HL Deb 14 October 2002 vol 639 cc37-8WA
Lord Berkeley

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What duties and responsibilities the Health and Safety Commission has in setting standards for safe driving of:

  1. (a) passenger service vehicles and buses; and
  2. (b) trains;
and who is responsible to the commission for discharging them. [HL5777]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Hollis of Heigham)

(a) Health and Safety law requires duty holders such as passenger service and bus operators to ensure their staff, including drivers, are competent to discharge their responsibilities. HSC is under no duty to set standards for drivers, and it is not policy to do so where other authorities are better placed to develop them.

The standard for safe driving is set by the driving test and the training that is needed in order to pass it. The Driving Standards Agency is responsible for conducting driving tests for all vehicle types in Great Britain.

(b) Health and safety law requires duty holders, such as train operators, to ensure that their staff, including train drivers, are competent to discharge their responsibilities. The Health and Safety Commission is under no duty to set standards for drivers, although it has issued guidance to employers on assessing competence.

Lord Berkeley

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether they are satisfied that the Health and Safety Commission is discharging its statutory obligations to reduce workplace accidents and fatalities on the roads when over 3,000 people, many of them at work, are killed on the roads every year; and whether they are satisfied with this level of accidents. [HL5780]

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

In 2000, the Government, in their Road Safety Strategy Tomorrow's Roads: Safer for Everyone, set out 10-year targets for reducing road traffic casualties. An independent task group was asked to examine the scale of work-related road incidents and recommend measures aimed at reducing these incidents.

The task group published its report in November 2001. I am satisfied that HSE is working closely with the Department for Transport in taking forward a programme of work which is designed to reduce work related road incidents. A copy of the group's report and HSC's advice has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.