Andy MacNae
MP for Rossendale and Darwen · Labour · United Kingdom
“McDermott is building 71 homes in my constituency on a sensitive site in Bacup. The development was originally refused by the council, but was approved on appeal. From the outset, McDermott has been dismissive of planning conditions and residents’ concerns, particularly regarding ecology, site access and road safety.”
House of Commons15 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Boards and senior leaders must hear what staff are telling them. They must be able to trace concerns from the ward to the boardroom, demonstrate what action has been taken and report back to those who spoke up. Whistleblowers must be protected from retaliation or isolation.”
House of Commons12 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree wholeheartedly, and as the hon. Member will see, I will focus on that significantly later in my speech. On miscarriage data, Scotland is expecting to begin routine data collection on miscarriage from this year. England should match that ambition.”
House of Commons12 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank everyone who has spoken and shared their experience, which is not easy. In that regard, I would just reflect on the comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith). There are Members who could not be here today because their losses are too recent and too painful.”
House of Commons12 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The test will not be the quality of the plan when it is published, but whether care improves, families are listened to, staff are supported to provide care and, ultimately, fewer babies die. Today, I want to focus on some key areas in which action is urgently needed.”
House of Commons12 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The national bereavement care pathway already exists and covers miscarriage, termination of pregnancy for foetal anomaly, stillbirth, neonatal death and sudden unexpected death in infancy.”
House of Commons12 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“I have already given the example Rossendale Works; for seven years now this locally designed programme that has been helping long-term unemployed people into work, yet it has been reduced in ambition and remains reliant on short-term funding. Let me give an equally exciting example in Darwen: a top-class BMX and skatepark facility called Junction 4 Skatepark. Next to it is Darwen Vale high school, which is run by the Aldridge academy trust. Drawing on its experience of delivering the Aldridge Cricket Academy in Brighton, which has delivered excellent academic and sporting outcomes, the trust has come up with an innovative proposal for Britain’s first BMX and skateboard academy. This approach would give students the chance to develop sporting talent and academic qualifications together, rather than having to choose between the two.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“However, I ask the Minister how we can ensure that we do not leave behind small towns and struggling councils, and how we make sure that we focus support where it is needed, and not just where the voices are loudest or the match funding pockets are deepest. The need to ensure that funding is structured to recognise particular challenges and opportunities in small towns is one part of the equation; responding to opportunity and maximising impact is another. Our country is full of innovative people and local organisations who are keen to get together and make a difference. Our funding structures should embrace this reality and not put up barriers by pretending that central Government know best.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Despite having a clear forward plan to deliver the facilities that we need, along with innovative and high-impact projects, at present the council, with dwindling reserves and myriad cost pressures, has no realistic way of funding it or indeed of match funding any potential capital grants—so we fall ever further behind. Yet the irony is that these are exactly the kind of small-town communities, often lacking opportunity and with serious patches of deprivation, that are most in need of the benefits that local sports and leisure facilities can offer. I am pleased by this Government’s commitment of £123 million for funding to grassroots facilities in the current year and I am sure that we will see equally significant commitments in the future.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It has been particularly difficult for small councils, without the reserve spending powers or bid capacity of larger councils, to maintain leisure facilities. Despite the best efforts of their officers, it is incredibly difficult to maintain facilities, let alone open new ones. My Rossendale and Darwen constituency is a good example: we have four small towns, with populations ranging from 15,000 to 25,000. The borough council budget is less than £9 million a year. For the past 15 years, there has been some pretty heroic work by council officers, councillors and volunteers to try to keep our leisure facilities open, but despite that work we are now in a situation where two of our four towns have no significant public sector leisure provision.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Investing in modern, well-maintained facilities, ideally with renewable energy generation, is a route to environmental and financial sustainability. Walking or cycling rather than driving to work or school delivers multiple benefits—a key benefit, of course, being reduced emissions and better air quality. Indeed, a University of Oxford study found that those people who switched just one trip per day from car to cycling reduced their carbon footprint by about half a tonne over a year. Yet despite the great potential to support the delivery of such a wide range of benefits, after 14 years of Conservative cuts and the impact of covid, community sports facilities are struggling to survive. Many have been forced to close and many remain at risk of closure.