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Road Safety Bill [Lords]

In recent years, there has been a spectacular increase in penalty notices. I received a reply to parliamentary question 95511 on 2 November that showed that offences detected by camera had increased from 288,600 in 1997 to 1,786,000 in 2004. There has been a commensurate increase in income. In 2000-01, seven partnerships received just over £10.3 million and spent just over £8.9 million, leaving a balance of £1.3 million for the consolidated fund. In 2003-04 receipts were £112.2 million and expenditure £91.8 million, leaving an astonishing £20.4 million for the Chancellor. Not only have receipts increased tenfold but the balance going to the Chancellor has increased from 13 per cent. to 18 per cent. of total receipts, so a substantial sum has not gone towards road safety. Tiny sums can have a dramatic impact on road safety. I cannot resist giving the House some information that I received from Shropshire at the weekend, where the installation by Shropshire county council of only £12,000-worth of interactive signs at Sandford bends, where there is a mediaeval bridge, has had spectacular results. In the three years prior to installation, there was an average of three recorded personal injury accidents a year. Since the signs were installed, however, there have been no such accidents at the location. The average cost per accident is £106,710 and, in addition, the cost of repairs to the bridge was £120,000 in 2002 and £40,000 in 2003 and again in 2004. Furthermore, queues, which were sometimes a mile long, have been avoided. I am very pleased that the Minister has come round to the idea of handing the money to local agencies, which can spend the sums on small schemes such as that which I have mentioned. This afternoon, I had a very constructive meeting with my noble Friend Lord Hanningfield, who has done sterling work in the other place, and the Minister’s counterpart in the other place, Lord Davies of Oldham. He confirmed what the Minister said: that the intention is to reinstate clause 2, as the Government accept that they were defeated in the Lords, and that they intend to deliver the intended aims of the Opposition clause. We are pleased that the Government have made such a concession for, I think, the first time in respect of this Bill. However, it is ironic—I cannot resist pointing this out—that this is the one clause to which they let us make an amendment, before they withdrew it.