, who I imagine has other responsibilities and does not wish to join in, and, of course the lady Whip, the hon. Member for Lincoln (Gillian Merron), although she has been given plenty of food for thought in listening to the potent comments of Government Members.
The debate has highlighted the fact that the Government are making a mistake in simply equating the gravity of a speeding offence with the extent to which the limit was exceeded. It is apparent to everyone who studied the subject that the circumstances in which the speeding takes place are what is important. That is why someone speeding over the 30 mph limit in a built-up area when there are vulnerable road users around is committing a more serious offence than somebody who does the same thing when there is nobody around apart from a few urban foxes.
Nothing in the graduated points system addresses that issue. It always used to be that one should drive at an appropriate speed in all circumstances. Enforcement became difficult and it was tiresome to assess each case on its circumstances, and so speed limits were brought in as a proxy for the proposition that one should keep one's driving at an appropriate speed.
We have now got to the situation where speed limits do not have flexibility, apart from on some motorways following the Road Traffic Act 1991, which I had the privilege of steering through the House. That introduced the power for variable speed limits. I want much more use of that power, particularly in urban areas, where there are widely differing circumstances. They depend, for example, on the time of day.
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If we wish to ensure greater compliance with speed limits, we must ensure respect for them. It is apparent that there is not that degree of respect, because 58 per cent. of drivers are ignoring them in urban areas. That is why we think that it is important that all speed limits should be assessed to see whether they are appropriate for the circumstances.
There should also be more scope for flexibility. The perfect speed limit is one that it is inappropriate to exceed in perfect conditions. That is what it should be. Most people now seem to think that it is perfectly all right to exceed the speed limit in good conditions, within the tolerance allowed by the police, and to keep roughly within the limit when conditions are not very good.
The importance of speed limits has been eroded because local authorities have often set speed limits that are inappropriate or that are not appropriate in all circumstances. Unfortunately, as the Minister has made clear, the rather rigid approach to variable penalties for speeding does not allow any scope for taking into account different circumstances. That is why the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside was on to a good point with the amendment.
The hon. Lady, like all of us, is concerned about the messages that are going out. The Government spend an enormous amount of taxpayers' money on trying to promote a clear road safety message. As politicians, we know that the message must be very straightforward for people to begin to understand it and that it must be repeated on many occasions for it to get home.
When I was the road safety Minister, we were banging on about the different consequences of a collision at 40 mph, 30 mph or 20 mph. Ten years later, the Government are still advertising and promoting that message. It is important that we, as a legislature, do not do anything that will undermine that message. However, at the same time, we must have regard to common sense.
Mr. Reed: I was wondering whether, just because 58 per cent. of people are not obeying the law, should we give up and say that breaking the law by driving faster than 30 mph is okay? The hon. Gentleman is right that we have been banging on for a long time about the differences between the injuries caused at 30 mph and at 40 mph, but is it not right that we stick at that, as has been the case with many other road safety messages, such as those on seatbelts? It takes almost a generation to change the culture. Would it not be better to keep banging away, rather than to move towards flexibility at this stage and send out the wrong message? I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would support that.
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Mr. Chope: The hon. Gentleman makes his point, but I think that we should introduce more flexibility with regard to speed limits, if it is possible to do so. It is clear that driving at a given speed through an urban area will be safer when few people are around than when pedestrians are tumbling off the pavements and almost into the path of vehicles. That is common sense.
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We need a law that takes more account of individual circumstances. That is why one of my party's strongest policies at the next general election will be our commitment to increasing the number of police engaged in traffic duties. There is no substitute for having a policeman on the ground who is able to see what is happening and to bring an offending motorist or other road user to book. That is very important.
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