Mr. Taylor, it is always a delight to see you in the Chair, particularly when we are debating something that I know you will find very important, because in a country where we succeed in lowering the number of deaths and injuries among drivers by a sizeable amount each year, deaths and injuries among novice drivers nevertheless continue to rise in a way that the Select Committee on Transport finds absolutely unacceptable.

How does one define a novice driver? Although the bulk of the Committee’s evidence relates to young drivers, one can be a novice driver later in life if one does not have sufficient experience, because one defines a novice driver as someone who has been driving for less than three years. Although we took a great deal of evidence about the problem of controlling the motor car, we found that, almost inevitably, the fears and worries of a large number of our population relate to young drivers, because they constitute a disproportionate number of the people who are affected.

It is almost axiomatic that young males feel that the process is a passing of some ritual—that they must be able to drive themselves all over the United Kingdom, irrespective of the state of the vehicle in which they are driving. If one thinks about the people who take driving tests, one realises that any measure that seeks to limit their experience will be resisted. Even though various Governments have genuinely accepted that deaths from road accidents and the damage that can be done by long-term injuries are very real, they have brought in a series of measures which, somehow or other, has not addressed the size and difficulty of the problem.

Our report states that

“in 1998, drivers aged 17-21 accounted for 7 per cent. of the total driving population, but they comprised 13 per cent. of drivers involved in collisions; one in eight driving licence holders is aged under 25, yet one in three drivers who die in a collision is under 25, and almost one in two drivers killed at night is under 25; 27 per cent. of 17-19 year-old males are involved in a road collision as a driver in their first year of driving; 1,077 people died in 2005 in crashes involving a driver aged 17-25”.

Those figures mean that we are not convincing either the young or those who support the young in accessing motor vehicles of their responsibility for keeping not only themselves alive, but everyone else in a happy state.

We were particularly concerned about whether the Government could at least move towards doing something about this great problem. The scale of the casualties is clear, and the driver training regime, which is the beginning of many difficulties, must be reformed as a matter of urgency. It is clear from the evidence that we took that we need a more structured learning programme, a minimum learning period, and ongoing assessment, because we cannot just assume that if people can fill in a series of tick boxes and participate in mandatory group activities, they have acquired the expertise or the experience that frequently gets drivers out of trouble on the road. We too often rely on incremental changes, which have not produced the required results.

The Committee said:

“The Department for Transport should assess the risk that any changes to the training and testing regime will lead to an increase in licensing offences.”

Furthermore, if the Home Office continues to treat traffic offences as less important than the other core tasks of the police force, we will find it difficult to bring home to the public, and to police, the dangers of bad driving and the difficulties that arise when people drive either drunk or under the influence of drugs.

Serious driving offences ought to be included in the offences-brought-to-justice target for the police. We are always told that their new toys, which are important, such as automated number plate recognition, enable them to stop people, acquire much more information and make an impact well beyond simple traffic enforcement. However, if there are no traffic police available, and if chief constables feel that traffice enforcement is the least important function of the police, the horrifying situation in my constituency will continue whereby even after some cars have crashed and four young people have been killed or severely injured, there is still an excrescence of the same problem. In other words, whatever we are doing, either by enforcement, by carrot or by stick, we are not making it work, and we must consider other options.

The Department ought to do much more about road safety education, and insist that the Department for Children, Schools and Families assists it. The two Departments ought to work closely and ensure that people are targeted at a young enough age to change their attitudes towards driving. Young people frequently think that they are invincible, and that whatever they do will inevitably be safe, because it never crosses their mind that there is any difficulty. By the time they find out, however, they may very well be dead, so we, as a nation, must examine not only the vulnerability of novice drivers, but how we can change their attitudes and the way in which they learn and are assessed throughout their learning period.

I appreciate that we are discussing drivers, but my hon. Friend mentioned the education process. I do not know whether she or other Members have witnessed what I witness regularly, but young pedestrians simply wander into the middle of the road, with no concept of vehicles’ speed or the danger in which they put themselves. There should be an education process for pedestrians, too, alongside whatever the education system can do to enable young people to recognise the dangers that exist on the road for them as drivers in later life.

I accept that point, but the issue goes further. It is about not simply pedestrians, but cyclists and all people who use the road. In this day and age, they frequently demonstrate a cavalier approach not only to the safety of the people whom they encounter, but to their own safety, which I find difficult to apprehend.

The Committee suggested that

“the evidence of the consequent prevention of death and serious injury would justify the introduction of a 12-month learning period.”

We took a great deal of evidence on the matter, considered it carefully and said that

“a 12-month minimum learning period should be introduced as part of the structured approach to learning to drive.”

Of course, there would be an increase in the minimum age at which someone was entitled to a full driving licence, but, we continued,

“given the risks involved, it seems reasonable that the minimum age for holding a full driving licence should be 18 years.”

We also made recommendations about the various ways in which the measure could be implemented and the various issues that flowed from that.

I thank my hon. Friend for the report and the work that the Transport Committee has undertaken. One of my constituents, a young man named David Rees, has taken the time to read it and to write to me about it. He is particularly worried about the suggested 12-month learning period and has made the point that it could be very expensive and an unfair burden on young people, many of whom do not have parents who could cover the costs, or who come from families for which the financial challenge would be great.

We understood and debated that, but the reality is that if people are to be taught properly—after all, that is the beginning of the method that we were concerned with—they will have to pay. Driving lessons are not cheap, as many parents will know. We are saying that there should be a 12-month period in which they must gain and demonstrate experience, which would be an added hazard in some ways, but my hon. Friend will know that the real danger at the moment is that even with our existing machinery, a large number of young people seem to be driving without any licence at all. That means by definition that they have no insurance and contributes to the difficulties that arise.

In the long run, the proposal would be cheaper for young people. At the moment, they are expected to pay extortionate insurance costs because of the likelihood of their having accidents. If they are trained better, become better drivers and have fewer accidents, their insurance premiums will go down in the long term. I therefore do not accept that the cost will be prohibitive. In the long term, the proposal will save them money.

That is a valid point. Also, we were concerned by the clear evidence that people were taking exams for someone else. There were fraudulent cases. There were 70 convictions of offences arising from driving test impersonation. Another 75 people received cautions. A further 96 court cases are pending and 502 investigations are ongoing. We are dealing not just with people who are worried about the costs, but with those who think that it is quite all right to pay somebody else to get them a licence and then to go back on the road and drive. I find that worrying.

I do not wish to take up too much time, but the Department needs to take the report seriously. The Committee talked about the role of the insurance industry and the sort of driving tests that we have, and specifically about the role of penalties. I hope that the Department is saying urgently that, since the Road Traffic (New Drivers) Act 1995 has not succeeded in meeting its original objectives, its application and implementation ought to be reviewed. If the Department can assure me that it is beginning to do that and will come up with useful answers in a short time, we shall feel that our work has been worth while.

We are concerned that penalties of disqualification and licence revocation are not working as a deterrent and are being widely flouted. If we are to use penalties, they must be commensurate and effective. Something like vehicle forfeiture would at least impress upon the minds of those who are not playing by the rules that the matter is serious and savage. I used to threaten my late husband with the fact that if I wanted to murder him, I would use a motor car. In this country, we quite cheerfully kill and injure a large number of people every year with them. They are one of the greatest sources of death and injury, yet somehow or other we do not seem to feel that that is a serious matter that ought to be dealt with urgently.

I am interested in the idea in the report of graduated driver licensing. Good examples are given of countries that have increased the tariff of when young people should be able both to drive and drive alone. However, although there are good examples, there are other parts of the world where people can obtain a driving licence easily and use it to drive in this country. Did the Committee consider that? I fear that there are people who are not just young and inexperienced but have had no formal training.

That is relevant in my part of the country, because we have had a problem with an influx of eastern European drivers who have frequently flouted traffic laws, I think sometimes because they have simply not understood them. They certainly were not properly trained. The matter was not part of the remit of this report, but we have raised it with the Department more than once.

