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Road Safety Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, for explaining the alterations in the amendment. However, as he probably surmises, I will be resisting these two amendments, which would make it compulsory for children under 14 to wear cycle helmets. I am grateful to noble Lords, but the useful debate we have had suggests that there is a fairly even split on the compulsion or non-compulsory argument. The arguments are familiar to those of us who have debated this at previous stages of the Bill. I have every sympathy with the noble Lord’s intentions. The safety of our children on the roads is a high priority for us. We are doing well on cycling. By 2004, deaths and serious injuries of child cyclists were down by 49 per cent compared to our baseline, which is the average for 1994–98. However, we are not complacent. We are doing a lot to improve child cyclists’ safety. Our programme includes the education of children, of their carers and of drivers. It includes publicity, better child cycle training and improved infrastructure. It also includes the promotion of helmets, which we believe is very important. When it comes to compulsion, however, our view is to review the option from time to time, and we do so. Due to the current relatively low voluntary helmet-wearing rates, we will continue to try to persuade children to wear helmets. We remain concerned, though, that compulsion would affect cycling levels when we want to see an increase in cycling, and that the proposed amendment would cause enforcement difficulties, as several noble Lords have suggested. Rather than the Government interfering at this time, we think cycling is best encouraged by leaving these matters for parents, and other adults responsible for the welfare of a child, to determine. We also feel that the greater use of cycling is more likely to be promoted by allowing parents and other responsible adults to decide for themselves how best to encourage their children to cycle. The parents will know the children in question and the local circumstances, and can decide for themselves what kind of enforcement is appropriate. We do not think that making a parent potentially criminally liable is conducive to promoting and encouraging the use of cycles at this stage. We also remain concerned that, when it comes to enforcement of this proposed offence by the state, there may well be practical difficulties in determining who is actually responsible for causing or permitting the offence, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, suggested. Suppose a parent has given a general permission to their children to use their bicycles, but only if wearing helmets. Will a parent then be expected to check whether their child is using a helmet every time that child leaves the house? If not, is the parent expected to remind the child at regular intervals? As we know, children sometimes hear only what they want to hear. What if the child claims to have forgotten an instruction given perhaps some time ago or not to have heard it in the first place? Then suppose a child cycles home from school. Are the parents responsible or is the school responsible, or is it both the parents and the school? What if the school has a rule that helmets must be worn but the child simply decides to take off the helmet half-way home? Who, if anyone, is responsible then? For these and other reasons I have given, unfortunately we cannot accept the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, pointed to a different approach by government to other road users and quoted the Horses (Protective Headgear for Young Riders) Act 1990, which made it compulsory for children to wear hard hats when riding. But it was a Private Member’s Bill taken through the Commons by Harry Greenway and through this House by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, as she said. The government at the time felt unable to support the Bill. It was considered disproportionate to the road accident problem, as only 0.08 per cent of road accidents involved horse riders. That figure dropped to 0.06 per cent in 2002, which is the last date for which we have figures. It is also notable that at the time 80 per cent of riders were already wearing protective headgear. One of the reasons we resist the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, is because as yet we are nowhere near that figure as regards the popular voluntary wearing of cycle helmets by children. When motorcycle helmets became compulsory, 80 per cent of people were already wearing them voluntarily before compulsion was introduced. In the case of cycle helmets being worn by children we would be making an enormous leap from a figure far less than 80 per cent. For instance, in 2004 the wearing rate of cycle helmets by boys was 11 per cent. We appreciate the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, but I hope that with the explanations I have given, he will withdraw it.