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Just zis Guy, you know?
Guest
(Amendment withdrawn by proposer)
Lord Swinfen moved Amendment No. 59:
After Clause 43, insert the following new clause—
"CAUSING OR PERMITTING CHILD UNDER 14 TO RIDE A CYCLE ON ROAD WITHOUT
PROTECTIVE HEADGEAR
(1) Except as provided by regulations, it is an offence for any person
to whom this subsection applies to cause or permit a child under the
age of 14 years to ride a cycle on a road unless the child is wearing
protective headgear, of such description as may be specified in
regulations, in such manner as may be so specified.
(2) Subsection (1) applies to the following persons—
(a) unless the child is cycling in the course of his employment, any
person who—
(i) for the purposes of Part I of the Children and Young Persons Act
1933 (c. 12), has responsibility for the child;
(ii) for the purposes of Part II of the Children and Young Persons
(Scotland) Act 1937 (c. 37), has parental responsibilities (within the
meaning given by section 1(3) of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 (c.
36)) in relation to, or has charge or care of, the child;
(iii) for the purposes of article 5 of the Children (Northern Ireland)
Order 1995 (S.I. 1995/755 (N.I. 2)), has parental responsibilities in
relation to the child;
(iv) (in relation to Northern Ireland) has care of the child or is,
otherwise than by virtue of article 5 of the Children (Northern
Ireland) Order 1995, legally obliged to maintain the child;
(b) any person other than a person mentioned in paragraph (a) above
who is above the age of 15 years and who has custody of or is in
possession of the cycle immediately before the child rides it;
29 Nov 2005 : Column 160
(c) where the child is employed and is cycling in the course of his
employment, his employer and any other person to whose orders the
child is subject in the course of his employment.
(3) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) above is liable
on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 2 on the standard
scale.
(4) In this section—
"regulations" means regulations under section (Regulations in relation
to section (Causing or permitting child under 14 to ride a cycle on
road without protective headgear)); and
"road" has—
(a) in England and Wales the meaning given by section 192(1) of the
Road Traffic Act 1988;
(b) in Scotland the meaning given by section 15(1) of the Roads
(Scotland) Act 1984 (c. 54); and
(c) in Northern Ireland the meaning given by article 1(2) of the Road
Traffic (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 (S.I. 1995/2994 (N.I.)).
(5) In this section and section (Regulations in relation to section
(Causing or permitting child under 14 to ride a cycle on road without
protective headgear)) "cycle" means a monocycle, a bicycle, a
tricycle, or a cycle having four or more wheels, not being in any case
a motor vehicle."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 59, I shall
speak also to Amendment No. 60. Amendment No. 60 empowers the
Secretary of State to make the regulations needed for the effective
operation of the new clause to be inserted by Amendment No. 59.
These amendments are not the same as those that I moved in Committee.
The age at which a child must wear protective headgear has been
altered to children under 14, which will bring the law on children
riding cycles into line with the law on children riding horses, as
laid out in the Horses (Protective Headgear for Young Riders) Act
1990. In Committee, the Minister said that he was concerned that the
compulsory wearing of a helmet would put children off cycling. I am
not aware that that happened with riding horses. I rather think that
the number of children riding horses and ponies has increased since
the wearing of protective headgear became compulsory. Children will
still wish to cycle. It gives them a measure of independence that they
crave. The Minister said that increased exercise is a major part of
the Government's strategy to deal with obesity. I strongly agree that
children should exercise, but it must be done safely. The wearing of
protective headgear by children is compulsory in Australia, and when I
was there earlier this year, I saw crowds of children happily riding
around on their bicycles, all wearing protective headgear. It does not
seem to have put them off in the least.
I now turn to the question of liability. I have given the matter some
more thought. I think the Government's concerns on liability are
misplaced, even if the amendments were to be left as they were in
Committee. That is because the accused must have caused or permitted
the child to have ridden the cycle. In most cases, I imagine that only
one person could have caused or permitted it to happen. In a case
where a child leaves the house with his parents, not knowing whether
he will ride a bike or not, and then borrows a bike from an adult, it
is clear who caused or permitted
29 Nov 2005 : Column 161
it to happen. On the other hand, if the parents allow him out without
a helmet, it is also clear. If the child leaves the house with a
helmet on, and then takes it off, the parents cannot be said to have
caused or permitted it to happen, unless they told him that he could
remove it. Nevertheless, I have altered the amendments by leaving out
the provision relating to the ownership of the bike. I have also
provided for employers by requiring that the cycling must be in the
course of the child's employment. I beg to move.
The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I have put my name to this amendment.
