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Road Safety

We have had an interesting, if short, debate on a fundamentally important issue, and I am delighted to respond to it. At the outset, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) for her work in chairing the Select Committee, and for presenting us with an important report on an issue that affects so many of us. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew), among others, has often said that the deaths and serious injuries on our roads, compared to those involving other modes of transport, is appalling. Before I turn to the clearly heartening statistics that were released last week, let me say that I agree that even one death is one too many. Members from all parts of the House strive to reduce the numbers, and although there should never be any cosy relationship between the Government and the Select Committee—or, indeed, the Opposition—we share that goal of reducing road casualties. Collaborative work and ideas will help us to achieve what many of us want, which is zero deaths. Last week's published statistics for 2008 showed excellent progress on reducing the toll of injury and, particularly, death on British roads. Several Members have referred to the 14 per cent. reduction in deaths since 2007, and that occurred across all transport modes: pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and occupants of cars, buses, coaches and goods vehicles. In addition, the total number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads fell by 7 per cent., and has fallen by 40 per cent. from our 1994 to 1998 average baseline, meaning that the target that we set for 2010 has now been met. I shall return to the question of whether the new targets are stretching enough. All parts of the House welcome the figures, but it is important not to get carried away. I said as much last Thursday at the Road Safety Foundation's launch of the European Road Assessment Programme's statistics, when I remarked that the figures were extremely welcome but that last year was economically extraordinary, combining the tail end of a spike in fuel prices with the beginnings of the global recession. That may have had some effect on transport levels, and therefore on casualty levels on our roads. Yet the trend is still downwards, and I want to put on the record my thanks to everyone in the transport industries who has helped us to achieve those results. We should not get carried away with having only—only—2,538 dying on our roads in a year, because that is still a dreadful statistic. We need to work on it and to do much better, and as the Select Committee Chairman said at the beginning of our proceedings, there is an ongoing debate about how to continue to reduce those figures. At the end of April we responded to the Committee's report and launched a consultation on our new long-term road safety strategy, which will come into force in 2010. Although it draws on many important lessons that we have learned from the current strategy, it sets out a fresh approach to road safety, proposals for new targets and measures to help us meet them. Despite recent successes, current casualty rates—death rates, in particular—are far too high, and although we have reduced serious injuries on our roads by 41 per cent. in the current strategy, deaths have come down by only 29 per cent. Therefore, we propose a bold strategy for the period beyond 2010, with a long-term vision not just to improve road safety, but to make Britain's roads the safest in the world. Our primary national target for 2020, therefore, is to reduce deaths by one third. We recognise that that is ambitious, but we believe that the target is grounded in reality and achievable. We also propose that serious injuries be reduced by 33 per cent. by 2020, giving local authorities a combined benchmark for deaths and serious injuries against which to measure their progress.