HC Deb 20 February 1989 vol 147 cc810-8

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Alan Howarth.]

10.21 pm
Mr. Nigel Griffiths (Edinburgh, South)

I am pleased to have the opportunity to raise a matter that is serious and grave not just to my constituents and the people of Edinburgh and Scotland, but to blind, visually handicapped and disabled people the length and breadth of the country. It is the failure of the Department of Transport to approve a system that will enable blind people to have much better and freer mobility. That system has been available in Scotland for nine years, but for obstinate reasons that I shall enlarge upon later, the Minister and the Secretary of State for Transport have refused to endorse it in England and Wales.

The debate is about the attempt by blind people in Britain to persuade the Secretary of State for Transport and the Minister to provide safe pelican crossings for blind and disabled pedestrians. It reveals how the Department has dragged its feet on providing any system and how the Minister has saved millions of pounds at the expense of disabled people. It is about a catalogue of misinformation and untrue statements worthy of an Orwellian novel that have been deployed by the Minister to prevent blind people from obtaining a crossing because it is not the one that he wanted them to have.

Fifteen years ago investigations began into a "sweep-and-beep" pelican crossing that would solve the problem facing blind people trying to cross a busy road where the traffic is stopped in only one direction at any one time. Standard audible crossings that can be heard from both sides of a road can unwittingly lure a blind or partially sighted person out in front of a moving vehicle because he does not know which side the beep indicates is clear.

For 15 years the Department of Transport in England has been trying to find an audible crossing with a beep that can be heard from one side of the road only. Nine years ago a Scottish company invented a crossing with a tape that advised pedestrians when the traffic had been instructed to stop in one direction. That crossing was installed at the west end of one of the busiest streets in Britain—the main shopping street below Edinburgh castle on the main Glasgow road. It is just next to the headquarters of the Society for the Welfare and Teaching of the Blind in Scotland. I attended a meeting there this morning and Mr. Bob Mackie, the secretary, Mr. Jim McCafferty of the National League of the Blind and Disabled and Mr. Denis Wilson of the Royal National Institute for the Blind confirmed how much they as blind people, and everyone they represent, value the talking crossing. Provisional approval for this system was given by the Department of Transport in Scotland and some talking pelican crossings were installed. In February 1987 the Department of Transport in Scotland gave the crossing full approval and 14 of these crossings have been ordered by highways departments in Scotland.

In England there has been no such progress. The Minister's Department has sunk taxpayers' money into a different system, the "sweep-and-beep" or "cone-ofsound" system which he told the Royal National Institute for the Blind in June would be available now. This morning the RNIB again checked on delivery in London and told me that the system is not yet available and nor is any date of expected delivery known. Organisations comprising and representing blind people have been pressing the Minister for two years to approve the talking crossing for use in England and Wales. All that is needed is for the Government to say that the testing and certification procedures of the Department of Transport in Scotland, which have proved satisfactory in Scotland, should be accepted in England and Wales.

The Secretary of State for Scotland wrote dismissing the three reservations that the Department of Transport had about the talking crossing. On 15 June 1988 he wrote to me saying: we in Scotland do not share the reservations held by the Department of Transport and that is why we have authorised the use of speaking pelican equipment at several sites in Scotland. The Minister put his three objections to the RNIB at a meeting on 16 June last year, but the deputation led by Mr. Tom Parker OBE countered the Minister's criticisms and reiterated the record of the talking crossing—a record of faultless and safe operation since 1980 of a system that was approved by the Department in Scotland. Following that meeting, the Minister spoke to the BBC and his account was so strange to the truth that the RNIB executive member who attended the meeting complained about it. After the meeting the Minister said: Generally in the discussion people recognised that ours"— that is the Department's is probably a better way. That is simply untrue. That was not the first time that the Minister resorted to these tactics. A catalogue of lies, mistakes, distorted information and contempt for the wishes of blind people emanating from the Minister and his Department—

Mr. Speaker

Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not alleging that the Minister lied.

Mr. Griffiths

The Minister's Department.

The Minister for Roads and Traffic (Mr. Peter Bottomley)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should be grateful to the hon. Gentleman if he would spell out what he believes I or the Department may have said that is factually incorrect.

