Foreign Workers: Engineers
Earl Attlee Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Lord Bates
I do not know about that—obviously, the measure was not in place at that time or for their nationality. What I do know at this time is that we are investing heavily in science skills in this country. We have new science A-levels, new university technical colleges and a new science and technology baccalaureate, and the number of apprenticeships in science and manufacturing is up 74%. I think that that would be welcomed on all sides of the House and by Brunel and Pugin, if they were around.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, the standing of a professional engineer in Germany is much higher than in the UK. What are the Minister and the Government doing to enhance the social standing of professional engineers in the UK?
Road Traffic Act 1988 (Alcohol Limits) (Amendment) Bill [HL]
Earl Attlee Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, for so expertly moving the Second Reading of his Bill, although I have some difficulties with it. When the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, commissioned the North report, I assumed that he had identified the next step of our road safety programme, which would be to lower the blood alcohol level, or BAC, for drivers. I thought that the report was to provide the necessary evidence for the changes. In the UK, we have a very good road safety record because successive transport Ministers of all parties—one of them, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, is in his place—have followed the evidence, expertly analysed by officials, rather than taking a populist course of action, which is what the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, has suggested the Minister should do.
At the time, I thought that, if a BAC of 80 milligrams would damage the hospitality industry, so be it. However, I must tell the House that I cannot recall ever seeing an impact assessment on the effect on that industry. My understanding is that the Scottish Government had not done one before lowering their BAC limit. To this day, I have never received any briefing from that industry on this issue.
When my party got into government, I found that the advice from officials regarding North was rather more complex than I thought it would be. Will my noble friend the Minister confirm that the Government have implemented all the significant recommendations in the North report, apart from lowering the BAC?
My first point is that any alcohol intake at all will cause a deterioration in driving capability and skills. The Grand Rapids report referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, shows that the chances of having an accident increase alarmingly after 80 milligrams. However, there is no safe limit and the best advice is not to drink and drive at all. I hope my noble friend the Minister can confirm that this is his position.
Secondly, we have some data available from the STATS19 system and the coroner’s records. For those accidents where at least one driver was killed, a staggering 19% were over the limit of 80 milligrams. However, for these accidents, only 1.7% had at least one dead driver who was between the proposed new limit of 50 milligrams and the current limit of 80 milligrams. That is a very small slice. There are lies, dammed lies and statistics, but this rather suggests that the problem lies not with those who drive with an unwise and imprudent BAC level of between 50 and 80 milligrams, but rather with those drivers who are totally non-compliant. I refer to them as unregulated drinkers.
That is not to say that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, is wrong. It is obvious that the Bill would reduce the BAC level of compliant drivers—a bit—which could produce a commensurate reduction in accidents. My fear is that the reduction will not be as great as hoped, since compliant drivers will already normally be driving with a BAC of less than 50 milligrams. If I am right, I do not think that it will take compliant drivers very long to find out that they do not need to reduce their intake much, if at all.
Thirdly, we have a problem with what I have termed unregulated drinkers. These people are often clinically dependent upon alcohol. They do not know how much they have drunk and they have no regard for the law, so the noble Lord’s proposal will have precisely no effect on them at all. They are also very hard to catch. I suspect that this is because they drive on minor roads for relatively short distances: my guess is three or four miles in a rural area and one to two in an urban area, but with a very high risk of having an accident. Noble Lords will realise that the window of opportunity for the police to detect such drinkers is very short, apart from in the event of an accident. If we have a formal Committee stage, I am tempted to run an amendment about permitting the police to instigate random breath tests, if that is what they want to do to solve their problems.
Fourthly, this change would have some resource implications. First, I am told that all the evidential breath test equipment would have to be recertified and recalibrated. I do not find this a convincing reason for not making the change. But secondly, and rather more persuasively, a considerable amount of police time could be tied up processing drivers who get caught by the new limit. Of course, this might not be the case if, in fact, even today few drivers drive with a BAC of between 50 and 80 milligrams.
My fifth point is looking around the corner. We are very careful not to let drivers know how much they can actually drink while remaining compliant. One good reason for this is that we know that there is no safe limit. Another is that, if drivers knew what their intake limit was, they might be tempted to go closer to it. This could mean that, on average, drivers would consume a bit more and therefore, on average, have more accidents. It is possible that law-abiding motorists might use their own breathalysers to ensure compliance with the new and lower limit. This could result in an increase in average intake and, therefore, the accident rate. I hope that I am wrong.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, pointed to lower limits in other EU countries, but, with the exception of Sweden, they do not have as good a road safety record as we do and in any case, as the noble Lord well knows, they have different penalty regimes. However, Scotland will provide us with an almost-perfect laboratory. There will be the same enforcement regime as in England because they cannot change the penalties, but a lower BAC. After three or four years we will get the stats and data from Scotland, which will tell us which way to go.
