Road Safety Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for making that point, and to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. We all sympathise enormously with the family that sustained the loss of the young woman in the way described by the noble Baroness, Lady   Masham. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord   Bradshaw, indicated, the police on that occasion were working on the operational matter of a 999 call. I hear what the noble Lord says about important targets, but let us substitute for targets the necessity of protecting the public. That is the job of the police. We expect them to respond in an emergency. When the consequence is as calamitous and disastrous as the one described by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, then we all have the utmost sympathy, but we could not possibly envisage introducing into legislation a constraint on the police in these terms. Officers of the emergency services, whether police, ambulance, fire or the Serious Organised Crime Agency—a new body established, as the House will recall, in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005—have the right to be exempted from speed limits and traffic controls. They are specially trained to do this job and to meet these requirements. It is a recognition that we cannot have the concept of emergency calls unless we have these vehicles responding in a way which inevitably means that some risks have to be taken in regard to normal traffic laws and obligations. You cannot have a 999 call where the police respond at 20 miles an hour in a very restricted area or at 30 miles an hour in an area restricted to that speed. My noble friend Lord Berkeley is keen to emphasise with his amendments—this is, of course, also the burden of the amendments of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee—that we should ensure that there are procedures in place which guarantee, first, that these vehicles are driven outwith the law only in emergencies; and, secondly, that there is proper recognition of the seriousness of such an activity and that it is recorded. I can assure the Committee that such incidents are recorded and logged. It is not done by way of an annual report, as suggested by my noble friend Lord Berkeley—that would be superfluous—but they have to be logged and recorded. Of course, if a calamitous accident occurs, it is quite possible that the officers concerned can be properly charged with driving without due care and attention or even dangerous driving. It is likely, of course, that the officers will be able to erect the defence that they were authorised to meet an emergency call, but if it was for something as trivial as being late for a luncheon engagement, as my noble friend Lord Berkeley suggested, that would not be a defence. Nor would it meet the requirements of the supervising officers charged with the responsibility for ensuring that these vehicles are used only for operational purposes. They can break speed limits and other aspects of the law—go across red lights and so on— because they are responding to an emergency. It is therefore to the greater good because they are reacting to a situation where as fast a reaction as possible is needed. I understand that the amendments have been tabled to give an airing to public anxiety and disquiet about cases where people are injured and killed in accidents involving emergency vehicles. We cannot go through a year without every aspect of the emergency services being involved in some kind of tragedy associated with one of these activities. It is in the nature of the dangerous deployments required in response to emergencies. I could take the amendments apart on the basis of certain defective qualities in their wording but my noble friend Lord Berkeley, in particular, would not thank me for doing so. He often tables amendments in order that we should understand the nature of the issues rather than that they should be brought immediately into legislation. I am not going into the defective nature of the amendments. I want my noble friend and the Committee to accept that the procedures which he identifies and requires are already in force for these officers. I do not doubt that a debate such as this has the salutary effect of articulating the public anxiety that the exemptions to the law that we give can sometimes result in tragedy. But all those who operate under these exemptions from the law—however skilled they are as drivers and however high their level of training—still have a massive obligation to guarantee as far as possible that such activity is for the good and security of the public, and to ensure that there is not a threat to the public which the careless use of these exemptions would occasion. I can give my noble friend that assurance. I have heard what my noble friend said about the Royal Parks but, from time to time, police cars need to cross the Royal Parks in the way he outlined. Again he has taken the opportunity to air a grievance. I hope that I can leave it at that and that the noble Earl will withdraw this amendment and not move his   other amendments, and that my noble friend Lord Berkeley will not move his amendments.