My Lords, this is a very interesting and incredibly important group of amendments. My noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe’s introduction was masterful in setting out all the problems. Before I comment on them, however, I would like to comment on a remark by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, just now about which bits of the country, whether they are highways or not, are covered by this legislation. A few years ago, it was nothing personal but I had to investigate whether somebody who was driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol on an unmade road—in other words, a private road—could be guilty of drink-driving offences. The answer was that they would not be guilty of just about anything apart from drink-driving, because of course that comes under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, which covers a much wider scope in this country than roads. It is worth asking the Minister what would happen if someone in control of these vehicles was actually found to be under the influence. Under what legislation would they be prosecuted, if they were liable?
The question of safety, as noble Lords have said, is fundamental. What worries me is that the Bill defines safety as meaning only
“to an acceptably safe standard”.
Acceptable to whom? What about the risk? Is there an acceptably low risk of committing a traffic infraction? Again, acceptable to whom? I am very concerned about the need, in all this legislation, to achieve a step change in road safety for all people who are affected by vehicles or what happens. At present, the risks of death or injury on our roads are significantly higher than for life in general or, indeed, on other transport networks, such as rail. Pedestrians and people who cycle —we have debated scooters before—bear a disproportionately higher risk of injury. If we add in children, old people and people with disabilities, who are particularly vulnerable, this is something that we do not really seem to take very seriously.
One issue that came up in a debate on the last group of amendments, which the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, raised, quite rightly, was the question of testing on the road, but it is a question of “Which roads?”. Most people think that the first location for testing these vehicles will be on a motorway, because there are no
pedestrians—or there should not be any pedestrians or cyclists there—and that is quite simple, really. But then, when we drill down, apart from motorways or dual carriageways, what other groups of roads would one have to test these vehicles on? It becomes very much more difficult and very subjective. I do not have an answer to this, but I am absolutely certain that the noble Baroness is right to say that it needs doing, and in a comprehensive way across all the different types of roads and tracks, in the countryside as well as in the towns. I am not quite sure where we are going to end up, because the amendments in this group on safety are fundamental. I do not have a detailed preference for which ones, but I am absolutely certain that we need to tighten up the definition of road safety to something that is not just acceptable but very acceptable, to a high standard, safely and legally.
6.30 pm
My last point on all these things is that we ought to be better than other countries. It is no good just saying “Let’s just have a slight improvement for road safety generally” if some groups of road users are adversely affected. I think we had a debate at Second Reading about the benefits of doing what Sweden has done—at one stage it wanted to reduce road fatalities per year to zero. It has not achieved it, but it has made quite significant improvements.
I have one other issue to raise, which I am not going to speak to in detail now—it is in my Amendment 37A —suggesting that all these issues should be considered independently of government by, I suggest, the Office of Rail and Road, because it is doing a very good job on road safety at the moment. It also does a very good job on rail safety. The key for me is that this should be done by an organisation that is independent of government, and of people in Swansea and everyone else. It should be independent of those who quite rightly want to pursue electric vehicles for all the benefit they are going to bring. There has to be some brake and some independent check on what they are doing, to make sure that all the other intentions that the public have a right to achieve and wish for will be provided—and, if they are not, there will be a voice independent of government. We can go on talking about independent voices on post offices, railways and things like that, but it is just as important to have an independent body for this, and I shall speak to that when we get to Amendment 37A.