The Library Note suggests that compliance has improved by 12.5 %. I am bound to say that that is a rather disappointing figure, but unfortunately consistent with my analysis. It will take time for properly analysed statistics to be available, but if they show a significant improvement then we should consider following the Scots. In the mean time, my counsel to the Minister is to leave the BAC alone and concentrate on eliminating unregulated drinkers.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate and thank my noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe for bringing forward the Bill. He has been a marvellous campaigner on this subject for a long time. It is a shame that the Government have not taken action, especially given what my noble friend said about their knowledge of the extra risks of people driving with a BAC between 50 and 80 milligrams.
We increasingly stand alone internationally by retaining the 80 milligram rather than adopting the 50 milligram figure. It is now just Northern Ireland, England, Wales and Malta in Europe that stick at 80 milligrams. In fact, four EU countries have a limit of zero. Indeed, proud Welsh girl that I am, I have to take my hat off to the Scots, who have done the deed—and the sky did not fall in. In fact, as the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said, there has been a 12% drop in offences, while eight in 10 Scots believe that drinking any alcohol before driving is unacceptable.
This is always a difficult subject for me to discuss, as, a day short of my 10th birthday, I lost my mother because of a drunk driver. Who knows, she might have been saved and lived had she been wearing a seat belt. In those days, of course, they were not even fitted, much less compulsory. However, as a result of endless campaigning, and finally an Act of Parliament—in both of which my noble friend Lord Robertson of Port Ellen played a key role—the law was changed with regard to seat belts. Now, we would not think of driving without wearing one. That is what I want to see happening with regard to drinking and driving—I want it to be unthinkable. A step towards that is to reduce the limit because we know that that will reduce the number of accidents. I think we have done with campaigning—just as we did in relation to seat belts before we brought in the relevant law. It is time to make the change.
I pay tribute to those who have campaigned on this issue, not just my noble friend but organisations such as the Campaign Against Drinking and Driving—CADD—set up to help the families of those bereaved through drink-driving, the Livia Trust and others who campaign for safety on the roads. We owe it to them, to those who have lost loved ones, but also to those who have been injured through someone driving after drinking, such as the Paralympian, Simon Richardson, to make this change.
For myself, I could, being a moderate person, live with this measure being introduced gradually, perhaps initially for drivers under the age of 21—as we know, they are overrepresented among the fatalities—or, perhaps drivers in their first two years after passing their test, or while holding a provisional licence; but start we must. Fifteen per cent of deaths in accidents involve at least one driver over the limit. Those are tragic but avoidable figures. In 2013 there were 250 deaths and 8,000 injuries, 1,000 of which are very serious, due to somebody driving after drinking. Would we accept so many deaths due to any other cause and do nothing about it?
Clearly, as has been said, lowering the limit is not all that is needed. We also need enforcement and publicity for real change to be made. However, a reduction to 50 milligrams would make a difference. As my noble friend said, that reduction is supported by more than three-quarters of the population. We know that at 80 milligrams, drivers are six times as likely to die in an accident as those who have not drunk at all. This is partly because, even if they do not cause the incident, they are less likely to be able to avoid a dangerous incident after they have been drinking. We are well aware that there is a direct relationship between the amount that is drunk and the ability to function behind the wheel. Even between 20 and 50 milligrams, drivers increase their chance of an accident threefold. Up to 80 milligrams, the risk increases sixfold, and up to 100 milligrams, they are 11 times as likely to have an accident. Therefore, reducing the legal limit would lower the number of accidents and improve road safety for all of us.
