---

Road Safety Bill [Lords]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. I would like the Government to acknowledge this issue first, which is about illegal drugs, although it is important in road safety education that we should emphasise that people who are taking prescribed drugs should be very careful about continuing to carry on their recreational or professional driving. The Government have done some work on the issue, and there has been some talk about new labelling on some prescribed drugs to warn about their effect and about possible impairment while driving, but that is a large and separate issue. If the House will forgive me, I do not want to go down that route, because there is a more easily detectable and distinct area of criminality. I do not want to criminalise people who are on prescription drugs and who unwittingly find that those drugs adversely affect their driving, whereas people who deliberately take illegal drugs and then go driving are more culpable. Returning to 1967, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) was one year old, the Road Safety Act introduced the breathalyser and the concept of making it illegal to drive with excess alcohol. The legislation recognised that proving impairment by making people walk along a white line, which required police officers to supervise, monitor and assess the test, was disproportionate to the problem on the roads, which involved too many drivers having excess alcohol in their blood and on their breath. The law was altered to reflect changing technology and a change in society, which wanted a tougher line to be taken. The situation is similar 39 years later. We have an increasing problem of people driving after having taken illegal drugs, which has resulted in carnage on the roads. For example, the RAC Foundation has said that one of the main contributory factors to the large increase in fatalities among young people on the roads is the use of the dangerous cocktail of drugs and alcohol.