We are a bit sad and disappointed that there has not been a lot of progress since the publication in October of the Government’s response to our report. We are told all the time that there is going to be a consultation document, but it has not been published and seems further away now than it was last October. It is more than a year since the Department published the second three-year review of progress towards the 2010 casualty reduction target, which referred to the need to

“reform fundamentally the way people learn to drive.”

If that is the case, we need to ask why the consultation has not begun, and we need to put into operation whatever changes it comes up with, as long as the House of Commons has had the time to examine them in detail.

Everyone understands that the reform needs are complex. They are not simple because human beings are not simple, and their relationship with the combustion engine is the least simple thing in the whole of their lives. But the agony that is brought to any family by a death or serious injury is compounded if it comes in a motor car accident. Every Member of Parliament must deal in their surgery with families who are bereaved and completely bereft because they do not understand exactly what has happened or the reason for it.

I expect the Department to say not only that it will start urgent reform but that it will make its recommendations to Parliament very shortly. Otherwise, we shall continue to lose large numbers of young people to a wanton, pointless and utterly dispiriting pattern of injury and death that will cost us all dearly. I am proud of the report and of the members of my Committee who helped me to come to its conclusions. Unless the Department can say today what practical results it is offering us, we shall feel that, once again, a real opportunity has been lost.

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Lady—is that right?

indicated dissent.

No? The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody). We were having a discussion earlier and I expected to be corrected on that immediately. She should be a right hon. Lady, because she is a doyenne of this place. She is one of the most valued, highly respected and dedicated Members in the House. When she speaks, the House listens. She leads her Committee with great dedication and dynamism and produces good, common-sense-based reports, and this is one such example.

The hon. Lady mentioned attitudes and the invincibility problem, particularly for young men, not so much for young girls. She is absolutely right about that. It is a great problem and we must address it and find ways to get more training.

The hon. Gentleman makes the point that that is true particularly of young men, not young women. I was talking to the association of driving instructors in my constituency. It pointed out that young women are starting to drive like young men, which must be a concern to us all.

If that is the case, I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has disabused me, and the matter should be addressed. I am sure that it will come through on the insurance statistics, as does the driving of young men.

Young people have one thing in their favour in relation to driving: they are generally more responsible with drinking and driving than more mature drivers. We should not allow today’s debate to pass without mentioning that.

The hon. Lady talked about young people driving without a licence, often when they are under 17. Under-age drivers can be prosecuted for driving

“otherwise than in accordance with a licence”,

contrary to section 87 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. Paragraph 19 of schedule 2 to the Road Traffic Act 1991 provides that an obligatory endorsement with points in the range of three to six and a discretionary disqualification will follow in a case where

“the offender’s driving would not have been in accordance with any licence that could have been granted to him”

or, indeed, her. As a driving licence cannot be granted to a 16-year-old, it is argued that such an offence would not be endorseable. Although the provision might have to be interpreted by the divisional court, the submission is that that is somewhat tortuous reasoning, and the Department should consider that issue in the review that I hope it will undertake. The hon. Lady’s report calls for that in the section on “The role of penalties”.

Totally unlicensed drivers, including those who are too young to hold, or to have held, a licence are surely in the same position as those who have a licence but have failed to comply with the conditions thereof. It is difficult to see any logic in an alternative interpretation.

I shall now get to my reason for speaking in the debate. Every order of disqualification must commence from the moment the order is pronounced. That ruling comes from several cases, including Taylor v. Kenyon 1952 2 All E.R. 726. I do not choose that case to embarrass you, Mr. Taylor; I am sure that you were not even born in 1952. My point is that a disqualification cannot be suspended until a young person reaches 17, so if someone is caught driving at 14, 15 or 16 and gets a suspension, it starts immediately and they may be able to start driving as soon as they are 17. If they are given a year’s suspension at 16, it should start when they are eligible to drive, not before. That is total nonsense. I hope that the Department will correct that error in the law. I congratulate the Committee again on its excellent report.

I hope that the debate will help to resolve the scandal of the needless loss of young people’s lives on our roads. We are all familiar with this issue, but it is rarely pinpointed or considered to be of major concern and to require action. I suspect that we are all only too familiar with reading newspaper reports about young people who have been killed in car crashes, often at night and in a group. We all read about such cases and feel how tragic they are for the families and friends of the young people concerned, but it is not always understood that such incidents are not isolated. They are part of a pattern in which young people continue to be killed on our roads in large numbers. Although safety in general is improving, that is not reflected in what happens to young people on our roads. In 2005, 1,200 young drivers were either killed or seriously injured on our roads. That is more than three people a day, so we are talking about many young people. This issue is counter to the general trend of more lives being saved on our roads.

The Chairman of our Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), who so ably guided us through the inquiry, mentioned statistics such as that in 1998, drivers aged between 17 and 21 accounted for 7 per cent. of the driving population but 13 per cent. of drivers in collisions. One in eight driving licence holders is under 25, but one in three drivers involved in a collision is under 25. Almost half of all drivers killed at night are under 25. One frightening statistic that we might remember is that 27 per cent. of 17 to 19-year-old males are involved in road collisions in their first year of driving. That stark figure should concern us all.

The statistics showed the Committee that the problem is far greater with young males than with young females. That might have changed, but no change was reflected in the figures that we saw. In 2006, 870 of the 17 to 19-year-olds killed or seriously injured on our roads were male and 281 were female. That balance reflects what has happened over several years, and it seems still to be the situation. The problem is about new and young drivers, and seems to be more strongly related to young males than to young females. Of course, our concern must be equal whoever is being killed or injured, seriously or otherwise.

The Committee considered various ways of addressing the problem and made several specific recommendations, all of which were practical and capable of being implemented. We considered restructuring the driving test to ensure that no one can pass it without one year of driving experience. That would involve raising the age of eligibility for passing the driving test to 18, and would stop what often happens now when people are anxious to drive. They rush their driving instruction, compressing it into a short period, and find out how to pass their test without having experience of different driving conditions. The evidence seems to show that experience of different driving conditions is very relevant to road safety.

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend’s comments. On the idea of not allowing people to take the test until they have been learning to drive for about a year, one thing that seems to help is the pass plus programme. If it succeeds in reducing numbers of accidents, should we not incorporate some of its objectives into driving lessons as youngsters head towards their tests? Young people focus on the day on which they can pass their test, but we should build more into the programme. Does my hon. Friend see the advantage of incorporating aspects of pass plus into it?

Yes, we considered the pass plus programme and similar initiatives, such as one conducted by Lancashire county council, but we were concerned that no full analysis was available of the benefits of such programmes. However, we were impressed by what we heard in our evidence sessions and we thought that such programmes should be incorporated into people’s experience of driving.

When we considered restructuring the driving test, we recognised that it might involve changing how driving instructors are trained. In the evidence that we received, it was made clear that that was already under way, and that it was already recognised as being important.

The second area that we looked at was graduated licence restrictions. We asked for consideration of some restrictions on new drivers, possibly within the first year after they had passed the test, and based on evidence as to whether the changes would deliver results. In particular, we suggested that there should be a rule that virtually no alcohol was to be taken by young drivers. I am aware that there is a general consultation taking place on this issue in relation to all drivers.

We also looked at the possibility of restrictions on new drivers carrying young passengers at night. We singled that out because it seems that there is a high accident and death rate at particular times and in particular circumstances.

I again refer to representations made by young people in my constituency, many of whom work in the entertainment and service industries. They told me that they rely on their cars late at night because public transport is poor, and that they share transport after working. One example is finishing work at McDonald’s at 12 midnight and then having to make their way home. They felt that such a restriction would be particularly unfair. I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree that one of the important elements of the review is that it actually considers young people, their lives, the things that affect them, and how they would be affected in the long term.

I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. I accept that what she says is important. Indeed, I myself have heard those comments from young people since our report was published. It is for such reasons that we suggested that the changes be implemented in the light of experience as to whether they in fact deliver results. We are aware that such changes would affect the mobility of young people, and that that can be extremely important for employment as well as social life. That is why we made suggestions rather than recommending something definite. Of course, while I am sure that my hon. Friend’s points are valid, they do have to be weighed against the other priority of saving lives and preserving good health.

