Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Liz McInnes and Michael Ellis

Thursday 13th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Michael Ellis)]

In June last year, the Department issued a written statement to Parliament that reported progress on the actions from its road safety statement. The statement also outlined more actions, such as putting £100 million into improving 50 of the most dangerous stretches of A roads in England and committing to a refreshed road safety statement and a two-year action plan to address four priority groups: young people, rural road users, motorcyclists and older vulnerable users.

[Liz McInnes]

I thank the Minister for that answer, but last year 157 people were sentenced for causing death by dangerous driving. The average length of the sentence given was just over six years. Does he agree that if this Government had introduced life sentences for that crime, as they promised to do in October 2017, we might have seen a consequent improvement in road safety and fewer of those dreadful crimes occurring last year?

[Michael Ellis]

The Department and the Secretary of State take these matters extremely seriously, and a great deal of work continues to be done on the subject of road safety. Any deaths or injuries via drink-driving are of course totally unacceptable, and we will do everything we can to continue to mitigate that. The fact is that the Department has doubled the penalty points for improper use of a mobile phone while driving, and we have also been investing via Facebook in the Think! campaign. We continue to work across the board to mitigate these issues. We are in constant contact with the Home Office and the police service on this issue, and that will continue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Liz McInnes and Michael Ellis

Thursday 31st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

T3. Last week in Westminster Hall, we had an excellent debate on the possibility of having an award for towns of culture to complement cities of culture. The debate showed the level of artistic and cultural activities going on in our towns. Will the Minister say what action has been taken as a result of that debate?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Michael Ellis)]

The hon. Lady is quite right: it was a very good debate in Westminster Hall. Since then, I have asked my officials to do some work with key stakeholders to consider whether this would be a valuable extension of the City of Culture. I have agreed to meet the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and other hon. Members to discuss this further. The Arts Council England is also looking to undertake further analysis of this important area.