§ Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich)It must be much more difficult to be a parent now than at any time in our history, not least because, in addition to the normal problems that face every mother and father, there are modern hazards which did not exist when I was young, or even when my children were young.
My daughter recently decided that it was not in the interests of her child to travel in the minibus provided by the school for a long school journey. She took him in the car, deposited him at the place, picked him up and brought him away. That raised a number of issues that I discussed with her.
First, she was lucky in that she had some form of transport—it is somewhat beaten up but it works—to which many mothers do not have access. Secondly, it is clear from the statistics that children are slightly more at risk in a car than in a minibus. Thirdly, what effect would there be on the already very stringent limitations on children's time and life if they are eternally unable to take part in various activities because they cannot get there or because the transport available is substandard?
We shall have to confront the problem with much more vigour. The Government have known for some time now that parents all over the country are concerned about minibuses. The issue is highlighted by the terrible accidents that occur from time to time. It is all very well to say that statistically there are very few, but for any parent who loses a child in a motorway accident, the loss is irreparable and the damage is so frightening that for the rest of the parents it becomes a matter of great and active concern.
We now have to do a great deal more than say simply that we want to talk about seat belts with the European Community and see what we can do to change the rules. Those of us who take an interest in these matters remember that when there was discussion within the European Community about changing the way in which buses were used, minibuses, which are a strong feature of voluntary life in Britain, were exempted because British Ministers said—at the time with some justification—that simply to bring in a restriction which made it impossible for people to use minibuses would wipe out large numbers of school and voluntary activities for such groups as scout troops, guides and the mentally handicapped.
Many people use minibuses, but they are not ideal and the dangers are very real. It is extraordinary that anyone with an ordinary driving licence can drive a minibus and be in control of 14 young lives—let us not be mealy-mouthed about it: they could be the lives of people in any age group. Anyone can do that on a voluntary basis. There is no control on the number of hours that a driver may work. A schoolteacher or a voluntary worker could thus have done a full day's work and then had to make a long journey driving a minibus. Urgent action must therefore be taken to impose strict laws.
One thing is always certain about Conservative Governments: Transport Ministers change jobs with the speed of light. A former Transport Minister, just before he left office, announced that we would apply to the Community for some controls over seat belts—but he went no further than that. He did not say how that would be paid for, or what extra controls were needed; and he did not say 565 that he was prepared to talk to voluntary bodies to find a way of putting these changes into operation as soon as possible.
If the Government are serious, there are a number of rule changes that they must rapidly bring before the House —not in a year's time or in three years' time, if that happens to fit in with the Community. I should like measures announced in the Queen's Speech and implemented in the coming year.
The charter for minibuses points up some of the measures that those who work continually in the voluntary sector believe should be incorporated in any new system. The Community Transport Association, which relies almost wholly on minibuses, has given a great deal of thought to the matter and has identified the more important aspects of it. It recommends, for instance, that all seats be forward facing; there is clear evidence that bench seats are dangerous. Seats should be high-backed or incorporate protection for the head and neck so that people do not suffer from whiplash, which costs the national health service a lot of money and causes a great deal of pain to those who suffer from it.
There should be a minimum width of seat. Seats should be securely fixed to the floor by systems stronger than seat belt anchorages. Each seat should be fitted with a height-adjustable lap and diagonal seat belt. Those of us who have spent much of our lives dealing with accidents and.emergencies know only too well the damage that can be done by the wrong kind of seat belt.
Seat belts and anchorages should comply with the specifications ECE14 and ECE16 for vehicles in category M2—that is to say, buses with a maximum gross weight not exceeding 5,000 kg. Regulations require seat belts and anchorages to pass a static test that will provide crash protection. The group also went on to discuss the need to keep gangways clear and to have usable exits.
