Mr.
Kidney: I am disappointed because, as I explained, the
Metropolitan police has developed a
system to deal consistently with road traffic offenders. On Tuesday
afternoon, when my hon. Friend asked us to vote against several clauses
in the Bill, he said that the laws were adequate and that we just
needed to enforce them consistently and effectively. Does he not
recognise that there is an inconsistency in his argument if he thinks
that a whole strategy can rely on thinking, “One day the court
might grant a discretion to allow the officer to present the case when
he gets
there.”?
Dr.
Ladyman: My point is that the Metropolitan police has
already gone a long way towards making the presentation of such cases
more efficient, using the existing law. We believe that that can go
further, bridging the gap between what the Metropolitan police is doing
and what it wants to do, without the introduction of the power
suggested in new clause 3. I am confident that, working together, the
Metropolitan police, the Department for Transport and the DCA can
resolve the issue to the satisfaction not only of the Metropolitan
police but of my hon. Friend, without running the risk of creating a
new power that could not be removed if it turned out to have side
effects that my hon. Friend does not intend.
My strong advice is that the
Committee should not accept the new clause, and I hope that my hon.
Friend accepts my assurance that the DCA, my officials and the
Metropolitan police and others will work on the matter to find a way of
resolving it without the need for the new
clause.
Mr.
Kidney: If I may, I should like to reserve the right to
come back to the matter on Report. Having listened to the Minister, I
realise that I need to lobby not just his Department but the DCA. I
urge him not to be so timid about changing the law that was passed in
1985. Parliament has changed it in other regards. A good example is the
Courts and Legal Services Act 1990, which amended the Crown Prosecution
Service provisions in the 1985 Act to allow, when suitable, non-legal
staff in the CPS office to present cases on behalf of the
CPS.
9.15
am We were bold
enough then to let the CPS use non-lawyers to present some of their
court cases, which are more serious, obviously, than the ones about
which I am talking. Surely, the matter is not a difficult one. Let us
be sufficiently bold, recognise that there is a bottleneck, and make
that modest amendment, because when the Bill is passed, our next
opportunity to do that could be many years away. So I shall not press
the new clause to a vote, but I would like to come back to the matter
on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
motion. Motion and
clause, by leave,
withdrawn.
New
Clause
7Impact
of the period of summer time on road safety
‘(1) The Secretary of State shall report on
the impact of the period of summer time on road
safety.
(2) The first report under this section shall be in
respect of the period of twelve months beginning with the passing of
this Act. (3) Subsequent
reports under this section shall be in respect of the period of 12
months beginning with the end of the previous reporting
period. (4) Each report under
this section shall be prepared as soon as practicable after the end of
the period to which it
relates. (5) The Secretary of
State shall— (a) lay a
copy of each report under this section before each House of Parliament,
and (b) publish each such
report in such manner as he thinks fit.'. —[Mr.
Kidney.] Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Mr.
Kidney: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time. Here I am again.
The new clause would require that, each year, the Department for
Transport report on the effects on road safety of the way that clocks
are set in the United Kingdom. I have in mind that we would receive
reports like that from the Royal Society for the Prevention of
Accidents that commented on the way that we changed our clocks in
2004: “In 2004,
road deaths rose from 269 in October to 300 in
November”, which would
have been just after we put the clocks
back, “and to 323 in
December.” That trend was
the same with pedestrian deaths: there were 56 in that October, then we
put the clocks back and the figure rose to 76 in November, and to 78 in
December. People who
have analysed the matter year after year have shown consistently that
at the end of October, when we put the clocks back and evenings become
darker earlier, the casualty rates in this country go up. Clearly,
there are road safety benefits from doing something different with our
clocks in order to preserve lighter evenings, especially in the
winter. Mr.
Tom Harris (Glasgow, South) (Lab): My hon. Friend will
know from Second Reading that I, unlike many Scottish politicians,
support a move away from British summer time to allow lighter evenings
and darker mornings in Britain. Is it not the case that in winter it is
inevitable that days become shorter, regardless of whether we put the
clocks back? Is it not possible that the increase in the number of road
accidents is simply a result of that inevitable physical
phenomenon?
Mr.
Kidney: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point.
Greater minds than I, particularly those at the Transport Research
Laboratory, have researched that matter, and it seems that casualty
rates are highest at dusk. Is he asking whether, if we change the time
of dusk, that casualty rate would move to the new time, or whether we
would actually remove it altogether? The TRL’s judgment is that
we would remove the accidents and casualties an hour later because most
people make their journeys by the clock. For example, it is the time,
not dusk, that determines when people finish and go home from school or
work, or go somewhere before going home. Nevertheless, we must be
careful not to
turn this into a debate about putting the clocks forward or back,
because that is beyond the scope of the Bill or the new
clause. I shall
provide some background so that people understand. Currently in this
country, in winter time—October to March—we are on
Greenwich mean time. In the summer months—March to
October—we are on Greenwich mean time, plus one hour, and moving
the clocks forward by one hour in March means that we have one extra
hour of daylight in the
evening. Between 1968
and 1971, an experiment was carried out. In March 1968, the clocks were
put forward by one hour, and were left there until October 1971. That
was known as British standard time, during which road safety was
monitored. After making the necessary adjustments, the Transport
Research Laboratory concluded that, per winter, during the experiment,
1,120 fewer people were killed or seriously injured on our roads. That
included 230 fewer fatalities. That was, to me, quite a significant
change. There have
been some further assessments of whether the effect that was seen in
1968 to 1971 would still hold good today. I asked the Minister a
written parliamentary question and he confirmed that the TRL had
updated its estimate of the effects of changing daylight time. He said
that the conclusion was
that “there could be a
reduction in road casualties of over 400 people killed or seriously
injured per year in Great Britain, including 100
deaths.”—[Official Report, 9 November 2005; Vol.
