Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill

Overview

This Member’s Bill aims to reduce the default speed limit on ‘restricted’ roads to 20 miles per hour (mph).

‘Restricted’ roads include most residential streets and minor roads in built-up areas. These are generally streets which have street lights. The law says that the speed limit on these roads is 30 mph as a default – that is, unless there are signs indicating a different limit. The Bill would lower this default limit from 30 mph to 20 mph.

You can find out more in the document prepared on behalf of Mark Ruskell MSP that explains the Bill.

Why the Bill was created

Mark Ruskell MSP believes that lower speed limits reduce the speed that people typically drive at. He believes that lower speeds make streets safer and more pleasant. In his view, lowering the default speed limit on restricted roads is the most effective way to achieve these benefits.

You can find out more in the document prepared on behalf of Mark Ruskell MSP that explains the Bill.

The Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill fell on 13 June 2019

Bill is at Introduced stage.

Introduced (21 September 2018)

Bill is at Stage 1 stage.

Stage 1 (13 June 2019)

Bill is at Stage 2 stage.

Stage 2

Bill is at Stage 3 stage.

Stage 3

Bill is at Act stage.

Act

Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill as introduced

Related information on the Bill

Why the Bill is being proposed (Policy Memorandum)

Policy Memorandum Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill Policy Memorandum Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill

Explanation of the Bill (Explanatory Notes)

Explanatory Notes Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill Explanatory Notes Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill

How much the Bill is likely to cost (Financial Memorandum)

Financial Memorandum Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill Financial Memorandum Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill

Opinions on whether the Parliament has the power to make the law (Statements on Legislative Competence)

Statements on Legislative Competence Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill Statements on Legislative Competence Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill

Information on the powers the Bill gives the Scottish Government and others (Delegated Powers Memorandum)

Delegated Powers Memorandum Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill Delegated Powers Memorandum Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill

Scottish Parliament research on the Bill

Committees involved in this Bill

Lead committee: Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee

Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee

Who examined the Bill

Each Bill is examined by a 'lead committee'. This is the committee that has the subject of the Bill in its remit.

It looks at everything to do with the Bill.

Other committees may look at certain parts of the Bill if it covers subjects they deal with.

Who spoke to the lead committee about the Bill

First meeting transcript

“The average speed of vehicles on streets, provided with a 20mph speed limit, has dropped by an average of 1.9mph from 22.8mph to 20.9mph.”

Before the speed limit went down to 20mph, the majority of motorists were not breaking the law. When it was reduced, the average speed exceeded the limit, which means that most motorists are breaking the law. Do you have any comments on that?

Professor Davis

First, I will provide a bit of the science behind that, by way of explanation. From the peer-reviewed literature on the science of speed and kinetic energy, we know that for every 1mph reduction in average speed, there is a 6 per cent reduction in the number of collisions. We know that the slower people travel, the more time they have to make the decision to stop. The faster they go—for example, once they get over 30mph—the more dangerous things become, and people often drive at well over 30mph where there is a 30mph speed limit. We have to think about the kinetic energy and the impact.

Often, the press portray a 1mph or 1.9mph average speed reduction as being not really worth it—we see that time and again—but that lacks understanding of the science of kinetic energy and the significant drop in the number of collisions that result from that reduction. We have seen data from Portsmouth City Council—the first authority in England to implement a 20mph speed limit across a whole city—Calderdale Council, Bristol City Council and Warrington Borough Council, where, as a result of speed reductions, significant reductions have been reported in the number of casualties. The link can be seen—if the kinetic energy is reduced, the likelihood is that the number of injuries is reduced.

As a coda to that, I point out that Scotland was the first place in the United Kingdom to implement a 20mph speed limit. That was done in 75 sites across 27 local authorities at the end of the 1990s, and there were significant reductions in the number of casualties. Scotland was the first place to do it and we have good evidence that small average reductions are important.

Mike Rumbles

Professor Davis did not address my question, which is about criminality and the point that most motorists in south Edinburgh would now be considered to be criminals.

Rod King

One thing to remember is that when 20mph limits are set, a lot of roads are included where the speed is already low and possibly below 20mph.

There are three types of roads: residential roads with low speeds, roads with medium speeds of about 20 to 24mph and roads on which the speed is a little bit faster. Research shows that there is a mix of reductions in speed where 20mph speed limits are implemented. There is no reduction on the slow roads, some reduction on the medium-speed roads and a reduction of 3mph to 4mph on the faster roads.