I strongly support what the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, said. Her
Majesty's Government are encouraging children and young people to
cycle through their Safer Routes to Schools initiative and their
advice to local authorities. They wish more children to cycle, for
understandable reasons. But with that encouragement comes a
responsibility for the Government to take all reasonable measures to
protect children from harm. Yesterday, I spoke with a paediatric nurse
who is caring for a 13 year-old who fell from his bike, smashed the
front of his head and damaged his frontal lobes. He is now unable to
manage his emotions and is subject to outbreaks of rage. A friend of
mine at school, who I used to cycle with, came off his bicycle. He
called me to the hospital, and when I arrived, he had forgotten that
he had called me. He experience concussion. His personality changed
following his injury. Some years later, he developed a bipolar
emotional disorder—manic depression—that may be associated with that
trauma.
The overwhelming case is that helmets protect individuals from injury
to the brain and that they are particularly effective in protecting
children from brain injury. As the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, said, we
are all concerned that children should take more exercise. I believe
that obesity in children has increased by one-fifth in the past 10
years. The evidence about whether the introduction of cycle helmets in
other countries has discouraged or encouraged children and adults to
cycle is not clear either way. I remember visiting a Halfords store
this summer and seeing a child with his mother. She was speaking to
his father on her mobile phone, asking whether they should buy the
larger bike. The message from the father was that they should get the
larger bike. The boy was jumping up and down with joy at the prospect
of buying a new bicycle. When I look in the park and observe children,
I have to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, said, that bicycles
are so attractive to children that it seems very unlikely that a
significant number of them will be put off simply because they have to
wear a helmet.
On the question of enforcement, when the Home Office was discussing
this, a two-year plan was proposed. The first year would focus heavily
on education, promoting bicycle safety and the wearing of cycle
helmets. The second year would involve law enforcement officers. When
they saw groups of children, they would warn them that in a year's
time, it would be against the law for them not to wear a cycle helmet.
Then, once the law was put in place, letters
29 Nov 2005 : Column 162
would be sent to parents asking them to purchase a helmet and send a
receipt to the office to prove it, or else they would receive other
warnings.
Twenty states in the United States, Norway, Sweden, Australia, New
Zealand and Canada, as well as several other countries, have
introduced these laws. The Government are actively encouraging
children and young people to cycle more. For understandable reasons,
we have a low usage of cycles in this country. We have a
responsibility to take reasonable measures to protect children from
harm. When parents and children are consulted about this, they favour
a law to make cycle helmets mandatory.
The Bill will provide that careless drivers who kill with no intention
to do so can be sentenced to a maximum of five years' imprisonment.
The Government have set aside 150 prison spaces to cater for them.
Those people are harming adults and children unwittingly so, with the
greatest respect to the Minister, it seems somewhat ironic that the
Government are encouraging children and young people on to the streets
on bicycles without taking all reasonable precautions to keep them
from harm. I look forward to the Minister's response.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I am sorry to have missed the opening remarks
of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen; it was entirely because of the
contretemps over Amendment No. 58A. I told my noble friend Lord
Listowel yesterday that unfortunately I would not be able to support
his amendment, though I pay tribute to his arguments today. As might
be expected, I oppose it mainly on libertarian grounds, but on
practical rather than on purist libertarian grounds.
People of my generation cycled every bit as much when we were 11, 12
or 13 as children of that age group do today—probably more so, since
there were fewer forms of alternative transport available. Neither I
nor any of my great many friends and acquaintances ever suffered
anything worse than a grazed knee. If children were falling onto their
heads from bicycles in their hundreds every day of the week, I might
think rather differently. But that does not appear to be the case,
despite the moving example produced by my noble friend. One should not
erode—
The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the
estimate for the number of children going to hospital each year with
head injuries following a cycling accident is put very roughly at
26,000? I hope that may be helpful to my noble friend.
Lord Monson: My Lords, of course it is helpful, but we do not know how
many of those accidents involve the head, how serious the injuries
were, and, indeed, what proportion of the total number of child
cyclists it represents. I appreciate, none the less, what my noble
friend says, but I do not think that human freedom should be eroded in
order to save the occasional individual injury.
29 Nov 2005 : Column 163
There is one other point. The amendment extends, rather surprisingly,
to tricycles, which surely are much safer than bicycles. I should not
have thought that was necessary. However, that is for the sponsors of
the amendment to answer.
There is a further practical objection, which has been touched on
obliquely by the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen. The law requiring
equestrians under the age of 14 to wear protective headgear when
riding on a public highway is sometimes prayed in aid, but
realistically it is difficult—not impossible but difficult—for someone
of that age to go riding without adult input or, at any rate, adult
co-operation. The horse has to be stabled or, if not stabled, kept in
a paddock owned by an adult. It has to be watered and fed daily. The
bridle, saddle and other tack has to be provided and kept in good
working order. So it is fairly unlikely that a child under the age of
14 would ride out on a public highway without the knowledge of the
parent or the guardian. How very different where the bike is
concerned. A 12 or 13-year old could grab his bike and zoom off out of
sight of older members of his family in no time at all, and children
of that age nowadays take instructions from their parents with a giant
pinch of salt. For all those reasons I believe that the amendment is
misconceived.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, I too missed the speech of the noble
Lord, Lord Swinfen, in the Chamber, but I heard it upstairs. I used to
work in what we used to call the "blood and bones" department of our
local hospital. I saw first-hand a number of children with severe head
injuries who had fallen or been knocked off their bicycles. That has
left a very strong impression on me.
