Road Safety Bill [HL]

The noble Lord, Lord   Hanningfield, has in one sentence encapsulated what I was going to say on my Amendment No. 4. However, I shall expand on it very slightly. Amendment No. 4 requires the Secretary of State or the Welsh Assembly to report on grants given and any assessment that has been made of their effectiveness, as the noble Lord said. This would allow greater scrutiny of the grant scheme and ensure that grants are being appropriately used. The grant-making powers under Clause 1 are very positive and would make it easier for innovative projects to be funded. In particular, the grants could be used to fund projects that aim to tackle the greater incidence of road casualties in disadvantaged communities, such as the neighbourhood road safety initiative. Children in the lowest socio-economic group are five times more likely to be killed as pedestrians than their counterparts in higher socio-economic groups. The Government have adopted a PSA target to address the significantly higher number of road casualties in disadvantaged areas. Road safety grants for projects aimed at dealing with disadvantaged areas could be used as one means of achieving this.