Yes, Sir. I seek to oppose the Bill. I hope that, having heard my speech, the hon. Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis) will not push the matter to a Division.

First, we all agree that we are dealing with a serious problem. Every year, 800 to 900 people die because a driver or motor cycle rider drives above the legal limit. That is a serious issue. I shall not draw a comparison with the present conflict in the Gulf, because the position is different there. Deaths on the road caused by alcohol are wholly unnecessary. There is agreement across the House on that issue.

The second question to be addressed is whether countries can learn from each other. The answer is that clearly each can. What happens in New South Wales matters. What happens in Sweden matters. I shall argue that what happens in Britain matters too. My third point is that the test is what works best in this country.

We should re-emphasise what a ghastlly business drink-related crashes are. Only when people understand how terrible such crashes are can they realise that what matters is not necessarily what is popular but what will work and will continue to work. By tradition, I quote the words of Auberon Waugh in The Spectator of 15 February 1986, in an article which affected me when I took over responsibility for a time for cutting road casualties. He wrote: Every day people lose husbands, wives, parents, children and friends they have loved, whose loss reduces every perspective to dullness, misery and pain. In many cases they carry the pain around with them for the rest of their lives. At moments like this one realises that under the surface of polite society there is a great well of sadness and bereavement, an aspect of the human condition which is as inescapable as it is seldom remarked, yet looming larger in many people's lives than any of the things they pretend to think important. That was written after the death of his sister. He continued: The only excuse for allowing my own howl of anguish to be heard is to give those as yet unbereaved a glimpse into the hellish blackness lying under the surface". Those words help to emphasise that we must consider whether the procedure offered by the hon. Gentleman is likely to be more effective than the present procedure.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join me in considering the comparison with New South Wales and the figures that he presented. It is an occasional habit in this country to say that, if something is invented here, it cannot be as good as what we can learn from research overseas. There is a British tradition of saying, "What shall we do?" and then asking, "I wonder whether it will achieve anything?" Instead, people should focus on what we want to achieve and how to do so.

In New South Wales, the proportion of dead drivers above the legal limit in the year before the introduction of random breath testing was 40 per cent. Within two years, with the help of the most enormous publicity campaign and intensive general policing, the figure was reduced from 40 per cent. to 33 per cent. That was a significant and welcome improvement.

The comparative figures for Great Britain from 1982 to 1984—the same years—show that we reduced our proportion of dead drivers above the legal limit from 33 per cent. to 26 per cent.

We have achieved a reduction by the same number of percentage points with no change in the law, no change in sentencing and no change in enforcement. I could argue that changes in the law or in enforcement could make a difference, but the figures show that what was claimed for New South Wales in the years bridging the introduction of random breath testing, happened here anyway.

We want a strategy that continues to reduce the avoidable deaths and anguish caused by drink driving. The figures tend not to be quoted. The figures in New South Wales show that, in 1984, 33 per cent. of dead drivers had alcohol levels above the legal limit, while in 1989, 33 per cent. of the drivers were above the legal limit.

In Great Britain, the figures for the last year a re provisional, the others are not. In 1984, 26 per cent. of our dead drivers were above the legal limit. The figure is now down to 19 per cent. We have had the same degree of improvement since 1984 as New South Wales had when it brought in random breath testing up to 1984.

I cannot use a range of statistics in this debate, because it is too short. Any objective observer commenting on what has worked most effectively would agree that we have seen the greatest improvement here whereas, sadly, in New South Wales, a lower plateau was reached in 1984 and the figure has not changed significantly since then.

The country often quoted when discussing drink driving and random breath testing is Sweden, where 40 per cent. of those caught above the legal limit have no licence. In this country, that figure is 20 per cent. Therefore, the level of habitual drink drivers—those who continue to drink and drive even after they have been disqualified—is running at twice the level in Sweden that it is here. That, together with other evidence—[Interruption.] There is no point in Opposition Members shaking their heads: those are the facts from Sweden.

The figures show that, if we want to find a strategy that reduces drink-driving among those who are most likely to do so heavily, we may do best to continue and increase what we are doing, rather than switch to a different system.

In the past seven years in this country, we have reduced heavy drink-driving by as much as we have reduced the lighter, but still objectionable, drink-driving. Our approach has been working all the way across the board, from the alcoholic, the habitual reoffender who is caught, to those who might be called the sick and social, who are still part of the problem.

I make two recommendations to the House. First, if we were ever to introduce random breath testing, we should not do it in the way suggested by the hon. Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis)—by telling chief police officers precisely how to do part of their job—