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Through introducing young people to new experiences and new peer groups, their impact is long-lasting. Again, however, to make a real difference, we must take the best practice, mainstream it and do it at scale. Finally, investment in modern and well-maintained sports facilities, and encouraging people to go cycling and walking, can help us to meet our net zero targets. Older, poorly maintained sports facilities can be difficult both to heat and to run. This is a huge issue, with 63% of sports halls and swimming pools now over 10 years old; indeed, nearly a quarter have not been refurbished in over 20 years. The Local Government Association has also found that leisure facilities produce between 10% and 40% of district and unitary councils’ direct carbon emissions. Inevitably, with those come higher running costs.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I absolutely agree. Of course, communities know best. Communities know what works; local people know what works, and empowering them to get involved in their local sports facilities is a hugely beneficial approach. I will highlight the Sunderland Community Action Group’s “Night Riders” initiative, which specifically targets people in antisocial behaviour hotspots through detached youth workers. In the evenings, kids are taken from hotspot areas to cycling hubs, where they take part in a fun group cycling activity and are given bikes and helmets covered in LED lights. It takes people away from hotspots and puts them in a controlled, safe environment, with good mentors to work with them. We know that sport-based interventions are an excellent way of tackling the causes of crime and antisocial behaviour.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I enthusiastically welcome the statement, and the great quality of consultation and ambition behind it. I particularly welcome what it means for Lancashire. We have been left behind for far too long, so it is wonderful to see the Government prioritising our great county. Full devolution with a mayor, along with local government reorganisation, can unlock our potential, deliver growth, and ultimately put money in our residents’ pockets. Will the Deputy Prime Minister join me in calling on Lancashire leaders to grasp this generational opportunity?”
House of Commons5 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Indeed, the National Foundation for Educational Research found that the principal barrier to young people accessing apprenticeships was “a lack of in-depth understanding of apprenticeships amongst young people, their parents/carers, and teachers, including the opportunities for career progression. This is preventing young people from even getting to the point of application.” I have some questions for the Minister. To what degree are we assessing the impact of the enhanced Baker clause? What more can we do to enhance awareness among schools, businesses and others? To what degree should we consider destination measures—what students’ education leads to, rather than the qualifications they get—in Ofsted judgments?”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is reflected in the take-up of apprenticeships: only 25% are taken up by school leavers—around 80,000 students in 2023, compared with over 300,000 who applied for universities—and take-up was dominated by two sectors, which leaves many areas completely under-represented. It is also reflected in surveys: although 70% of parents would recommend an apprenticeship to their child, only one in 10 would be confident in supporting them through the application process, compared with four in 10 for university applications, and 82% of teachers said that they felt confident talking about university opportunities, compared with just 27% for apprenticeships. That is a fundamental issue.”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) for securing this important debate. In the interest of time, I will focus on one issue: the awareness of apprenticeship opportunities, particularly among school leavers. When I go around my Rossendale and Darwen constituency, I am inspired by the range of opportunities that our great businesses offer, but at the same time, a lack of skills and the inability to recruit the people they need remain key barriers to growth. I go into schools and talk to young people, and their awareness of the opportunities available to them remains remarkably low.”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This week, I met a constituent, Bradley Price, who has recently taken up a degree apprenticeship with Nuclear Transport Solutions. We talked about the excellent transferable skills he is gaining and the great career options open to him. There is no doubt that high-quality apprenticeships like that can be the right route for so many school leavers, yet it seems from talking to pupils in Rossendale and Darwen that awareness of the range and quality of such opportunities is remarkably low. I welcome the announcement of a Backbench Business debate on apprenticeships, but would the Leader of the House agree to a debate in Government time on raising awareness in schools about apprenticeships?”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) did—or when anyone around knows an accident is waiting to happen, they are told, “We have to wait for someone to be killed or injured before we act.” It is ridiculous, it is outmoded and it does not meet international best practice. We have to move to a community-led, risk-based approach that looks to prevent and predict accidents, rather than respond and react.”
House of Commons29 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Without enforcement and without recognition that there are consequences for people’s actions, it seems that we will have continual close calls in and around those schools. I ask the Minister—as I have asked her before—the extent to which we should be driving for the adoption of average speed cameras around primary schools as a way of embedding enforcement in the areas around schools on main roads, such as those in my constituency. I would also like to touch on the point made by a couple of Opposition Members about not waiting until people are killed or injured before we act. Far too often, when local people raise a clear risk or threat—as my hon.”