Mr. Griffiths

I am pleased to spell that out. I have a verbatim transcript of the BBC "In-touch" programme that followed our meeeting. In that programme the Minister said: Generally in the discussion people recognised that ours is probably a better way. There was no such recognition and if the Minister cares to check with the RNIB member who attended, Mr. Tom Parker, or with Mr. Jim McCafferty, an RNIB executive member who is also a member of the National League of the Blind and Disabled, he will see that his statement is thoroughly and completely repudiated. He made other misleading statements and I am prepared to quote them as well. I invite the Minister to reply to what I have just said.

Mr. Peter Bottomley

I think that it might be more helpful if the hon. Gentleman finished what he believes to be his catalogue and then perhaps we could get on to the positive points. If the hon. Gentleman makes accusations he needs to substantiate them.

Mr. Griffiths

I have substantiated them and I will substantiate the next item. David Tarrant of Hampshire county council asked the Department of Transport for permission to install a talking crossing to help blind pedestrians in the county. He was told that the manufacturers had not sought the Department's approval for the product. That was a lie.

Mr. Peter Bottomley

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Gentleman makes constant accusations about lies. Who said what to whom and when? Was it oral or was it on paper? That would be easy to check. The hon. Gentleman should try to avoid using the word "lie", although he may want to use that word. He should put forward issues on which he thinks we have been wrong or misleading or point to things that we have said whlich turned out not to be true. It would be helpful if he would do that directly.

Mr. Speaker

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman responds, may I say to him that he should not impute any dishonour to the Minister—or, of course, to any other hon. Member.

Mr. Griffiths

I note that, Mr. Speaker. I think that I have been factually accurate; and if the Minister cares to ask his civil servants to contact Mr. Tarrant on 0962841841, extension 7179, he can verify what I say.

I know that the Minister realises that I feel strongly about the issue. In the eight years before I came to the House I worked closely with disabled people, and I also know from my meetings over the past year with the RNIB—culminating in a meeting in Edinburgh this morning—how strongly that organisation feels about it, and how strongly blind people wish me to communicate to the Minister their dissatisfaction about how the matter has been handled.

The Minister's Department has sought throughout to discredit the talking crossing. On 31 January I received a letter from Mr. Hugo Sprinz, who lives in Hull. He wrote: I understand that you too are interested in achieving safer crossings for pedestrians. I am registered as a blind person and have the same objective in mind. Mr. Sprinz enclosed letters from the Department of Transport. Like many blind people, he had expressed support for the talking crossing. The Department, however, wrote back on 17 November: Unfortunately none of these are available for use by the Local Highway Authorities at present. The talking crossing is certainly available, and the Department knows that. It has simply refused to give the approval that is available in England and Wales.

The letter—on the Department's headed paper—went on to say: there has also been a recent fatality at one of these talking crossings and the Scottish Office are reviewing their use of the equipment. That is quite untrue, and I have the correspondence to back up what I have said. There have been no such fatalities—yet for the past three months organisations representing the blind have been subject to hundreds of inquiries about the safety of the talking crossing, all as a result of the misinformation emanating from the Minister's Department. To date, neither the manufacturers nor the inventor of the crossing—nor, more important, organisations representing the blind—have received an apology for the Department's actions.

The irony is that, while there has been no fatality in nine years related to the talking crossing, the Department has discovered a fault in the audible crossing which it approved and has switched 1,000 of them off. Those concerned with the welfare of the blind will know that the crossings are often a lifeline enabling visually handicapped people to get about. Yet, although the malfunction of his approved crossing was detected on 26 September, the Minister—who professes to be so concerned about the disabled—did not inform the RNIB about this vital problem during September, October, November, December or January.

The RNIB's head office in London told me this morning that it heard about the problem only when the press alerted it on 27 January. Eventually on 3 February a fax arrived from the Minister—after 1,000 crossings had been disconnected. He must explain to the House why he failed to ensure that the RNIB and other organisations representing disabled people were not alerted at the earliest opportunity to a dangerous problem and to the shutdown of 1,000 of his Department's crossings.

