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Road Safety Bill [HL]

I support the amendment. The net result of what the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, outlined, is that there are probably very few inspections when there should be many more because of the complexity of getting accreditation. When driving around the country, one is aware of a lack of checks. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, may have missed out compliance with the Working Time Directive, but he gave us a pretty good list, which, again, is enough to put anybody off organising such checks. I repeat what we have said many times in this House over the years: such drivers are supposed to drive legally; there must be enforcement and they must be checked out. The amendments in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, are a very good start, but I support the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, that all the other agencies that he mentioned should be included. A similar thing happens on the railways. When the Channel Tunnel was built, an enormous building had   to be constructed at the rail freight terminal in Willesden, not just for immigration—immigrants were supposed to be checked further on—but also for Customs. In those days, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food had to carry out a phyto-sanitary check there. The building, which is half as long as your Lordships’ House, not just the Chamber, was fitted out at the taxpayers’ expense but has not been used in the past 12 years. Such agencies require all those buildings when changes occur but checks are never made. If they spent less time requiring bricks and mortar and more time working out how to get out on to the roads to check people, the roads would be a much safer environment.