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12.41 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Nick Raynsford): I congratulate the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis) on securing the debate. I well understand his arguments and the strength of feeling in the locality about the junction. Although I am not familiar with the junction, I do, as the righthon. Gentleman well knows, work very closely with a colleague who is extremely familiar with it.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned his meeting with my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister and Lord Whitty, the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, yesterday evening to discuss the issue. I thank him on
their behalf for the very constructive approach that he took in the meeting and the important and significant suggestions that he made, some of which he has mentioned today. I shall pass on his kind comments of appreciation for the interest that the Deputy Prime Minister has taken in the subject.
I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we take road safety issues very seriously indeed. That concern is not an add-on to our transport policy but an integral part of everything that we do.
It may be appropriate to put the matter into the national context before I discuss the specific subject to which the right hon. Gentleman has drawn my attention.
We are fortunate in having one of the best all-round road safety records in the world. Much of that is due to the high standard of road engineering and to significant advances in vehicle design and standards. Although major road improvement schemes contribute to our safety record, our attention to detail also contributes to it. Some of the most cost-effective measures for reducing casualties are fairly modest road improvements.
In the past two years alone, more than £100 million has been allocated--as part of the annual, long-term local capital expenditure round--to small-scale engineering measures specifically designed to reduce accidents and casualties. But however good our roads are, and however safe our vehicles, we must recognise that human error is one of the major contributory factors. In fact, it is a key factor in about 95 per cent. of road accidents. This is at least as much a question of attitude as of lack of driving skill.
The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions is working on a long-term road safety strategy, with targets for reducing casualties by 2010. It is taking a little longer than we had expected because we are also carrying out the speed policy review promised in last year's White Paper "A New Deal for Transport: Better for Everyone".
It will obviously be sensible to synchronise the new road safety strategy and the speed review. The right hon. Gentleman's comments about the junction amply show the relevance of linking the two issues. Excessive or inappropriate speed is a factor in a third of road casualties, and persuading drivers to keep to a safe speed is likely to be our biggest challenge in the next decade.
Our current aim is to publish the strategy in the autumn. It will cover a range of road safety issues, including driver training; child safety; pedestrians and cyclists; impairment through drink, drugs or fatigue; vehicle standards; enforcement of penalties; and, of course, speed.
The strategy will set a target for reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured. As previously announced, the target will be no less demanding than the 1987 target of a one-third reduction in all casualties by 2000. We are also considering a target to prevent any increase in casualties, including relatively minor injuries.
We also recognise the need to ensure that safety is at the heart of our developing integrated transport policy. We have agreed exactly that approach with the Highways Agency, which looks after the motorways and trunk roads for which Ministers are directly responsible. The agency's business plan for 1999-2000 contains proposals to invest £78 million in improving road safety on the trunk road network.
The guidance that we have issued to local authorities for putting together their local transport plans says that we expect them to consider road safety issues in all relevant policies, including social policies and measures to encourage walking and cycling. We shall be looking to local authorities to establish a strategic approach to their road safety problems, and to work in partnership with others to develop local solutions to local problems.
For example, it can take many years to deliver expensive engineering work. In the meantime, there is scope for local authorities, the Highways Agency and other partners--such as the police--to introduce short-term measures to minimise accidents until the long-term answer can be delivered. These new arrangements for local transport plans offer the flexibility to tackle problems with imagination and to develop alternative solutions.
We run highly successful advertising campaigns and road safety initiatives such as the drink drive campaign, the campaign to persuade everyone to wear seat belts in the back of the car as well as in the front, and the campaign to rehabilitate drink drivers and to get reoffending rates down. All those national initiatives will help road safety generally, not excluding on the A63 at Melton, but I recognise that the accident record there is a cause for special concern, as the right hon. Gentleman highlighted in his speech.
For the three years prior to 1997, the accident record near the traffic-signal-controlled junction at Melton increased from nine personal injury accidents in 1994 to 15 in 1996. There was an encouraging drop in accidents in 1997, after some low-cost improvements had been undertaken--mainly to the road surface--but that trend was reversed in 1998.
Although we do not have full details of the accident record in 1999 to date, I am fully aware of the fatal accident in March that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, and I know about the two damage-only accidents in the area on 30 April, which would not feature in the statistics usually kept by the Department.
The need for a significant improvement at Melton has long been recognised. A scheme for a two-level junction was introduced into the roads programme in 1987. That scheme has had a chequered history, with significant local debate about its layout and its impact in the intervening period. A preferred route was announced as long ago as September 1991. Progress was then stalled as a result of decisions in 1994 to seek a lower-cost solution. Alternatives at that stage again attracted local opposition. Those were overcome by 1995, and a different preferred solution was published. Further progress was suspended on that scheme following the review of the roads programme in 1995.
On coming to office, the Labour Government had to undertake a full and comprehensive review of the roads programme that we inherited, to assess its affordability and its contribution to the integrated transport policies that we intend to develop. That detailed and comprehensive assessment was undertaken during 1997 and the early part of 1998. The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the integrated transport White Paper, "A New Deal for Transport: Better for Everyone", was published in July 1998 and was immediately followed by our report on our review of the roads programme, "A New Deal for Trunk Roads in England".
I am very pleased that, in that reassessment, we were able to recognise the importance of the scheme at Melton. However, because of the lack of progress with the scheme prior to 1997, it was not sufficiently developed to be available to be included in our targeted programme of improvements for schemes for which we had secured funding. However, recognising its importance, we included it in a very restricted list of only seven exceptionally important schemes in the whole of England. All those schemes must have road-based solutions, and we intend to make progress with them as swiftly as possible. I shall return to timing issues in a moment. Schemes will be progressed through their preparatory stages so that if, after full appraisal and statutory procedure, they are endorsed, they can be taken forward without delay.
On 10 December last year, Lord Whitty announced the timing of the schemes included in our programme. It was announced that the next step for the Melton interchange is the publication of draft orders in 2000-01. Those orders will cover matters such as the positions of slip roads, alterations to side roads and, possibly, the compulsory acquisition of land. People will have the right to comment or object, and, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, a public inquiry may be necessary.
I have already said that we will take the scheme forward as quickly as possible, subject to the views of the regional planning conference at the appropriate time. I hope that it will be possible to complete the project, assuming that it receives the necessary approvals, well before the 2006 date mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman. Were a public inquiry to be necessary following public objections, that would impact on the time scale, so he will understand why I cannot give a more precise indication. However, I can assure him that we intend to proceed urgently with the project, even though we cannot deliver it immediately, for the reasons that I have outlined.
In the meantime, we shall not ignore the serious problems at the site. The Highways Agency and the police will continue to work to identify small-scale measures that can be introduced quickly to improve safety at the junction. I have already mentioned that work undertaken in 1997 had an immediate effect on the safety record, albeit only for a short time. That work improved the skid resistance of the approaches to the junction, and other measures were introduced to raise driver awareness. It is extremely disappointing that the effectiveness of those measures seems to have been so short-lived.
The Highways Agency has taken immediate steps to address the deterioration since then and the consequences of the recent fatal accident in March, which highlighted the continuing problem. The agency has increased the length of time at which all signals at the junction show a red light, giving more time for traffic to clear the junction before other streams of traffic receive a green light. This measure could increase the length of queues at the junction, but, in similar situations elsewhere, it has improved safety and reduced the type of accidents that occur at Melton.
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