In the third section, we considered changing attitudes. There is considerable evidence that young people, particularly young males, often see driving and driving styles as something to do with personality. They have an idea that what others might call aggressive driving is showing strong character or something of that nature. Since such driving is often identified with serious injury and death, we felt that it should be addressed, not just at the point of driving but much earlier. That is why we looked at schools, for example, and training about and awareness of safety issues in relation to driving, and to attitude and personality development as well.

I understand that these issues have been addressed in Sweden, and it would be interesting to know what progress has been made there. I was pleased with the Government’s reference in their response to the possibility of a foundation level qualification in road safety. Those are all things that we felt should be considered.

We have received the Government’s response to our report. They responded in detail to several proposals. What comes out of the response is a feeling that the Government are looking at these matters seriously, but instead of agreeing to any specific proposal, they are talking about more consultation. The response refers to producing a consultation document. As far as I am aware, that document has not yet been produced, so it would be helpful if the Minister indicated when it will be produced, and when action might be taken.

It is clear that our proposals are not without problems. There is the issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mrs. James) raised about effects on young people’s mobility. There is also the important question of enforceability. All those things matter, but perhaps what matters above all is saving young lives.

It is important that serious consideration be given not just to the content of the report but to its recommendations. We were struck by the broad consensus among the witnesses who gave evidence to our inquiry. Safety groups, driving instructors, road traffic organisations, members of the general public, local authorities and the police all agreed on the need to do something, and on the direction in which we are moving. I hope that at the end of this debate we will hear how things can be taken forward, because our prime consideration is to save lives.

I apologise for not being here for the start of the debate. I am pleased that we are having this debate today. The timing is good. I am sure that the Minister will be able to tell us that the consultation will take place fairly soon. I read a report in one of the tabloids that seemed to be based on a leak from the document. Of course, I do not believe everything that is in the tabloids—perhaps the Minister could confirm the report. We need consultation; it should be comprehensive but short. I believe there is a consensus in the country and in the House that we need to change the way that novice drivers learn to drive, and on the emphasis in the Select Committee report. As the Chairman forcefully said, any delay will cost lives.

My concern came about because of several horrendous accidents on the outskirts of my constituency of Carlisle. If people look at the problem in detail, they will find that rural roads, not urban roads, are often involved. I asked the Library for information about the number of youngsters being killed or seriously injured on rural roads. Like the rest of the statistics on road traffic accidents, the numbers were coming down. We must remember that this is one of the safest countries in which to drive, except perhaps for Sweden. In 2000, for some reason, the numbers for rural roads started to increase dramatically, from 318 to 382, I believe, and that was when my attention was drawn to the problem.

The mother of a young teenage girl who had been killed tragically in one of the incidents outside my constituency came to see me. Her daughter had been a passenger in the car of a novice driver. At our meeting, the mother explained things and asked at the end, “What are you going to do about it?” It was difficult to reply to that lady. She knew that it was too late for her daughter, but she did not want other people to experience the same anguish.

May I say to my hon. Friend that we in the Department are also concerned that, although progress is being made in reducing deaths and serious injuries across the country, the numbers are not falling as quickly on rural roads? We announced only two weeks ago an £8 million package for four beacon authorities—four authorities that have been doing better than others—to pilot some additional research and address the problem of rural roads in particular. That evidence will be used to shape policy for rural roads in the future. My hon. Friend was right to raise the issue.

I am grateful for that; I was not aware of that programme. I do not know whether the beacon authorities have been chosen; but if they have not, perhaps Cumbria county council can be considered, as it has been active in this area.

As I said, that lady came to see me and explained what had gone wrong—the tragedy of it all—and that she did not want other parents to go through what she did. When the Select Committee report came out, I took a copy to her. I said, “There you are.” She said, “That’s fine, but it’s only words. What we need is action.” That is what I say to the Minister today.

At the time, I also received correspondence from the then chief constable of Cumbria, Michael Baxter, and Cumbria police and the Cumbria road safety partnership also gave evidence to the Committee, because they were concerned about the issue. They are the people who must go to the accidents, deal with the problems and then knock on the parents’ doors, and they feel that greatly. I must congratulate the partnership, however, because Cumbria’s road traffic accident figures for 2007 are out, and the number of casualties is down right across the board. The number of fatalities has gone down from 55 to 44, and there has been a large reduction in the number of young people involved. Does the Minister have any preliminary figures for the rest of the country, so that we can find out whether Cumbria’s figures represent a trend or are simply the result of the work that has been done there?

Let me turn now to one or two aspects of the report. I appreciate why youngsters will not like a minimum 12-month learning period, but they will understand it because they are used to minimum learning periods. It takes two years to do an A-level and three years to do a degree, so youngsters should understand that it will take a year to get a driving licence. There is a logic to that.

I was talking to members of the Driving Instructors Association in my constituency just before Christmas, and one instructor said that somebody had rung up to cancel her son’s lesson because it was too frosty and she did not want him to be learning to drive in winter conditions. But people should learn to drive throughout the seasons, because as they become more experienced, they learn to adjust to situations, whether slippery roads or fog.

I remember the first time that I drove on my own on a rural road at night, and it was frightening. It makes no sense to say that we can train people to drive on a dual carriageway, but not a motorway, when they can go on a motorway the day after they have passed their test. We should therefore be looking at a 12-month period and at having a logbook for that period. Not all novice drivers are youngsters, but youngsters are used to doing project work and to building up logs for their examinations. During that period, however, they must also have a minimum amount of professional tuition to ensure that they have gone through the programme.

My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mrs. James) said that youngsters would have difficulties, particularly if they lived in rural areas, and I am conscious of that. Young people want their independence and freedom, and they need to be able to drive to get employment or to continue their education as apprentices or at college, but there is little or no public transport in rural areas, which makes youngsters very dependent on their parents.

Although I did not move an amendment on this issue in Committee and although this seems contrary to what I have said, will the Minister consider bringing down to 16 and a half the age at which people can start learning to drive under instruction? That would still give people a year. That sounds a bit radical and it might be counter-productive, but we must accept that there is a problem.

If we are not careful, youngsters will give up on the driving test and not take it at all. Although it is illegal not to have a licence, people do not need one to drive a car, and if we are not careful, fewer people will take the test. The other problem is that cars are not the only sort of mechanical transport, so if we prevent people from driving them, some will graduate to motorbikes, which, as we all know, are far more dangerous than cars. There must, therefore, be a balance.

I am totally in favour of the 12-month proposals, but the training should be professionally guided. I have some concerns about the effect that the proposals might have, particularly on youngsters in rural areas, and, as has been said, there is the issue of people going to work in the entertainments industry. In years gone by, that would have been sorted out by the employer, who would have got taxis to take people home, and I suspect that that could still happen.

Another issue is the graduated licence. Under such an arrangement, there would be restrictions on newly qualified drivers, perhaps for a year. Again, that is probably correct.

I want to raise an issue that I raised in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman). The focus for young people is on passing the test, but we all know that they can sit the theory test on their 17th birthday and be driving on the roads within two or three months if everything goes well in the practical test. I accept that we need to do something to broaden that period, but one of the big issues is that there are no restrictions on the size of car that young people can drive, so someone aged 17 could drive a 2 or 3-litre car. Does my hon. Friend think that there should be restrictions on the size of vehicle that people can drive under a graduated licence process?

As my hon. Friend will know, I agree with him on many issues, but I disagree with him on that one. There is a myth that youngsters will get into a brand-new BMW with a 3-litre engine and tear off, but that rarely happens. The reality, as the Committee found, is that the vast majority of youngsters, including those involved in accidents, drive cars that are 13 years old on average. They are small cars, which have fewer safety features than the brand-new BMW and give little protection in an accident, but they can go fast as well.

The hon. Gentleman’s final point was one that I was going to make. Even cars with the smallest engines can still do 70 and 80 mph.

People will drive those small cars on their own and everything will be fine, but the tragedy is that, when they put five of their mates in, the car will react and corner completely differently. As we have seen so often, it is the small cars—the Peugeots and the Golfs—that go off the road, hit trees and cause carnage. Although it is rare that I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown), I cannot agree with him on this occasion.