My two granddaughters, who might, not disparagingly, be described as
rather vain little girls, are very happy to wear cycle helmets when
they ride their bicycles, so there is no objection from them. Just as
children will remind their parents to fasten their seatbelts, and they
religiously wear their seatbelts in the back seats of cars when adults
do not, I think that children can be encouraged to wear safety
helmets. I would very much like to see this become law.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, I am not competent to take a
close view on the validity of the amendment as it is written and its
practicality, but I should simply like to follow the noble Countess in
her remarks about trying to create an atmosphere, a culture if you
like, in which young people automatically wear helmets when cycling.
Cycling is extremely dangerous. Cyclists are the least well defended
users of the highway—unless horsemen are even less well defended,
because there are a great many riders' accidents. It would be
extremely advantageous if we could cultivate a way of making sure
that, in the same way as they use their seatbelts, children put on a
hard hat when cycling. For
29 Nov 2005 : Column 164
that reason, were the noble Lords to take the amendment to a vote, I
should be extremely tempted to support them.
The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, while I think the amendment is extremely
well meaning and that it is a very good idea for people to take proper
safety measures, whatever it is they are doing that is dangerous, I am
against compulsion. There are two sides to it. First, there is enough
compulsion about things in life, and it should be up to individuals
largely to decide. Children, I realise, are not mentally experienced
enough to always make correct decisions, but they can be influenced
very strongly by their parents. That brings me on to the business
about permission—who is liable?
Living in the country, our children go in and out and pop on a
bicycle. They may decide to unlock the bike shed and get one out. We
have no idea really what they are up to, where or when. They come and
go as they please. On the practicality of suggesting they should be
checked every time they want to go on a bike ride or whatever, they
have general permission to use their bicycles. I am not quite sure how
parents like us, who have a relaxed attitude to the comings and goings
of their children, would fare on this. So I feel that that is probably
the biggest downside. I do not like the potential liability and the
potential chance for some person in authority to bully adults about
their children's behaviour when maybe the adult has not been in a
position to do much about it. I do not think that we should over
control society.
The real fact of the matter is that we are more likely to die of a
heart attack, cancer or a stroke, or something related to that. Your
chances of being damaged badly in an accident realistically are very
low.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who
have contributed to the debate. Of course I share the objectives of
the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, who moved the amendment, that we want to
improve the safety of our young cyclists. That is exactly what we have
been doing.
Taking the period of 1994 to 1998 as a baseline, we have reduced
deaths and serious injury for child cyclists by 49 per cent. So no one
should underestimate the Government's commitment to improving safety
for our children. We intend to improve on that position. We are not
complacent. I want to emphasise that of course this improvement in the
statistics is a reflection of a whole plethora of measures that we
have taken to improve child cyclists' safety. Our programme includes
the education of children and their carers, the education of drivers
to take more care about child cyclists, publicity, better child cycle
training and improved infrastructure to increase the opportunities for
them to cycle safely on our roads and cycle paths. We include in that
the promotion of the wearing of helmets because we are not going to
contend with noble Lords the fact that the wearing of the helmet is a
help to a cyclist if he has a serious accident and lands on his head.
So we are at one with noble Lords in this respect.
29 Nov 2005 : Column 165
We know from regular monitoring of helmet wearing that there is a long
way to go to increase such wearing. Boys are most reluctant to wear
helmets. Set against a generally rising trend, the wearing rate for
boys has gone down from 15 per cent in 1994 to 11 per cent in 2004.
For girls, the wearing rate has risen to 26 per cent. Inevitably, a
large proportion of those not wearing helmets are young adolescents
who have accidents. That points to the nature of the difficulty: we
start from a low base. I take on board the representations made by the
noble Lord, Lord Monson, and the noble Earl, Lord Errol, on the
question of personal responsibility; I shall also comment on their
points about who is liable in a moment. The problem with the amendment
is that we are starting from such a low base, but it would move us up
to 100 per cent by law. We cannot safely promote legislation on that
basis now. We are aware of the contribution that the wearing of cycle
helmets can make to road safety, but to move from a position of low
acceptance of that need to 100 per cent compulsion is a significant
leap that we do not think is justified. 6.30 pm
We have reservations on the issue of liability. I heard the noble
Lord, Lord Swinfen, say that he had listened to my remarks in
Committee and I am grateful to him for having done that. I addressed
the issue of liability. But the noble Lord, Lord Monson, is right: it
is not easy to identify who is liable. It is not clear who, if anyone,
will be responsible for the crucial offence of causing or permitting
the offence from the range of persons listed in the amendment. Suppose
that a child cycles home from school. Are the parents responsible or
is the school responsible? Is the school responsible as the person who
has custody or possession of the bike before the child rides home?
