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John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD): What a pleasure it is to debate this important statutory instrument under your chairmanship, Mr. Forth. I can tell the hon. Member for Christchurch—on his point about metres versus yards—that it is an age thing. People of our generation tend to think in yards, but if he were to speak to any of my children, he would find that they are taught in metres and they play in sports with 25 m and 10 m lines and all the rest of it. The next generation fully understands metres as opposed to yards, so it is probably appropriate that the legislation look forward rather than retrospectively.
The background is that wearing seat belts has been one of the great successes of road safety legislation. If we think about the number of lives that have been saved over the years by people wearing seat belts, nobody can argue about the fact that they should be compulsory and the maximum number of people should be covered by the legislation. It is also right, as the original legislation foresaw, that people making door to door deliveries should have an exemption. We are discussing what the extent of that exemption should be. It is clear that the current legislation is drawn so widely that it is possible for people to abuse the definition of door to door. The hon. Member for Christchurch has made the point that many van
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drivers do not bother to wear a seat belt on the basis that they always have the excuse that they are delivering door to door.
It is interesting to look at the definition of ''door to door''. If somebody sets off from the door of the factory in London to deliver a package to my house in Caithness, 700 miles away, he is delivering door to door. Theoretically, therefore, he could cover the whole distance without a seat belt. I do not think that anybody would argue that that is the intention.
The Government are right to seek to tighten the definition so that it is more readily understood—and, therefore, to specify a distance. The post has been mentioned as the obvious example. Again I refer to my constituency. The post van that delivers to my house, when it has finished the deliveries to the five or six houses on the farm, goes about four miles before it makes the next delivery. It must be appropriate that, in making that journey, the postman should wear the seat belt and be entitled to its protection. It is possible that his superiors might say, ''Do not do your seat belt up; rush from A to B and get it done as quickly as possible,'' whereas that employee deserves to be protected. I am sure that that would not happen in the Post Office, but I can imagine that there are companies that would put such pressure on employees. If there were a clear-cut definition in law, the employee would enjoy greater protection.
Mr. Chope: The hon. Gentleman gives an example of four miles and says that, because it would be unreasonable for somebody to be exempt if travelling a distance of four miles, it is also unreasonable for somebody who is travelling 51 m to be exempt. Would he take my point that 50 m is too short a distance to be reasonable, and that is why he has given as an example a distance that would be too long to be exempted?
John Thurso: With his customary skill, the hon. Gentleman pre-empts exactly my next point, which is that, having decided to have a definition of distance, one has to address the question of whether 50 m is the right distance. I would consider 100 m to be more appropriate. Whatever distance is chosen, there is always going to be an argument at the margin. It has been thus with every rule that has ever been written. One could say 200 m and make the same point about 201 m, or quote 20 m and 21 m. On balance, I should have preferred something closer to 100 m. However, the important point is that the amendment to the regulations specifies a distance. I hope that the Minister will keep the distance of 50 m, if that is what is chosen, under review and, if it clearly proves not to be working, will be prepared to amend it to 75 m or 100 m in the future, if that proves more appropriate.
Mr. Chope: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that given the fact that both he and I are focusing on about 100 m or 100 yd as a reasonable distance at which the exemption should cease to apply, the problem with allowing so much delegated legislation and not having dealt with the issue in the Bill that was passed last year is that we cannot amend it?
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John Thurso: I am happy to accept that point. I have always disliked secondary legislation and I always prefer important points such as the one that we are considering to be enacted in the Bill. However, we are, as they say, where we are, and, as I was going to conclude, we will not oppose the measure, but I hope that the Minister will keep the distance under review and, if it proves too draconian, will be prepared to shift it slightly in the other direction.
10.16 am
Mr. Jamieson: I thank the two hon. Members who have contributed to the debate; their remarks have been helpful. I want to remind the Committee how the measure came about—I worked on the Bill when it was being passed. We were responding to an Opposition amendment and in the first instance it was an hon. Friend of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) who tabled the amendment in Committee that would have set the distance for wearing a seat belt at zero. The hon. Gentleman might want to go and have a chat about that, because his hon. Friend wanted the distance set in primary legislation. All I can say is that it is a good job that the wise old Government did not do that, because if they had, the hon. Gentleman would not have got what he wanted today.
John Thurso: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pointing that out; may I simply say that wiser counsels now prevail in our party?
Mr. Jamieson: I shall convey that to the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and see whether he agrees. He may of course differ in his view.
I recall the debate well; the hon. Members for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) and for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) spoke. Opposition support for the measure was considerable in Committee and I am grateful for that. I wonder whether perhaps the hon. Member for Christchurch might have revisited the Hansard to see what support his hon. Friends gave it at the time.
I think that the problem is straightforward. The interpretation of the law by certain drivers has been too wide. Many delivery drivers consider that travelling three quarters of a mile or more without wearing their belt is perfectly acceptable. Clearly, over such distances considerable speed can be built up, and several junctions and other places where collisions take place can be travelled over. Therefore in the consultation we had to fix a distance that was reasonable—and again, if the matter had been dealt with in primary legislation there would have been no opportunity for consultation with all the people affected by the measure. It is therefore a good job that it was not dealt with in the Bill, and particularly that the Liberal Democrat amendment was not dealt with there, because that would have resulted in a fait accompli for the industry. In the Committee people talked about distances of 10 m to 20 m. We thought that that was perhaps a little short.
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The hon. Member for Christchurch talked about the genuine door-to-door deliveries. Those that I have in my mind are milk delivery people taking their floats around. Seat belts are not needed if the vehicle is constructed not to exceed 15 mph, so a slow-moving vehicle is not covered by any of the seat belt laws.
Mr. Kelvin Hopkins (Luton, North) (Lab): I entirely support what my hon. Friend is doing, but does he not accept that a seat belt provides protection even if a vehicle is standing still, because if the vehicle is hit head on, the seat belt pulls the person back with the vehicle when it is hit?
Mr. Jamieson: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. A seat belt can offer a wide degree of protection if a vehicle is stationary and is hit from the side, back or front. Current law does not cover vehicles that are designed not to travel more than 15 mph, but who knows? In the future, my hon. Friend may propose a private Member's Bill and explore this issue further through parliamentary procedures. The order will not affect genuine door-to-door delivery and those people who stop every few yards and get in and out of their milk float or other vehicle to make their deliveries, generally travelling short distances and moving at slow speeds.
The hon. Member for Christchurch says that the order is a burden on the delivery industry, but its biggest burden is the number of people who are killed and injured on the roads. The figures that I have to hand show that 116 goods vehicle occupants were killed last year, more than 1,000 were seriously injured and 9,000 were slightly injured. That type of injury is a serious burden on the companies that suffer them. They lose the day's delivery, and often lose a driver, and they have all the paperwork incurred by a serious injury or a death. It is seriously bad news for delivery companies when there are injuries.
Mr. Chope: I agree that it is very bad news for the employer, the employee and his family if the employee suffers a serious injury or death, but the dairy industry has estimated that the provision will cost £3 million a year. The dairy industry, with its door-to-door deliveries, is under a great deal of pressure. Does not the Minister believe that he is being unnecessarily tough on the dairy industry by choosing a distance of 50 m rather than, say, 100 m?
Mr. Jamieson: We included the figure that the dairy industry gave of £3 million in the regulatory impact assessment, which I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having read. That figure was probably derived from there being almost a zero distance, because the industry was thinking of 10 to 20 m, which would have been almost a zero distance. That is one of the reasons that bore down on us when we chose the distance of 50 m, which is probably a more reasonable distance for those who are making the genuine, urban deliveries from house to house.
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