Another issue relating to the graduated driving licence is the introduction of a different alcohol level for newly qualified drivers, which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside Mrs. Ellman mentioned. Once we have two levels, the issue starts to become complex, but introducing different levels is probably the right approach. We all know that a little alcohol has more effect on young drivers, so we should try to reduce the permitted level. Of course, there is a feeling that many youngsters are more responsible than older people on this issue, but we all know that youngsters cannot take a drink as well as those who are 10 years older. On balance, therefore, I think that a different approach is right, although the issue is complicated, and I know that the police will be concerned.

Another issue is enforcement. At one point, there was a dispute between the then chief constable of Cumbria and the then Transport Minister. The Minister felt that the police would not enforce provisions such as those that we are discussing, but the chief constable said that they would. We must therefore put the onus on the police, and if they do not enforce the provisions, that is their responsibility.

We talk about novice drivers, and some people may think that what is proposed is unfair to more mature novice drivers and that it would be more pertinent if the title of the report referred to young drivers. However, it would not be possible to justify that. A 12-month learning experience for any driver will mean that they will be a better driver. I do not think that an age consideration should be included.

If we are to adopt 12-month training, we should expect a higher pass rate, on the basis that people have been trained well. I got my first provisional licence when I was 17. I think I was about 19 and a half, having failed several tests, when I got a full licence. If we extend the period, we should get a higher proportion of passes, so people will not be disadvantaged. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) has already said that time is of the essence. Every year that we delay, there will be more deaths and more family tragedies. We shall never eliminate them totally, but if we can bring about a 10 or 20 per cent. reduction in the number of young people who are killed, we shall have done a good day’s work.

I am delighted to take part, albeit briefly, in the debate. I had not intended to, but I am intrigued by the answers that the Government have given to the Select Committee report. Having read many responses to many reports—I exonerate the Minister, because fortunately he was not in office at the time—I wonder who signed off the responses to the present report, which raise more questions than they answer. The issues are important and should be discussed, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will give me some assurances that attitudes have changed somewhat.

In the Select Committee’s initial recommendations, recommendation 16 dealt with the need for an evaluation of the impact of the hazard perception test. The Government’s response states:

“Statistically, accidents are not common, so that in order to conduct an evaluation of the impact of the hazard perception test on accident rates, it has been necessary to collect data for a sufficiently large sample to ascertain whether the effects are statistically significant. This takes time.”

We all know that the most likely way in which a young person will die prematurely is in a road traffic accident. That is, historically, a fact of life. One does not want to labour the point about how risky young people’s lives are, but it is a truism that that is what they most need to be aware of. For the Department to say that it cannot carry out an evaluation of whether the hazard perception test has been of value seems bizarre. I have my own misgivings about aspects of the hazard perception test, but it exists and presumably it is of value. One would have hoped that people who had had accidents would be cross-examined in some way about the degree to which the accident was caused by lack of training or preparation.

Recommendation 19 is about the driving test and whether it needs to be reformed and should include a high-speed element. The Government’s response is:

“The majority of driving tests already incorporate a section of driving on a high speed road.”

Either such an element is incorporated in the test or it is not. It seems a funny sort of test otherwise. One can imagine an exam in which one group of students takes 10 questions and another takes 12. How can there be any crossover between those groups? Of course, one of the ways in which someone is most likely to kill themselves is by not knowing how to drive properly on a fast road. Some of us would argue that motorway driving must be part of the examination process, although I accept that that would be difficult in some parts of the country, because it would be necessary to drive 100 miles to get to the nearest motorway. However, it is not impossible to find a relatively fast road. The fact that it is still not laid down that someone should, in the driving test, be tested for capability on fast roads seems bizarre and unfair.

My hon. Friends the Members for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) stressed the importance of making progress with driver education. I would not say that the Government’s response on that issue was unhelpful, although it is not long, but it discusses the possibility of developing a foundation level qualification. The Government’s desire is to keep people—I do not mean that in a pejorative way, so I shall say encourage people to stay—in education or training until the age of 18. Several schools and colleges in my area are willing to offer driver training as part of the inducement, and some already do—that is one of the reasons why people choose their college, but I am not sure whether that is within all the rules, so I shall not labour the point. So in reality such training is already going on.

What makes the current situation strange is that we have an audience who, unlike many other audiences, is already easy to access. I know that there is a group of those not in education, employment or training, and I do not pretend that it is not a difficult group. There may be some research suggesting that that group is particularly vulnerable to road traffic accidents. However, given that we can easily get access to many thousands of young people, I cannot see why we cannot develop, in places of education, appropriate ways to teach people not necessarily the totality of driving but certainly some of the theory work, so that they have an advantage. That is a good reason for them to stay in education, and a good way to develop their skills. I am not sure whether the qualification would be the be all and end all, but we need thousands of entrants to the driving industry, so it would seem that, rather than being a superficial, unnecessary appendage to the education of our young people, spending more time on that training is pretty sensible.

Cycling proficiency has continued despite everything, and I think it is incredibly important that young people should be given some training at a young age in the joys but also the dangers of cycling, so why do we not take the same approach with driving? The vast majority of the group who take cycling proficiency will go on to learn to drive, but while we have them ready and willing—if we make it worth their while, of course they will be willing—we ignore the opportunity. Things are left to chance.

Recommendation 40 is about penalties and whether enough emphasis is placed on road traffic duties and active policing. We all know that there has been a covert strategy to reduce the amount of time, effort and certainly money that police forces put into their road traffic duties. Whether there has ever been an edict from the top, or whether that area of policing has just been seen as a bit of a soft touch, we all know about that. The Government’s response states:

“It is a matter for individual chief officers to decide how exactly police resources are deployed.”

This is a context in which far more people are in danger than in any other walk of life. In comparison with the chance of being murdered, the chance that someone will be involved in a serious accident is exponentially greater. Yet we have increasingly allowed the police or those who make decisions on their behalf to walk away from that. I know that the idea is that we have an alternative in the form of safety cameras and those lovely traffic officers going up and down the motorway. I am not against that, but I am against people thinking that they can drive badly and get away with it, and the penalties often being so pathetic that people think society is not serious about the issue.

Young people know that they can drive badly and get away with it. If they drive badly when they are young, there is no evidence to suggest that they will drive better when they are older. One hopes so, but although I do not know of any research to suggest this, there are worries about how bad drivers are created, and why they continue to drive badly.

I turn to rural roads. The Department for Transport has done very good work—it deserves congratulations on that—in making roads safer in urban areas through measures such as the safer cities initiative in Gloucester, next door to me, although a number of the measures were controversial, and unpopular with some people. Safety on rural roads seems to be going in the other direction, and there are more accidents, fatalities and serious injuries on such roads. We must recognise that and ensure that young people particularly—they grow up in rural areas as well as urban areas—receive driver training. I am not pretending that that could be introduced in a test, because there would be huge disparity between urban and rural areas. Training could be provided on faster roads, but one could not always take someone to a rural road.

We must ensure that people are conversant with different road conditions. Most road accidents, sadly, occur because people do not drive according to road and climatic conditions, let alone what they may have done to their bodies earlier. All those factors contribute to the problem, and we do not take it seriously enough, although we are better in this country than some others. That is why I raised with my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich the issue of people from different countries who can drive on British roads with no problem if they have a licence that qualifies them to do so. That causes tensions, and if they have not been trained, there are likely to be all sorts of adverse consequences.

I want the Minister to treat the report seriously, and to have a word with whoever drafted the response because, at best, it was not terribly positive, and to move on. The matter is important, not superficial. All of us who have children worry about our kids when they learn to drive, and what will happen to them. As hon. Members have said, we all bear the consequences, because we meet people who have lost their nearest and dearest, often through no fault of their own. The problem deserves attention and, thankfully, this debate has provided that.

I pay tribute to the amount of work that the Select Committee does, and in particular to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), not because I happen to be a member of the Committee but because the House knows that the Committee’s work has been excellent, certainly since I came to Parliament. It does an excellent job in keeping the Department for Transport, the Secretary of State and all its Ministers on their toes.

I thank the road safety charities and other organisations for their work in promoting road safety, particularly Brake, which puts a lot of time and energy into the all-party group.