What if the school has a rule that helmets must be worn but the child
does not wear one? Where does responsibility lie? We honestly think
that there are real problems about ambiguity and who will be
responsible. That will always be a question of fact in the
circumstances. They are overlapping responsibilities. It may not be
clear whether the school or the parent is responsible in such cases.
I recognise that noble Lords will be disappointed by my response. I
know that others share their views. The measure was introduced in a
Private Member's Bill in the other place last year. The Government
will not renege on our major commitment to improving child cycling
safety, but we do not think that compulsion at this stage would
produce the results that we want. We will keep a watchful and
monitoring eye on the situation. I hope that the noble Lord will
accept that the Government will not fail in our commitment to improve
child cycling safety statistics and, on that basis, will feel able to
withdraw his amendment.
The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, is he
aware of research from Australia undertaken by McDermott in which, at
secondary school level, before education on bicycle safety, 2 per cent
of those cyclists were wearing helmets; after education, 11 per cent
were; but, after legislation,
29 Nov 2005 : Column 166
42 per cent of secondary schoolchildren were wearing helmets? There
was an even more remarkable response from primary schools.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, if I was not aware of it before, I am
now. However, the noble Earl will recognise that if 42 per cent are
compliant, the Australians, or that particular state, have a law that
the majority of young cyclists are not obeying. In this country, we
are concerned about obedience to the law. In fact, the great strength
of our safety measures is that we do not propose laws that people can
then safely and easily ignore; we propose laws by which we expect
people to abide. That is why, as I have argued before, the driving
test requirements in this country are so much more stringent than
elsewhere in the world. We expect people to reach that level of
competence. The same thing applies to observation of the law.
As the noble Earl will freely concede, driving conditions in much of
Australia are somewhat different, given the vastly greater population
of people in crowded islands. We must address things differently. I
hope that he will accept that, although I recognise his statistics, I
would not take any joy in a law that the majority of our fellow
citizens disregarded.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, the Minister's last remarks are very
interesting, bearing in mind adherence to the law on seatbelts. To
start with, very few people wore their seatbelts. To start with, it
was not compulsory in the back of a car. It now is. If the Minister is
fortunate enough to get an empty taxi to take him home tonight, he
will find that there is a notice in the back of the taxi telling him
that it is against the law not to wear his seatbelt. So the situation
changes. It changes with education, I agree—in this respect, education
of children on cycles—but in the past it has changed with education of
adults in their motor vehicles.
The Minister asked: who is responsible for ensuring that the child
wears a helmet? In a car, the driver of the car is responsible for the
passengers wearing a seatbelt, as well as himself. With children, the
noble Lord, Lord Naseby, said that his children took their bicycles
when they wanted to go out. When my children were young, there were
standard instructions and rules that they had to obey, and they were
in trouble if they did not. There can be a standing instruction that
whenever they take their bicycles, they wear a helmet. That is not
difficult. I know that children do not always obey their parents—I
quite agree about that—but it is not difficult to lay down boundaries
that they are not supposed to cross. Those boundaries get relaxed as
the children get bigger. Later on, they are allowed out beyond nine
o'clock at night, and so on. But with small children, you can lay down
the rule that they must wear helmets and they are in trouble—sent to
their beds, or whatever—if they disobey that rule.
Also, schools can lay down school rules that children leaving school
or riding around in school must wear a helmet or they will be
punished. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, said that he did not support
the amendment because 100 or so children might die or
29 Nov 2005 : Column 167
have a head injury every year if they did not have a helmet. The noble
Earl, Lord Listowel, pointed out to him that 26,000 children were
injured with head injuries every year, which is a rather different
figure.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, said that it was good to create a
culture of helmet wearing. I agree. As I said, in Australia,
compulsion is creating a culture in which children are out wearing
their helmets the whole time. Any new law takes time to bed down and
for everyone to obey it because not everyone is aware of it. The
Minister pointed out that the percentage of boys wearing a helmet has
reduced recently. That is a very good reason for making it compulsory.
He also said that we would be starting from a low base and that we
would need to move immediately to 100 per cent wearing of helmets. The
argument about helmets applies in exactly the same direction as the
argument that the Government used on drivers' use of mobile phones, so
that point will not wash.
