HC Deb 08 May 2002 vol 385 cc220-1W
Mr. Don Foster

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what recent guidance he has issued to the operators of public service vehicles in relation to reasonable precautions to be taken to ensure safety of passengers after they have entered a vehicle but before they have become seated. [54988]

Mr. Jamieson

The Public Service Vehicles (Conduct of Drivers, Inspectors, Conductors and Passengers) Regulations 1990 require bus drivers and conductors (where present) to take all reasonable precautions to ensure the safety of passengers who are on, or who are entering or leaving, the vehicle.

Mr. Gareth R. Thomas

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on his Department's review of the organisational arrangements for transport safety. [55479]

Mr. Jamieson

The review of transport safety was conducted in 1999–2000, in response to important recommendations from the Transport Select Committee. Copies of the report of the review group's analysis and the results of its related consultation were provided to the committee, and put in the Libraries of the House, on 9 June 2000. In a parliamentary reply, that same day, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Keith Hill) advised the House that the Government had concluded that it would be wrong to take a view on possibly fundamental changes to the organisation of transport safety before Ministers had been able to consider the report of the public inquiry into the Ladbroke Grove crash, which was looking among other things at rail safety management, culture and regulation.

In part two of his inquiry report published in September last year Lord Cullen recommended that a Rail Accident Investigation Branch be established, noting that this would not conflict with a cross-modal accident investigation body if in due course the Government decided one should be pursued. We are very glad to have had the committee's thinking on more integrated arrangements for transport safety, for which there are arguments meriting careful consideration. We have taken the view that the emphasis in the first place should be on getting in place the new Rail Accident Investigation Branch and the new Rail Industry Safety Body. But we will then be returning to the question of new cross-modal safety arrangements, and considering further the views expressed by the committee and by others.