I warmly welcome this debate on the Transport Committee’s report on novice drivers. I have a personal interest in road safety, and I am a member of the all-party road safety group. The number of young people killed and seriously injured on our roads is appalling. Significant progress has been made in reducing the overall number of deaths and serious injuries, but whatever figures are used, the proportion of young people who are killed or seriously injured is disproportionately high. I shall give a few figures.

In 2006, 794 drivers or passengers under 25 were killed on our roads. One in eight car drivers are under 25, but one in four drivers who died on the roads in 2006 were under 25. One in two drivers killed at night are under 25, and 27 per cent. of 17 to 19-year-old men are involved in a collision as a driver in their first year of driving. Young drivers under 20 are nearly 12 times more likely to be at fault for an accident than men aged between 35 and 65. The number of deaths of drivers aged 17 to 20 rose between 1992 and 2005, but the number of young people getting licences fell, so the death rate rose considerably more than the raw figures suggest.

It will come as no surprise to hon. Members that, as a member of the Transport Committee, I support, on the whole, the recommendations in its report. The Liberal Democrats are undertaking a transport policy review, and this report will provide a valuable contribution to that review.

This afternoon, I want to concentrate on four issues concerning novice drivers. The first is driver training and testing. The learner driver training scheme clearly requires a complete overhaul. There is an attitude among learners that they are learning to pass the test, rather than learning to drive. That was clearly evident when a number of Committee members went to observe young driver attitudes in the Royal Automobile Club’s study. At the same time, driving instructors understandably focus their attention on getting people through the test, rather than teaching them how to drive.

According to a number of witnesses, voluntary additional schemes such as pass plus have helped to reduce novice driver casualties, but evidence from the Association of British Insurers suggests that that has resulted in only a marginal improvement in accident rates. I suspect that that is partly because the people who go on the pass plus courses are likely to be more responsible, cautious and conscientious about their driving in the first place. The voluntary nature of pass plus has resulted in only 14 per cent. of people who have passed the driving test taking up the additional training.

In 2002, the Driving Standards Agency launched the voluntary driver record logbook, the effectiveness of which was to have been reported on at the end of last year. That has not yet happened, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give an update on that. Any proposed changes to the testing process should incorporate a compulsory logbook if that proves to have been effective.

I support the view that there should be a minimum learning period of 12 months. The learning should be structured so that new drivers cannot cram the training into a couple of months at the end of the 12-month period. That would also give novice drivers the opportunity to drive in different weather conditions. I was amazed to hear the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) say that a mother cancelled her son’s driving lesson because it was too frosty. One would have thought that that was exactly the sort of weather in which learners should have lessons, so that they gain valuable experience.

Surely it cannot be right that, in theory, a novice driver can take their test having never driven at night, in the rain, in the snow or anywhere outside the small driving test area. The driver training scheme should include a minimum number of driving hours, and there is a strong case for compulsory lessons with a qualified instructor, as well as for reviewing the age and experience required for someone who is not a qualified instructor to supervise a learner driver. At the same time, we must ensure that the quality of tuition from qualified instructors is of an equally high standard across the board—from the large national organisations to the small local driving instructors who work alone.

Evidence from New Zealand, which introduced graduated licences as early as 1987, suggests that they have been successful in cutting casualty rates among novice drivers. There has been a reduction in car-crash injuries of 23 per cent. for 15 to 19-year-olds and 12 per cent. for 20 to 24-year-olds. Restrictions imposed on novice drivers in New Zealand include a ban on driving between 10 pm and 5 am, not being allowed to carry passengers unless accompanied by a fully licensed adult driver, a reduced drink-drive limit and the requirement to take a further practical test after the restricted period.

There is a case for introducing restrictions on night-time driving and carrying passengers late at night. I accept that young people often use cars to get home from work, but the reality is that they have to get to and from their jobs before they learn to drive. It is not a good enough reason to stop the restriction on driving at night, especially when one in two casualties at night are young drivers. We have to take that seriously and consider imposing some sort of sanctions on young people driving at night. The insurance industry can and must play its part in reducing the risk by imposing restrictions on drivers using their cars at night, or offering lower premiums to young drivers who are prepared to stay off the road at night.

I disagree with the Select Committee report on lowering the drink-drive limit for young drivers. That sends out the wrong signal and suggests that it is okay for people to drink more after they have gained a certain level of driving experience. However, I welcome proposals to lower the drink-drive limit. Previously, my party has tabled amendments to reduce the limits to bring them into line with most of Europe. We want people’s attitude to be that one drink is one too many, not that they must have 12 month’s driving experience before it is okay to have a drink and then drive.

All the measures proposed in the report to reduce deaths and serious injuries warrant full consideration by the Government, but at the same time we need to look at how to change young people’s attitudes to driving. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents states:

“Young drivers, especially men, tend to be overconfident. They consistently rate their own skills as above average.”

I think that that is the case in all walks of life, not just in respect of driving. It continues:

“They commonly see ‘good driving’ as the ability to master the controls of the car at higher speeds. They tend to over-estimate their ability to avoid the hazard and its consequences. It takes new drivers up to two seconds longer to react to hazardous situations than more experienced drivers.”

The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety noted in focus groups that driving gives young people, especially men, a sense of identity, self-confidence and the opportunity to express themselves. It is therefore little wonder that accident rates are higher among novice drivers. Research by Reading university showed that young people of secondary school age were already developing undesirable attitudes to driving and an affinity for speed.

There seems to be strong evidence for early intervention and education, and a strong case for the inclusion of road safety in the national curriculum and for it to be brought into schools. There is compelling evidence from the Under 17 Car Club that practical driver education between the ages of 11 and 16 has a positive impact on people’s driving. Statistics show that former Under 17 Car Club members have an accident rate that is half that of other novice drivers.

There would, of course, be a cost implication for improved education, but the potential benefits would make it money well spent. As well as cutting down on untold personal tragedies, the financial savings from eradicating fatal and serious injury accidents would, according to the Department for Transport’s figures, be in the region of £2,645 million, based on 2006 figures. However, I accept that that would apply only if there had been no fatalities or serious injuries, rather than the 794 that I mentioned earlier.

Once again, I welcome the debate. I hope that this debate and the report of the Transport Committee play their part in bringing about real, lasting changes to road safety strategy that will have a lasting and positive impact on the number of young people whose lives are devastated or ended on our roads.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Taylor, despite the fact that it reminds me of the drubbing that I received in my 1997 general election campaign.

I pay tribute to the work of the Transport Committee, of which I was a member for the first 18 months after my election to the House, and to its Chairman. There are not so many people who only need to be referred to by their first names—Kylie, Madonna and Boris spring to mind—but, certainly, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) falls into that category. I remember, in the corridor outside the Select Committee, having great fun chatting to the hapless witnesses and describing the interrogation that was likely to befall them. I am not sure that all the hon. Lady’s tactics would meet the requirements of the Geneva convention for the interrogation of prisoners.

I also pay tribute to the support given by the secretariat of the Committee and to the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety.

As somebody with one child of driving age and another who is almost of driving age, this issue really concerns me. My father-in-law, who was in North Yorkshire police for his entire career, has told me about occasions when he had to knock on the door to inform parents that their children had been involved in fatal or very serious accidents. It is no consolation to hear that ours is one of the safest countries in the world in which to drive. However, figures released today by the Department show that, in the third quarter of 2007, further progress had been made.

We have heard the statistics, which make grim reading. In 1998, 7 per cent. of the driving population was between 17 and 21 years of age, but 13 per cent. of collisions involved those drivers; almost half the drivers killed at night are under 25; and 27 per cent. of 17 to 19-year-old males involved in road collisions are in their first year of driving.

We have also heard about the gender imbalance. My hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) mentioned that, despite the fact that the figures are slowly creeping up among women drivers, there is still a big discrepancy between accidents involving boys and girls. The latest figures show that 870 males between 17 and 19 years of age were killed and seriously injured, but the comparable figure for female drivers is 281. This is, by and large, a big problem with male drivers. We should be careful, when changing the rules, not to discriminate unfairly against women drivers, who probably are not so much to blame.

