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Road Safety Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hanningfield for moving his amendment again. In respect of the word ““shortly””, I was advised that the special types general order would be coming shortly, and that meant 10 years. I am convinced about the effectiveness of the materials, but I have two concerns. First, I am not convinced that a competitive market exists for this material. Perhaps the Minister has done some work on this and can tell us whether he believes there is a competitive market for it. Secondly, I believe that older vehicles are slightly more prone to involvement in side impact accidents, which are very serious. So if we go down this route, the material ought to be applied to all vehicles after a period of, say, four years, rather than just new vehicles. Heavy goods vehicle trailers, for example, can have quite long lives of 10 or 15 years. If it is a good idea, the material should be applied to all heavy goods vehicles after a few years.