The Dcpdrtment has said that blind people do not want the talking crossing, but in December 1987 the European Blind Union unanimously endorsed it. Item 4 of the minutes dated 4 December 1987 records: Pedestrian crossings should give an audible signal and, where there is a double crossing involved, it is better for such a signal to be the spoken voice". In January 1988 the RNIB decided that talking crossings were its preferred choice for staggered crossings. On 25 May 1988 the institute wrote to me. The letter said: May I on behalf of RNIB express our appreciation of your help and interest in what we believe to be a very important aspect of safety and mobility for blind people in the increasingly difficult traffic conditions which prevail". The Bristol Royal Society for the Blind has endorsed the crossing; the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association wrote that this excellent device … could contribute to the safe travel of blind people in England and Wales as well as in Scotland. Notwithstanding all the support that I have already quoted, I know that the Minister will claim tonight that the RNIB has now fallen in with his "sweep-and-beep" system—but for one reason only. He has told the RNIB that any attempts to obtain Ministry support for the Scottish talking pelican crossing would be futile.

Lastly, I want to read from a letter that I received this morning: I, along with a number of other Blind people am firmly of the belief that the Department is holding a pistol to the heads of blind People … in order that they accept their system. That letter comes from a blind man who is an executive of the RNIB. His grave charge, substantiated by the facts, is one which the Minister must answer.

10.36 pm
Mr. Greville Janner (Leicester, West)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths) on expressing his deep concern for the problems of blind and disabled people and on raising the subject of the absence of pelican crossings.

In August last year, the Leicestershire county council approved the installation of a pelican crossing on New Parks way, New Parks estate, in my constituency. It said that it did not have the money to put in the crossing. I warned the council that there would be a tragedy. Two weeks ago, there was a tragedy, and Kelly Allen, aged eight, was killed. Had there been a pelican crossing at the spot, as had been provided for, that child would be alive today.

The county council says that it has no money to put in the 19 or so crossings that have been approved on spots at which it acknowledges there is great danger. The Leicester Mercury is pressing the council as part of its campaign, and I have been pressing it for years. Now the council says that it has almost £600,000 in the gritting fund because of the benevolent winter. It says that it cannot use that money for crossings because it is in the revenue account, and crossings can be paid for only from the capital account.

The Government have the power to stop this monumental bureaucratic wickedness. They must insist on pelican crossings being installed where they are needed to save lives. They must not preside over the unnecessary deaths of blind, disabled or elderly people, or of children such as Kelly Allen.

10.38 pm
The Minister for Roads and Traffic (Mr. Peter Bottomley)

The hon. and learned Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner) has again raised a point that he brought up in transport questions.

It is worth acknowledging that, even with the 10 per cent. of pelican crossings that might conceivably have suffered from the fault experienced in Scotland, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths) should first have thought of asking for information about the one failure from the Scottish highway authorities, rather than throwing accusations at me. Even with the 10 per cent. we are talking about—1,000 out of up to 10,000—if most of those pelican crossings have gone in since 1983, the rate of installation has been accelerating. I hope that it will accelerate still more and that all highway authorities will make funds available. If we can help in general terms we shall, and although we do not make decisions for the 107 highway authorities in England—there are more in Scotland—we hope that they will reach high priority sites and make decisions to go on providing better safety for the vulnerable road users, the pedestrians. I know that the family concerned appreciate the concern shown by their Member of Parliament, the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, West.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh, South asked a question on 8 February about the number of injuries at bleeping pelican crossings in the past 12 months. I answered: The total of 37 casualties should be compared with total pedestrian casualties in 1987 of 57,453. Of these 2,170 occurred on pelican crossings, and a further 2,470 occurred within 50 m of such a crossing. More than 7,000 pelican crossings were in operation during 1987."—[Official Report, 8 February 1989; Vol. 146, c. 705.] People—not only the blind—may be concerned about malfunctions from listening to the debate. There are few recorded cases of pedestrian casualties at malfunctioning pelican crossings. In such cases, we do not know whether the accidents were caused by the defective crossings as we do not collect the causes of road accidents.

Over the past week or so the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South has asked a fair number of questions about these crossings. I am sorry that he has not chosen in this debate to give out much of the information that he has received. He has argued his case rather badly.

