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Road Safety Bill [Lords]

I do not know how many different ways I can say it: the United Kingdom is a law-abiding nation that signs treaties and then tries to live by them. We believe in the rule of law, and when we agree to follow certain rules and laws, we do not break them and we do our best to make sure that everybody else complies with them. That is the way we live our lives because once we break that rule as a Parliament—once we say that there are some laws that we as a nation can ignore—we are saying that everybody can ignore any law that they do not particularly like. We signed a treaty that stated that because there are competitive issues involved in the type approval of vehicles, we would abide by rules laid down at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Why did we choose UNECE to lay down those rules? I cannot tell the House that. I was not involved at the time that we made those agreements. I suspect that that occurred under the previous Government. The reason is that not every state in Europe is a member of the European Union, and we needed a set of type approval rules that would cover not just the European Union but Switzerland, Norway and any other country whose vehicles might be driving through Europe, so we agreed to follow UNECE regulations. European law—the European Community regulations —requires us to go along with UNECE regulations on type approval. Those regulations provide for retro-reflective tape to be made mandatory. In the discussions we are pressing for that to happen as soon as possible, but that is unlikely to be before January 2010. We will press harder to try and get it done faster. I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) will accept that assurance from me, but the date is likely to be 2010. The measure may involve only a small amount of money on the price of a new vehicle, but it is a point of principle that we must have the type approval. The hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) accuses me from the Opposition Front Bench of being pusillanimous for not agreeing to break the law, which, as I have explained, is the position he is trying to put me in. He calls that pusillanimous. I call it the reason why we have a Parliament in this country. The hon. Gentleman then argues that we should obey the same rule in respect of close proximity mirrors and the fitting of mirrors on the side of vehicles. He spoke to the new clause calling for the fitting of close proximity mirrors. The same rules that he says we should break when it suits us are the rules that will require those to be fitted to new vehicles in Europe from the beginning of next year. If we decide not to obey the rules, will we accept that people elsewhere in Europe can decide not to bother with close proximity mirrors and drive into our country in future? Is it only when we agree with a set of rules under the treaty that we will obey them?