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Road Safety Bill [Lords]

We are making glacial progress on this extraordinary issue. We are talking about £100-worth of sticky tape going on to trucks, which would have a dramatic impact. There is complete unanimity on the benefit of this measure and the urgency of the need for it. The most recent Department for Transport statistics show that fatalities from road accidents involving heavy goods vehicles increased by 8 per cent. in 2005 to 486—15 per cent. of the total number of fatalities from road accidents. Research shows that this measure does work. Research by the university of Darmstadt found that 37 per cent. of all side collisions with trucks at night occurred because they were seen too late. The same study also found that adding retro-reflective contour markings reduced the number of accidents involving trucks and passenger cars in poor visibility conditions by 95 per cent. According to the European Commission road safety action programme for 2003 to 2010, one of the main causes of road accidents is poor visibility. The Minister has already cited the US statistics, but why is the European Commission determined to bring this measure in eventually? He contradicts himself. US statistics show that rear-impact and side collisions can be reduced by 41 per cent. The Loughborough report, which the Minister also cited, showed that ECE 104 markings would prevent 385 collisions each year, so if the Government hang around until 2010 to introduce this measure, 1,155 preventable collisions could occur. There is pretty fair unanimity on this issue. The Minister said that this is a good idea and the other Opposition parties are also in complete agreement. We have strong support, moreover, from Labour Members, including the hon. Members for Stroud (Mr. Drew) and for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon), who offered strong support in Committee. This is a phenomenon that I had never heard of before until I dug it out this weekend—one that the EU Parliament described as an"““international quasi-legislation/comitology mechanism””." Let me explain it in simple terms. The UN-ECE agreement goes back to 20 March 1958, and regulation 104—I am trying to keep this brief—sets the technical standards. The regulation originated with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, on which sit 57 countries. I am watching the Minister carefully to see whether he is still with me. The regulation was made under the aegis of—[Interruption.] Well, the Minister, as I shall explain in a few moments, still does not have a complete grip on this issue. The regulation was amended on 5 October 1995, revised again—including via amendments that we will discuss in due course—and came into force on 16 October 1995. The then transport Minister, Mr. Jamieson, said that the UK became a signatory to UN-ECE regulation 104 on 15 January 1998, but that the European Commission is investigating the costs and benefits of a mandatory requirement and may make proposals when its research is complete, and that the Department for Transport will await the results of the research before taking a view on whether any such proposal should be supported. As I understand it, that remains the Government’s position. We are obliged to allow on to our roads any vehicle that holds an EU type approval certificate, and since the EU has not adopted regulation 104, there is no requirement for the holder of a type certificate to fit retro-reflective marking. The problem seems to arise from UN regulation 48, which concerns implementation, and the fact that the type approvals are not obligatory. With regard to the installation of lighting and light-signalling devices, there is a further complication from supplement 7 to the 02 series to regulation 48, which actually introduces retro-reflective markings as a specific device for installation on certain categories of vehicles. I am glad to see that the Minister is still nodding slightly. The installation of such markings is, however, optional—that is, at the manufacturer’s discretion—and the form of the markings is not specified in detail. [Interruption.] The Minister did not go into the detail that I did; I can assure the House of that. The latest development is that Germany has submitted a proposal to the UN-ECE working party on lighting and signalling to amend regulation 48 to make it mandatory according to the R104 specification. In summary on this extraordinarily complex legislative morass, the UN makes it optional and, because the UN has made it optional, the EU cannot make it mandatory. If the EU has not made it mandatory, we cannot make it mandatory as we will be in breach of EU law, so Germany is now looking to the EU to amend UN regulation 48 to make it mandatory rather than optional. I am delighted that the Minister is still with us, because he has just contradicted himself. In Committee, at column 148 on 23 March 2006, he said that our amendment, which had come from the Lords requiring markings to be mandatory, would make the clause ““redundant and perhaps illegal””. However, today he said that it was ““at best uncertain”” and he kindly sent me a copy of a letter that he sent to the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). Here we are making glacial progress and, in that letter, the Minister said that the EC letter was"““a likely precursor to infraction proceedings””" but, sadly, he did not include the EC letter. However, he included an absolutely standard report back from the European Commission that is standard procedure when a member state puts forward proposals for implementing legislation in its own country in an area where the EU already has competence. This is not the infraction letter that the Minister hinted it was; it is just a standard letter under what is known as the standstill period. What is incriminating for the Minister, however, is the last document that he included with the letter to the hon. Member for Stroud, which, to put it bluntly, is a big let-down. The Minister said:"““The UK does not believe that Italy can mandate the vehicles registered in their national territory are fitted with retro-reflective tape.””" He showed no support to the Commission for what he has just said in the Chamber. What he could have done was enthusiastically support the measure, which many Labour Members, we and the other Opposition parties do, and he could have gone into the technical details of how its implementation could be speeded up. At the moment, we are heading towards 2010 with a measure that all sides agree to be sensible and one that will potentially save lives. However, in the Government’s formal response to the European Commission, the Minister is not being helpful at all. He is actually undermining the Italians. There has been a lot of talk about the Italians being subject to infraction proceedings, but there is no evidence in the Minister’s letter to the hon. Member for Stroud that the Commission has taken any action at all against the Italians and nor have the United Nations authorities. I have an e-mail from Juris Dzintars, who is the secretary to the GRB, GRE and GRSG transport division—technology section—at the United Nations in Geneva. It is very simple. It says:"““In this particular case, the secretariat has not been informed about complaints on the Italian national legislation””" The last word I leave to Anna Borràs of the European Commission DG Enterprise and Industry, Unit F/1, automotive industry, who says quite clearly that"““in our view the Italian measures would not infringe the directive.””" This issue is a real tangle; it is absolutely not clear. We have gone into the issue in some detail and it is obvious that the Minister is not clear—he has changed his tune through the Committee stage and modified it very much this evening. We propose sticking to our guns so that he ““reflects””—I do not want to make a pun—on the issue overnight. He has little time left and we would like this tiny, common-sense measure dealing with £100 of sticky tape that can save lives to appear in the Bill. The UN intends that this material should be applied to trucks and it is absolutely intended by the EU that it should apply to all trucks by 2010. The Italians have taken unilateral action despite the Minister waving flags and raising alarums and scarums.