The hon. Gentleman made some accusations about the Department. A letter was written by one of the Department's regional offices that mistakenly referred to a fatality. Within four weeks the Department had written again to correct the mistake. Nobody who reads the report of the hon. Gentleman's speech will realise that. He said that people laboured under a misapprehension for three months.

Mr. Nigel Griffiths

Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Bottomley

The hon. Gentleman took up a fair amount of time, and time was also allowed to his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, West.

Mr. Griffiths

I gave way earlier to the Minister.

Mr. Bottomley

If the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his remark, I shall be happy to give way to him.

Mr Griffiths

The switchboard of the office for blind people that I visited this morning was jammed with calls from people who were inquiring about a fatality on a talking crossing. Why did the Minister not make sure that that statement was repudiated, not in four weeks, but in four days?

Mr. Bottomley

Partly because I was not aware of it. I should have done; I am one of those people who find it quite easy to apologise. The hon. Gentleman clearly does not. He has given the impression that the Department did not correct the mistake. I did. I am perfectly willing to apologise again on behalf of the Department and to take responsibility for it.

The hon. Gentleman needs to take responsibility for his own remarks. I intend to quote from the transcript of the radio interview that I gave after the meeting. I said: It's not England versus Scotland, although obviously the talking Pelican got approved in Scotland, and I accept that the blind people were happy with it. When the hon. Gentleman suggested that I said the reverse, he got it wrong. It was a mistake on his part. I said that I accepted that blind people were happy with it. I went on to say: They'd be just as happy with the cone of noise, and the cone of noise has a number of advantages over using speech. I refer the hon. Gentleman to an article in the Oxford Mail of Tuesday 31 January and to an article in Auto Express of 10 February. The article in the Oxford Mail is headed Residents' fury over talking pelican crossing. The article in Auto Express is headed Cross words over talking pelican. When I said in the radio interview that the cone of noise had a number of advantages over using speech and that I think most people accept that—not everyone—but most people will accept that I was not claiming unanimity. Then I said: Certainly the physics are in its favour. What is the best way of providing guidance at divided crossings in Great Britain, and also what will help blind people abroad, and quite frankly if you've got a hundred and seven highway authorities in England, it's rather better to ask people to hang on for a few more months to get it right, when the best is not the enemy of the good, if you've got a better product that's going to be available, and more people will benefit. I think that the hon. Gentleman referred to 14 installations of what we might refer to in shorthand as the Scottish crossing with the tape-recorded voice. I went on to say in that radio interview: In a year or so's time people will be saying 'We were happy with the talking Pelican, but we think that what we're getting now is better, is going to be spread more widely, and provide more advantage, more safely'". The interviewer asked: And is that the time scale do you think, about a year for seeing some solution to the problem? I said: "I hope so."

Some of that is inconsistent with what the hon. Gentleman said, but as presumably we are working from the same transcript I think that he will accept that as I have read out all my quoted remarks in that transcript I have provided more illumination than he did.

The Department has received recently a letter from the joint committee on mobility of blind and partially sighted people. It tries to act—and it succeeds—as a co-ordinating body. It believes that "bleep-and-sweep" audible signals at staggered dual carriageway pedestrian crossings are better. That is not disputed.

The hon. Gentleman has raised a number of issues with me. It might be thought from what he has said—probably inadvertently—that the Department's new sound unit is dangerous and has had to be withdrawn. It is worth saying that the fault was not in the new sound units; it was in the controllers that were made between 1977 and the early 1980s. A talking pelican is equally at risk if it is connected to one of the faulty controllers.

It might be suggested that the Department was slow to act when a pelican fault condition occurred. That is not so. One crossing out of 7,000 pelican crossings was faulty and it was dealt with quickly. The fault was found on 26 September and the Department was notified on 27 September. The Department wrote to the manufacturer on 30 September. On 19 October the manufacturer replied that the fault had been rectified. On 24 November the Department received a formal request to approve a design modification. It was approved on 21 December. On 3 January regional officers were asked to switch off audible units, and 1,000 out of the 7,000 were affected.

The hon. Gentleman raised the question of notification. With hindsight, I think that it would have been better to say that 1,000 out of 7,000 were likely to be switched off. I think that my willingness to say so indicates that much of the rest of what the hon. Gentleman was saying was not up to scratch. The purpose of the press notice was to clarify the situation rather than actually to announce that action was being taken.

