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Road Safety Bill [Lords]

No, I cannot promise that. I note the right hon. Gentleman’s comments about heritage Morris Minors, but equally that the appropriate example from his constituents’ point of view was a Bentley. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford mentioned alcohol levels. He is a long-term campaigner on road safety and he made a powerful case, but I am not persuaded that the time is right for a 50 mg limit, because we are not yet enforcing the 80 mg limit properly. The police need to be able to target their fire on serious offenders at the 80 mg limit. Once the enforcement rate is high at that level, there may be an argument for a future Government to reduce the limit to 50 mg, but that time has not yet arrived. My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Forest of Dean spoke about young drivers. I am looking into the matter and just this week held a meeting with the Driving Standards Agency to discuss our programme. A few years ago, we consulted widely about young drivers—whether we wanted provisional licensing, or P plates—and the feeling was very much that that was not the way to go. In this country, our strategy has always been that a person should be a fully competent driver to pass the test and obtain their licence. Staged or progressive licensing is not appropriate. Before someone goes on the road, they should be a competent driver and pass the test. The pass plus programme is a slightly different issue and we need to consider how to incentivise people to participate. We are talking to insurance companies, but even if they gave discounts I am not sure how much that would help, as many young people go on the road for the first time on mum and dad’s insurance—the kid will not have an incentive to do pass plus unless they are paying for their insurance from their own pocket. A broader campaign of education, targeting resources on younger drivers, looking into training for younger drivers and working with approved driving instructors to provide young drivers with the necessary experience might be more fruitful lines to explore, and I am talking to the DSA about those ideas. Members raised a number of other issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South and the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire mentioned road humps. However, I have to say that if somebody drives so fast over a road hump that they are injured, I have not the slightest bit of sympathy for them. The road hump would be doing its job by slowing them down. Road humps are always installed in consultation with the emergency services and various designs are available to meet different needs. My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Riordan) spoke about sleep disorders such as tiredness and sleep apnoea. One aspect of being moved from Department to Department is that Ministers’ crimes tend to follow them around. When I was a health Minister, my hon. Friend’s predecessor initiated a debate on sleep apnoea to which I responded, so I am well aware of the issue. Primary care trusts are responsible for ensuring that services are available for the care of people with sleep disorders. We have launched a prominent campaign, advising all drivers to take at least 10 to 15 minutes’ rest every two hours. Only last week I made a pitch to an informal council of transport Ministers in Austria, suggesting that we launch a trans-European campaign on driver tiredness. I think that that would be an appropriate campaign for Europe to focus on. Both the hon. Member for North Shropshire and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South mentioned speed cameras. My hon. Friend wants the cameras to be hidden—painted black—while the hon. Gentleman wants a better partnership with the motorist. As I told my hon. Friend earlier, the road camera programme is aimed at areas where there is overt enforcement. We want people to know that there is enforcement in those areas, because we want them to control their behaviour at known blackspots. In addition, the police retain all the powers that they have always had to carry out covert enforcement. We encourage them to use those powers. We certainly do not want to legalise devices that would let people know where the police are covertly enforcing speed limits. We do not want radar detectors to be legalised, for example.