Research also shows that, after the implementation of 20mph speed limits, the vast majority of people—80 per cent or so—travel below the speed at which there would be enforcement, which means that they travel at speeds below 25mph. There is good evidence on those changes.

Another point is that, if a consistent national limit is set and there is public consensus for it, compliance across the spectrum of speeds is affected, which obviously helps.

Mike Rumbles

My whole point is about compliance. We have 20mph speed limits in Edinburgh. The anecdotal evidence is that, sometimes, given the traffic, no one can drive more than 20mph, but that, at other times, quite a large number of people break the 20mph speed limit. What is the point of having a law that most people do not observe?

Stuart Hay

We should be aware that behaviour is no different where there is a 30mph speed limit. In fact, the statistics show that people behave worse in 30mph zones. A limit is a limit, and it is important that people drive according to the conditions. In an urban residential area, people should anticipate that there will be children and that sight lines are limited, and they should drive at about 20mph. Some drivers already do that, so the point about introducing a speed limit is to shift the behaviour of the other drivers. We can partly do that through education, so that people are aware of the new limit, partly through engineering, where necessary, and, finally, partly through enforcement, for the hard core who really do not get it.

The Convener

Jamie Greene

As Stewart Stevenson said, the panel is in favour of the principle of the bill.

It is quite striking that nobody can answer fundamental and simple questions about how many roads or what percentage of road mileage would be affected by the bill that we are being asked to agree to. In Edinburgh, there even still seems to be uncertainty about how many roads are affected in the current zone, never mind how many would be affected in future zones. In order for us to consider fully the consequences of the bill, it is entirely appropriate that we get a sense of the scale of its impact, but no one seems to be able to provide an answer on that. Why is that?

Stuart Hay

We cannot do exact numbers, but we can say what—

Jamie Greene

Surely you can answer on how many roads there are and what the road mileage is.

Stuart Hay

No. Basically, that would mean counting up all the 30mph areas in Scotland that have an order applied to them—those are areas that the bill would affect. We have a very developed network; those streets have all been assessed at 30mph, and most of them would go down to 20mph. Where it was deemed appropriate by local authorities, a few would be retained at 30mph. From Living Streets Scotland’s point of view, those roads would be in places such as industrial estates, where there is not a lot of pedestrian activity and the primary function of the roads is to be distributor roads. However, the 20mph roads would cover all residential areas, areas where there is lot of pedestrian activity—for example, around parks—and every area that has a school.

We know where the bill would impact, but we do not know how many exclusions would be created, because that is a different process.

The Convener

I am conscious that we are still on our first question and that the panel has a lot more questions to answer. I invite Rod King to come in briefly, then we will move on to the next question.

Rod King

No member of the panel knows the answer to Jamie Greene’s question for the same reason that the Department for Transport, the UK Government, Transport Scotland and most local authorities do not know. The mix of restricted and non-restricted traffic regulation order roads has been built up over time and there is no central database. That is why we are ignorant.

10:30

Jamie Greene

Is there no data? Has no one mapped the road mileage and what percentage is classified as restricted roads in any part of the UK?

Rod King

Rod King

That is a very big question. Would that approach be applied to motorways and rural roads or only to places where there are people—where a 20mph limit is appropriate and where people mix? The RAC suggestion does not stack up and would not be consistent with our broader range of speed limits. It would tend not to work, with people involved in interminable arguments about whether the limit should come in at 7 o’clock or 7.30 and so on. It is much clearer to say that a speed limit exists 24/7.

To come back to the question about letting local authorities continue to impose 20mph limits, such an approach treats the 20mph speed limit as the exception, rather than the rule. It continues the current situation, in which the public consensus is that we can drive at 30mph on most roads, with the exception of roads in a few odd local authorities that set the speed limit at 20mph. It endorses non-compliance and it is not a very smart approach. It is predominantly the approach in England, where 33 per cent of the population live in authorities with—more or less—a default 20mph limit, adjacent to authorities without a 20mph limit.

That is not a smart way to do it. The bill proposes a much smarter way, which is much more in line with what Scandinavian countries do. In Scandinavia, the default is 30kph, or 18.5mph, on most roads. There is both a social consensus and a civil liability consensus on that. If a driver is doing more than 25mph on a road with a 20mph limit, that driver is 100 per cent liable for the consequences of a crash, regardless of any negligence of the pedestrian. People who do not comply with the 20mph law can face sanctions under civil liability.