However, my noble friend Lady Hanham has put to me the argument, which
she did not reiterate today, that my amendment would make children
criminals. I shall look at that before Third Reading because I do not
wish to make children criminals if I can help it. But it is important
that we make it compulsory for children under 14 to wear protective
headgear. I will reserve my right to bring the matter before your
Lordships' House at Third Reading. In the mean time, I beg leave to
withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken
Lord Swinfen moved Amendment No. 59:
After Clause 43, insert the following new clause—
"CAUSING OR PERMITTING CHILD UNDER 14 TO RIDE A CYCLE ON ROAD WITHOUT
PROTECTIVE HEADGEAR
(1) Except as provided by regulations, it is an offence for any person
to whom this subsection applies to cause or permit a child under the
age of 14 years to ride a cycle on a road unless the child is wearing
protective headgear, of such description as may be specified in
regulations, in such manner as may be so specified.
(2) Subsection (1) applies to the following persons—
(a) unless the child is cycling in the course of his employment, any
person who—
(i) for the purposes of Part I of the Children and Young Persons Act
1933 (c. 12), has responsibility for the child;
(ii) for the purposes of Part II of the Children and Young Persons
(Scotland) Act 1937 (c. 37), has parental responsibilities (within the
meaning given by section 1(3) of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 (c.
36)) in relation to, or has charge or care of, the child;
(iii) for the purposes of article 5 of the Children (Northern Ireland)
Order 1995 (S.I. 1995/755 (N.I. 2)), has parental responsibilities in
relation to the child;
(iv) (in relation to Northern Ireland) has care of the child or is,
otherwise than by virtue of article 5 of the Children (Northern
Ireland) Order 1995, legally obliged to maintain the child;
(b) any person other than a person mentioned in paragraph (a) above
who is above the age of 15 years and who has custody of or is in
possession of the cycle immediately before the child rides it;
29 Nov 2005 : Column 160
(c) where the child is employed and is cycling in the course of his
employment, his employer and any other person to whose orders the
child is subject in the course of his employment.
(3) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) above is liable
on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 2 on the standard
scale.
(4) In this section—
"regulations" means regulations under section (Regulations in relation
to section (Causing or permitting child under 14 to ride a cycle on
road without protective headgear)); and
"road" has—
(a) in England and Wales the meaning given by section 192(1) of the
Road Traffic Act 1988;
(b) in Scotland the meaning given by section 15(1) of the Roads
(Scotland) Act 1984 (c. 54); and
(c) in Northern Ireland the meaning given by article 1(2) of the Road
Traffic (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 (S.I. 1995/2994 (N.I.)).
(5) In this section and section (Regulations in relation to section
(Causing or permitting child under 14 to ride a cycle on road without
protective headgear)) "cycle" means a monocycle, a bicycle, a
tricycle, or a cycle having four or more wheels, not being in any case
a motor vehicle."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 59, I shall
speak also to Amendment No. 60. Amendment No. 60 empowers the
Secretary of State to make the regulations needed for the effective
operation of the new clause to be inserted by Amendment No. 59.
These amendments are not the same as those that I moved in Committee.
The age at which a child must wear protective headgear has been
altered to children under 14, which will bring the law on children
riding cycles into line with the law on children riding horses, as
laid out in the Horses (Protective Headgear for Young Riders) Act
1990. In Committee, the Minister said that he was concerned that the
compulsory wearing of a helmet would put children off cycling. I am
not aware that that happened with riding horses. I rather think that
the number of children riding horses and ponies has increased since
the wearing of protective headgear became compulsory. Children will
still wish to cycle. It gives them a measure of independence that they
crave. The Minister said that increased exercise is a major part of
the Government's strategy to deal with obesity. I strongly agree that
children should exercise, but it must be done safely. The wearing of
protective headgear by children is compulsory in Australia, and when I
was there earlier this year, I saw crowds of children happily riding
around on their bicycles, all wearing protective headgear. It does not
seem to have put them off in the least.
I now turn to the question of liability. I have given the matter some
more thought. I think the Government's concerns on liability are
misplaced, even if the amendments were to be left as they were in
Committee. That is because the accused must have caused or permitted
the child to have ridden the cycle. In most cases, I imagine that only
one person could have caused or permitted it to happen. In a case
where a child leaves the house with his parents, not knowing whether
he will ride a bike or not, and then borrows a bike from an adult, it
is clear who caused or permitted
29 Nov 2005 : Column 161
it to happen. On the other hand, if the parents allow him out without
a helmet, it is also clear. If the child leaves the house with a
helmet on, and then takes it off, the parents cannot be said to have
caused or permitted it to happen, unless they told him that he could
remove it. Nevertheless, I have altered the amendments by leaving out
the provision relating to the ownership of the bike. I have also
provided for employers by requiring that the cycling must be in the
course of the child's employment. I beg to move.
The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I have put my name to this amendment.
