§ Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will take steps to monitor the effects of not having a Christmas drinking and driving publicity campaign in the West Midlands and certain other areas; whether he has available comparative information for such areas for previous years when a campaign was conducted; and whether, based on the effectiveness of such campaigns, he has projected likely accident and injury rates for these areas.
§ Mrs. ChalkerI must emphasise that in those areas, of which the West Midlands is one, where we shall not be carrying out a Christmas drinking and driving campaign, our publicity has not been cancelled but only postponed until February. The whole purpose of having control areas is to enable us to evaluate the effect of our campaign in a way which has not been possible in previous years. This evaluation will cover changes in attitudes, knowledge and claimed behaviour, as well as a special study of police accident returns.