Road Traffic Act 1988 (Alcohol Limits) (Amendment) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-01-29
Topic: Transportation
John Attlee (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.