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Road Safety Bill [HL]

My Lords, I totally support the principle of villages having a 30 mph and perhaps even a 20 mph speed limit in certain circumstances. However, I also believe that it is up to that village to decide what speed limits it wants. My own village is about two miles long—it is a small village but is long and stretched out with just a few houses—and has a 40 mph speed limit for each end of it and a 30 mph speed limit in the middle. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said that at the moment there is a 60 mph rule anyway, and that some local authorities still have a waiting list, but in the majority of counties where there are villages, there are already speed limits of one kind or other, designed by the local people. As with the last amendment, I believe that we have a habit in Parliament of wanting to create too much central direction all the time. I am trying as much as possible to move it back to local decision-making processes, and I believe that this issue is one that a village should decide for itself, without any change in the national law. Let villages decide what their speed limits should be—and I, being involved in a local authority, will do what I can to facilitate what villages want, as I know that police and other people do. As long as government supports what villages want, that is the best way in which to do it, rather than changing the law as it is.