Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:53 pm on 21 March 2024.
It has been a decade since a child was killed in my constituency by a runaway trailer. Freddie was just three years old. A 2-tonne trailer came loose from a nearby car as he walked down the street near his home. The consequences of the unsecured tow hitch were fatal. Shortly after I became an MP, I met Freddie’s parents, in 2016. Since then I have campaigned to improve towing safety standards. I am grateful tonight to have the chance to focus the mind of the current Minister on this important topic, and I thank him for talking with me.
Sadly, not enough has been done over the past three years to ensure that our roads are safe for trailers. Back in 2016, when I first met the family, they had researched previous cases and learned that there were other families like theirs. This was not a one-off, and it could have been prevented if better safety checks had been in place. One example that came to light was the death of a four-year-old boy killed by a trailer that had broken free from a car in the Amber Valley constituency in 2007. The then Minister, the former Member for Poplar and Limehouse, commented at that time:
“Introducing MOT-style tests for such trailers is a possibility that we have considered before, and it is a matter that we keep under review. There have been several such accidents in recent months, and I will certainly consider the matter with officials in the Department to see whether we need to move on that”.—[Official Report,
Vol. 470, c. 1354.]
The Road Traffic Act 1988 states that it is an offence to drive an unroadworthy vehicle, and we know that there are many trailers on our roads that are dangerous and in need of repair. We need to do so much more to stop further tragedies from happening.
Since 2015, I have met many road safety Ministers, and I put on the record my thanks to Andrew Jones, Jesse Norman and Sir Michael Ellis for their time and support in looking at this issue and working with me and the family. I also thank the current Minister’s predecessors, Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Mr Holden, who have reported to the all-party parliamentary group on trailer and towing safety, which I chair.
In those years there have been many successes in the campaign. I held two trailer safety summits—in March 2017 and April 2018—in Bedminster, where the accident happened, involving Freddie’s family and key stakeholders. In July 2017 the National Trailer and Towing Association introduced the free safety checks initiative—the first of its kind in the UK—which meant that, through its network of accredited members, any light trailer could be given a free 10 to 15-minute visual inspection of key points, and a written report completed. The campaign has also worked with the Department for Transport and the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency on a campaign on driver behaviour and the creation of the hashtag #towsafe4freddie. That brings together vital information about towing safely and has hugely increased awareness of the issue among drivers.
Following my amendments to the Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill in 2018, the Government had to undertake a statutory report into trailer safety, which was published in July 2019. That was a huge milestone in the campaign. The findings of the Government’s report reinforced the urgency of the issue. As part of the actions of the report, the DVSA conducted roadside checks of light trailers between 2019 and 2021. I was able to join such a roadside check near Bristol.
From the report, we know the horrifying fact that half of all light trailers are non-compliant with safety standards. I was deeply shocked and concerned to learn that 40% of those vehicles were so dangerous that they needed immediate repairs. When people think of towing, they often think of caravans, but we know from the data that caravans and responsible commercial companies are not the issue; it is personal light trailers that contribute to these shocking statistics.
The Government know that a disgraceful number of vehicles on our roads are deeply unsafe—their own statutory report tells them that—so why have they failed to act on that information or to progress the work from the report that they said they would do? Following the statutory report in 2019, the right hon. and learned Member for Northampton North, then Minister of State at the Department for Transport, said that a “focus must be maintained on driving up the safety of these trailers.”—[Official Report,
That is absolutely imperative.
My ask of the Minister is that trailer safety be put at the forefront of the agenda once more. That is because trailer safety is a key part of safety on our roads. The potentially deadly consequences of unsecure trailers demonstrate the need for mandatory safety checks on trailers and formal testing for those using them. The statutory report made the case for that clearly: it recommended considering “revisions and improvements” to the test that drivers use to undertake in order to hold a licence to tow light vehicles—the so-called B+E test. With one in two light vehicles on our roads unroadworthy, that knowledge and training is paramount.
As the former Minister stated in 2019, in his response to the report
“there is further work in this area which the Government will take forward.”—[Official Report,
Vol. 663, c. 62WS.]
That was set out in a work programme from the statutory report. Those were actions that I and the APPG, working closely with industry, officials in the Department and Ministers, were happy to see progress. I thank all those officials for the work they did.
Yet following the 2019 election, we have had a complete U-turn. I was appalled and horrified when in 2021 the Government introduced a statutory instrument that scrapped the towing test altogether, meaning that any driver with a standard B driving licence could tow without further instruction on how to do so safely. This was a reckless decision with potentially dangerous consequences. According to Department for Transport data, 30% of people who have been trained and tested fail, yet we are now unleashing thousands of untrained, unsafe and unqualified drivers of trailers on to our roads.