Clause 4 - General aims
Railways and Transport Safety Bill
10:45 am
Mr John Randall (Uxbridge, Conservative)
I find myself in the strange position of thinking that the Liberal Democrat amendment has a great deal of merit. For them to put a bit of backbone into something is rather remarkable.
''Desirability'' does not mean much. To put it in personal terms, I recognise the desirability of losing weight, but my wife might say that it is not one of my objectives. With that example in mind, keeping desirability in the clause makes it meaningless. We all agree that the objective of the RAIB should be to improve the safety of railways, but it not just a matter of desirability. It must be a firm objective. For that reason, I support the Liberal Democrats on this occasion.