The Community Transport Association also considered some of the minibuses on our roads. Neil Buxton, co-ordinator of Thamesdown community transport, told a conference recently that one of the minibuses brought to him for a safety audit had been donated to a local boys football club; it had an exposed metal handbrake, only one rear door in working condition and no emergency front exit. He also came across other less dramatic cases, but this one highlighted the fact that many children are being carried around the countryside in vehicles that are not in very good condition. These days many schools have had to give up their playing fields, and children in ordinary state schools have to be conveyed long distances just to take part in team games.
There is also the question of driver training. It is horrifying that anyone can get in and start driving a minibus—anyone with a licence, that is. I believe that the Government should insist on proper training for people who want to undertake this sort of job. They should examine closely whether people know what is involved, whether they have been properly trained and whether they are capable of doing the job. The Government should also consider the rules governing the number of hours people can drive. Fatigue kills, and in a minibus it kills more people at a time.
There are a great many straightforward ideas that the Government could implement rapidly if they were serious about this matter. I am worried about other factors, too, that have a direct impact on road safety. The Government say that they want to do something about saving lives and 566 improving road safety. We must take them at their word. It is therefore difficult to understand why the things that they do not seem to chime with the things that they say.
Because of the pressures being brought to bear on police forces, many of them are doing away with their traffic divisions. Those units are not there just to irritate motorists by stopping them when they speed, for example. They are trained to look carefully at road vehicles and to assess road accidents and how much the state of a vehicle contributes to those accidents. If we dissipate this expertise by making many more policemen generalists and fewer of them specialists, standards will inevitably be lowered. Cheshire did away with its traffic police several months ago. I call that a backward step.
The Government have taken the conscious decision to privatise the Transport Research Laboratory. Anyone who has been involved for as long as I have in transport matters will know that the expertise of that laboratory contributed to the fact that we have seat belts at all. Car manufacturers were not exactly fighting to put in extra safety gadgets when the campaign for seat belts began. It was the work done by the scientists at the TRL that produced the information and the specifications used by the Government when they introduced seat belt laws. Privatising the unit is one thing; handing it over to people who want to malke a profit will inevitably diminish the amount and quality of research done on safety. No longer will road safety, vehicle safety or the safety of road surfaces be investigated as thoroughly and as independently as before. The Minister would be foolish to suggest otherwise.
We are also concerned about coaches. Many children are taken to school sitting three abreast on seats designed for two. That may be cheaper for whoever happens to win the contract; it may please education authorities whose budgets are already under pressure. But the fact is that it puts children at risk and it should not be allowed.
The Government have moved away from the enforcement of safeguards in respect of vehicles. I have been questioning the Government for some considerable time about all these matters, because I have been so frightened by some of the statistics that are handed out. Easing up on enforcement and cutting the numbers of specialists will inevitably affect the amount of care available for people who use our road surfaces.
When I read the statistics for my region I became exceedingly worried. The vehicle inspectorate is supposed to carry out roadside vehicle safety spot checks—a task it does well. It monitors private car and light goods vehicle Ministry of Transport schemes and, with the police, it investigates accidents. It considers operator licensing maintenance arrangements. All those tasks are essential in considering road transport. I have seen spot checks carried out on a multi-agency basis and I was impressed by the quality of the tests carried out by both the Metropolitan police and other agencies.
I asked the Department of Transport for the statistics on the number of vehicles inspected throughout Britain and the percentage that were found to be defective. The figures that I received from the Minister were alarming. In the north-west, for example, 38,264 vehicles were inspected and 34 per cent. of them were found to be defective. "Defective" is a nice umbrella word that covers many dangerous defects. The table provided by the Minister showed that 4,982 vehicles had defective tires; 2,195 vehicles had defective wheels; 2,864 vehicles had oil leaks; and 1,669 had -steering defects. The Department's 567 own statistics should be a matter of great concern. Far from cutting the number of people who enforce vehicle inspections, we should be increasing it.
