Draft Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) (Amendment) (No. 5) Regulations 2021

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2021 General Committees

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

I rise to speak on behalf of my constituents, but also as chair of the all-party towing and trailer safety group. I put on record my strong opposition to the regulations on the Floor of the House on 8 November. Since then, the Government have created such chaos, through the announcement in September of this measure, which has still not been brought into law, that I have frankly become less assured, and more concerned, as the weeks have gone on. We are now unleashing thousands of untrained, unsafe and unqualified drivers of trailers on to our roads. It really does beggar belief that we are still doing this.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South mentioned the answers Baroness Vere of Norbiton gave to questions tabled by the noble Baroness Randerson and Lord Bassam. I do not know if you have seen answers like this, Mr Dowd, in your time in the House, but the answers we have had to questions asking the Government

“what data they hold on the safety impact of the B+E car and trailer test; and what criteria they will use to review the impact on safety of the Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) (Amendment) (No. 5) Regulations 2021 after three years”

beggar belief. The answer states:

“There is not currently any statistical evidence to categorically say that competence and skills will worsen if drivers do not take a statutory test to tow a trailer.”

In that case, frankly, I do not know why we are taking a driving test at all. Baroness Vere goes on to say:

“Road safety has significantly improved over recent decades for several reasons”—

we do not dispute that—

“and it is therefore difficult to identify how much the car trailer test…has made a difference since it was introduced in 1997…The number of trailer accidents is low, with the proportion of accidents of cars/vans towing a trailer compared to all car/van accidents, as roughly 0.45% in 2019.”

Over the past four years, the all-party parliamentary group on trailer and towing safety has worked steadfastly with the Department for Transport to gather data and information. The problem with further improving safety is that there has not been any more data and information.

Baroness Vere goes on to say:

“In respect of the demographics of the drivers towing trailers, our statistics show that individuals generally only start getting their car and trailer licence (Category B+E licences) from their late 30s and 40s onwards”.

If this is such a crisis, what is stopping drivers in their 20s from driving these trailers without a test? I have the support of the Association of British Insurers and of the Road Haulage Association, because they know that it is not safe—with all due respect to 22-year-olds—to put a 22-year-old on the roads, untested and unqualified, driving those trailers. I have spoken to very many people in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, including people like me who, as the Minister has said, do not need the test. None of us thinks that we are competent to drive those trailers without training and testing. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South said, we already know that 30% of people who have been trained and tested fail.

As I said in November, this move is reckless and dangerous. We know that 50% of trailers on the roads are already not compliant, as shown by the APPG’s work over the past few years, and that 30% of people fail the test. We know that the Government do not know the impact of their decisions, and that the so-called review after three years is a hollow commitment based on no data. I hope that the Minister will respond to my hon. Friend by explaining what on earth the criteria will be that are used to assess these regulations when they are reviewed in three years’ time. I will be here in three years’ time, and will hold the Government to their commitments. I promised my constituents Scott and Donna Hussey that I would do all I can to honour the memory of their son through “Tow Safe 4 Freddie”. I am grateful for the fact that the Government will continue their commitment to that campaign, but I am really quite appalled that we are back here again today, and I sincerely hope that, as a result of these regulations, we do not see the sort of reckless and unsafe driving on the roads that I fear we will.