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Road Safety Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful for all contributions to this debate, except for the imputation by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, that I was looking for yet another reason to reject her constructive amendment. Of course, I am in total agreement with her and, indeed, with others who have spoken in this debate, but particularly with the noble Earl, Lord Dundee. They have both campaigned strongly on the problem of newly qualified drivers. There is a problem, and it is right that we should address ourselves to how to reduce the accident rate and improve the driving quality of newly qualified drivers. The bone of contention is not that I am grubbing around for any reason to reject an amendment by the noble Baroness—far from it. It is that the Government’s view is that we should tackle this issue not through regulation, but through enhancing competence in terms of the value of the test. We looked at the question of pilot studies, and whether we could run one on a voluntary basis. Would drivers recognise the advantages if we issued P-plates to them, which gave them recognition and therefore added protection, and enabled us to identify whether there was an improvement in the accident rate for new drivers? It was made abundantly clear to us that there were few, if any, takers, so, if we were to do this, we would have to make it compulsory. The burden of my comments in the past has been that the trouble with regulation is that it is inevitably restrictive. The approach to the test is restrictive, after all. You do not get what we all know is the surest aid to improved driving, which is experience. You do not get the proper experience of driving until you are qualified. As the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, indicated, that is the first time you drive on your own and it is also only then that you have access to motorway driving and a range of other driving. You need to develop experience, which is not part of the test. We all recognise that we want to see the development of experience, but you cannot readily get experience prior to the test. Therefore, the issue becomes the quality of the test. This is Third Reading, but I shall give way to the noble Lord.