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Road Safety Bill [HL]

moved, as an amendment to the Motion that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 5, leave out from ““House”” to end and insert ““do disagree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 5, but do propose the following Amendments in lieu—”” "5B: Clause, 16, page 21, line 18, at end insert-"""(2) The Secretary of State must make regulations under this section no later than 31st December 2007.""""5C Page 59, line 6, after "1," insert-" "(aa) section 16," The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I listened with great interest to the Minister’s reply. It is interesting how many different things can be said about, for example, the Loughborough report. The Department of Transport’s 2005 road casualty statistics, published on 28 September, show that despite a 1 per cent drop in the number of fatalities from road accidents, deaths from accidents involving heavy goods vehicles increased by 8 per cent to 485 in 2005, even though there are proportionally fewer goods vehicles on the roads. These figures represent 15 per cent of all road deaths, and clearly demonstrate that new measures are required as soon as possible to reduce this disproportionate number. Research by the Darmstadt University of Technology—the Minister did not produce that report—has found that adding retro-reflective contour markings reduced accidents involving trucks and passenger cars under poor visibility conditions by 95 per cent. The Loughborough University report, published in May 2005, to which the Minister referred, also concluded that, "““there is a cost benefit for fitting retro-reflective line markings to newly registered vehicles greater than 7.5 tonnes””." A subsequent consultation by the Department for Transport also indicated that there was overwhelming public support for introducing this measure. However, the Department for Transport’s own research shows that this would be an effective means of saving lives and would prevent 385 collisions involving heavy goods vehicles each year. As we have heard from the Minister tonight, the Government continue to oppose its immediate introduction. The Minister has cited the European position, but I direct him to an earlier discussion in the House of Commons when the Transport Minister was Stephen Ladyman. He stated that if the Government were to introduce this measure it would certainly be breaking EU law and action would be taken against us, which I think is what the Minister was referring to as ““infraction proceedings””. The European Commission disputes this, and has now confirmed that this measure is likely—as the Minister said—to become mandatory across the European Union from 2010. But it has stated that member states are free, "““to lay down national requirements concerning the use of retro-reflective markings””," in the mean time, so we would do nothing to offend EU law if we introduced them as from now. That is the point of the amendment today. During the same debate, Dr Ladyman claimed that the European Commission had ““started the preliminary stages”” of infraction proceedings against Italy as a result of its decision to introduce this measure in 2003. The Minister even stated that there were objections to Italy’s decision, "““not only from Great Britain, but from France and Germany””.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/10/06; col. 93.]" The Commission also disputes that, stating that there are no grounds to take action against Italy and that it has, "““not received to date any complaints concerning the Italian legislation””." The Government also stated that the UN Economic Commission for Europe regulations do not allow contracting parties to make the ECE104 mandatory before 2010. However, Italy, like the UK, is a contracting party to the regulations but has suffered no action as a consequence of introducing the measure. Indeed, the United Nations ECE secretariat has also confirmed that it, "““has not been informed about complaints on the Italian national legislation””." If you introduce it, it does not seem to infringe or impinge against any European directive. The final argument that the Government raised against introducing this measure is that it would damage the competitiveness of the UK haulage industry. Not only would this amendment reduce the number of accidents involving heavy goods vehicles, enabling more heavy goods vehicles to remain on the road and reducing the cost of repairs, it would require only newly registered HGVs to fit retro-reflective markings at present. The Loughborough report again estimated this would cost about £100 or 0.001 per cent of the total cost of a new vehicle. Surely that is a very small price to pay for saving lives. The amendment has received cross-party support in both Houses. It is now clear that there is nothing to stop the Government taking action. In the light of this, I hope that the Government will support the immediate introduction of this life-saving measure and allow this amendment to stand. There is some disagreement about the interpretation of what the EU said and what it believes would happen, but it seems to us that there is nothing, except the Government’s intransigence, to stop the fitting of these reflectors on new vehicles as from today or as quickly as the regulations can be produced. We all know that some regulations can arrive quicker than others. The time for action is now. If the Government wait until this measure is introduced across the EU, more than 1,100 collisions involving heavy goods vehicles could occur, and they could involve serious injuries and fatalities which this amendment would prevent. Moved, as an amendment to the Motion that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 5, leave out from ““House”” to end and insert ““do disagree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 5, but do propose Amendments Nos. 5B and 5C in lieu.””—(Baroness Hanham.)