There are clear signs that, in their drive to save money, the Government are cutting at every level services that protect the consumer and the passenger. Traffic area offices are responsible for the issue and monitoring of goods and public service operator licences. They are helped by the vehicle inspectorate and they were set up so that standards could be controlled and enforced. Their budgets have already been cut by £406,000 in the past two years and further cuts are expected in the next two years. In Edinburgh and Cardiff, two of the network offices will be shut.
All that together inevitably puts people more at risk. The Deregulation and Contracting Out Bill will remove a lot of protection for people who think that all vehicles are safe and efficient. It is clear that the proposal to issue an operator's licence for life will have an effect. At the moment, people are brought back and checks are made, but if someone receives an operator's licence for life, nothing like the same degree of control will be available to the Department. We are told that the habit will be developed whereby responsibility for licensing will be handed over to dealers. That will be a retrograde and expensive step if people discover that they can cheat the Inland Revenue even more.
Continuous licensing will mean that review processes will weaken and that more rogue operators will slip through the licensing net. Whichever way one looks at it, that will mean lower standards in the road network, and those standards are the only protection for the average member of the public.
People outside the House would be prepared to support the Government if they were to instigate an energetic scheme to consider road safety, particularly in relation to the conveyance of children in minibuses. They do not want to be told that, because of the constraints of the European Community, they will have to wait until 1996 and that, although the Government will do something, it will apply only to children and not to other groups. They will want to know why the Government are not calling together all the voluntary bodies and finding some means of helping them to fund essential changes. If there were real political will, that could be done.
One has to consider only that the Department of Transport has thrown money away on consultants to know that money is available in the public purse, but that the political will is lacking. There should be some means of saying to voluntary bodies, "If you carry people, would you be prepared to talk to us about the means of setting up a funding scheme that would enable you, either by interest-free loans or some other some practical method, not only to modernise your vehicles, but to ensure that they are safe and useful?" I would have thought that the commercial aspect might have concerned the Government. Such a proposal would generate much work in the industry, but it is saving lives that concerns me.
It is not enough to say that, over a particular period, road deaths decreased and there were fewer accidents involving minibuses. More and more people are carried by minibuses as public transport becomes expensive or non-existent. In rural areas, if one wants to take children, old people or a 568 specialist group to some activity, one has to provide the transport, which is expensive and frequently causes worry. For the best reasons in the world, such transport is not properly monitored and controlled.
I do not want draconian measures to be pushed without consultation on to voluntary groups, but if the Government were really serious about the issue, they would make a short statement of intent in the Queen's Speech, find a way of producing the cash, and be prepared to insist on something happening in the next 12 months. If they are prepared to invest much money into how to put tolls on motorways, but not to consider urgently the other problems and how to fund measures to solve them, we shall know that their priorities are badly skewed.
Those mums out there rely on the House of Commons to look after their interests. Those dads who are at risk when their children are ferried about the country, sometimes in substandard vehicles, need to know that the Government will do something about it. If they do not, if they do not follow some of the charter lines that have already been set out, we shall know that, as in so many things, the Government's commitment to change is simply a public relations exercise which has little genuine concern behind it.
§ The Minister for Transport in London (Mr. Steve Norris)I congratulate the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) on securing a debate on this important subject. It is a pleasure to respond to the points that she made. As of this morning, I am the longest serving Minister in the Department. I grant you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that that is a dubious distinction, but one of which I might as well be proud.
Much of what the hon. Lady said was from the heart and contained a great deal of common sense. I hope that she will find, in the next few minutes, that we agree about a great deal and that we share concerns about a great deal. I hope that I can expose some of our ambitions, either stated or implicit, in this area and some of the difficulties that we face in achieving, as quickly as she and any reasonable person would want, some of the objectives that she outlined. In most senses, this is not a political debate, but I hope that she will forgive me if I chide her on one aspect of her speech which I thought slightly devalued the otherwise important comments that she made.
