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The Earl of Dundee: My Lords, I support my noble friend's amendment. The Minister may object to it and point out that the Government already encourage the voluntary wearing of helmets. He might also observe correctly that helmet-wearing is of particular benefit to children off-road in parks and playgrounds. Yet helmet-wearing is very necessary in lower-speed collisions, wherever they may occur. That is what all research evidence confirms. Of course, every year there are a great many accidents and collisions when death and serious injury could have been avoided if helmets had been worn. A voluntary code will only ever achieve a small benefit or a limited improvement in helmet-wearing. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will heed my noble friend's advice and adopt the amendment.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I gladly pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, for the improvements that he has made to the amendments, and I pay tribute to his conviction in pursuing this matter, whether I agree with it or not. But even if one ignores libertarian considerations and objections to any further extension of the nanny state, the amendment still fails on practical grounds.
Children nowadays, particularly older children aged 12 or 13, are far less inclined to obey their parents or their guardians, be they temporary or permanent, than was the case 50 years ago. Most parents today are in no position to keep permanent watch on their children's outdoor activities. If the amendment confined itself to children under 12, rather than under 14, it might just be workable, although whether it is desirable is another matter. I do not think it is workable as it stands.
The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I support strongly the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen. Her Majesty's Government are encouraging children to cycle to school, providing funding for this and guidance to schools. That is very welcome, and will be of benefit to many children in terms of exercise. As an indirect consequence, however, more children will inevitably be exposed to the risk of having an accident on their bicycle.
I think I am correct in saying that the Minister does not dispute the efficacy of cycle helmets in protecting children from brain and facial injuries, so I recognise her serious concern about the enforcement of this measure. But there is a careful balance to be made here between that concern and the certainty that, if this legislation is not enacted, more children will experience severe head and facial injuries and their lives will be blighted, or they may lose their lives. Their families will have to care for a child who has been damaged in this way, perhaps to the end of their days.
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That might have been avoided, and the risk significantly decreased, if they had been wearing a helmet.
So the Government are encouraging children to get on their bikes, and I applaud that, but in that case they have a duty to minimise the risks these children experience in following the Government's wishes. I hope therefore that the Minister can accept this amendment.
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I rise only because my noble friend mentioned me, and I want to say that subsection (2)(b) has certainly improved since we last saw it, in that it ensures that the person who is to be made culpable for this offence is at least an adult. I have not had a chance to talk to my noble friend about this much, but I still have concerns, because I am not sure many parents would like it suggested that they either were in possession of the cycle immediately before the child rode it, or had custody of it. My recollection of my children is that half the time I did not know where the bicycle was, and I was jolly lucky when I knew where they were along with it. The amendment would pin a criminal responsibility on any parent if their child went out on the cycle without them knowing about it.
None of this belies the importance of children wearing safety headgear. The difficulty we are encountering here is where and how you lay that responsibility, and where the culpable area is. I do not want anyone to misunderstand. A hat on the head is essential, but how you pin the responsibility is much more difficult in legislation.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I took the riding hat legislation through your Lordships' House some years ago so that children wear riding hats on roads. They use riding hats now in fields and when they are jumping, and you hardly ever see a child without one. It is important for children who ride cycles on the roads also to have protection. They are at risk from muddy roads, icy puddles and being hit by vehicles.
Helmets for those who ride cycles should be improved. The present helmets do not seem to cover enough of the head, and this is something on which research ought to be considered and done. Head injuries should be avoided if possible. The results of a head injury can be devastating, long-lasting and very expensive—an expense to that child for the rest of their life. I hope the Government will consider this, and do something about it.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I shall not repeat what I said on Report. As a cyclist, I am afraid I cannot support this amendment. I believe strongly in wearing helmets, and that everyone should do so, but I am aware that this country's cycling organisations are totally split as to whether this should be voluntary or compulsory. They, after all, are the people who wear them and are responsible for them. We need to look further at the statistics on wearing helmets, but I still
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think it is impractical, as many other noble Lords have said, to make people over 17 responsible for what younger people do.
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, for explaining the alterations in the amendment. However, as he probably surmises, I will be resisting these two amendments, which would make it compulsory for children under 14 to wear cycle helmets. I am grateful to noble Lords, but the useful debate we have had suggests that there is a fairly even split on the compulsion or non-compulsory argument. The arguments are familiar to those of us who have debated this at previous stages of the Bill.
I have every sympathy with the noble Lord's intentions. The safety of our children on the roads is a high priority for us. We are doing well on cycling. By 2004, deaths and serious injuries of child cyclists were down by 49 per cent compared to our baseline, which is the average for 1994–98. However, we are not complacent. We are doing a lot to improve child cyclists' safety. Our programme includes the education of children, of their carers and of drivers. It includes publicity, better child cycle training and improved infrastructure. It also includes the promotion of helmets, which we believe is very important.
When it comes to compulsion, however, our view is to review the option from time to time, and we do so. Due to the current relatively low voluntary helmet-wearing rates, we will continue to try to persuade children to wear helmets. We remain concerned, though, that compulsion would affect cycling levels when we want to see an increase in cycling, and that the proposed amendment would cause enforcement difficulties, as several noble Lords have suggested. Rather than the Government interfering at this time, we think cycling is best encouraged by leaving these matters for parents, and other adults responsible for the welfare of a child, to determine.
We also feel that the greater use of cycling is more likely to be promoted by allowing parents and other responsible adults to decide for themselves how best to encourage their children to cycle. The parents will know the children in question and the local circumstances, and can decide for themselves what kind of enforcement is appropriate. We do not think that making a parent potentially criminally liable is conducive to promoting and encouraging the use of cycles at this stage.
We also remain concerned that, when it comes to enforcement of this proposed offence by the state, there may well be practical difficulties in determining who is actually responsible for causing or permitting the offence, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, suggested. Suppose a parent has given a general permission to their children to use their bicycles, but only if wearing helmets. Will a parent then be expected to check whether their child is using a helmet every time that child leaves the house? If not, is the parent expected to remind the child at regular intervals? As we know, children sometimes hear only what they want to hear. What if the child claims to have forgotten an
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instruction given perhaps some time ago or not to have heard it in the first place? Then suppose a child cycles home from school. Are the parents responsible or is the school responsible, or is it both the parents and the school? What if the school has a rule that helmets must be worn but the child simply decides to take off the helmet half-way home? Who, if anyone, is responsible then?
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For these and other reasons I have given, unfortunately we cannot accept the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, pointed to a different approach by government to other road users and quoted the Horses (Protective Headgear for Young Riders) Act 1990, which made it compulsory for children to wear hard hats when riding. But it was a Private Member's Bill taken through the Commons by Harry Greenway and through this House by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, as she said. The government at the time felt unable to support the Bill. It was considered disproportionate to the road accident problem, as only 0.08 per cent of road accidents involved horse riders. That figure dropped to 0.06 per cent in 2002, which is the last date for which we have figures. It is also notable that at the time 80 per cent of riders were already wearing protective headgear. One of the reasons we resist the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, is because as yet we are nowhere near that figure as regards the popular voluntary wearing of cycle helmets by children. When motorcycle helmets became compulsory, 80 per cent of people were already wearing them voluntarily before compulsion was introduced. In the case of cycle helmets being worn by children we would be making an enormous leap from a figure far less than 80 per cent. For instance, in 2004 the wearing rate of cycle helmets by boys was 11 per cent.
We appreciate the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, but I hope that with the explanations I have given, he will withdraw it.
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