(1 day, 19 hours ago)
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Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
Too many of my constituents feel they are being left to fend for themselves on unsafe roads. They are scared for their children, they are tired of reporting the same danger again and again, and they are angry that nothing changes until someone is seriously hurt, or worse. My message to the Government today is simple: people should not have to die or be seriously injured before something is done about dangerous speeding. Provisional estimates for 2024 suggest that 1,633 people were killed on Britain’s roads last year, while 56% of fatal road collisions in 2023 involved one or more speed-related factors.
I have three clear asks of the Minister today. First, the Government must move to taking a proactive approach to fixed speed camera placement, rather than waiting for a tragedy before allowing action. Secondly, I am asking that national guidance—specifically, Department for Transport circular 01/2007, “Use of speed and red-light cameras for traffic enforcement: Guidance on deployment, visibility and signing—be updated to reflect this proactive approach. Thirdly, I want the Government to make it easier for local communities, who know their roads better than anyone, to get the speed cameras they need without having to fight for years to be heard, if the data can back up the request.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and congratulate her on securing her first Adjournment debate. Many people in my constituency have written to me about this issue, particularly those in villages around the towns, such as Ferrensby. Does she agree that in rural areas like mine, there needs to be a proactive stance to ensure that where there are not footpaths and pavements, people are not at risk from speeding vehicles?
Lisa Smart
I absolutely agree. My constituency is suburban, but a number of our areas are semi-rural and have roads without pavements. When pedestrians are walking along a road because there is no pavement, the danger level is increased. I agree that communities need to be able to take proactive action to make our roads safer.
We should start with the facts. Speed cameras work. They reduce speeding, reduce accidents and reduce deaths—they save lives. The RAC Foundation and the Department for Transport have both shown that speed cameras reduce speeding and cut the number of crashes. Areas with cameras see up to a 42% drop in fatal or serious collisions. These are our children making it home from school or our grandparents crossing the road safely. This debate is not about whether cameras work, because we know they do.
The threat of dangerous driving remains clear, and I want to take a moment to thank the Brake campaign for its work on these issues. It continues to be a powerful voice for road safety, fighting for changes that prevent heartbreak and loss in communities up and down the country.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady for securing this debate. She is right to mention the organisation Brake and the good work it does; it does the same good work in my constituency, and we all benefit. In Northern Ireland, speed cameras are primarily installed in locations with a demonstrated history of injury, collisions and speeding problems, so they are mostly on motorways rather than in country areas where there are more accidents, with the result that they are not as effective as they could be. Does she agree that the oversaturation in some areas and underusage in others has led to the general public losing confidence in the use of speed cameras as a tool for road safety, and instead, many see it as a revenue-raising exercise?
Lisa Smart
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. The safety of road users, be they vehicle users, cyclists, pedestrians or mobility scooter users, needs to be at the heart of decision making on speed cameras. I agree that safety rather than revenue needs to be at the centre of any decisions.
In my constituency of Hazel Grove, the danger is real and it is happening right now.
Lisa Smart
Gill has lived on Moor End Road in Mellor for 25 years. In that time, she has seen people’s pets killed, cars smashed to bits and a stone wall destroyed by reckless drivers, but what keeps her awake at night is fear for local children and elderly relatives. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon) mentioned happens in his constituency, parts of Moor End Road do not have pavements, so people are forced to walk right alongside very fast-moving vehicles. For Gill, it feels like it is only a matter of time before there is an accident. We should not be waiting for that time to come.
Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)
Too often, the question of whether local authorities, combined authorities or police forces are responsible for funding speed cameras comes up. That has led to horrible delays in places like Thorns Road and Manor Way in my constituency, where, despite fatalities and decades of concern, we are still no closer to getting average speed cameras on those hot spots. Does the hon. Member agree that we need faster mechanisms to agree who pays for speed cameras, so that we can move quickly so that the people of Halesowen and Quarry Bank can feel safe?
Lisa Smart
I agree with the hon. Member that the bureaucracy of who funds cameras should not be what holds up making our roads safer. We should have an agreed way of funding them and communities should be empowered, so that if they can raise the funds themselves, whether through a parish council precept or otherwise, they should not be blocked from doing so. Given the costs incurred through loss of life and injury, the expense of such interventions should be looked at as a whole; the installation of a speed camera can prevent such costs further down the line, so is a matter of making an investment in order to save.
Another of my constituents, Christopher, also from Mellor, knows that all too well. He was involved in a terrifying crash with a stolen car being driven at dangerous speeds, and he told me that he thought his life was over. Nobody should have to feel that fear just for being on the road.