It simply is not good enough for the hon. Lady to make the sweeping assertion—as she did in relation to the Transport Research Laboratory, the vehicle inspectorate, the traffic area offices and the operator licensing provisions —that our pursuit of greater efficiency, greater economy and better value for the taxpayers' money must necessarily be at the expense of safety. She knows that that is not true. She is too experienced not to be aware that tremendous economies can be achieved in the services that we operate on behalf of taxpayers, while the cornerstone of our improvements remains that safety standards will not be compromised.
The hon. Lady referred to the 38,264 inspections that the vehicle inspectorate carried out last year. I was not briefed on this specific point, because I had not seen it as central to minibus safety, but I recognise that it is germane to the argument. She knows that the statistics show not only that the vehicle inspectorate is doing a good job in identifying people who run inadequate vehicles but that 569 more tests are being carried out. We do not simply test at random. Inspectors target vehicles that are likely to be at fault.
§ Mr. Matthew Banks (Southport)Hear, hear.
§ Mr. NorrisMy hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Banks), who takes a keen interest in transport matters, confirms that inspectors target not recently registered, clearly up to date and modern vehicles but those that might be suspect and, to their credit, they are identifying faults on a proportion that is unacceptably large— I agree with the hon. Lady about that—and are taking action. We now have more action and less administration and bureaucracy in vehicle inspections.
I visited traffic area offices when preparing to take through the operator licensing provisions of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Bill. I am satisfied that none of the Bill's provisions will lower the high standards of traffic area offices' work. We are reducing the administrative tail of such organisations. It is scandalous that whenever we propose to abolish clearly redundant, excessive and burdensome regulations or make any economies in the public service it is portrayed by Opposition Members as a lowering of safety standards.
The hon. Lady knows that that is not true. Like her, my children have been transported on minibuses. We all live in the same world: our children are all exposed to the same risks, and I do not want them to be more exposed to risk any more than she does. I am a motorist. I drive a car and am susceptible to risks from anyone coming towards me. It may be an oncoming motorist who kills me rather than a mistake of mine. I therefore approve of quality testing and safety testing.
What I do not approve of is the extraordinary assumption that we must accept whatever bureaucratic machinery we have and never alter it because to do so would be to betray safety standards or to imply a lowering of our concern over enforcement. The two are not compatible.
The same applies, if the hon. Lady does not mind me saying so, to the way in which police forces are reorganising traffic activities. I assure her that I have always found the commissioner constructive, helpful and concerned about traffic enforcement generally, and the service that the Metropolitan police provide is excellent.
I readily acknowledge that the hon. Lady knows better than me that more than 100,000 minibuses operate in private use and for hire or reward under the permit system or the public service vehicle operating licence. Many thousands of people and voluntary organisations involved with elderly or disabled people are heavily dependent on minibuses. We reckon that about 10 million passenger journeys a year are made by the voluntary sector, and minibuses are a real lifeline to elderly and disabled people and are extremely useful to young people. They are a safe form of transport.
TRL figures for 1987 showed that occupant casualty rates for minibus passengers per number of miles covered were about a third of those for car passengers. As the hon. Lady well knows, the safety of minibus travel compared with car travel has been confirmed by our statistics up to as late as 1993, the latest time for which they are available. But it would be quite wrong for us to say, and she was correct to infer this, that as a result everything is tine and we need not take more urgent action, because every road 570 death is one too many. As she said, it does not matter whether the life is young or old or from one's own family or from outside it: road deaths are a tragedy and must be avoided wherever possible.
Against that background, my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State announced on Tuesday a package of measures to enhance minibus and coach safety through the fitting of seat belts. We need no persuading of the advantages of fitting seat belts, and we want to ensure that they are widely fitted as soon as possible.
At the Luxembourg Transport Council in June, my right hon. Friend called on the Commission to make early progress on proposals for the compulsory fitting of two-point belts to all new minibuses and coaches. He urged it to set the shortest possible timetable. I believe that that is the right longer-term solution. Vehicle standards are, properly, single market measures. Under the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, it would be nonsense to apply different safety standards across a Community of 12, and soon to be 16, which would have a devastating effect on our export capacity. I am convinced that we must look to Europe for construction and use standards. That is the way to ensure that everyone is properly protected.