House of Commons29 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I very much appreciate you allowing me to speak, Ms Jardine, given that I was late to the debate. I thank the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth) for securing it. I have not prepared, so I will just make some broad points. I acknowledge everything that has been said today, and I would like to pick up on a few issues. In my constituency of Rossendale and Darwen, virtually all the primary schools are on key trunk roads, which unfortunately makes it difficult to consider school street schemes. Big wagons are passing continually and people are rushing to work. While each school might have a 20 mph zone outside it during school times, it is regularly and repeatedly ignored.”
House of Commons29 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q9. As you well know, Mr Speaker, Lancashire is a wonderful county, full of great businesses and hard-working people, yet for too long we have been held back by an outdated two-tier council system. The Government’s English devolution Bill is a massive opportunity for us to get back in the fast lane and catch up with the likes of Manchester and Liverpool. Will the Prime Minister join me in calling on all Lancashire leaders to work together in the interests of our residents, putting aside political differences and self-interests, and move forward in good faith to unleash Lancashire’s huge potential?”
House of Commons29 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Time and time again I hear from families who feel that the whole system is set up to fail and to stop them from getting these plans. As well as addressing those fundamental funding issues, I hope that, as a Government, we will address the cultural, systemic issues by giving our families, in Rossendale and Darwen and in all of our constituencies, the support they desperately need.”
House of Commons22 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In the interests of time, I will just endorse so many of the comments made today. It is fantastic to see the passion and commitment of so many Members here, as well as the passion and commitment that the Government have shown since day one of our coming into office. In the interests of time, I will focus down on just one issue. My constituency of Rossendale and Darwen spans two local authority areas: one is the small unitary authority of Blackburn with Darwen, and the other is the shire county of Lancashire. One hundred per cent of my EHCP cases are in Lancashire, which demonstrates a stark and completely unacceptable postcode lottery. There is no doubt that money is a fundamental issue, but we also have to raise a question about to what extent culture, attitudes and systems matter.”
House of Commons22 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Seemingly unending roadworks in Rossendale and Darwen are causing massive disruption to residents and businesses. Lane rental schemes, in which companies are charged for the time that their works occupy the road, can be a game changer, yet highways authorities such as Lancashire seem to be unwilling to use the powers available to them. Will the Leader of the House agree to a debate in Government time on how we can get the action that we need to free up our roads?”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given that we now have an ongoing devolution process, and genuine proposals for reorganisation that are supported by a majority of councils across the county and by MPs, and given the significant costs of holding local elections—£3 million in the case of Lancashire, which could fill an awful lot of potholes—it feels like Lancashire county council’s refusal to put forward a proposal to cancel the upcoming May elections is about self-interest and short-term political imperatives being put ahead of the needs of residents. Does the Minister agree that it is regrettable, to say the least, that the request has not come forward, and that we should not hold those elections, but put the needs of residents first?”
House of Commons15 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I associate myself with the excellent remarks of my Lancashire colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr Foster), and I thank the Minister for recognising the massive opportunity that reorganisation and devolution presents for Lancashire. It has been held back for many years by our inability to come together and move forward.”