In Offerton, my constituent Chris is one of many who have contacted me about speeding on Offerton Road and Torkington Road. He is worried about HGVs thundering down residential streets, ignoring the 15mph limits on the Torky bends. He said kids are scared to walk home, near misses are all too frequent and many incidents go unreported. In Little Moor, Marion lives on a dangerous bend, where cars have been written off, they have destroyed the lamp post next to her house and a motorbike has torn up her driveway.
I cannot talk about speeding without mentioning the wonderful children of Mellor primary school. After I visited the school, the entire year 6 class wrote to me about speeding on Longhurst Lane—I had encouraged them to write to their MP about things that they cared about, and they did. Children aged 10 and 11 asked me for updates on what was being done about Longhurst Lane, and many of them told me that speed cameras would be an obvious part of the solution. If schoolchildren can see the solution, I think we should listen. These are just a few of the voices in my inbox—there are many, many more. Our communities are sounding the alarm, but they feel ignored and are desperate for someone to take action.
Here is the root of the problem: under current Government guidance, local authorities should not install a fixed-speed camera until after there have been three or more fatal or serious injury collisions, as per circular 01/2007. So three serious injuries or deaths have to happen before speed cameras are encouraged—that is a disastrously reactive policy. It is a policy that says, “We’ll only fix the danger once enough people have died or have at least come close to it.” That is surely both morally wrong and practically absurd. Residents on Strines Road, for example, have repeatedly raised concerns about unsafe driving. They have logged the dangers and shown the evidence, but because the road has not yet claimed enough lives in a sufficiently limited time period, the current guidance is of little help.
I should note that circular 01/2007 allows for the installation of fixed-speed cameras even before the usual thresholds are met, recognising that such cameras can play a valuable role where there is clear community concern. However, as the answers to several of my written parliamentary questions have made clear, that provision is treated very much as a secondary consideration. The Greater Manchester combined authority, which covers my own patch, frequently points to the national guidance when pressed on the installation of new cameras in parts of my constituency where local communities have made their concerns more than clear. The guidance fails to actively encourage or even enable local and combined authorities to prioritise that proactive approach as a central pillar of their road safety strategy, where it rightly belongs.
Both in theory and in practice, the Government’s approach does not value prevention; it responds only to tragedy. We need a better approach based on risk, not on death tolls. Let us listen when residents report repeated speeding. Let us take community complaints seriously. Let us use data such as average speed monitoring and near-miss records, not just crash statistics. My community welcomed the Government’s announcement that speeding would be addressed in the new road safety strategy. That is a good first step, but we need to see that strategy take a proactive stance.
Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
I thank my hon. Friend very much for bringing forward this debate. I point out in particular that one of my residents—a man called Chris, who is now a friend—lost his wife Lorraine. She was simply cycling back from her work at school and was hit by a driver. In order to ensure that nothing so dreadful happened again, Chris paid for speeding signs on his piece of road. It really should not be for individuals to feel so desperate that they end up funding that themselves. Certainly in my area, it is very difficult for communities to prove that they need to have some sort of speeding restrictions. Those signs are really effective, particularly since they move around in parishes, which I have and which I know my hon. Friend does not have.
Lisa Smart
I am so sorry to hear that that happened to Lorraine and Chris. Of course Chris does not want that to happen to somebody else, and it is entirely understandable that he has taken action himself to remind drivers of the speed limit. My constituents on Strines Road have done something very similar—every single green bin has a speeding reminder on it. They have taken action into their own hands.
Tessa Munt
We do not have bins in rural areas. There is nothing bar the speed cameras.
Lisa Smart
The secondary point to the one that my hon. Friend raises is about local authorities being properly funded so that they can take the preventive action that works for them to make their communities safe. I am grateful for the points that she raises.
The guidance must be revised to give clear guidance to local and combined authorities, because until that changes, councils and local police forces will continue to feel that they cannot act. That is not good enough, and our constituents deserve more. My call to this Government is simple: update the national guidance to allow for the proactive, preventive placement of speed cameras based on risk, not on tragedy. Let us build a future where safety comes first, not after the fact. Let us give councils the tools they need to stop accidents before they happen.
We also need change at the local level, so I welcome the GMCA’s ongoing review of its speed camera guidance, which I pushed for for years as a councillor before being elected to this place. Frankly, that review is long overdue and has taken far too long. National reform will empower changes at the local level, and it is that change that I will keep fighting for and that I ask the Government for today.