The hon. Lady raised some interesting issues—for example, whether the two-point belt or cross-over belt is the more appropriate and whether the implications for fitment and wearing in coaches with high-back seats of different types of belts have been properly considered. All those issues are important and, in so far as they relate to construction and use, discussion of them should be held within the Community.
§ Mrs. DunwoodyHow long, how long?
§ Mr. NorrisThe hon. Lady says, from a sedentary position, "How long, how long?". That is a line from Shakespeare, but, at this time of the morning, I am afraid that my brain, like yours, I suspect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is sufficiently fuzzy not to be able to recall from whence. She asks a perfectly valid question: is not all this taking a great deal of time? It will take some time, because the process involves negotiation through the 12 nations of the Community. The hon. Lady is an experienced parliamentarian, especially in relation to some European aviation legislation. She knows exactly how long the timetable will be.
As the hon. Lady and many other people have high expectations of early action, as safety is concerned and as the transport of children is especially sensitive, we have said that we will seek the Commission's agreement for the Government to act ahead of the European Union, to ensure that all minibuses and coaches are fitted with belts when they are used specifically for the transport of children.
That is a fairly straightforward proposition. It requires to be expanded and refined and we are working on the details now, but I assure the hon. Lady that there will be the widest possible consultation on the precise measures, once we have the Commission's views. We shall be taking full account of the concerns of users and of the voluntary groups that own minibuses, which have made such a major contribution to mobility.
I wish that I could give the hon. Lady a firm timetable for that programme today. The hon. Lady knows, from her experience of government, that I cannot do so, but I can 571 assure her that it is a matter of the utmost urgency. Subject to the views of the Commission, we hope to go out to consultation this autumn.
We shall also be amending the regulations that permit three children to share a double seat, in cases where seat belts are fitted—the three-for-two rule, with which she is familiar. There is no point in having seat belts fitted if they are not worn. We want children and adults to wear them. Frankly, I know that we have the support of parents, schools, voluntary groups and all those concerned with children's safety when we say so.
Meanwhile, may I take this opportunity to stress one or two matters that perhaps deserve a wider audience. There is nothing to prevent manufacturers from fitting belts to new vehicles in response to customer demand. It is already happening with line-built minibuses, and in most cases there is nothing to stop retro-fitting of belts to existing vehicles. Regulations have been in place since 1987, setting a standard for the fitment of vehicles, and I urge manufacturers and operators to take advantage of them.
There is another condition, called market forces—something that the Labour party often derides. How can market forces work in this respect? I received a letter the other day from a parent, who complained that the local school had transported children in a minibus that did not have seat belts. I wrote back—as the constituency Member of Parliament, rather than a Transport Minister—and confirmed that the school was acting perfectly lawfully, but that if parents were not prepared to allow their children to be transported in a minibus without seat belts they should make that absolutely clear to the head teacher. I sent the head teacher a copy of the letter.
The school rightly took on board that important consideration and I am sure that when it hires minibuses again, the first question it will ask the owner of the minibus, or the person hiring it, is, "Does this minibus have seat belts?" I hope that all those people involved in the occasional hiring of minibuses will do that, so that retro-fitting becomes more rapid and more organisations demand it. When they do, the market will provide it.
In summary, Tuesday's announcement constituted a major step forward for road safety, initially for children and, as soon as possible thereafter, for the public at large.
I know that the hon. Lady's interest goes much further than construction standards. Perhaps it is worth spelling out some of the background on minibus operation. Vehicles that carry nine or more passengers for a payment are classed as PSV vehicles and are obviously subject to operator licensing. The purposes of the system are to keep up the standards of commercial bus and coach operations, impose entry requirements that must be satisfied before a licence is granted, and control operators' performance and compliance with road traffic law.