House of Commons15 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“With the new year comes the new year’s honours list. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating my friend and constituent Barry Hyde on being awarded the British empire medal for his exceptional voluntary contribution to our community in Rossendale and Darwen? Barry, and thousands of volunteers like him, are at the heart of our community. Will my right hon. Friend agree to a general debate on the value of the voluntary sector to our society?”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In one case, a vehicle impacted on a spot where a pedestrian had been standing just seconds before, and when we lived on the main road, a car judged to be speeding at over 100 mph hit my wife’s car with such force that it was lifted up and landed on mine—that was in a 30 mph zone. There are many more stories like those; indeed, just this morning, constituents contacted me about a particularly serious close call, which I cannot detail now because it may go to court. To compound this, the road is very heavily used by large commercial vehicles.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Rossendale and Darwen is a constituency of A roads running down valleys, with relatively few alternative routes, and most residential and commercial development extends along those lines. I live off Burnley Road in Bacup, and the lived experience of residents along that road serves to highlight most of the issues I want to raise today. Ask anyone who lives on Burnley Road and they will tell you that speeding is endemic. There have been serious injuries and fatalities, but more fundamentally, residents will cite numerous close calls and the fear they generate. For example, one house on a bend in the road has now been hit by speeding vehicles three times.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As a result, progress in reducing road deaths has largely plateaued in recent years. The UK has passed a grim and shaming milestone: 500,000 people have died on the roads in Great Britain since records began in 1926. That is more than the number of UK citizens killed as a result of warfare in the same period, including in the second world war. I am well aware that this is a complex and multi-dimensional issue to which we cannot do justice in such a short debate, so rather than trying to address every aspect of road safety, I will instead focus on a couple of linked aspects that are of particular concern to my Rossendale and Darwen constituents—specifically, speeding and issues related to large commercial vehicles.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Happy new year, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for the chance to have this debate, and I thank the Minister for her attendance and for her work on tackling this issue, including through the upcoming road safety strategy. I requested the debate because our current approach to road safety is in desperate need of overhaul. Although a few local authorities have robust and innovative approaches to road safety, too many lack the resources or political will to implement proactive safety measures, which is increasingly making road safety a postcode lottery. Too often, safety interventions come as a response to collisions, rather than as proactive measures to prevent them. We do not listen to our communities and have failed to invest and to learn from international best practice.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Narrow pavements and a lack of safe crossing areas further increase the risk, and it is hardly a surprise that many parents are reluctant to let their kids walk even a short distance to school. I cannot think of anyone who rides a bike there.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I fully agree with the hon. Gentleman—indeed, that is the main subject that I will try to focus on today. It is hugely important that we listen to our communities, because in the end, not only do our communities know best, but they are the ones who experience the consequences of these decisions. Burnley Road is very heavily used by large commercial vehicles, and there have been numerous close calls with those vehicles as well. Residents see them speeding or travelling in convoy, too often with their driver on a mobile phone. This is a massive concern around the local primary school, which—like many in Rossendale and Darwen—is sited directly on the main road. Last year, two big wagons managed to crash into each other just outside the school.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree 100% with my hon. Friend. She has framed her example tremendously well—the greatest fear that most of us have is that combination of primary schools, unsafe roads and large vehicles. Sadly, that can only end one way.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend raises a hugely important issue about the regulation of commercial vehicles, and the level of responsibility that companies and employers take for their drivers is a crucial part of this debate. To return to the story of Burnley Road in Rossendale, I have described the various instances of close calls, and when we bring all this together, the obvious conclusion that residents reach, including myself, is that without further action further deaths and serious injuries are inevitable. The great fear we have is that everyone can see this coming, and when it comes and there has been no action, I think we will all feel that we have failed.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Absolutely. I will touch on this later, but I feel that devolution and local government reorganisation create a huge opportunity to ensure new levels of co-operation between authorities, and we should have no hard borders when it comes to road safety. Again, the conclusion we reach is that we need action to prevent deaths and injuries, yet when communities raise their concerns and real-world experience with the county council and the police, they are told that the KSI—killed or seriously injured—data does not meet the threshold for speed cameras and other meaningful interventions.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This approach is nonsensical and out of line with even the county council’s own adopted vision zero strategy and is decades behind those employed internationally. Ultimately it costs lives and money. Beyond this, unsafe roads have far-reaching impacts affecting an area’s sense of place and identity. They take lives, devastate families and shake up communities. Roads felt to be unsafe have a significant impact on the day-to-day lives of people living near them. Residents feel less able to get around, uncomfortable on their own doorstep and cut off from each other.