We, of course, are not the first to call for this, nor are we the only people who support this change. My noble friend Lord Brooke reminded us of the North report of 2010, which estimated that a reduction to 50 milligrams would save 100 lives a year. That is two a week. Those are real lives: they matter. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said that of the people who died, only one was between the 50 and 80 milligrams level.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, only 1% were between 50 and 80 milligrams, compared with the others.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
It is even more than that in terms of people and human lives, and when you think of the families affected. Surely that makes the case for us to make this change. As has been said, the Local Government Association has said that about £300 million a year could be saved in police, hospital and ambulance costs. That is without taking account of the costs to families. However, it is not just a question of victims. When I started to campaign on this issue for obvious reasons a long time ago, I was worried about the organisations representing drivers. In fact, the AA, the RAC, the Chief Fire Officers Association, the Police Federation and the Road Haulage Association all support this change. Let us listen today to the victims and to my noble friend Lord Brooke and, for once, not take the advice of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and give this Bill not just a Second Reading but our wholehearted support.
Identity Documentation
Earl Attlee Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for introducing this fabulous debate.
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, the problem is that we do not have one clean, reliable identity database. Can any noble Lord, or anyone inside or outside the Chamber, tell me why we get so excited about DNA profiling? My DNA profile is a matter of fact: I cannot alter it; it will not change with my age; it is not a choice that I have made. One of its beauties is that it can be boiled down to 70 characters of 16 groups plus a gender marker. This could be put on to a computer database which can easily be searched.
To verify every citizen’s identity à la the old ID card system is an exceptionally time-consuming, intrusive and expensive process, which is why it was binned in a former Parliament. It is also a pointless exercise because most citizens are honest and have a driving licence that is reasonably accurate. We have similar problems with Criminal Records Bureau checks because essentially they are trying to establish identity. We could give every citizen access to the driving licence system, even if they do not have the ability to drive, and then put more effort into cleaning up the relevant database. I agree with much of what my noble friend Lord Marlesford said because the advantage of the driver number is that it is easily determined from one’s name and date of birth.
But I would go further. I would capture the DNA profile and fingerprints of every UK citizen and link them to what is currently the driver number. The DNA profile would be loaded into the national DNA database with its current very strict access controls. The fingerprint data would have broadly the same availability as the data collected for the biometric residence permit, with some facility for banks and building societies to verify a card. One’s DNA profile and fingerprints are both matters of fact, and of course there is no need to carry a card because authorities can test fingerprints with mobile equipment. Having a card is simply a convenience; it is about the underlying reliable identity system.
Much more sensitive, I think, is who a citizen has been communicating with and where in the UK he or she has been, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey. I will deal with some of the most obvious DNA worries. The first is genetics. My understanding is that the DNA profile does not have enough information in it to identify a genetic disorder or predisposition to a particular illness. In any case, my second point is that the national DNA database will check only if a profile from a crime scene matches a subject profile. It will not generally provide a subject profile to law enforcement authorities or anyone else, and there is no need to do so.
My third point is that an innocent British citizen abroad would be disadvantaged if he is matched to a crime scene profile because the local law enforcement agencies could become lazy and think that they have “got their man”. Actually, the current system has this weakness. Let us take as an example a 25 year-old British lad on holiday who had been involved in a punch-up in the UK five years previously. He would be in the same unfair situation. This would not happen if all UK citizens were on the database without any discrimination. In the event of a nasty incident with a crime scene DNA profile available, it would not be so remarkable if a Brit matched the crime scene profile.
Finally, there is the argument that central government is incapable of managing a big IT system. The fact is that the Home Office is successfully managing the DNA database. As I understand it, only around 40 officials can actually access it, and presumably there is only one normal point of access, while the records hardly ever need to be edited or updated because of their nature; they are matters of fact that do not change. That is rather different from other records such as health records. In my view, public and political opinion on the use of DNA profiling is governed by fear and misunderstanding rather than logic. We should give all citizens a reliable system of identity rather than go for an intrusive and bureaucratic process of trying to verify everyone’s ID.
Airport Capacity
Earl Attlee Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I believe that it is the turn of the Conservatives.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, can the Minister now answer the question from the noble Lord, Lord Rosser? What has changed since the Government told the House that we would have a decision before Christmas? Or is it merely that the Cabinet as a whole lacks the moral courage to make the decision?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My noble friend has said something that I cannot agree with—and nor do I agree with it on principle. The Government have moved forward. We have agreed that airport expansion will take place in the south-east, and I am sure that he will acknowledge the importance of the environmental considerations. I said specifically that in the interim, on 26 November, we received a reasonable and full assessment from the Environmental Audit Committee and I quoted from its report. I commend the report to my noble friend, as he will see that we need to ensure that all the key environmental considerations are taken into account in making the final decision.
