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Road Safety

Indeed. I was making the point that we can look to sister democracies—Canada is a very good example—to see what was advocated by the Transport Committee actually working. The Committee called for the minimum age for holding a full driving licence to be raised to 18, with which I agree. When Gwyneth was here, she said that if people flouted the rules, which they do, there should be harsh penalties including forfeiture—the car being taken away. If I had my way, it would be squashed to the size of 1 sq m and handed back to the person. There must be a real deterrent. I shall finish with a few words about what is happening in east Lancashire, where the Transport Committee's recommendations were very widely welcomed, most notably by the major regional daily, the Lancashire Telegraph, which covers a sub-region of 500,000. When it speaks, people listen—I am not saying that because there is a reporter from the Telegraph behind me. Even the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor listens. The wasted lives campaign was launched in April 2007 and has been going ever since. I put a question to my Friend the Minister about fatalities in east Lancashire, the statistics for which are probably as bad as, and perhaps even worse than, elsewhere in the country. He told me that, between 2000 and 2006, there were 22 male fatalities and three female fatalities resulting from accidents involving a young male driver—21 years old or under. However, where the car was driven by a young woman, there were no male fatalities and only one female fatality. That underlines the difference that gender makes. The problem is not with young women, but almost exclusively with young men. The Lancashire Telegraph called for a new approach, and its campaign was supported by all my colleagues from east Lancashire—the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), who could not be here this morning, and my Friends the Members for Hyndburn, for Rossendale and Darwen, for Burnley (Kitty Ussher) and the Justice Secretary. I hope that I have not missed anyone out. The Justice Secretary is an influential man in the Government, and I want him to press the case with the Transport Secretary. A couple of months ago I had lunch with the editor of the Lancashire Telegraph, and I asked him how the wasted lives campaign began. He said that—these are my words, not his—he just got sickened and appalled, and dreaded going into the office on a Monday morning knowing that the paper would have to report some terrible carnage that had occurred on the roads in east Lancashire. It was his and his colleagues' job to write them up. These are the kind of headlines that he was talking about: ““Man, 24, dies in crash: garage worker battled to save trapped driver””, ““Another Friday night, another senseless care crash””, ““Not Again””, ““It ruins lives””—so it goes on. It is an endless stream of horror stories. The six MPs in east Lancashire are all signed up to the Lancashire Telegraph campaign, and have been reported and quoted in the paper as saying so. We, the Telegraph and the people of east Lancashire want graduated licences in two parts. Part one could be granted at age 17, but with restrictions, so that a 17-year-old could not drive on a motorway without an instructor, would have to adhere to a 50 mph maximum on all other roads, and could only drive cars limited to 80 bhp—brake horsepower—which I am told is something like a Ford Focus. Furthermore, crucially, these young people could not drive with passengers aged between 10 and 25 until they passed part two, which would be taken a year later at age 18. We think that the effective age at which a full driving licence can be held should be 18. Under our proposals, drivers aged under 25 would not be able to drive between 10 pm and 6 am until they had passed the two parts of that test, unless they were supervised by a driver aged over 25. Furthermore, the probationary plates that I mentioned earlier would be mandatory. After passing part two, drivers would be restricted to a Ford Focus equivalent car and would not be allowed to carry passengers between 10 pm and 6 am for another two years. That might sound draconian, but tragedy has touched so many families in east Lancashire that we need such measures. I conclude with this thought—never a day goes by without something happening in the road safety sphere. We found out yesterday that new sentencing guidelines are to be issued and that there will be two new offences: causing death by careless driving and causing death by driving while unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured. Those offences are long overdue, and I hope that the Government bring them in soon. We have to get real about dangerous driving and careless driving, and I very much hope that the Government will think again.