I strongly support what the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, said. Her
Majesty's Government are encouraging children and young people to
cycle through their Safer Routes to Schools initiative and their
advice to local authorities. They wish more children to cycle, for
understandable reasons. But with that encouragement comes a
responsibility for the Government to take all reasonable measures to
protect children from harm. Yesterday, I spoke with a paediatric nurse
who is caring for a 13 year-old who fell from his bike, smashed the
front of his head and damaged his frontal lobes. He is now unable to
manage his emotions and is subject to outbreaks of rage. A friend of
mine at school, who I used to cycle with, came off his bicycle. He
called me to the hospital, and when I arrived, he had forgotten that
he had called me. He experience concussion. His personality changed
following his injury. Some years later, he developed a bipolar
emotional disorder—manic depression—that may be associated with that
trauma.
The overwhelming case is that helmets protect individuals from injury
to the brain and that they are particularly effective in protecting
children from brain injury. As the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, said, we
are all concerned that children should take more exercise. I believe
that obesity in children has increased by one-fifth in the past 10
years. The evidence about whether the introduction of cycle helmets in
other countries has discouraged or encouraged children and adults to
cycle is not clear either way. I remember visiting a Halfords store
this summer and seeing a child with his mother. She was speaking to
his father on her mobile phone, asking whether they should buy the
larger bike. The message from the father was that they should get the
larger bike. The boy was jumping up and down with joy at the prospect
of buying a new bicycle. When I look in the park and observe children,
I have to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, said, that bicycles
are so attractive to children that it seems very unlikely that a
significant number of them will be put off simply because they have to
wear a helmet.
On the question of enforcement, when the Home Office was discussing
this, a two-year plan was proposed. The first year would focus heavily
on education, promoting bicycle safety and the wearing of cycle
helmets. The second year would involve law enforcement officers. When
they saw groups of children, they would warn them that in a year's
time, it would be against the law for them not to wear a cycle helmet.
Then, once the law was put in place, letters
29 Nov 2005 : Column 162
would be sent to parents asking them to purchase a helmet and send a
receipt to the office to prove it, or else they would receive other
warnings.
Twenty states in the United States, Norway, Sweden, Australia, New
Zealand and Canada, as well as several other countries, have
introduced these laws. The Government are actively encouraging
children and young people to cycle more. For understandable reasons,
we have a low usage of cycles in this country. We have a
responsibility to take reasonable measures to protect children from
harm. When parents and children are consulted about this, they favour
a law to make cycle helmets mandatory.
The Bill will provide that careless drivers who kill with no intention
to do so can be sentenced to a maximum of five years' imprisonment.
The Government have set aside 150 prison spaces to cater for them.
Those people are harming adults and children unwittingly so, with the
greatest respect to the Minister, it seems somewhat ironic that the
Government are encouraging children and young people on to the streets
on bicycles without taking all reasonable precautions to keep them
from harm. I look forward to the Minister's response.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I am sorry to have missed the opening remarks
of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen; it was entirely because of the
contretemps over Amendment No. 58A. I told my noble friend Lord
Listowel yesterday that unfortunately I would not be able to support
his amendment, though I pay tribute to his arguments today. As might
be expected, I oppose it mainly on libertarian grounds, but on
practical rather than on purist libertarian grounds.
People of my generation cycled every bit as much when we were 11, 12
or 13 as children of that age group do today—probably more so, since
there were fewer forms of alternative transport available. Neither I
nor any of my great many friends and acquaintances ever suffered
anything worse than a grazed knee. If children were falling onto their
heads from bicycles in their hundreds every day of the week, I might
think rather differently. But that does not appear to be the case,
despite the moving example produced by my noble friend. One should not
erode—
The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the
estimate for the number of children going to hospital each year with
head injuries following a cycling accident is put very roughly at
26,000? I hope that may be helpful to my noble friend.
Lord Monson: My Lords, of course it is helpful, but we do not know how
many of those accidents involve the head, how serious the injuries
were, and, indeed, what proportion of the total number of child
cyclists it represents. I appreciate, none the less, what my noble
friend says, but I do not think that human freedom should be eroded in
order to save the occasional individual injury.
29 Nov 2005 : Column 163
There is one other point. The amendment extends, rather surprisingly,
to tricycles, which surely are much safer than bicycles. I should not
have thought that was necessary. However, that is for the sponsors of
the amendment to answer.
There is a further practical objection, which has been touched on
obliquely by the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen. The law requiring
equestrians under the age of 14 to wear protective headgear when
riding on a public highway is sometimes prayed in aid, but
realistically it is difficult—not impossible but difficult—for someone
of that age to go riding without adult input or, at any rate, adult
co-operation. The horse has to be stabled or, if not stabled, kept in
a paddock owned by an adult. It has to be watered and fed daily. The
bridle, saddle and other tack has to be provided and kept in good
working order. So it is fairly unlikely that a child under the age of
14 would ride out on a public highway without the knowledge of the
parent or the guardian. How very different where the bike is
concerned. A 12 or 13-year old could grab his bike and zoom off out of
sight of older members of his family in no time at all, and children
of that age nowadays take instructions from their parents with a giant
pinch of salt. For all those reasons I believe that the amendment is
misconceived.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, I too missed the speech of the noble
Lord, Lord Swinfen, in the Chamber, but I heard it upstairs. I used to
work in what we used to call the "blood and bones" department of our
local hospital. I saw first-hand a number of children with severe head
injuries who had fallen or been knocked off their bicycles. That has
left a very strong impression on me.
