Contribution
I thank the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Mr Barros-Curtis) for securing this debate.
To pick up on something that the hon. Gentleman said, driving is a privilege. Allowing somebody who has killed or caused serious injury to another person to be able to return to the road immediately seems particularly injurious. I hope that the Minister will be able to address the hon. Gentleman’s call for automatic license revocation. The current situation feels incredibly lenient, especially considering that people have to wait a very long time for court cases to come around. The perpetrator can carry on with the rest of their life while the family is suspended in utter grief. My sense is that suspended sentences are not appropriate either, particularly in the case I am thinking of, where somebody has given a “no comment” interview to the police and chosen not to speak. It just seems so desperately unfair.
It has already been mentioned, but I also want to address the fact that there are people who are driving without insurance, tax or a valid MOT, but the police are so stretched that they cannot deal with those sorts of issue when they come along. Those “minor” infringements, as considered by those who commit them, only increase the likelihood of someone carrying on to behave more irresponsibly. I ask the Minister to look at what is happening in France and Ireland, our nearest neighbours, who take different views and actions. I am happy to send the Minister information on that.
I want to talk about one other aspect: how to prevent dangerous behaviour before it results in even one more death. I will concentrate on speeding and racing, which is a serious concern in my constituency. Between 2019 and 2024, 204 people were killed or seriously injured: 29 lost their lives and 175 suffered serious injuries. I am thinking about accidents that happened in Dinder, just outside Wells; in Blackford; and recently in the village of Ston Easton.
Those incidents are catastrophic, not just for the people who live nearby and the families but desperate for everyone involved. The people killed or seriously injured are not just statistics; they represent individuals, families and communities, whose lives are often changed for ever. I do not suggest that all those collisions involved speeding, but nationally excessive speed was a contributory factor in around one in five fatal collisions in 2024. That surely underlines why tackling excessive speeding must be central to any serious strategy to reduce road deaths.
It is great that the Department for Transport has published the first road safety strategy in over a decade, but we have a Justice Minister here. I ask him to work with colleagues in the Department for Transport to address my straightforward question. The strategy includes a welcome ambition to reduce deaths and serious injuries by 65% by 2035, but where will that 65% reduction will come from? Many in the road safety community question whether the currently proposed measures are sufficient to achieve that ambition.
The strategy is relatively light on specific measures to tackle serious and persistent speeding, despite recognising speeding as one of the fatal four causes of death or serious injury on our roads. Since that strategy was published back in January, there must be an urgent need to finalise the Government’s response to the consultations, set out a clear delivery plan and to begin implementing the measures that will save lives.
I attended an event here in the Houses of Parliament where I was interested to see the intervening intelligent speed assistant, or IISA. I recognise that technology is fitted to new cars, but this feature can be fitted to cars that are already on the road. I have asked for some, as I drive 25,000 miles a year, going in and out of 20, 30 and 40 limits regularly, and I do not wish to get any points on my licence. I should declare an interest there.
Unlike the intelligence speed assistance technology fitted to new cars, which can warn drivers when they exceed the speed limit but can be overridden or switched off—although it should not be—intervening technology can actively prevent a vehicle from accelerating beyond the legal limit. That is not a theoretical idea; it is already happening in Virginia in the United States. A programme was introduced this year that allows the courts to require certain speeding offenders to use vehicles that are fitted with speed-limiting technology, which is an advance. Transport for London has also demonstrated high levels of speed-limit compliance, using intervening technology in its bus fleet.
Can this Minister get Transport Ministers to reassure us that the Secretary of State’s officials have examined the progress being made in other jurisdictions using IISA as part of offender management? Might he take a slightly different angle and just ask why we would not do that rather than why we would do it. It seems that it has been demonstrated to be effective and practical, and it has the potential to save lives, so I think that we should trial it at least.
I return to the families whose experiences lie at the heart of today’s debate. They deserve justice. They also deserve to know that we are doing everything reasonably possible to prevent other families from suffering as they have suffered.