Clause 1 - Road safety grants
Road Safety Bill
10:15 am
Mr David Jamieson (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport; Plymouth, Devonport, Labour)
All the Department's expenditure is open to scrutiny by the House, as is that of every other Department. The grants are generally not given out in advance, but are provided as recompense for a scheme that has been carried out. So, if the authority does not carry out the scheme according to the specific guidelines that we set out and the specific case that it made for the funding, it will not be given the money. There is that safeguard. We check carefully to make sure that the money will be used for the purpose that we intended and that it does not drift off to be used for a purpose not related to road safety.
This has been an illuminating debate. I hope that the power and strength of the arguments that I have put forward against the amendments mean that the Committee will resist them.