HL Deb 03 July 1963 vol 251 cc886-7

2.52 p.m.

LORD ALLERTON

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government if they can state whether the Ministers concerned have now studied the Report of the Worboys Committee on traffic signs and what conclusions they have reached.]

THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM)

My Lords, my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport is announcing this afternoon in another place that the Secretary of State for Scotland and he have studied the Report of the Worboys Committee, which is being published this afternoon, and that they agree generally with its recommendations. There will be an exhibition of the new signs to-morrow in the upper waiting hall of the House of Commons, which will be open for a week, and which I hope that those of your Lordships who wish to will take the opportunity to go and see. There will be another exhibition in London for the public at the Institution of Civil Engineers, Great George Street. In addition, on certain roads in Birmingham new signs will by to-morrow permanently replace the old, as a demonstration of their actual use.

Our aim is to change over to the new signs as quickly as possible. New regulations will be needed to give effect to the agreed recommendations, and we are already at work on these. They will be laid as soon as we have completed the necessary consultations with the local authority associations and other interests concerned.

LORD ALLERTON

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his very full reply.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

My Lords, when these new regulations are published, would the noble Lord consider the advisability of preventing extraneous bodies from putting up signs duplicating those that are put up by the highway authority, unless those signs denote the way to a special event? The number of signs which the motorist has to look at as he travels along the roads of this country is becoming a major factor in road accidents.

LORD CHESHAM

My Lords, I am by no means in disagreement with the principle to which the noble Lord has just drawn our attention, but I think that before we discuss that matter your Lordships should have a chance of seeing this Report.