439,c.
514W.] In actual
fact, looking at the research, 450 fewer people would be killed or
seriously injured, which includes between 104 and 138 fewer
fatalities. We can
clearly make road safety gains if we change the way in which we set our
clocks in this country. If a report set out year after year the trend
that every October, November and December saw a rising number of deaths
on our roads coinciding with when we put the clocks back, one day the
penny would drop that there is a good safety argument for not putting
the clocks back. For completeness, my favourite approach would be in
the winter to have GMT plus one hour, and in the summer GMT plus two
hours, which people call single/double summer time.
The Bill is not the vehicle to
change the way in which we set our clocks. That is a reserved matter
for the whole of the United Kingdom, although I note that in the other
place Lord Tanlaw suggested a pilot for three years of single-double
summer time in England only, allowing the devolved authorities to join
in with the experiment if they wanted. Clearly, there are wider
implications than just road safety. There are many positive reasons
beyond road safety for why we should make that change, but for today I
am asking for the Minister to agree that there should be an annual
report on the road safety consequences of what we do with our clocks in
order to see whether the Department for Transport, at least, would
support making that change.
Stephen
Hammond: I was remiss earlier, Mrs. Anderson. I welcome
you back to the Chair after Easter and I trust you had a good
break.
The new clause, as the hon.
Gentleman has said, would require a report on the impact on road safety
for 12 months and another for each subsequent 12 months, and would
allow the Minister to publish those reports and lay them as and where
he sees fit. It does not call for any action at this stage.
Many of us will have received a
briefing from the Longer Day UK group, which makes some claims about
the number of road deaths that could be avoided. It gave the TRL
estimates of how many casualties could have been avoided over 25 years
if we changed to what it calls the daytime-saving timetable: 20,000,
starting from 1971. Unfortunately, the table that it presents for us
only starts from 1975, so it is difficult to make a real estimate of
whether that is right. It also brushes aside any comments about safety
to cyclists that have been raised. I am sure that there is detailed
methodology in it somewhere, but we have yet to see it. It also talks
clearly about a number of other benefits outside the scope of the
Committee’s deliberations.
I listened to the hon.
Gentleman’s comments about the experiment between 1968 and 1971,
prior to the Summer Time Act 1972, when we had the extra hour in place
for three years. He cited a set of numbers, which were supposedly the
benefit of that experiment. However, there are other quotations. The
Government have said that the method was piloted between 1968 and 1971,
and that some findings estimate 2,500 deaths and serious injuries
occurred each year as a result. The hon. Gentleman talked about the
most up-to-date evidence from the TRL and quoted the Minister from
November last year, but the Minister was probably just citing the
numbers relating to the savings that were already established as a
result of the 1968 to 1971 survey. Lord Sainsbury, who was answering
for the Government in another place, said that the facts were that
we “would save 100 lives
and 300 serious injuries each year.” —[Official
Report, House of Lords, 7 November 2005; Vol. 675, c.
389.] Those figures are based on
the 1968 to 1971 survey, and seem to be the established numbers. There
is some controversy about the numbers, and we clearly need to examine a
number of other sources, not just the road safety ones. The Government
say that the experiment proved unpopular at the time.
I find it difficult to support
the new clause, because it is likely to be highly restrictive. If we
were to think about moving to GMT plus one for the whole year, we would
need to look at considerably more aspects than road safety, which would
mean another report and another set of costs. The experiment has been
done once before in relation to road safety and we know the
facts.
Mr.
Kidney: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that
there are much wider implications than road safety and there are other
issues to take into account, but on his point about Lord
Sainsbury’s claim that the Transport Research
Laboratory’s information is simply going back to the findings of
1968 to1971, I refer him to the 1998 report by Broughton and Stone from
the Transport Research Laboratory, which assesses the effects of
single/double summer time. It is different from the 1968 to 1971
experiment and takes into
account casualty figures between 1969 and 1994. It is clearly a more
up-to-date assessment and is not simply rehashing old
figures.
Stephen
Hammond: I accept that point, but the hon. Gentleman is
using a different set of numbers than those proposed during that
experiment. The findings of that experiment are well founded and on
that basis we would find the new clause difficult to
support. Mr.
Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con): This is probably the
only time ever that I am likely to find myself in agreement with the
hon. Member for Stafford, whose general views on road traffic matters
are that we should bring back the carrying of a red flag in front of
cars. I find myself with him on this issue. Approximately 400 deaths a
year are caused, along with many serious injuries, by our adhering to
this ridiculous ritual of putting our clocks back every
autumn.
Stephen
Hammond: I just wanted to clarify the point: it is 100
deaths, but 400 deaths and serious
injuries.
Mr.
Knight: I am grateful for that clarification. In my view,
if we can preserve just one life, an experiment is worth pursuing. I am
with the hon. Member for Stafford on this issue. He is quite right: the
new clause would not bring about a change in our hours, but he is
clearly seeking to knock at the door and to get Ministers to think
about making a change. For that reason, I find myself supporting him. I
do not like the wording of his clause and I do not like provisions in
legislation that call for unnecessary reports and bureaucracy, but I
can see why he has called for it.
The argument I have heard for
not making the change is that it would upset the Scots; a handful of
Scots living in the north-west of Scotland would not like it if we made
this change. Well, they have their own Parliament. Although this is
currently a reserved matter, I would give Scotland the power to choose
its own time zone. Let the Scots give themselves their own time zone if
they do not want the implementation of this particular
provision. I have
heard it said that the Government may have sold the pass on this issue
by giving to the European Union an undertaking that we would not
interfere with the time zones in force in the UK without EU permission.
I hope that the Minister will confirm that there is no substance to
that rumour.
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