In 1977, under the then Labour Government, it was recognised that for many non-commercial concerns that system was totally inappropriate, but they would be caught by it if, for example, they collected money from a scout troop by any charge for the trip being undertaken. For that reason, legislation exempted from PSV licensing arrangements minibuses used by voluntary organisations. The provisions of the Minibus Act 1977 were updated in 1987 and extended the types of groups that might apply for permits. They may be issued to organisations concerned 572 with education, religion, social welfare, recreation, or other activities of benefit to the community. It is worth pointing out that organisations that have not sought to obtain permits, but operate under those circumstances, are strongly advised to do so.
As the hon. Lady knows, the Secretary of State designated identifiable national voluntary organisations that can issue permits only to their own branches and affiliate organisations, such as the Scout Association. The traffic commissioner acts as an anchor point for the issue of permits to other eligible local organisations.
About 44,000 permits have been issued since 1987, and the organisations covered by the permit scheme are responsible bodies that—as I am sure the hon. Lady agrees —can be trusted to take proper care over driving standards, and safety and vehicle maintenance.
Permit buses must comply with the same construction and equipment standards as other small buses and must be tested annually for road worthiness from the end of their first year. They are also subject to spot checks at the roadside by vehicle inspectors, and to prohibitions if a vehicle is found to be unfit, or likely to become unfit, for service. Permits will be withdrawn if the Traffic Commissioner is not satisfied by the standard of vehicle maintenance.
In a special exercise in the eastern traffic area this year, vehicle examiners inspected a sample of permit holders, just to establish that permits were applicable for the type of operation; that the vehicles were being properly maintained; and that the permit holder was aware of responsibilities in the operation and driving of the permit vehicle. I can let the hon. Lady see some more of the detail of that exercise. I am pleased to say that the results, in relation to the operation of the permit system, were very satisfactory.
Driver hours is another subject on which there has been much discussion. At present, minibuses used in the United Kingdom for private purposes, such as by schools and voluntary groups, are not required to have a tachograph, or to comply with drivers' hours regulations. The argument is that the driving of the minibus is usually only a small part of what the driver does, and the time spent driving is usually short.
When driving is not the main activity and relatively short periods of driving are undertaken, restricting drivers' hours would not be sensible, or effective. Any limitation would need to try to cover working, as opposed to driving, time. That would be extraordinarily difficult and impossible to enforce, not to mention the fact that requiring tachographs to be fitted and used on minibuses would also be expensive and burdensome. By definition, it would restrict the valuable use of minibuses, without making their use safer.
The reality is something on which the hon. Lady expounded and on which I have the same difficulty as her. That is that it is virtually impossible to control what people do prior to driving a vehicle. The vital message that we have to get across is that one should not drive when one is tired and that one should take regular breaks if one is going to undertake a long journey. Please, will people consider using a second driver, where sustained periods of driving might occur, especially at the end of the day?
The hon. Lady mentioned the tragic incidents of which we have all been aware recently. It is not appropriate or right for me to expound on those in any detail, but she and I are both concerned about the sort of situation in which an 573 adult takes a group on a day out. The adult might get up early, drive a long way, work with the children all day —keeping stragglers in line, ensuring that they keep their money together, seeing them through the attractions, and giving them a meal in the evening—and then drive the coach again. One must wonder whether it is not appropriate to take a second adult along when one contemplates that burden, just to share the driving load. The hon. Lady is right—the key is to be sensible and to understand just how important it is not to be below par when one is going to drive many other people.
We fully share the hon. Lady's concern about minibus safety. As she knows, we are to improve the driver training regime and public consultation has recently been concluded on a number of issues arising from the second EC directive on driver licensing.
This is an important issue and the hon. Lady's enthusiasm for early action is understandable. I hope that I have demonstrated that the Department is equally committed to early improvement in standards and that the actions announced this week by my right hon. Friend will go a long way towards achieving that.