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Mr. Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con): It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone), who has campaigned on road safety since he came to Parliament, following the example of his predecessor. I will turn to his points a little later.
We should remember that in 2004, 3,221 people were killed on the roads—just under nine a day—and there were 280,840 casualties. If that number of people were killed on our railways, aeroplanes or ferries, there would be a national outcry and the issue would take over the press for weeks. If that number of people were killed in Iraq, there would be a similar response. However, that carnage takes places on our streets, outside our homes and in our country lanes and, for some strange reason, there does not seem to be a sense of national anger. The debate has been constructive and this is an instance of
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when politicians must take a lead and make tough, and sometimes unpopular, decisions in the interests of the whole community.
The Opposition welcome much of the Bill as a genuine attempt to reduce the slaughter on the roads and will take a constructive and, we hope, helpful stance in Committee. Although we extend that broad welcome to the Bill, we feel that it could be improved and will aim to achieve that wherever possible. It could be more imaginative and, in places, tougher. In seeking to achieve that aim, we hold it as profoundly essential that the number of tragedies on the road is reduced. We have heard numerous cases from hon. Members on both sides of the House. Tragedy is an apt word, because behind the crude statistics, human beings are dying, often in horrendous circumstances. That should be no one's fate and we should wish it on no one—and no driver wishes it on anyone.
There was a terrible story last Christmas involving the death of a 16-year-old girl who was thrown from a car that was being driven by her brother when it collided with another vehicle in Oxfordshire. One cannot begin to imagine the grief of the parents who have to live with that every day. In February, three people from one family died after their car came off the road and plunged into a nearby river. Last December, just a mile from that scene, a father and a seven-year-old also died. The local constable Mick McCready said:
"When you have just dragged three people out of a river, you want to find a way of stopping road accidents."
That is what we have been trying to discuss constructively this afternoon.
The problem involves huge numbers of people. The Minister has answered parliamentary questions that I have tabled. In 2004, there were 34.27 million substantive licence holders driving 25.75 million cars, 2.9 million vans and 434,000 lorries between them. It is pertinent to some of the clauses of which we strongly approve that the number of foreign-registered vehicles leaving the UK has rocketed from 671,000 in 1997 to 1,595,000 in 2004.
We welcome measures in the Bill that bear down on serial offenders and some hard core offenders on matters such as driving uninsured vehicles. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) for his powerful and clearly argued speech on a problem of which I was unaware. I hope that in Committee we and the Minister can agree on amendments that would resolve such an extraordinary problem and that would have the support of a number of police forces.
As the answers to the parliamentary questions showed, the sheer number of drivers and vehicles requires drivers' co-operation and collaboration with the authorities in order to improve road safety. With such large numbers, coercion will not work. I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) who, in a long and detailed speech, argued that we need flexibility. We wholeheartedly approve of the proposals for flexibility on points, for example.
However, there are profound differences in the way in which we believe road safety should be approached in order to achieve our common objective. In some ways, the Bill is a wasted opportunity. In some respects it does
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not go far enough, and it fails to take a holistic view of the problem. There should be a change of attitude in the way that we deal with road safety. To achieve the aim of reduced casualties requires a partnership not just between the enforcement agencies and road safety professionals, but with all road users, especially drivers. Road safety should not be an "us" and "them" problem, with one group aspiring to impose duties and obligations on another. It should be a shared enterprise.
That is where parts of the Bill are wrong. It follows a long line of legislation adding to the number of controls imposed on drivers and adding to the penalties. In this context, the vexed question of speed cameras arises. Ten years ago there were 200,000 speeding fines. That number increased to 2 million last year, bringing in more than £114 million. All those revenues should be spent on road safety improvements. Whatever our opinions on the use of speed cameras, they have caused ill-will outside the House and are widely perceived as revenue-raising devices, not road safety devices. By resorting to a combination of draconian law and indiscriminate enforcement, there is a risk that we are losing the hearts and minds of drivers, when we need their co-operation to help improve road safety.