My two granddaughters, who might, not disparagingly, be described as
rather vain little girls, are very happy to wear cycle helmets when
they ride their bicycles, so there is no objection from them. Just as
children will remind their parents to fasten their seatbelts, and they
religiously wear their seatbelts in the back seats of cars when adults
do not, I think that children can be encouraged to wear safety
helmets. I would very much like to see this become law.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, I am not competent to take a
close view on the validity of the amendment as it is written and its
practicality, but I should simply like to follow the noble Countess in
her remarks about trying to create an atmosphere, a culture if you
like, in which young people automatically wear helmets when cycling.
Cycling is extremely dangerous. Cyclists are the least well defended
users of the highway—unless horsemen are even less well defended,
because there are a great many riders' accidents. It would be
extremely advantageous if we could cultivate a way of making sure
that, in the same way as they use their seatbelts, children put on a
hard hat when cycling. For
29 Nov 2005 : Column 164
that reason, were the noble Lords to take the amendment to a vote, I
should be extremely tempted to support them.
The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, while I think the amendment is extremely
well meaning and that it is a very good idea for people to take proper
safety measures, whatever it is they are doing that is dangerous, I am
against compulsion. There are two sides to it. First, there is enough
compulsion about things in life, and it should be up to individuals
largely to decide. Children, I realise, are not mentally experienced
enough to always make correct decisions, but they can be influenced
very strongly by their parents. That brings me on to the business
about permission—who is liable?
Living in the country, our children go in and out and pop on a
bicycle. They may decide to unlock the bike shed and get one out. We
have no idea really what they are up to, where or when. They come and
go as they please. On the practicality of suggesting they should be
checked every time they want to go on a bike ride or whatever, they
have general permission to use their bicycles. I am not quite sure how
parents like us, who have a relaxed attitude to the comings and goings
of their children, would fare on this. So I feel that that is probably
the biggest downside. I do not like the potential liability and the
potential chance for some person in authority to bully adults about
their children's behaviour when maybe the adult has not been in a
position to do much about it. I do not think that we should over
control society.
The real fact of the matter is that we are more likely to die of a
heart attack, cancer or a stroke, or something related to that. Your
chances of being damaged badly in an accident realistically are very
low.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who
have contributed to the debate. Of course I share the objectives of
the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, who moved the amendment, that we want to
improve the safety of our young cyclists. That is exactly what we have
been doing.
Taking the period of 1994 to 1998 as a baseline, we have reduced
deaths and serious injury for child cyclists by 49 per cent. So no one
should underestimate the Government's commitment to improving safety
for our children. We intend to improve on that position. We are not
complacent. I want to emphasise that of course this improvement in the
statistics is a reflection of a whole plethora of measures that we
have taken to improve child cyclists' safety. Our programme includes
the education of children and their carers, the education of drivers
to take more care about child cyclists, publicity, better child cycle
training and improved infrastructure to increase the opportunities for
them to cycle safely on our roads and cycle paths. We include in that
the promotion of the wearing of helmets because we are not going to
contend with noble Lords the fact that the wearing of the helmet is a
help to a cyclist if he has a serious accident and lands on his head.
So we are at one with noble Lords in this respect.
29 Nov 2005 : Column 165
We know from regular monitoring of helmet wearing that there is a long
way to go to increase such wearing. Boys are most reluctant to wear
helmets. Set against a generally rising trend, the wearing rate for
boys has gone down from 15 per cent in 1994 to 11 per cent in 2004.
For girls, the wearing rate has risen to 26 per cent. Inevitably, a
large proportion of those not wearing helmets are young adolescents
who have accidents. That points to the nature of the difficulty: we
start from a low base. I take on board the representations made by the
noble Lord, Lord Monson, and the noble Earl, Lord Errol, on the
question of personal responsibility; I shall also comment on their
points about who is liable in a moment. The problem with the amendment
is that we are starting from such a low base, but it would move us up
to 100 per cent by law. We cannot safely promote legislation on that
basis now. We are aware of the contribution that the wearing of cycle
helmets can make to road safety, but to move from a position of low
acceptance of that need to 100 per cent compulsion is a significant
leap that we do not think is justified. 6.30 pm
We have reservations on the issue of liability. I heard the noble
Lord, Lord Swinfen, say that he had listened to my remarks in
Committee and I am grateful to him for having done that. I addressed
the issue of liability. But the noble Lord, Lord Monson, is right: it
is not easy to identify who is liable. It is not clear who, if anyone,
will be responsible for the crucial offence of causing or permitting
the offence from the range of persons listed in the amendment. Suppose
that a child cycles home from school. Are the parents responsible or
is the school responsible? Is the school responsible as the person who
has custody or possession of the bike before the child rides home?