Mike Rumbles

I want to follow up on the discussion about taking a blanket approach rather than allowing local authorities to impose 20mph limits. I represent many people in rural Aberdeenshire, and the A roads that go through all the villages in rural Aberdeenshire will not be affected by the bill. However, committee members were told this morning at a technical briefing that every single road that leaves the main road will have to have signage to show the 20mph speed limit—that came as a surprise to me and, I think, to other members of the committee. The cost to Aberdeenshire Council alone will run to I do not know how much. Can you talk about the feasibility and cost of having a blanket approach across the country?

Rod King

The primary responsibility of local authorities when setting speed limits is to take into account the needs of vulnerable road users. I would ask whether that main road needs a 30mph or a 20mph limit. If 20mph is appropriate, the local authority can make a traffic regulation order to make the speed limit 20mph on that part of the road and then it will not need to put up any signs on the side roads.

The Convener

We will come back to the question about cost, because John Mason will ask more detailed questions about cost later.

Stewart Stevenson

I am not looking for a long answer to this question, just perhaps an indication of where to find the answer. Rod King said that a third of English authorities have, in essence, a blanket 20mph speed limit, which suggests that two thirds do not have that limit. Are there differential accident and health outcomes between the two groups of authorities? Is evidence available that can help us?

Professor Davis

I mentioned the evidence from towns and cities that have implemented the 20mph limit and done an evaluation. Bristol has done the most detailed evaluation, which has shown a reduction in deaths and serious and slight injuries. I also mentioned Warrington and Portsmouth in my submission, as well as the original data from Scotland.

We have good evidence that reducing the speed limit from 30mph to 20mph brings about a reduction in deaths and serious and slight injuries, if that is what you are asking, Mr Stevenson.

Stewart Stevenson

Forgive me—I accept that, but we know that authorities make different interventions to try to drive down accidents, so looking at what happens in one authority gives us only part of the answer. I was merely asking whether the shape of the graph in authorities that have not reduced the speed limit is different from the shape of the graph in authorities that have reduced it. It is not about comparing Bristol before implementation with Bristol after implementation; it is about comparing Bristol with Cheshire, for example.

Professor Davis

Absolutely. In a decent evaluation there must always be a comparator, to show what happens if the action is not taken. The calculations in “The Bristol Twenty Miles Per Hour Limit Evaluation (BRITE) Study” showed a drop, as was the case in Calderdale, relative to areas that did not implement the speed limit—all other things being equal, which is always the difficult issue.

Peter Chapman

I want to explore my question about variable speed limits a wee bit more, particularly with Mr Hay, because he said that it was important to drive according to the conditions. I remind the panel that the scenario is that somebody is driving at 3 o’clock in the morning in Edinburgh when there are no other cars about and nobody is walking. Is it fair to ask that driver to go at 20mph, or is it reasonable to say that 30mph would be perfectly okay at that time? It is about driving according to the conditions.

Stuart Hay

We have to consider the conditions at that time, when visibility is reduced because it is night-time, stopping distances are different and, on certain days of the week, people who have had a drink might be wandering around. A lot of factors need to be taken into account when the speed limit is brought in. Another point about variable speed limits is whether to sign those, which causes confusion for drivers. We need only to look at the problems that have been caused on bus lanes, which apply at different times in different places, and the controversy around that. We would be repeating that issue if there was a variable speed limit. It is much clearer to say that it is an urban area so the correct speed is 20mph.

Gavin Thomson

I was going to make a similar point. There will be pedestrians out and about in the middle of the night. There might not be many, but we can never predict where they will be and where they might need to get to. They deserve safe streets as much as someone who is walking about at peak time or rush hour.

Jamie Greene

On a scale from zero to 100 per cent, where zero would mean that no one applied for an exemption from the 20mph restriction to go back to 30mph and 100 per cent would mean that everyone applied for exemptions, does anyone have an idea of the volume of TROs that local authorities might need to move limits from 20mph to 30mph, compared with the existing volume of TROs to go from 30mph to 20mph?

10:45

Rod King

Professor Davis

I will give a brief example from the city of Bristol, which I know in considerable detail. The main bus operator there is First, which opposed the 20mph programme when it started with a pilot, as in Edinburgh. However, analysis showed that it was not the speed limit but passengers boarding and buying tickets that delayed buses. First did not have to change its timetable.

The effect on average speed is relatively small. Some adjustments might be needed, but that issue is small relative to the delays from people boarding buses, which relate to ticket types.

Gavin Thomson

In areas where 20mph has been implemented, the flow of traffic has improved, so it is not necessarily true that journey times are longer. A bus’s top speed might be lower, but the overall journey time will not necessarily be longer.

Mark Ruskell (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green)

Some 20mph zones have been rolled out in Scotland, albeit in quite an inconsistent way. If the bill is not passed and we stick with the existing system, what progress can we make on 20mph zones in Scotland?