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree entirely. Again, it is devastating for communities to raise those issues repeatedly, stridently and sometimes desperately, yet feel that they are not being heard. The message they get back is, in effect, “We have to wait for someone to get killed before we do anything”, which is surely is not the message our communities should be hearing. As well as Burnley Road in Rossendale, I could tell stories about Todmorden Road, Burnley Road East through Whitewell Bottom, Market Street in Whitworth, Bury Road in Edenfield, Newchurch Road in Waterfoot, Bolton Road, Sunnyhurst Lane, Hollins Grove and Pole Lane in Darwen. In each case, residents see close calls day by day, but are told that the statistics do not merit action, and even when they do, they are simply told there is no money.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Absolutely, and those committees feel particularly vulnerable and under threat. The issue is that mixture of rural roads coupled with the speed limits and then compact villages sitting along those roads, with those changes in road conditions.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend makes that vital point extremely well. I will touch on it again later, but young drivers are an important topic that merits a debate in its own right. On feeling safe or unsafe on roads and the impact of that, we can take the example of active travel. The biggest reason why people do not walk or cycle to work or school is concern over road safety. This forces people to travel by car, with all the impacts that brings and accentuating all the issues we are talking about.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Over the past decade, both Rotterdam and the Hague have been using an algorithm to determine the likelihood of crashes on their roads. The model considers a range of factors, including past crashes, traffic flow, the features of the road, and the presence of on-road parking. From that, it creates a risk rating for each road. Crucially, this rating informs, rather than leads, the local authorities’ decisions. Community experience and input are a key factor in the decision-making process. The ratings are combined with an analysis of the volumes and severity of complaints the authorities receive regarding specific roads. Out of this community-led, data-informed model, the local authorities choose to proactively intervene to protect their citizens.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We know that such approaches can be effective and save a great deal of money over the long term, but as we have seen and heard, there seems to be a huge gap between strategy and practical implementation. If we want to be serious about tackling this issue, we must move towards a truly proactive, community-led approach to road safety that is informed by statistics and not led by them. In such a model, rather than claiming that a centrally held database knows better, we trust the instincts, experiences and wishes of those who use the roads every day. Instead of waiting around until enough people have been hurt to merit an intervention, we proactively identify high-risk areas, and we act. An excellent example of that approach in action can be seen in the Netherlands.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists still make up a disproportionate share of those killed or seriously injured on UK roads. Department for Transport estimates suggest that the annual cost of reported road collisions is around £43 billion. We cannot afford any of these costs, so what do we do about it? We know the basic principles, and we have touched on them in the debate, with many Members raising them brilliantly. Many local authorities have adopted strategies based around vision zero, which is an approach originally adopted in countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands. It emphasises that no level of death or serious injury is acceptable on the roads, and it is focused on prevention, protection and post-collision response, coupled with evidence-based targets and robust safety performance indicators.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Absolutely. This is a hugely important issue and, as in many other areas, we know the solutions. Fantastic work is done by organisations such as Active Travel England that detail the solutions, yet our current or past funding structures make it incredibly difficult. I am campaigning in our constituency for a safe path to a school, yet I find there are essentially no dedicated funding opportunities to meet that very obvious and stark need. This is an absolutely crucial area. I mentioned active travel, but there is also the question of older people. Residents in social housing along Newchurch Road in Rossendale feel trapped in their estate because there is literally nowhere safe to cross the road near them to reach the amenities they need. In 2023, there were 1,624 road deaths in Great Britain and 132,977 casualties in total.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“These models have proven effective in predicting areas of danger, and such systems could be used to proactively examine hotspots before collisions occur, taking account of near misses and validation experiences with communities such as ours.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree fully with my hon. Friend, and there is no conflict between a vision zero approach and the community-led approach I am talking about. The issue is that while vision zero has been adopted by many local authorities, the implementation falls far short of the intent. It is therefore a question of finding the appropriate implementation and delivery mechanisms, rather than just rehashing the strategy. As well as the Netherlands model I mentioned, similar preventive work has been pioneered by researchers using automatically collected data from car sensors to identify dangerous sections of roads. That is interesting, because it collects data that key success indicator stats do not highlight. They collate real-world data where cars harshly and suddenly brake.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross), that is on a narrow basis, perhaps not recognising some of the wider impacts. The figure only increases when we look at the benefits beyond five years. I urge the Minister to use the upcoming strategy to stress the significant long-term benefits of proactively implementing speed reduction schemes with average speed cameras.