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Road Safety Bill [Lords]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who echoes the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope). That cocktail effect is a particularly dangerous set of circumstances in putting people’s lives at risk on the road. When Parliament introduced a law against drinking and driving, it was resisted by some people at the time but has become widely accepted, and most people now regard drinking and driving as socially unacceptable. We have won that argument. We have reduced the number of deaths on our roads, but not, in recent years, the number of deaths caused by drinking and driving. In the meantime, most countries have overtaken us by adopting a limit of 50 mg in blood instead of our limit of 80 mg. I am not suggesting that we have to follow others, but we are falling behind the rest of the civilised world in our limits despite having led the way in introducing them in the first place. The Minister should give more thought to ensuring that combating deaths due to drinking and driving is part of the Government’s overall programme, so that deaths on our roads decrease in every respect.