What if the school has a rule that helmets must be worn but the child
does not wear one? Where does responsibility lie? We honestly think
that there are real problems about ambiguity and who will be
responsible. That will always be a question of fact in the
circumstances. They are overlapping responsibilities. It may not be
clear whether the school or the parent is responsible in such cases.
I recognise that noble Lords will be disappointed by my response. I
know that others share their views. The measure was introduced in a
Private Member's Bill in the other place last year. The Government
will not renege on our major commitment to improving child cycling
safety, but we do not think that compulsion at this stage would
produce the results that we want. We will keep a watchful and
monitoring eye on the situation. I hope that the noble Lord will
accept that the Government will not fail in our commitment to improve
child cycling safety statistics and, on that basis, will feel able to
withdraw his amendment.
The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, is he
aware of research from Australia undertaken by McDermott in which, at
secondary school level, before education on bicycle safety, 2 per cent
of those cyclists were wearing helmets; after education, 11 per cent
were; but, after legislation,
29 Nov 2005 : Column 166
42 per cent of secondary schoolchildren were wearing helmets? There
was an even more remarkable response from primary schools.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, if I was not aware of it before, I am
now. However, the noble Earl will recognise that if 42 per cent are
compliant, the Australians, or that particular state, have a law that
the majority of young cyclists are not obeying. In this country, we
are concerned about obedience to the law. In fact, the great strength
of our safety measures is that we do not propose laws that people can
then safely and easily ignore; we propose laws by which we expect
people to abide. That is why, as I have argued before, the driving
test requirements in this country are so much more stringent than
elsewhere in the world. We expect people to reach that level of
competence. The same thing applies to observation of the law.
As the noble Earl will freely concede, driving conditions in much of
Australia are somewhat different, given the vastly greater population
of people in crowded islands. We must address things differently. I
hope that he will accept that, although I recognise his statistics, I
would not take any joy in a law that the majority of our fellow
citizens disregarded.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, the Minister's last remarks are very
interesting, bearing in mind adherence to the law on seatbelts. To
start with, very few people wore their seatbelts. To start with, it
was not compulsory in the back of a car. It now is. If the Minister is
fortunate enough to get an empty taxi to take him home tonight, he
will find that there is a notice in the back of the taxi telling him
that it is against the law not to wear his seatbelt. So the situation
changes. It changes with education, I agree—in this respect, education
of children on cycles—but in the past it has changed with education of
adults in their motor vehicles.
The Minister asked: who is responsible for ensuring that the child
wears a helmet? In a car, the driver of the car is responsible for the
passengers wearing a seatbelt, as well as himself. With children, the
noble Lord, Lord Naseby, said that his children took their bicycles
when they wanted to go out. When my children were young, there were
standard instructions and rules that they had to obey, and they were
in trouble if they did not. There can be a standing instruction that
whenever they take their bicycles, they wear a helmet. That is not
difficult. I know that children do not always obey their parents—I
quite agree about that—but it is not difficult to lay down boundaries
that they are not supposed to cross. Those boundaries get relaxed as
the children get bigger. Later on, they are allowed out beyond nine
o'clock at night, and so on. But with small children, you can lay down
the rule that they must wear helmets and they are in trouble—sent to
their beds, or whatever—if they disobey that rule.
Also, schools can lay down school rules that children leaving school
or riding around in school must wear a helmet or they will be
punished. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, said that he did not support
the amendment because 100 or so children might die or
29 Nov 2005 : Column 167
have a head injury every year if they did not have a helmet. The noble
Earl, Lord Listowel, pointed out to him that 26,000 children were
injured with head injuries every year, which is a rather different
figure.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, said that it was good to create a
culture of helmet wearing. I agree. As I said, in Australia,
compulsion is creating a culture in which children are out wearing
their helmets the whole time. Any new law takes time to bed down and
for everyone to obey it because not everyone is aware of it. The
Minister pointed out that the percentage of boys wearing a helmet has
reduced recently. That is a very good reason for making it compulsory.
He also said that we would be starting from a low base and that we
would need to move immediately to 100 per cent wearing of helmets. The
argument about helmets applies in exactly the same direction as the
argument that the Government used on drivers' use of mobile phones, so
that point will not wash.
However, my noble friend Lady Hanham has put to me the argument, which
she did not reiterate today, that my amendment would make children
criminals. I shall look at that before Third Reading because I do not
wish to make children criminals if I can help it. But it is important
that we make it compulsory for children under 14 to wear protective
headgear. I will reserve my right to bring the matter before your
Lordships' House at Third Reading. In the mean time, I beg leave to
withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Guy
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