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Mr. Chope: It has been an interesting debate and we have put clear blue water between what we say and what the Liberal Democrats and the Government are saying. The Minister picked up on the point about the Road Angel. From the promotional material that Road Angel produce, I understand that the company thinks that that product will continue to be lawful under the provisions in clause 17. The Minister seemed to be saying that that is incorrect. Certainly, those devices are marketed on the basis that they will continue to be lawful even after the Bill becomes law.
Mr. Jamieson: It may help the Committee, in case we have been misinformed, if the hon. Gentleman were to set out what the Road Angel can achieve.
Mr. Chope: I am no promoter of the Road Angel. All I know is that a large number of people have purchased them. A colleague of mine told me that his wife had bought him one for Christmas, and when I told him that it cost the best part of £400, he realised how generous she had been. My knowledge of Road Angels goes little beyond knowledge of their price and where one can purchase them. If the Minister wants
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information about Road Angels, I suggest that he uses all the resources available to him as a Minister to find out a bit more.
It is very important that, whatever the Government intend by the clause, people who go out and buy equipment so that they can identify accident blackspots and be safer drivers should know whether such equipment will be banned. If there are fixed camera sites at accident blackspots without operational cameras in them, I would ask why not, and why a game of bluff is being played. The Minister seems to think that anyone who exceeds the speed limit is of a suicidal tendency. I do not think that that is the case. We must try to ensure that speed limits are realistic and command respect and support from the motoring public.
There are accident blackspots, and it is reasonable to enable people to know where they are. There are anomalies with some of the speed cameras that are available at the moment. I think that they are called Truvelo speed cameras and they are forward-facing. We mentioned earlier that speeding motorcyclists are the biggest problem on the roads. They cannot be detected by Truvelo forward facing cameras. The Government still allow their installation, although they fail to detect the biggest speeding menace on the roads.
The Government are rather muddled. A clear definition of what will be excluded under the Bill would be better; that definition should be limited to pieces of equipment that interfere with law enforcement and have a jamming device. I ask the Committee to support the amendment.
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 3, Noes 11.
Division No. 3]
AYES
Chope, Mr. Christopher
Flook, Mr. Adrian
Knight, Mr. Greg
NOES
Atkins, Charlotte
Ellman, Mrs. Louise
Fisher, Mr. Mark
Heyes, Mr. David
Jamieson, Mr. David
Kidney, Mr. David
Mahmood, Mr. Khalid
Merron, Gillian
Stinchcombe, Mr. Paul
Thurso, John
Younger-Ross, Richard
Question accordingly negatived.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Chope: What time scale does the Minister have in mind for the implementation of the regulations under the clause? Will they incorporate a system of compensation for people who bought equipment when it was legitimate and lawful, but will now find that it is unlawful as a result of the Bill?
Mr. Jamieson: The provisions will be implemented at the earliest possible date. They are important measures and I think that little further consultation on
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the issue is needed; there is strong public feeling about them. We have included no provision to compensate people who have bought equipment with a view to avoiding being caught on a camera, when, clearly, their only purpose in doing so was to speed at sites where they thought that the cameras were not operational.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 17 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
5.15 pm
Clause 18
Exemptions from speed limits
Mr. Knight:
I beg to move amendment No. 41, in clause 18, page 24, line 1, at end insert—
'( ) Section 87 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (c. 27) (exemption of fire, ambulance and police vehicles from speed limits) is to be entitled ''(exemption of fire, ambulance, police and military vehicles from speed limits)''.'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
No. 42, in clause 18, page 24, line 2, leave out
'Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (c. 27)'
No. 43, in clause 18, page 24, line 5, after '(a)', insert
', after ''ambulance'' insert '', military''.'.
No. 44, in clause 18, page 24, line 9, at end insert
(ba) if a serving officer of Her Majesty's Armed Forces has certified in writing within 28 days of the date of any breach of the speed limit that the vehicle was being used for military purposes in the line of duty, or'.
Mr. Knight: This is a probing amendment relating to clause 18, which contains exemptions from speed limits. We welcome the inclusion of clause 18 on the Bill. I am sure that, like me, the Minister was disgusted when an ambulance driver taking an organ for a transplant was prosecuted some months ago for speeding, a decision made by someone whom I can only describe as a regulation-ridden, form-filling, pen-pushing nincompoop. There are occasions when we want and expect those going about their job, usually in the emergency services, to reach their destination quickly, because by doing so they may save a life. They might be an ambulance driver with an organ for transplant, a fire engine driver on his way to a fire or a police officer attending an incident.