Of course, other factors come into play. When one sees a young man and his girlfriend in the car, it is almost always the young man who is driving. In the days of the sun-strip, the name “Wayne” was nearly always over the driver’s seat not “Sharon”. We need to be very careful.

We also need to look at the balance between skills, which can be tested and taught, and attitude. Unfortunately, the more we look, the more we see that the problem relates to the attitude of drivers, rather than skills. Perhaps that is the difference between boys and girls in this regard. Perhaps the girls have a much more responsible attitude to driving, rather than having, necessarily, much better skills—although I am sure that the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich would argue that women have better skills in almost every field.

When the report was in the newspapers over Christmas, when the Government were floating a few ideas, such as a 12-month learning period, an official at the Department was quoted as saying, “Of course, there may be one or two Lewis Hamiltons who could get through the test in a much shorter period.” I have to tell the Minister that Lewis Hamilton was clocked doing 122 mph in France in January this year. The problem is not a person’s skills but their attitude. If the test were made more difficult, would we stop the people who are causing the problems getting through it? I think not. Often, the people who fly through the test with flying colours, rather than those who scrape through, cause problems on the roads.

We also have a problem with some of the TV programmes that young people watch. I would not want to say a word against Jeremy Clarkson and his excellent “Top Gear” programme, but there is no doubt that his team revel in speed. The message that comes across is that speed is cool and sexy. If someone cannot afford a Ferrari to attract the opposite sex, perhaps they can drive their Ford Escort like a Ferrari. That is a real problem.

It is not just TV programmes that are to blame, but also video games.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. There is no doubt that a young man who has spent all weekend driving on a computer game may well have convinced himself that his driving skills are much greater than they actually are.

The Minister and I attended a recent transport conference at which a psychologist talked about how people’s minds develop. He said that the frontal lobe executive functions in young men are not sufficiently developed to foresee the problems down the road. In many cases, that can be a good thing. Our armed forces exploit the fact that young men do not always see the consequences of their actions. The bravery that they are showing in Iraq and Afghanistan would probably be tempered if they were in their 50s and had the frontal lobe executive functions of an older person. All too often, young people do not see the consequences of their actions.

Another problem is that, when a car is full of passengers, a degree of egging on goes on. Certainly, we have banned my son from going in the car with one of his friends because we know how bad his driving is. If he had four or five young men in the car with him—or, even worse, young girls—he would drive in an even more dangerous way. I recently visited Roundhay school and talked to a group of sixth-formers. They were astounded to hear the fact that, for the girls in the room, the person most likely to kill them was their boyfriend. The most likely cause of death for a young girl these days is in a car accident. In most cases, that car is driven by their boyfriend.

We have had some mention of the problem of alcohol and where the limit should be set and whether we should have a different limit for young drivers. With alcohol, it is an interesting fact that people who want to adhere to the law give a fair safety margin. With speeding, however, people will drive at the limit or perhaps a little bit over. In the case of drink-driving, people who wish to obey the law will drive under that limit by quite a reasonable margin. The safe driving speed is, in many cases, well below the limit. There is a case for having a lower drink-drive limit for younger drivers. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Leech) that such a move will send out the wrong message. At six points, we already have a lower points limit for young drivers in connection with speeding. As the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) said, as people get older, they become more used to drinking alcohol sensibly.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way a second time. There is a very strong case for reducing the limit for everyone, because we should encourage people not to drink at all when they are driving andnot to think that it is okay to have one drink. The suggestion that we have a lower limit for younger drivers sends out the wrong signal: people might think that, when they get through the probationary period, it is okay to have a drink. It is not.

We will agree to differ on that one. I am not so sure whether that message would be sent out. We have a six-point limit on speeding and that does not send out the message that it is okay to speed. It recognises that young drivers are less able to cope with speed and less able to cope with drinking.

I will now touch on a couple of points that have not been raised in the debate. There are groups of people who have not been covered by the report but who are still novice drivers. The first group is made up of returnees. For example, when I was 19, I took my motorcycle test on a BSA Bantam, which was capable of about 50 mph. I could go out now and become a born-again biker and buy a brand new Ducati 900 and roar down the motorways and around the country roads at breakneck speed. Under the definition in the report, those people do not fall into the novice driver category, but novices they are. They are novices at handling the power and the speed of those vehicles. If we look at the figures, we can see that motorcyclists and people in their 40s and 50s are a group that we need to address. Many returnees are older drivers. Widows, for example, may have had a driving licence for many years but not driven, and then they find that they have to start driving. Perhaps we should look at some training for them.

There is also another group of older novices: people who do not have a driving licence. Joyce Walker, a redoubtable lady in my village, recently lost her husband, who was a former Desert Rat tank commander. Despite being well into her 70s, she decided that she would have to learn to drive and get a licence, because driving was the only way that she could get to the shops or have any sort of social life. I would be concerned if measures introduced to make the tests more difficult and to make it take longer for younger drivers to get a licence impinged on that type of driver; they are not the sort of people who are causing death and carnage on our roads.

Is the hon. Gentleman advocating that we have two standards; that young people should do a year and older people should not?

Not at all. My point is that any change that is introduced must take into account the fact that not everyone who learns to drive is under 20. We cannot have an easy test and a hard test, but the universal regulations should recognise the fact that not only younger drivers take the driving test in this country. The same is true for some foreign drivers. Although some residents of Commonwealth countries can get a British driving licence, others must retake their test. It is difficult to tell someone who has been driving all their life—possibly even a professional driver—that they must wait 12 months to get their licence, despite the fact that they have been driving for many years in a different country.

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman again, but he is speaking from the Conservative Front Bench. Will he tell us whether he supports the Select Committee with regard to the year-long learning period?

It is something that we are looking at very closely. We will unveil our Green Paper towards the end of the summer, but a number of issues need to be addressed. The year-long period would not meet our requirements in the case of rural-proofing policy. As has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mrs. James), many young people need to access work and education. Often, the only way that they can do that is by driving. If they have to wait until they are 18 before they can drive and then face a 12-month period before they can get a full licence, that would create problems. They could not access work and education, which they are accessing at the moment. We could not support in its crude sense a 12-month period, although the idea floated by the hon. Member for Carlisle Mr. Martlew is not daft at all. Perhaps people could start some sort of instructed driving before the age of 17.

One of the problems recognised in the report is that many people passed their tests without having any proper instruction. Although this is not our policy at the moment—I am just thinking out loud, following the point made by the hon. Member for Carlisle—I suspect that young people would have an incentive to undergo proper driving instruction if that was the only way that they could gain experience of driving before the age of 17. There is a precedent in the case of HGV vehicles and our armed forces. Members of the armed forces can drive vehicles that they would not otherwise be able to drive until the age of 21.

The other issue that we need to address is that of the CO₂ implications. As a parent living nowhere near anything that my children would want to go to, we have a lot of double journeys, taking children to ballet classes, scouts and so on. If young people could not drive, there would be a lot more double journeys and parents driving around the countryside.

The point made about schools was a very good one. A friend of mine was recently caught by a speed camera. He was slightly over the limit, so he was given the option of going on an educational course. He was rather cynical about the whole thing, but when he came back, he felt that it had been a useful operation. He did not feel that people would just sit through the course without paying attention. It was a very useful experience for him. I am not sure how wide the practice is of showing such videos in schools, but a day spent in school instructing children in the dangers of driving and of speed would be a day spent very well indeed.

We see a number of problems with a 12-month learning period, but that is not to say that we would not want to examine ways of making the test more relevant to modern driving and trying to address the attitude problems, as opposed to just the skills problems. Of course, attitude is perhaps something that we cannot teach people just by giving them a few more lessons.

The insurance industry has an important role to play. We have heard that the pass plus course is taken by only 14 per cent. of drivers, despite the fact that many insurance companies offer a discount for drivers with pass plus. Some insurance companies offer policies with night-time curfews, which I think are good. The Department is conducting a trial on fitting satellite-activated speed limiters to cars. Sadly, many of the cars driven by young drivers are old and it would not be appropriate to fit that technology, but perhaps a way forward would be for insurance companies to offer lower premiums for drivers if they have a satellite-activated speed limiter fitted to their car.

