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Lord Monson: My Lords, I am sorry to have missed the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen; it was entirely because of the contretemps over Amendment No. 58A. I told my noble friend Lord Listowel yesterday that unfortunately I would not be able to support his amendment, though I pay tribute to his arguments today. As might be expected, I oppose it mainly on libertarian grounds, but on practical rather than on purist libertarian grounds.

People of my generation cycled every bit as much when we were 11, 12 or 13 as children of that age group do today—probably more so, since there were fewer forms of alternative transport available. Neither I nor any of my great many friends and acquaintances ever suffered anything worse than a grazed knee. If children were falling onto their heads from bicycles in their hundreds every day of the week, I might think rather differently. But that does not appear to be the case, despite the moving example produced by my noble friend. One should not erode—

The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the estimate for the number of children going to hospital each year with head injuries following a cycling accident is put very roughly at 26,000? I hope that may be helpful to my noble friend.

Lord Monson: My Lords, of course it is helpful, but we do not know how many of those accidents involve the head, how serious the injuries were, and, indeed, what proportion of the total number of child cyclists it represents. I appreciate, none the less, what my noble friend says, but I do not think that human freedom should be eroded in order to save the occasional individual injury.
 
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There is one other point. The amendment extends, rather surprisingly, to tricycles, which surely are much safer than bicycles. I should not have thought that was necessary. However, that is for the sponsors of the amendment to answer.

There is a further practical objection, which has been touched on obliquely by the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen. The law requiring equestrians under the age of 14 to wear protective headgear when riding on a public highway is sometimes prayed in aid, but realistically it is difficult—not impossible but difficult—for someone of that age to go riding without adult input or, at any rate, adult co-operation. The horse has to be stabled or, if not stabled, kept in a paddock owned by an adult. It has to be watered and fed daily. The bridle, saddle and other tack has to be provided and kept in good working order. So it is fairly unlikely that a child under the age of 14 would ride out on a public highway without the knowledge of the parent or the guardian. How very different where the bike is concerned. A 12 or 13-year old could grab his bike and zoom off out of sight of older members of his family in no time at all, and children of that age nowadays take instructions from their parents with a giant pinch of salt. For all those reasons I believe that the amendment is misconceived.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, I too missed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, in the Chamber, but I heard it upstairs. I used to work in what we used to call the "blood and bones" department of our local hospital. I saw first-hand a number of children with severe head injuries who had fallen or been knocked off their bicycles. That has left a very strong impression on me.

My two granddaughters, who might, not disparagingly, be described as rather vain little girls, are very happy to wear cycle helmets when they ride their bicycles, so there is no objection from them. Just as children will remind their parents to fasten their seatbelts, and they religiously wear their seatbelts in the back seats of cars when adults do not, I think that children can be encouraged to wear safety helmets. I would very much like to see this become law.

Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, I am not competent to take a close view on the validity of the amendment as it is written and its practicality, but I should simply like to follow the noble Countess in her remarks about trying to create an atmosphere, a culture if you like, in which young people automatically wear helmets when cycling.

Cycling is extremely dangerous. Cyclists are the least well defended users of the highway—unless horsemen are even less well defended, because there are a great many riders' accidents. It would be extremely advantageous if we could cultivate a way of making sure that, in the same way as they use their seatbelts, children put on a hard hat when cycling. For
 
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that reason, were the noble Lords to take the amendment to a vote, I should be extremely tempted to support them.

The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, while I think the amendment is extremely well meaning and that it is a very good idea for people to take proper safety measures, whatever it is they are doing that is dangerous, I am against compulsion. There are two sides to it. First, there is enough compulsion about things in life, and it should be up to individuals largely to decide. Children, I realise, are not mentally experienced enough to always make correct decisions, but they can be influenced very strongly by their parents. That brings me on to the business about permission—who is liable?

Living in the country, our children go in and out and pop on a bicycle. They may decide to unlock the bike shed and get one out. We have no idea really what they are up to, where or when. They come and go as they please. On the practicality of suggesting they should be checked every time they want to go on a bike ride or whatever, they have general permission to use their bicycles. I am not quite sure how parents like us, who have a relaxed attitude to the comings and goings of their children, would fare on this. So I feel that that is probably the biggest downside. I do not like the potential liability and the potential chance for some person in authority to bully adults about their children's behaviour when maybe the adult has not been in a position to do much about it. I do not think that we should over control society.

The real fact of the matter is that we are more likely to die of a heart attack, cancer or a stroke, or something related to that. Your chances of being damaged badly in an accident realistically are very low.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. Of course I share the objectives of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, who moved the amendment, that we want to improve the safety of our young cyclists. That is exactly what we have been doing.

Taking the period of 1994 to 1998 as a baseline, we have reduced deaths and serious injury for child cyclists by 49 per cent. So no one should underestimate the Government's commitment to improving safety for our children. We intend to improve on that position. We are not complacent. I want to emphasise that of course this improvement in the statistics is a reflection of a whole plethora of measures that we have taken to improve child cyclists' safety. Our programme includes the education of children and their carers, the education of drivers to take more care about child cyclists, publicity, better child cycle training and improved infrastructure to increase the opportunities for them to cycle safely on our roads and cycle paths. We include in that the promotion of the wearing of helmets because we are not going to contend with noble Lords the fact that the wearing of the helmet is a help to a cyclist if he has a serious accident and lands on his head. So we are at one with noble Lords in this respect.
 
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We know from regular monitoring of helmet wearing that there is a long way to go to increase such wearing. Boys are most reluctant to wear helmets. Set against a generally rising trend, the wearing rate for boys has gone down from 15 per cent in 1994 to 11 per cent in 2004. For girls, the wearing rate has risen to 26 per cent. Inevitably, a large proportion of those not wearing helmets are young adolescents who have accidents. That points to the nature of the difficulty: we start from a low base. I take on board the representations made by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, and the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, on the question of personal responsibility; I shall also comment on their points about who is liable in a moment. The problem with the amendment is that we are starting from such a low base, but it would move us up to 100 per cent by law. We cannot safely promote legislation on that basis now. We are aware of the contribution that the wearing of cycle helmets can make to road safety, but to move from a position of low acceptance of that need to 100 per cent compulsion is a significant leap that we do not think is justified.

6.30 pm

We have reservations on the issue of liability. I heard the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, say that he had listened to my remarks in Committee and I am grateful to him for having done that. I addressed the issue of liability. But the noble Lord, Lord Monson, is right: it is not easy to identify who is liable. It is not clear who, if anyone, will be responsible for the crucial offence of causing or permitting the offence from the range of persons listed in the amendment. Suppose that a child cycles home from school. Are the parents responsible or is the school responsible? Is the school responsible as the person who has custody or possession of the bike before the child rides home? What if the school has a rule that helmets must be worn but the child does not wear one? Where does responsibility lie? We honestly think that there are real problems about ambiguity and who will be responsible. That will always be a question of fact in the circumstances. They are overlapping responsibilities. It may not be clear whether the school or the parent is responsible in such cases.

I recognise that noble Lords will be disappointed by my response. I know that others share their views. The measure was introduced in a Private Member's Bill in the other place last year. The Government will not renege on our major commitment to improving child cycling safety, but we do not think that compulsion at this stage would produce the results that we want. We will keep a watchful and monitoring eye on the situation. I hope that the noble Lord will accept that the Government will not fail in our commitment to improve child cycling safety statistics and, on that basis, will feel able to withdraw his amendment.


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