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Looking at the evidence, a review by the RAC Foundation found a 36.4% reduction in serious or fatal injuries at sites with average speed cameras installed, with a further 16% reduction in incidents of all severities. In some cases, the installation of speed cameras has reduced incidents by up to 86%. With Lancashire county council valuing the cost of a road-related fatality at £2 million—I do not know how it gets to that figure, but none the less that is the figure being used—it is no surprise that effective safety measures like these save the Government money in the long term. The College of Policing has found that through a reduction in medical treatment and repair fees, the financial benefits of these schemes exceed their costs by 3:1. On the point made by the hon.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for making that point. How we value road safety interventions must recognise the full gamut of those impacts. Far too often, we use narrow measures of cost-benefit. Emergency response, impacts on wider infrastructure and the general feeling of being unsafe are hugely important considerations. I have tried to highlight a few approaches to identifying areas of risk proactively before collisions occur. Again, we know how to do this. With those risks identified, we also have a range of effective, advanced interventions that we can utilise to reduce the risk of incidents. Average speed cameras have been proven to be particularly effective, yet due to fears about cost and a lack of awareness of advanced technology, many authorities have been reluctant to implement them.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To wrap up, considering the reactive and inefficient approach to road safety that the Minister inherited from the previous Government, I urge her to utilise her upcoming road safety strategy to move the country towards a preventive, community-led and statistics-informed model of road safety, alongside a sustainable funding approach. Central to that approach, I call for the following measures to be given detailed consideration within the road safety strategy: first, ending the safety postcode lottery via a robust, mandated national road safety strategy, based on a community-led, data-informed, safe system approach and, within that, prioritising lived experience and perceptions of safety over arms-length data.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In places such as Lancashire, road safety interventions are still determined on a county level. Officials and county councillors are often very far removed from the roads and communities impacted by their decisions. When this responsibility is held on a unitary level, the voices of communities are louder, and decision makers are much closer to the area in question. Given the widespread local government reorganisation coming in this Parliament, the Minister has a significant opportunity to establish best practice in new unitary and combined authorities. I urge her to seize this unique opportunity, and to provide meaningful support and guidance to these emerging authorities.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given the improvements in tyre technology, coupled with the fact that the highest proportion of serious incidents occur in the winter months, there is room for the Minister to consider mandating that all new vehicles be equipped with all-season tyres. More generally, there are significant opportunities offered by safe vehicle technologies, which can be embedded through advanced vehicle safety regulations. Let me touch on a point raised earlier about driver education, particularly protecting young drivers. This is a complex area, which needs a debate in its own right, but given that 16% of car driver fatalities are younger drivers, there is no doubt that this area really needs attention. Finally, as we have touched on, increasing devolution is also central to ensuring that communities’ voices are heard.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One crucial step could be to incentivise companies to maintain high safety standards in their fleet, be that through offering lower insurance to companies that demonstrate best practice, naming and shaming companies that do not, or even making companies fully liable for work-related collisions. Alongside that, a variety of other proactive, low-cost methods could be used to improve the safety of our roads—for instance, tightening the regulations on tyre safety. Poor tyres accentuate the impact of speeding or poor driving. Over the past decade, an average of 182 people have been killed or seriously injured per year because of poor tyre conditions. MOTs flag over two million cars with sub-standard tyres each year, 1 million of which are so poor that they are considered actively dangerous.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Another key area that we can tackle is the safety of commercial vehicles, as we have touched on. As I mentioned, there are schools in my constituency that border dangerous roads that are frequently used by large commercial vehicles. Due to the force of impact, HGVs are the second most dangerous vehicles on the road, killing 6.9 people per billion passenger miles—significantly higher than the comparative figure of 1.6 for cars. Considering that, it is completely unacceptable that in 2023, 36% of lorries were seen to exceed the speed limit. Drivers often have minimal oversight and training from companies, which have weak corporate safety standards. We must proactively recognise and respond to the heightened risk that such vehicles pose.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In addition to speed reduction methods, major gains can be made through improving pavements and creating cycle lanes through a genuine safe-system approach. Shockingly, of all road deaths in 2023, 25% were pedestrians, with cyclists accounting for 5%. Despite many local vision zero strategies, our road safety design evidently fails to protect those vulnerable users. I urge the Minister to use the upcoming strategy to encourage councils to meet their ambitions with action, utilising support from Active Travel England and genuinely adopting safe system approaches. That requires proactive interventions, whether through establishing clearer and protected cycle lanes, constructing safe footways or building new traffic lights and crossings where needed.”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