Road Safety Bill [HL]

The problem is that almost anything can be taken into account in the context of inspection. I accept entirely the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, that safety in rural areas is important—there will be several occasions during the passage of the Bill when we shall have extensive debates on the issue—but, of course, the amendments are concerned with the exercise of inspection and roadworthiness and therefore are not specific to any particular part of the country or any particular environment. However, I bear very much in mind the comments made by the noble Lord. I ask the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, to withdraw his amendment and not to move the others. I cannot accept any of them in their entirety, but I congratulate him on putting forward some extremely useful concepts, which have been reinforced by other contributions in the Committee. I assure him that we are involved in discussions on those very issues in which my department will wish to take into account of the debate today. The discussions will involve the Scottish Executive and, as the noble Earl will recognise, inevitably the Home Office because of the legal aspects involved. The debate has advanced the cause. Had the noble Earl included Amendment No. 9 in it, I would not have been in such a benign mood. He will find out when he moves it that I have more difficulty with Amendment No. 9. The concepts behind Amendments Nos. 6, 7, 8 and 21 have some merit, and we want to take them on board in our discussions. I assure the noble Earl that that will be done. He is an exceedingly reasonable man, and I know that he will accept this gesture of goodwill on my part and that it will be sufficient for him not to press his amendments too vigorously. I would not want to go in for a minute, detailed dismantling job on the amendments, posing as a critic of the noble Earl when, in moving the amendment, he has done the Committee a service. I hope that that gesture of good faith illustrates that we appreciate a number of the points that he has made, which have been reinforced by other contributors to the debate. We are involved in   consultation, we need to make progress, and we recognise that the present situation is not satisfactory. On that basis, I hope that the noble Earl will withdraw his amendment.