---

Road Safety Bill [Lords]

I shall certainly apologise for the failure of Members on the Treasury Bench to vote with us on these matters in Committee. During the passage of the Bill in the other place six new clauses were added to deal with safety at level crossings. The Government stated at the time that they would remove them. In Committee, my hon. Friends and I aired and discussed those clauses and amendments, which were designed to protect the public, punish drivers who fail to obey signals at level crossings and who fail to obey bridge guidelines. To their shame, the Government voted against each of those sensible amendments to aid road safety. The Minister stated that the Government would make new proposals to improve safety at level crossings by clarifying the powers of the relevant authorities, yet today we have before us a new clause whose intent is merely to amend paragraph 7 of schedule 3 to the Railways Act 2005, so that the Office of Rail Regulation can make regulations. Provisions under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 allow the Health and Safety Commission to do the same thing. That is all that the Government propose to do and it is a huge disappointment to those of us who have spoken to Network Rail and to the operators. The Government cannot be aware of what Network Rail said about the seriousness of the offences being committed—of drivers pulling out and overtaking queues, zigzagging around barriers or pulling out on to the line and reversing to avoid trains and vehicles. They cannot be aware of the seriousness of the impact of those offences and of the consequences for human life when a train collides with a car due to a failure to stop at red warning lights. The Minister seems to be saying—as he seemed to say in Committee—that red lights at a level crossing are exactly the same as those elsewhere. They are not. A driver who skips a red light at an ordinary road junction will not hit or derail a train. It should not need pointing out that a collision on a level crossing between a car and an express train travelling at speeds of up to 125 mph is likely to cause the death not only of the driver but scores of railway passengers. The new clause is a monumental lost opportunity. The Government had the option to write into the Bill sensible measures that would have had an enormous impact on road safety. Current fines and penalties for offenders at level crossings—often serial offenders—are insufficient. Those offences are at least as serious as drink driving and sentencing ought to reflect that. Magistrates could have had powers to impose substantial custodial sentences and endorsement penalties on persistent offenders. The matter should be on the face of the Bill. New clause 28 will not affect the problem and the Minister stands charged of failure to fulfil what he undertook to do in Committee. We are also dealing with new clauses 37 and 38. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I am grateful to Lib Dem Members for proposing provisions that are so close in form and substance to those we tabled in another place and which we aired in Committee. If the Lib Dems had been writing a novel they might have been guilty of plagiarism, so some of them might want to join us and support the real thing rather than follow a pale imitation. We applaud new clauses 37 and 38 and the flexibility that would allow magistrates to pass custodial sentences. Our original amendments proposed slightly higher custodial sentences and endorsement penalties. None the less, we noted the Liberal Democrats’ support in Committee and if they are minded to test their new clauses tonight I shall ask my hon. Friends in the official Opposition to support them.