Let me end where I began. Our constituents should not have to wait for tragedy before they get protection. They should not have to experience the death of an elderly neighbour, a child on their way home from school or another member of their local community to see the change that they need. Speed cameras work: they lead to lower speeds, fewer accidents and fewer deaths on our roads. I once again urge the Government to take a proactive approach to speed camera installation, to update national guidance to that effect—particularly circular 01/2007—and to make it easier for local communities to get the safety measures that they need.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Lilian Greenwood)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) on securing this debate—her first Adjournment debate—and thank her for raising the vital issue of speed cameras and the criteria for their installation. It is really good to have the opportunity to discuss an issue that she has raised with me a number of times in questions and correspondence over the past year.
I begin by making it clear that improving road safety is one of my Department’s highest priorities, and measures to address speeding will be considered for inclusion in the forthcoming road safety strategy. As the hon. Member has said, there were 1,624 fatalities in reported road collisions in Great Britain in 2023. Of those, 888 occurred in collisions in which, in the opinion of the attending police officer, speed was a factor for at least one vehicle. That represents 58% of all fatalities in collisions for which the police recorded at least one collision factor. The police often refer to the “fatal four”, and I am afraid that excessive speed remains the major contributor to road traffic collisions.
Alex Ballinger
One issue that we have across Dudley is street racing. We often have groups of young men coming from Birmingham, racing up and down the A456 and through the back streets of Halesowen, terrifying some of my residents. Unfortunately, despite the excellent work of Operation Hercules and the police, we have not really been able to crack down on that. Does the Minister agree that street racing hotspots are areas where we should consider putting average speed cameras?
Lilian Greenwood
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue. I am sure that everyone in the House feels concern about the kind of antisocial driving occurring in his constituency. It is absolutely right that local partners—the local authority and the police—should look at how best to tackle that kind of behaviour, which is undoubtedly a blight on his local community and is obviously very concerning to hear about.
All available research shows a link between excessive speed and the risk of collisions, so I am really grateful to the hon. Member for Hazel Grove for raising this issue, and indeed to other hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. Fatalities and injuries from road collisions are simply unacceptable, and this Government will work hard to prevent those tragedies for all road users.
The hon. Member talked about action to reduce speed, including lower speed limits, and action to enforce speed limits, such as speed cameras. My Department’s guidance on the use of speed cameras and red light cameras for traffic enforcement is not mandatory—it is guidance—and authorities are invited to set their own deployment criteria if they wish. The guidance encourages authorities to develop their own deployment criteria, so that they can demonstrate a local systematic approach to site selection.
I recognise that at a time when local authorities face a great many calls on their resources, it is important that they focus those resources where they will have the most impact. Unfortunately, I imagine that will sometimes mean local authorities deciding that they need to focus on those places where there have been KSIs—where people have been killed or seriously injured. However, I encourage local authorities to consider both how they can deal with places where there have been KSIs and how they can take a more proactive approach.
Tom Gordon
In North Yorkshire, we do not have any average or fixed speed cameras. We have a number of temporary mobile speed vans, but they do not act as a sufficient deterrent because they move around—that is obviously the purpose and nature of them. Instead, we have seen lots of community speed watch groups set up. Does the Minister agree with me on the importance of those community groups, who work so hard to highlight the dangers of speeding in rural communities like mine?
Lilian Greenwood
I agree with the hon. Member about the importance of community speed watch groups. I will come on to that topic a little later.
The guidance on the use of speed cameras and red light cameras should be used alongside setting local speed limits. These are tools to support our primary objective, which is reducing the number of collisions and casualties and, indeed, reducing their severity. I agree with the hon. Member for Hazel Grove that speed cameras work. In the right place, speed cameras can help manage safety risks by encouraging drivers to conform to the speed limit. However, they are not the only or always the best way to improve road safety. Speed limits should be evidence-led, and general compliance needs to be achievable without an excessive reliance on enforcement. Frankly, we cannot have a speed camera everywhere, and we cannot have a police officer everywhere.
As the hon. Member knows, the enforcement of road traffic law and the deployment of available police resources, including on mobile cameras, is the responsibility of individual chief constables and police and crime commissioners, taking into account specific local problems and the demands that they face. Local government is the main delivery body for road safety. Under section 39 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, local authorities have a statutory duty to take steps to reduce and prevent collisions, and they have the power to set speed limits on their roads. It is right that they focus on the areas of highest risk, which may be where tragic collisions have occurred, but there is nothing to stop them from implementing road safety measures elsewhere. Indeed, I would agree that a more proactive, preventive approach is entirely sensible. It is clearly incredibly valuable to identify places where there is a higher risk and evidence of near misses.
