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Road Safety

My hon. Friend mentions that driving organisation; he also described measures in other countries. The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby spoke about the provisions in Sweden. Some countries that my hon. Friend mentioned do not have graduated licenses and those that do, which we have looked at—the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand—have graduated driving systems. However, those countries have not cracked the challenge of young drivers and, although they have introduced those systems, their statistics are not going in the direction in which ours are going. We are open to argument during the consultation, but, despite the BSM's opinion, we are not convinced that the evidence from other countries that have the types of schemes that my hon. Friend mentioned and which the Transport Committee has proposed, shows that they work in practice. That is where we are at the moment with the consultation scheme. Our consultation document explains why we are not proposing restrictions on newly qualified drivers. I recognise that such drivers have too many accidents, but many of those are down to inexperience and ineffective learning. That is best addressed by changing the way in which we train and test people. It is unfair to penalise all young people, most of whom want to be—and are—safe and responsible drivers, with measures aimed at a minority who flout the basic rules that are already in place. I accept that there is a minority who drive badly—speeding, drink-driving and driving unlicensed and un-insured. We hope to educate young people about the risks of such behaviour. However, we will not tolerate the dangerous behaviour of those who do not listen to that advice. We are talking to the police and other partners who deliver road safety about how we can tackle that minority more effectively, without imposing unfair and disproportionate penalties on everybody. We are making the consultation exercise as inclusive as possible, and it is open for responses until 8 September. We are running a series of open meetings, and we plan other events to gather the views of young people and other interested parties. Whatever the conclusion, the Driving Standards Agency is preparing plans to implement both the proposals that we decide to pursue and the way forward. That major programme of change will take several years to complete. As I said in the previous debate, young people value being able to drive and they deserve a fit-for-purpose driver training and assessment system, so that they can enjoy that important freedom safely. The hon. Member for Cheadle asked about people being tested in all conditions.