Scotland Bill

My Lords, my noble friend is building a mountain out of a molehill. These matters are not exactly going to be slipped under the carpet. As I have indicated, Scottish Ministers were fully consulted in the most recent consultation on the revision of the Highway Code, and there is no reason to suggest that that would not happen again. Indeed, there might be even better reasons why that should happen if these powers are devolved. In the course of these debates my noble friend has put his finger on a number of important points, but I sometimes think that he is trying to make difficulties where in practice none would exist. A young person, or indeed an older person, who has not passed their driving test has to learn the Highway Code to take the theory test, and there are a whole host of questions to learn. Reserved matters change, and that is reflected subsequently in the Highway Code, but people are expected to be prepared for the test that they are about to sit. I pick up my noble friend Lord Steel's point on people crossing borders. My noble friend Lord Caithness said that he had driven through three countries in Europe where the speed limits changed. I recall driving through different states in the United States where speed limits changed. It was picked up that we are talking not about main roads—the M6 or the M74—but about country roads that could cross borders. I suspect that the same applies to boundaries in some other countries as well. There is certainly a boundary between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and matters are resolved there, just as when you have local speed limits. I can think of one particular local speed limit on the west side of Shetland. I never understood why there was a 40 mile an hour limit there, in the middle of what was otherwise a 60 mile an hour limit, but you observed it, or tried to, and then when you passed the de-restriction sign you went back up to 60. It did not actually cause any practical difficulties. You can have such a variety of speed limits in local areas and around schools in built-up areas. The limit could be 20 miles an hour, and it does not seem to cause any difficulties. People see what the speed limit is—there have to be signs—and they obey it.