The hon. Gentleman referred to an incorrect letter sent on 17 November. It dealt with the question of the fatality. The writer of the letter had been misinformed, and he sent the letter in good faith. But that was corrected—on December 12, I think. It would have been more helpful if the hon. Gentleman had been able to say so in his speech—on the assumption that he knew about it.

The issue that we are facing is really whether, in the long term, it is better to have an audible voice than to have the cone of sound.

I have indicated to the House and to the hon. Gentleman that the cross words and the residents' fury over the talking pelican crossing suggest that there is a difficulty.

As to the disadvantages of the talking pelican, I am not saying that it should not have been approved in Scotland. Where there are separate jurisdictions it is obviously up to each to make its own decisions. That is one of the advantages, or one of the disadvantages if one were to look at it in a very rigorous way—but I prefer not to.

It annoys local residents—and I have given examples from the Oxford Mail and the Auto Express. It wastes green time while people listen to the message. Obviously, people could say that the three-and-half seconds that it may take for the tape-recorded message to be broadcast is wasted only to a stranger, and not to a local, who may set off as he hears the voice, let alone the bleep. If people do not wait to hear the message, that indicates that the spoken message is not necessary.

A spoken message also presupposes local knowledge, that a stranger coming to the pelican crossing and hearing a voice refer to traffic, to the town hall or away from the town hall, or to Oxford or away from Oxford, or to Edinburgh or away from Edinburgh, has some local knowledge already. Almost by definition, if someone is using a crossing for the first time he may not have that detailed local knowledge. Pedestrians, other than the blind, could be misled if they were not local.

The male and female voices units interlocked cannot talk together. This would limit its use in computer-controlled schemes, where full flexibility might be required. I would accept—if the hon. Gentleman had made this point—that the talking pelican crossing does not meet the pelican crossing regulations. However, the hon. Gentleman may regard that as a legalistic matter and beside the point.

I turn to the advantages of the Department's new sound unit if I may refer to it in that way. It overcomes all the problems that I have referred to. The new sound has been selected to be distinctive in relation to traffic noise. The level of sound is varied, depending on the level of the traffic noise. The distinctive nature of the sound allows it to be operated at a relatively low volume compared with the talking pelican, and it does not cause annoyance to local residents.

To put this in perspective, I should say that there are approximately 7,000 pelican crossings in England. About 6,000 are single crossings with bleeper sound units, and about 1,000 are staggered crossings. There are six trial sites with tactile knobs and six trial sites with the new sound units, and 25 trunk road sites will be equipped later this year with the new sound unit.

Let me turn again to the hon. Member's speech, which, on reflection, I hope he will regard as one that he should have modified before he made it or when he was making it. I hope that he feels—I was going to say "ashamed of it" but I will not put it that way—that he got it wrong.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the Department as wasting, or not spending, millions of pounds. We did not hear much justification for that remark. He said that taxpayers' money had been sunk.

I regard expenditure on meeting the needs of people with disabilities as an investment. We are spending money on the provision of textured pavements, dropped kerbs, conventional sound units at single crossings, tactile devices and devices for the deaf at dual-carriageway roads, and the new sound units at dual carriageway roads.

All that we are doing for the disabled is an investment, not sinking taxpayers' money. The hon. Gentleman will probably want to withdraw or explain away what he said when he talks to groups which represent people with disabilities.

The hon. Gentleman talked of things which are strange to the truth, and of tactics, as though I, the Department, its disability unit, the Baldwin committee, which is a statutory committee that represents the needs of the disabled, or the joint committee on the mobility of blind or partially sighted people, are in some way to be disparaged because he, the hon. Gentleman, is the only one who has got it right.

I shall pass over the hon. Gentleman's reference to lies. He said that I said that blind people do not want the crossing, but the transcript says the exact opposite.

He said that I have told the RNIB this, that or the other. It is not so. It was not so—and the hon. Gentleman knew it. We want to get the cone-of-sound system into operation.

I, the hon. Gentleman and the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, West want more pelican crossings which are useful to the blind and partially sighted. If the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South would like to work with us, we would welcome that, and we will put behind us his intemperate and often inaccurate remarks.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at ten minutes to Eleven o'clock.