I have seen reports that 1 million drivers have six or more points on their licence. It was very honest of the hon. Member for Glasgow, South (Mr. Harris) to admit that he was one of them. Those drivers are, on the whole, law-abiding, hard-working people trying to go about their daily business, who have been caught. I should declare that my wife gave me a GPS device which tells me where cameras are. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I am in the happy position of not having any points—touch wood. I believe that the device has made me drive better. Can the Minister clarify that devices that show where cameras are positioned will continue to be allowed?
Dr. Ladyman: Such devices will continue to be perfectly legal. I have one myself.
Mr. Paterson: I am delighted at the cross-party consensus. We agree with the Government that devices that jam detection devices should be banned. We all have detectors in the front of our head. They are called eyes. The more devices there are to tell us where cameras are, the better. We want people to drive at the right speed and within the law.
"Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public."
I am worried that we will be at risk of losing respect for the law and voluntary observance if we have too much unfocused regulation. The resort must sometimes be to the stick, but it must also be to the carrot, and there is not much carrot in the Bill.
On the stick, we will seek in Committee to toughen penalties still further. My hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) mentioned level crossings. Incredibly, the Shropshire Star has reported that in 2005, as I think he mentioned,
"73 offences were reported involving motorists ignoring the red flashing lights, driving over the crossing, zigzagging across as the barriers are in the process of lowering and even colliding with lowered barriers."
Sadly, some of the incidents occurred in Wem, in my constituency. That is completely insane, idiotic and stupid behaviour, and the Opposition will table amendments to toughen up on people who break rules on level crossings.
The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) mentioned a terrible hit-and-run tragedy. Again, we will be looking for greater penalties for those who leave the scene of an accident in which an injury has occurred before the emergency services arrive. As my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell said, there is currently an incentive for someone who might be over the alcohol limit to drive away from an incident as fast as possible to give himself time to sober up. The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East raised a valid point: we must bring in tougher measures on hit-and-run drivers, who I think form part of the small hardcore that I mentioned earlier.
Careless driving was mentioned by the hon. Members for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) and for Leicester, South (Sir Peter Soulsby), and by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough, who has done so much on this matter. He mentioned the terrible case of Alexine Melnik. The Opposition have been open about the fact that we have reservations about clause 20 as it stands, although we welcome clause 33. We will discuss the provisions in detail in Committee. I discussed the concerns briefly with my hon. Friend prior to the debate. As I understand it, in the Alexine Melnik case, the driver—they may or may not have gone to sleep—who drove into the back of the car in which she was a passenger, driving her into the path of an on-coming vehicle, had been up and working since 4.30 that morning.
We will look hard at the problem in coming days and produce our own amendments, but I will be interested to hear the Minister's comments on the following. I have a definition of manslaughter from "Webster's" dictionary:
"The unlawful killing of a man, either in negligence or incidentally to the commission of some unlawful act, but without specific malice, or upon a sudden excitement of anger."
"Archbold" gives a definition of dangerous driving that has two requirements:
As a layman, it seems to me that getting up at 4.30 in the morning and working all day, apparently without a break—I am obviously not au fait with all the details—is not behaviour that conforms to that of a competent and careful driver. I hope that the Minister will comment on whether a route forward might be to look at the laws of manslaughter and dangerous driving and see whether they can be enforced in a more effective manner.
Our concern is that clause 20 as it stands hangs on the effect of the offence. If the person who was struck in an accident was a strong and fit middle-aged man, the incident happened in a town and the ambulance arrived within a few minutes and he was quickly taken to hospital, he could survive. In a rural area such as mine or the Forest of Dean, where an ambulance cannot be
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expected to attend within minutes—I think that the minimum in my area is 18 minutes—and the person involved is elderly and not terribly fit, exactly the same impact could cause a death. In one case, the circumstances would not lead to prosecution for death by careless driving, and in the other they would. I endorse the comment by my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell that we must examine the issue of severe injury.
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