Trafficking: Children
Earl Attlee Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Bates
The question of police funding will obviously be for the spending review on 25 November. There is a change to the formula there. We have made it very clear that this is a high priority. That is why the national policing lead is taking such a strong role on this. Significant amounts of training are already being done through the Crown Prosecution Service, but we will continue to keep that under review.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, what progress are we making in dealing with the problem of vulnerable children being referred into the care of a local authority but subsequently getting lost?
Lord Bates
We are looking at a number of issues, particularly with child trafficking advocates. The care of children, under the 1989 Act, continues to be at a very high level. We are looking at whether the appointment of child trafficking advocates alongside each child, to help them navigate their way through the many different services and the many situations they face, would help tackle the problem referred to by my noble friend.
Asylum
Earl Attlee Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The Government adopt responsible measures and have taken a responsible attitude in addressing the issue of the migration crisis across Europe. On the noble Baroness’s assessment of the Dublin convention, she is correct: that does stand.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, does the Minister remain convinced that we should keep out of the Schengen area?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Evidence suggests that that was a very sensible thing to do.
Airports Commission
Earl Attlee Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble Lord is quite right. I agree with him that this has been a detailed report, which the previous Government, under the current Prime Minister, commissioned in 2012. The report has been received, and I am sure the noble Lord would agree with me that it is time now to give the detailed report considered opinion. It is quite right that there should be a sub-committee of the Cabinet to take this decision forward. I reiterate the point that the Prime Minister has made quite clear: a decision will be made by the end of the year.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, does the Minister recall that I spent the first two years of the last Parliament dodging this very issue? The reason was the helpful policy input from the Liberal Democrat party. Does the Minister recognise that the Government really will have to make a decision on this matter this year?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I would never accuse my noble friend of dodging anything. If he did so that was his assessment; I thought he handled questions in this respect very ably from the Dispatch Box. I reiterate that the Government—and indeed the Prime Minister—have made it clear that a decision will be made and it will be made by the end of the year.
Railways: Swansea to Paddington
Earl Attlee Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
As a general principle in life, it is often good to pause and reflect. I suggest to the noble Lord that it is something he should sometimes deploy. We have asked Sir Peter Hendy to look into the whole issue and the challenges that have arisen around electrification. He will report in the autumn and, after he does, I am sure we will return to this subject. As for the northern powerhouse, the plug is truly in and the switch is turned on.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, is it not something more to do with lack of engineering capacity, because we have not done very much electrification in recent years, until this Government came into office?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My noble friend speaks from great experience on these matters, not least because he has spoken from this Dispatch Box on the issue of skills. I am delighted that that is one of my specific portfolio responsibilities at the Department for Transport. As noble Lords will know, we have already established the Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy, which I visited only last week, an incredible investment that has come out of the Crossrail project. Later this year, I will be joining the Secretary of State for the opening of the National Training Academy for Rail. Britain has some great challenges as far as the skills agenda is concerned. It is certainly this Government’s view that we not only meet the skills challenge domestically but establish institutions to provide for skills abroad as well.
Mediterranean: Migrant Trafficking
Earl Attlee Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Bates
I am very happy to give our support to that. We give our support to the European Asylum Support Office which has locations in Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Italy. In fact, we are the largest provider of bilateral assistance to that organisation. What the church is doing is to be applauded. It is absolutely in keeping with the priority we see in providing these vulnerable people with the care they need.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is very important to concentrate on a long-term, upstream solution rather than purely on short-term solutions?
Lord Bates
My noble friend is absolutely right. Part of the issue is to deal with the immediate crisis and stop the deaths that are occurring in the Mediterranean, but there is a bigger part, which is how you build stability within these countries so that people do not have to embark on this perilous journey. That is why we are so proud of our overseas aid budget, which of course is the second largest, in cash terms, in the world.
Police: Reduction in Numbers
Earl Attlee Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Bates
I am happy to meet the noble Lord later to find out where he was living and the particulars of the incident. One of the measures that we have introduced, of course, is to differentiate—it does not apply in this case—between non-emergency calls and real emergency calls. The ability to triage calls is an important way of ensuring that the police respond to incidents where they are desperately needed as fast as possible.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, have police and crime commissioners been effective in driving through efficiencies in police forces, particularly with respect to adjacent forces?
Lord Bates
I can think of some very good examples. In fact, some former colleagues of the noble Baroness have been instrumental in driving forward this type of co-operation. I am thinking particularly of West Mercia and Warwickshire where there is a much closer relationship because of the public visibility of a police and crime commissioner providing that connection with the community that we talked about earlier.