In the house


These are edited extracts from the House of Commons, questions to ministers and from the EU or committees where politicians or civil servants say something of relevance to our motorcycle-related interests.


Steve Baker (Wycombe) to ask the Foreign Secretary: If he will take steps to repatriate motorcycle rider licensing powers from the European Union.


Steve Baker to ask the Secretary of State for Transport: a – What the effect on motorcycle testing and training will be of the merger of the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency and the Driving StandardsAgency. b – If he will review the governance of motorcycle testing and training following the merger of the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency and the Driving Standards Agency; and if he will make a statement. c – What assessment he has made of whether the implementation in the UK of the EU requiring certain higher speed exercises in the motorcycle test to be conducted on a limited range of off road testing areas has caused practical difficulties; and if he will make a statement


Mr Laurence Robertson(Tewsbury): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent discussions he has had with his EU counterparts on the fitting of automatic lighting to new vehicles; and if he will make a statement.


Stephen Hammond (Parliamentary Under- Secretary of State for Transport)


There have been no recent discussions with EU counterparts on the fitting of automatic lighting to new vehicles.


Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse):


When the Government


announced trials of 80 mph limits on our motorways, there was dismay at the prospect of higher emissions, higher costs for drivers and collisions at higher speeds. Will the Minister tell us whether the Government are still pressing ahead with such a dangerous policy?


Stephen Hammond:


The Government made an initial assessment of the possibility of introducing trials of 80 mph limits, but it is not a priority.


Road Safety Conference in Brussels


Speech from Vice-President Siim Kallas Minister, ladies and gentlemen.


I am delighted to be with you again to present this year’s Road


The notion that technical defects are the main problem with accidents involving motorcyclists is pure fantasy. You may like to go on line, find who your MEPs are and ask them if they would like to put a question to Mr Kallas ask- ing how he can support a statement such as the one above under the heading Road Safety Conference in Brussels. It is quite extraordinary how credible figures in the road safety debate can get hold of such erroneous


12 The ROAD


Safety PIN Award. I would like to congratulate Denmark, as represented here today by Minister Bødskov, for its impressive achievements in reducing road deaths. Motorbike and scooter riders, particularly the young, are the highest risk group of road users. Here, we have tried to do something. The main problem is that there are simply too many vehicles with technical defects on the road.


So the Commission proposed toughening vehicle testing regimes and widening their scope to include motorbikes and scooters. Today’s rules date from 1977 and do not cover two- and three-wheeled vehicles. What happened? This proposal has now been rejected twice, by EU ministers and the European Parliament’s transport committee. This is more than unfortunate – and it is yet another unnecessary political compromise.


Ed: So we are having an effect in achieving ‘an unnecessary political compromise’ but where on earth does Mr Kallas get the idea that technical defects are ‘the main problem?’


Maria Eagle MP (Garston and Halewood) Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary, responding to the latest Government confusion over motorway speed limits, said:


The chaos over plans to change motorway speed limits is extraordinary, even by the Department for Transport’s usual standards. Only a week after the Roads Minister confidently claimed that trials of a new 80mph speed limit were to go ahead, it’s clear that the Secretary of State has applied the brakes on his own reckless policy. Labour has consistently warned that a blanket increase in the motorway speed limit risked increasing deaths and serious injuries, pushing up the cost of driving and making it harder to cut the emissions that contribute to climate change. The ending of all government funding for road safety and speed cameras, while slashing the numbers of road traffic police, meant there was no realistic prospect of any increase being credibly enforced. Ministers should now end the confusion they have created and clearly rule out any increase in speed limits in this parliament.


ideas. The trouble is that such ideas can fuel ludicrous legislation that makes our lives needlessly complex and involve us in pointless costs and inconvenience. MAG’s role must be in part to challenge such misconceptions at every opportunity and you can do this so easily. IF you can’t find any of the specific address reproduced else- where here, just key in MEPs and your post code or neighbourhood. You’ll soon get there.


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