We need more action against unlicensed and uninsured drivers and cars without an MOT. The Government could do much more about the problem of car cloning. It is much easier for people to get away with driving without a licence, an MOT or insurance if they put a false plate on their car. The ease with which people can obtain a false plate to stick on a car is overdue for attention by the Government.

In considering the way forward, we need to strike a balance between the freedom of young drivers to enjoy the benefits of mobility and our responsibility to safeguard young vulnerable people. We must look to evidence-based proposals coming from the Government. The Minister is wise enough not to be drawn into knee-jerk legislation or regulation and will base his decisions on research and experience in other countries. I look forward to the publication of the consultation document and to engaging positively with Her Majesty’s Government to gain a wide consensus on any new proposal. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. Perhaps he will be more expansive than the Government response to the Select Committee’s report, which could perhaps be described as a holding position. I look forward to progress and further announcements from the Government.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr. Taylor. I shall make some opening remarks and then deal with points raised by hon. Members. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) on raising this important issue again. I acknowledge her strong personal interest and that of the Transport Committee, of which she is the distinguished Chair. She is right to press the Government on the matter and to recall that, in our evidence to the Committee last year, we stated that we planned to have started a consultation by now. I join the tributes paid to the Committee for its work in this area and more generally.

I would like to make it clear at the outset that the Government share the concerns expressed this afternoon, in earlier debates and by the Select Committee. I am very grateful that the Committee supported the reform plans that we outlined to it in evidence. I strongly agree with its recommendation that new measures should be clearly based on evidence. We have plenty to publish when our consultation begins. It has taken longer than we had hoped to publish consultation proposals, but that is not a signal that we are going back on them. We remain fully committed to the fundamental reform of driver training and testing that we promised last year.

When the issue was last debated in this Chamber, on 17 October 2007, I began my remarks with a defence of the majority of young drivers, who want to be safe and responsible. I would like this afternoon to make some observations about the general standard of driving, against which novice drivers are often measured.

We have made considerable progress in reducing the casualty toll on our roads, as a number of hon. Members have acknowledged. Those of us with long memories remember a time when there were more than 20 deaths every day. Now, that number is less than nine. There has been progress, but that is still a terrible toll. Our record is one of the best in the world but, as has been said, more than 3,000 people are still killed on our roads every year and more than 28,000 more are seriously injured.

We know that most accidents are down to basic errors by people who would be regarded as experienced drivers. I am not setting aside the over-representation of new drivers in the figures, which is very worrying, but they are still a minority in the accident record. Despite all the changes that we have made over many years, the general standard of driving needs improvement. People are not very ready to accept criticism of their own driving, but we know that new drivers learn a lot from those who are more experienced, especially about what is perceived to be an acceptable standard of driving.

New drivers have too many accidents. That makes their insurance almost unaffordable. For a few—but too many—those accidents bring death and disability. They are especially vulnerable in the first few months after passing the test—immediately after they have completed the training that should have made them safe drivers. Young people are almost fatalistic about having accidents as novice drivers. They know that they must do some training to pass the test, but they seem to expect to teach themselves “real driving” once they have passed. They have no guide for that self-instruction. They think that they will pick it up like everyone else, perhaps experiencing a knock or two on the way. They hope sooner or later to become “experienced drivers” in that hit-and-miss fashion.

Naturally, we do not believe that young people should be left to learn such a vital skill in that fashion. They deserve good training that makes them safe drivers who can enjoy the freedoms that adulthood brings. A driving licence should be a passport to good jobs that involve driving and should give insurers the confidence to offer better rates to novice drivers.

Last February, we promised fundamental reform of driver training and testing. We said that we needed a comprehensive package of reforms: education to influence attitudes before the age of 17, thorough training and a reformed assessment process. We put at the heart of our reform a new competence framework setting out the knowledge, skills and attitude required for safe driving. That will be the foundation of all our work. There will be an overhaul of the driving test, making it a thorough, modern and accessible assessment of the key components of safe driving. None of this is simple, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich said in opening the debate. The practical challenge is immense. For one thing, 2 million practical tests are taken every year. Too many candidates attempt the test too soon and fail, but about 750,000 people pass. A new system must be able to handle numbers on that scale, and we have to be sure that changes will make the system better and will work before we change the rules.

We have therefore been talking, and listening, to a wide range of interests, starting with the customers, including people learning to drive. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mrs. James), who is no longer in her place, mentioned that we should be consulting young people, and they can and have made a valuable contribution to our thinking. They may not have been involved in earlier debates about changes to driver training and testing, but we have already started talking to them this time, not only about how things might change but about how to encourage young people to respond to the consultation.

Employers and insurers want to do business with young people. More and more new jobs involve driving, especially delivering goods and services to people’s homes. However, employers tell us that a driving licence does not give them the confidence that a recruit is safe, and some are investing considerable effort and expense in training new employees. Insurers tell us the same: they have to treat all young people as high risk because there is no way of distinguishing the safe ones. We want to work with employers and insurers to get the training right. Meeting their needs will help everyone who is learning to drive.

Many others have a keen interest in road safety and the welfare of young people. There are more than 40,000 registered driving instructors, who work with learners every day and have a first-hand view of the present arrangements and the scope to improve. We have spoken to some of them to shape our consultation proposals. Like everyone else, I am keen for the consultation paper to be issued so that we can engage fully in this important debate. It will be published soon. We hope that it will be out before the Easter recess—earlier if possible—but we also want to consider the matters raised today.

My hon. Friend is being very helpful, and we look forward to the publication of the consultation before the Easter recess, as I believe he said. How long will the consultation take?

I have no reason to believe that it will be anything other than the normal 12-week consultation, as per Cabinet rules. Clearly, the volume of responses to the consultation will determine how quickly we can sift and analyse them but, given how much work has already been undertaken and how much is in the public domain, we want to move as expeditiously as possible. Clearly, I strongly take the point that my hon. Friend and others made that time is of the essence, because the longer we take to reform and improve the system, the more people will be exposed to the dangers on our roads that we want to reduce and to minimise.

I recognise that some hon. Members have made suggestions that were not in the outline proposals we published last February on, for example, restrictions for learners and new drivers. We must find ways to curb the reckless few who persist in bad and dangerous driving, and those who bypass the tests and drive unlicensed and uninsured, which was a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich. We want an open debate, and we intend that all such issues should be addressed.

Young people value being able to drive, and so they should. Our ambition is to deliver for them a fit-for-purpose driver training and assessment system, so that they can enjoy what is an important freedom safely and responsibly.

I shall respond to some of the points made by colleagues. My hon. Friend and others correctly raised the question of policing on roads and the attention paid to it by chief constables in police forces up and down the country. She is aware that we are in continuous dialogue with the Home Office on how it prioritises traffic offences. Some 100,000 cars were seized and impounded because they were not insured. Such figures demonstrate that the police are clearly moving to address roads policing not as a stand-alone issue—it is a serious enough, given what we are talking about—but because many people who flout driving rules and regulations are engaged in criminal activity, and there is clearly a connection between those two things.

I spoke at the Association of Chief Police Officers and Police Federation road safety conferences this year, as did the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker). We both got a sense that such matters are higher on the police agenda than they perhaps have been for some little time. Certainly, the latest evidence shows that there was a 6 per cent. rise in the number of people who were breathalysed in the Christmas campaign. Encouragingly, there was a 20 per cent. reduction in those who failed the test.

Of course, the number of people who were breathalysed had previously dropped—the increase the Minister mentioned must be seen in that light. I am happy to have the Minister’s assurance that those matters are still being debated, but I must ask this simple question: is there anything in the core responsibilities of chief constables that insists on traffic enforcement as a basic and important priority?

My hon. Friend will have to forgive me because I cannot remember the name of the document on which the police recently consulted, but, on the indicators, the police measure offences such as those she described, whereas they did not before. That is a key indicator that the matter is being taken more seriously. If they do not measure performance, how do we know how seriously they are taking the matter? I hope that that gives her some reassurance, but I shall be happy to write to her on the matter in due course.