It is quite proper that there are categories of people who are exempt from speed limits. I just wonder why a serving member of the armed forces, whose job it is to defend us all, appears not to be covered by the exemption. The rather bizarre situation could arise of a fireman exceeding the speed limit one month while attending a fire and being exempt; the following month, if there were a fireman's strike, an Army officer driving a green goddess to a fire could be prosecuted for speeding. An ambulance driver going to an accident is exempt, but a member of the armed forces using an armed forces vehicle performing the same
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function could, again, be prosecuted. A member of the armed forces could, as part of his job, be attending an emergency situation no less dangerous, and no less of a threat to the public, as an incident being attended by a police officer. Yet the officer would get off scot- free while the member of the armed forces could find himself being prosecuted. The amendments, combined, seek to exempt a member of the armed forces acting in the line of duty. Subject to what the Minister has to say, I commend them to the Committee.
Richard Younger-Ross: Briefly, I am sympathetic to the points made. In my role as spokesman, I used to cover the fire services. There were instances of fire engines getting tickets, followed by the whole rigmarole of establishing that no offence had been committed, the engine was actually going to a fire, and so on. We ought to cut that nonsense out at the same time and exempt them. I have a question, which the Minister might answer in summation. Why is the term ''military vehicles'' used, rather than specifying emergency vehicles that belong to the military services?
Mr. Jamieson: The amendments seek to broaden the definition contained in clause 18 to include the military as one of those organisations allowed to exceed the speed limit. While there are certain arms of the military that may need, on specified occasions, to exceed the speed limit, I do not believe the military as a whole requires exemption. The way I read these amendments, a squaddie could come home from his tour of duty and, because he was a member of the military, go as fast as he liked on the road. I am not sure I would advocate that.
Clause 18 amends section 87 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 so as to enable the Secretary of State to prescribe, by regulations, other purposes—in such circumstances as may be prescribed—for which vehicles may be exempt from speed limits. The amendment to section 87 of that Act will also ensure the appropriate level of training is achieved by those drivers who will be required to drive at high speeds. Any organisation that believes it has a case for a speed limit exemption may of course apply to the Department, and a number have made approaches to us.
Successful cases will be granted through secondary legislation, within which the circumstances under which any prescribed exemption can be undertaken will be clearly defined. Ultimately, safety must be paramount and my Department must ensure that only those drivers who are trained properly and have a valid reason for exceeding the speed limit are allowed to receive the exemption.
In moving the amendment, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire referred to a case of an ambulance driver taking a transplant, as he termed it. My understanding is that the confusion here was that the vehicle was not an ambulance, nor a vehicle serving the purpose of an ambulance. It was actually carrying a kidney, or at least an organ for the purposes of transplant; I am not sure whether it was a kidney. Here
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lies the difficulty; it was not actually an ambulance that was going at speed. That is why in this particular case those enforcing the law, to whom the right hon. Gentleman referred, were doing so properly. What may be wrong in this case is the actual law.
Within the clause, we will have the ability to look at all those cases where it could be possible that a vehicle actually taking a transplanted organ would be deemed an ambulance. But there would have to be provision that any person doing so would need to be properly trained. The last thing we would want is people going on important missions on a blue light—either to a fire, or to save someone's life in hospital—and running over someone else's child on the way. It would be totally disproportionate to the good that they may do. The right hon. Gentleman is quite right in saying we want them to reach their destination quickly, but it must of course be within the bounds of safety. That is why we have put in this piece about training.
The right hon. Member also talked about the Army, who may be called upon to do other duties from time to time. There would only be very few Army ambulances going on the roads, but if they are on the public road as an ambulance and used for ambulance purposes, then I understand they are exempt from the speed limit. The same is also true for the Army when operating in place of firemen; they effectively become firemen and are therefore exempt from the speed limits when they are conducting those particular activities. So the military, when carrying out some of the excellent work that they do—sometimes supplanting civilian efforts, sometimes working in defence of this country—will be exempt in appropriate circumstances.
I hope the right hon. Member would agree that generally, when the Army are moving vehicles around the country, these are slow-moving convoys. When they are moving equipment and goods around, there is absolutely no reason why we should give them the exemption from the speed limit. Most of the vehicles—large tank transporters, for example—would probably be incapable of going above the speed limit on the road. We do make provision for them on the road. Often when they are moving heavy vehicles in big convoys, they give notice to the Highways Agency and we make provision so that they can safely do that. Although there was the right sort of motive behind these particular amendments, on reflection the right hon. Gentleman might want to revisit the amendments and, in the light of the debate, perhaps withdraw.
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