My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 157. I need to say very little following the speakers today, who have greater expertise than I have—and, of course, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has her own tragic experience to bring to this debate.
I spoke about this issue during Oral Questions last week, and I just want to emphasise a couple of points that I made then. The limit we currently have is 54 years old; the science on which it is based has moved on, and it is outdated. We are not leading the world; we are lagging behind the rest of the world. From Australia to Scotland and the whole of the rest of Europe, we are behind.
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There has been discussion about levels of alcohol. Several decades ago, I was present at an experiment—if I could put it that way—run by the police. I do not think they would do it nowadays, but they took a young woman and, during the course of a social evening, with food, she was given alcohol and they tested her. I hasten to say that this was a residential course—she was not driving anywhere. They tested her to see the levels of alcohol. By the time she got to the point where she would have breached that limit, she was slurring her words and having difficulty standing. That was a very frightening experiment, from my perspective.
Some 13% of deaths on the road are caused by drink-driving, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has mentioned that Wales has a particularly serious problem with this. I live in Wales as well. Elsewhere in the Bill, the Government are creating new offences, and they are upping the penalties for offences. They want to imprison careless drivers. I cannot understand where the opposition to changing and lowering the limit comes from. If the Government wish to be tough on bad driving, this should be part of it.
The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, referred to Scotland, and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, talked about special circumstances there. It is worth saying that, in one year in Wales, offences went up by 18%, and in England they went up 8%, so if Scotland stood still, that was a relative success, though probably not good enough.
I do not understand why the Government are not keen on this as a solution. I was pleased that in the Budget there was to be the change referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, but the headlines were about a 3p cut in the price of beer. The basic law of economics is that, if you cut the price of something, it is to encourage greater sales. So, the message is not good on this.
I urge the Government to think again. Lower limits are supported by the RAC, Brake, and the Alcohol Health Alliance UK. In an attempt to appeal to the Government, I emphasise that this is a highly popular policy. The British Social Attitudes survey showed that 77% of the public are in favour of lowering the alcohol limits. That majority holds across all social and demographic groups, in both rural and urban areas, among young and old, and across all political allegiances. What have the Government got to be frightened of in adopting this policy?