My hon. Friend also asked about the Road Traffic (New Drivers) Act 1995. It will be reviewed as part of a wider look at remedial training for offenders. It is important to look at how to correct the bad driving that leads to a new driver committing offences and earning points. The main consultation document will concentrate on learners, but it will contain the promise of more proposals on remedial training, for example, and we should move on to that matter after the consultation.

The hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) raised the question of suspended disqualifications, and individuals who are given a one-year ban at, say, 16, which of course would not mean anything because they are not able to drive until they are 17. The bench has discretion to pass a sentence that will apply when a young person reaches the age at which they would be able to drive. One would hope that a bench passing a disqualification sentence would be aware that there is no point in passing a sentence that is not of such a length, because it would have no impact at all on the driver. The bench has the discretion, so it ought to deal with the matter.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) raised the matter of rural roads. I intervened in his speech—he generously gave way. I can tell him that the beacon counties that were chosen were Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Devon and Norfolk, because they had a particularly good record. We therefore felt that those counties would use the money more wisely. However, the information and evidence that show how they have determined what works for them will be shared with all other interested local authorities, so that it will benefit the whole country.

Does my hon. Friend accept that the obverse must also be true? The constituency of the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) has a terrible reputation because of the number of accidents that involve younger people. It might be an idea to look at blackspots. The Forest of Dean is a terrible blackspot—hardly a week goes by without another fatality or serious injury in that part of the world.

My hon. Friend makes a strong point in respect of that area. Safety is very much a matter for local road safety partnerships and local authorities. We will give, if I recall correctly, an additional £110 million each year for the next three years to local authorities to deal with additional road safety issues. However, the additional £8 million over the next couple of years is specifically for authorities in areas where there are problems, and which have a track record of good practice in dealing with rural roads, to look at innovative ways in which to address the dangerous areas on their roads, and to share that information with the rest of us.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle and the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill), who spoke for the Conservatives, raised the question of the statistics for the first three quarters of 2007, which were announced today. The figures indicate a 5 per cent. reduction in the number of people killed in the first three quarters, but it is obviously too early to say whether that constitutes a resumption of the downward trend—we need to be wary of interpreting the figures that way too early.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) raised the question of the hazard perception test and why it was taking so long. The aim of the test was to make new drivers safer in the first three years. We had to monitor a sample for that period, and it was introduced only in 2003. I can assure him that the analysis is complete and will be published with the consultation document, so that people can see the outcome. The evidence seems to suggest, however, that no significant benefits were identified, because trainer drivers did not take what they learned through hazard perception testing into on-road activity. There was a disconnection, which will manifest itself in the analysis that people will have the opportunity to see in due course.

My hon. Friend also asked about putting high-speed roads into tests. That is done wherever practical, but in areas such as inner London, there are no high-speed roads. That is a matter to which he may wish to return during the consultation.

The hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Leech) raised the question of the driver logbook. The project has been extended. However, it is one of the things that we will think about using in the new system. It is a means of structuring learning over the competence framework, so the idea has not disappeared.

The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby talked about older drivers. I can assure him that we are talking about safe driving for life—we need to develop support and training products for older people and experienced motorists. He made some good points in respect of one or two of his constituents who returned to driving after a considerable absence.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned some of the educational initiatives up and down the country. The Driving Standards Agency goes into schools with a package called “Arrive Alive”, and it aims to have a gold-standard offering for schools. The agency sponsors an excellent teaching pack and DVD aimed at attitudes that hon. Members may wish to take note of. A number of initiatives have been designed by local authorities, road safety partnerships, police forces, and fire and rescue services up and down the country, but the DSA is working on those matters.

A lot of work is being undertaken on the cloning of number plates, not least in increasing the number of automatic number plate recognition cameras and in ensuring that number plates are trade-marked. Immediately someone commits an offence in a cloned vehicle, the matter will be raised by the innocent victim, who will obviously report the matter to the authorities. In such instances, the vehicle will become tagged as having been cloned.

The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby also cited the fact that many young male drivers think of themselves as being good behind the wheel. They are not alone. A survey in the RAC annual report for 2007 revealed that 98 per cent. of British motorists say that they are safe drivers. That may be immodest of the 98 per cent., but I am more worried about the other 2 per cent. that said that they were not safe drivers. All drivers have delusions as to how competent and safe they are. I am sure that we all make mistakes. Fortunately, most of us are lucky enough to get away with them. Trying to set out a benchmark that most people should strive to achieve is most important.

In conclusion, I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich, the members of the Committee and the other hon. Members who participated in this debate that it was useful and as informative as ever. I hope that colleagues accept that we will be making progress soon, and I obviously look forward to their contribution to the consultation in due course.

With the permission of the House, Mr. Taylor, I should like to speak again.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will not think that I am being churlish if I say that when a handsome and talented young man has been saying to me for more than a year, “I will soon be doing something,” I somehow wonder why he is taking a year.

I know of my hon. Friend’s practical experience, and I know that I do not have to explain to him that, over this weekend, on Friday and Saturday night, many families will not be clear where their teenage children have gone. The first that they will know of the terrible tragedy that has struck them will be when someone from the emergency services, usually the police, comes to the door. I know that when he was in the fire service, my hon. Friend must have spent a lot of time cutting people out of cars, and that he might say, “It is one of those things that I no longer have to do, for which I am deeply grateful.”

What we are talking about today is not an abstract. It is not an argument about how we frame a law that will affect our economy—although it will have direct economic effects—or a law that will change the way we organise accident and emergency services in the NHS. Nor is it about how we should change the education services. The report is simply saying to the Government, “You have a direct responsibility, but also a very direct ability to affect what we have been talking about.”

Everybody’s lives will be affected by the kind of road safety that we demand. The report was written because all members of the Committee, irrespective of their age, their background, their gender or their political view, feel that we have got it wrong. As a nation, we are increasingly trying to deal with the question of road safety, yet we are still faced with terrifying figures and with what happens to young drivers and those who kill not only themselves but other young people.

The Committee is privileged to have Mr. Gifford as an adviser on road safety. He is the mover and shaker behind PACTS—the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety. The reality, however, is that every day we see the effects of such accidents. Unless we can do more than simply talk about it, large numbers of young people will die—tonight, tomorrow night, Saturday night, Sunday night. Some of them will take a certain amount of time to die, some of them will die quickly. Some of them will die through no fault of their own, because they were with someone who was behaving recklessly. Some of them will be very bright, and some will not.

The reality is that, as a Government, we ought to be saying that whatever we do has to be done now, not in a month’s time. The Select Committee should not be asked to come back after another year. It should not have to say to the Government, “You had this consultation. Then you had this amount of time to work out what the regulations were. You have been talking to the various Departments, the police and the various voluntary organisations, and only now are you thinking about what you are going to do.” No.

Some of the things that are to be decided will be unpopular. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mrs. James) said that young people do not know how they are going to get to work and how they are going to get back again, but if they are rushing to their death, it is not much of an advance. We ought to be prepared to say things to them that are uncomfortable, and we ought to be prepared to look for practical and useful support for them.

The Minister understands the problem. We did not have to highlight it today. He understands it not only from his political experience but from his practical experience in the emergency services. He must have seen the impact better than many of us. Indeed, he must have seen some things that many of us would never want to see. But I still say to him—urgency, urgency, a timetable, a result, a response. That is what we are asking for.

My Committee will not go away. It does not matter who is Chairman. It is very nice to be paid all those lovely compliments—I love it, of course. The reality is that it does not matter who is in the Chair. The message will be the same: the House of Commons demands that the Government of the day should accept that this is a waste that we can no longer afford. It is absurd. If we went out and consciously sacrificed large numbers of our young people, it could not be more bizarre.

We are not here to talk about statistics. We are talking about broken limbs and broken lives—and above all about a Government who have not only a duty to do something to change things but a duty to do so now. I am grateful to the Minister. I shall be even more grateful when he comes to the House to give us an exact programme, an exact timetable and an exact indication of the real, practical measures that will be brought in before the year is out, to change the terrible picture that we see every night in our cities.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes past Four o'clock.