Lisa Smart
I am grateful for the Minister’s remarks. She says that it seems entirely sensible to move to a proactive approach; does she have plans to update the guidance in a way that moves towards that approach, so as to be clear with local authorities?
Lilian Greenwood
Certainly I welcome the opportunity for us to debate this issue today. I will reflect on the contributions that Members have made, and on the suggestions that the hon. Member has put forward. Local authorities already have the power to take that approach, and I want to be clear about that. It is a myth to say that they cannot act until there have been a number of fatalities; they already can. Local authorities also have a range of traffic management measures available to help improve safety in their areas. In addition to the ability to set local speed limits, they can also introduce traffic calming measures, speed-activated warning signs and average speed cameras.
Tessa Munt
Will the Minister consider the fact that if someone wants to install a 20 mph limit in our towns and cities—such as Wells or Cheddar, which are plagued by speed trouble—the police advice is that drivers have to already be close to 20 mph for them to accept the need for a 20 mph limit? That strikes me as utterly bonkers. It stifles any further discussion and the implementation of 20 mph limits, even near schools.
Lilian Greenwood
I thank the hon. Member for raising that point, and I will say a little more on that in a moment. It is for local authorities to determine what measures are appropriate in individual cases, because they have the local knowledge of their roads. Any authority that has the support of the local community for installing such schemes has my Department’s full backing. I welcome the support expressed by Members today, and agree that sharing good practice can be helpful.
The Department gave councils updated guidance on setting 20 mph speed limits, reminding them to reserve them for sensible and appropriate areas only, such as outside schools, and that safety and local support should be at the heart of the decision. That in itself impacts compliance, as drivers are more likely to observe the speed limit when they understand why it is there. I emphasise that we support 20 mph limits in the right places. As well as influencing safety, they can influence quality of life, the environment and the local economy, but 20 mph zones and limits are best considered on a road-by-road basis. That ensures local consent, unlike blanket measures.
We are therefore not in favour of 20 mph limits being set indiscriminately on all roads, without due regard for the safety case and for local support; but when there is clear evidence, and when people support them, I think it entirely right for local authorities to pursue them, if they wish to. They will want to make decisions about local implementation in consultation with local communities and, of course, with the local police; as I have said, they know their roads best, and I cannot and should not dictate to them from Westminster.
While local authorities are free to make their own decisions about the speed limits on roads under their care, provided that they take account of the relevant legislation and guidance, they are rightly accountable to local people for those decisions. I understand how frustrating it is for communities who feel that their concerns are not being listened to and acted on. However, the Members who have spoken today have made a powerful case for lower speed limits, and we know that even the most experienced and careful drivers can make mistakes, and that collisions at higher speeds are much more likely to have tragic outcomes.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
I fully appreciate how important it is for local communities to have the most influence over road safety measures in their area, but can my hon. Friend expand on the forthcoming road safety strategy? Can she tell us whether there will be an even clearer drive from central Government towards, perhaps, a “vision zero” approach, and towards giving local communities even more impetus to reduce speeding? It is, in my view, and probably that of many other Members, selfish and reckless of people to exceed a speed limit that they are required by law to abide by.
Lilian Greenwood
I know that my hon. Friend has been a great champion for improvements in road safety. The Department will consider what more we can do to support local authorities and hon. Members in this regard, and we stand ready to work with everyone who is trying to improve road safety locally. As my hon. Friend knows, and as the House knows, we are developing our road safety strategy, and I look forward to saying more about that in the months ahead. As the Secretary of State has said, we are hoping and aiming to publish it by the end of the year.
The police-run Community Speedwatch schemes enable local volunteers to work with the police and other agencies to address identified road policing issues in their localities. I know how important they can be to local communities, and I thank all those who are volunteering in this way. Drivers who are detected speeding are sent letters, and the police may take further action if a driver is detected multiple times. Decisions on when to adopt Community Speedwatch schemes are operational matters for police and crime commissioners and chief constables, in conjunction with local policing plans, but as I have said, the schemes can play a very important role.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, the Government treat road safety with the utmost seriousness, and we are committed to reducing the number of people killed and injured on our roads. The Department is developing our road safety strategy, and I look forward to the opportunity to set out more details in due course. I welcome today’s debate and all the contributions from Members on road safety, both today and on other occasions. I am pleased that there is so much determination in the House to tackle the unacceptable loss of life and unacceptable injuries that result from road traffic collisions, and I look forward to working with Members further on the issue.
Question put and agreed to.