Road Safety Bill
9:25 am
Mr Christopher Chope (Shadow Minister, Environment and Transport; Christchurch, Conservative)
I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Hughes. I know that you come here with massive experience. Although you are only newly qualified, you have got rid of your L-plates and do not need any P-plates. I am sure that we will all benefit from your adjudications during the proceedings.
I also thank the Minister for his kind remarks. There is indeed now a bit of a team on the Government, Conservative and Liberal Democrat Front Benches. What the Committee shares with other recent Committees dealing with transport issues is a lack of interest in what is going from among the other parties, particularly the nationalist parties. However, we probably do not need to come back to that, as none of them is represented on this Committee, apparently at their own request.
The Minister did not make it clear that the programme motion was not approved unanimously. We voted against it because we do not see the need for such prescription as it sets out. We welcome the Minister's assurance that, if we need more time, the Government will be flexible about that. If the Minister were not under pressure from others in his party, he would probably have agreed that the Committee could sit without the benefit of timetabling. However, we take at face value his commitment to ensure that the Bill is properly scrutinised.
Conservative Members have tabled a number of amendments, as well as some new clauses. I hope that, because this is a miscellaneous Bill, there will be enough time to discuss the new clauses. I know that the Bill has been criticised by some road safety interests as a bit of a hotch-potch, but, because it is so wide-ranging, it gives people an opportunity to put forward their own ideas for changing and improving our road traffic law. I hope that we will have a chance to discuss some of those ideas in the debates on new clauses.