Bruce Whyte

As I said, there is a piecemeal approach in Scotland just now. If we want to lower the 30mph speed limits on restricted roads in our towns and cities, to save lives, to get more people walking and cycling and to enable people to feel that it is safe for their children to walk and cycle to school, doing it on a national basis would have a national public health impact. Scotland could be at the forefront of a public health intervention that could have an impact not unlike that of the smoking ban—it would be that large.

Rod King

The reality is that the Scottish Government is being asked what the right speed limit is for residential roads, and it is in a position to say whether that is 20mph or 30mph. If it decides against 20mph, it will be endorsing 30mph on every restricted road, unless the local authority thinks otherwise. It will be endorsing a national consensus that it is okay to drive at 28mph or 29mph in housing estates, high streets and other places where people want to walk and cycle, with all the consequences of those higher driving speeds. That will certainly have a negative effect on public health, as far as active travel is concerned, and on the liveability and wellbeing of Scottish communities.

Professor Davis

I reiterate what Rod King said. Scotland is leading in many ways. For example, it led on the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, and the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill is currently before the Parliament. Scotland has strong ambitions on improving population health by increasing physical activity.

A 20mph limit is necessary, although it might be insufficient on its own; other measures need to go with it. It is a great opportunity to help to address many of the problems that Scotland faces, and not implementing the approach would be a missed opportunity.

Finally, we know from the science—it is very clear—that driving at higher speeds kills more people. We have an opportunity to try to reduce the number of people who are killed or have life-changing injuries. That is a big, big opportunity for Scotland.

The Convener

That neatly brings us to the next line of questioning.

John Finnie

In their submissions, all the witnesses referred to road safety, for which I thank them. Professor Adrian Davis said:

“First, what is road safety? Road safety can be defined ... as ‘freedom from the liability of exposure to harm or injury on the highway’.”

He went on to say:

“This is in contrast to much of what is commonly misunderstood to be road safety. As researchers noted almost three decades ago, ‘road safety usually means the unsafety of the road transport system’. Road safety is more than about the avoidance of being injured. It must also address the perception of risk of harm and freedom from harm and its manifestation at the individual, community and societal levels.”

Will the panel talk about the road safety benefits that will accrue from the proposals in the bill?

The Convener

Adrian Davis, you started to answer that question in your previous answer, so I will come to you last. Rod King, do you want to respond? Please be brief, so that I can bring everyone in.

Rod King

There is a problem with what we mean by road safety—it means different things to different people. Community roads can become a lot safer if children do not walk or cycle to school. Does road safety include the fears of a parent about allowing their child to walk or cycle to school? Does road safety include the fears of the 75-year-old who normally walks to the shops once or twice a week but decides that the speed of traffic is such that they do not think they can get safely across the road any more? If children are no longer walking or cycling to school and elderly people are no longer going to the shops, that will reduce the number of casualties on the roads, but road safety has to be extended beyond those statistics. Communities and individuals have to feel more able to walk or cycle on the streets, and lowering the speed of traffic does that. As well as the strict casualty aspect of road safety, lowering the speed of traffic has huge benefits for wider aspects of road safety, including emissions, which I am sure Gavin Thomson will address.

Stuart Hay

We have to look at what is being done by the countries that are doing best on road safety. They take a safe systems approach: accidents will happen and mistakes will be made, so it is about asking what factors deliver bad outcomes. One of those factors is speed, so, if you can eliminate that as a factor, you will get better outcomes for road safety.

Scotland is trying to move in that direction, and we are about to review our road safety framework. Progress has been really good, but that progress is plateauing and the 20mph limit is one of the few big-ticket items left in the locker that we could deploy to improve those statistics. That is what we need to do as a nation.

Bruce Whyte

We have all been involved in studies or have quoted studies that have shown reductions in the number of road casualties because of 20mph limits. There are various examples from Bristol and other cities across the UK. Those statistics are based on the number of police-recorded casualties, and we know that the police underrecord casualties.

A recent paper by Rachel Aldred suggests that the number of casualties on the roads is five times higher than the number of police-recorded casualties. Those unrecorded casualties were probably more minor, and speed might not have been a factor in all of them, but it is about safety and the perception of safety on our streets.

If we feel that our streets are safer, we are more likely to be out on those streets, we are more likely to cycle on those streets and we are more likely to allow our children to walk or cycle to school. Some of the estimates of the casualty reductions underestimate that aspect. It gets into the area of how we become a more active nation as well.

The Convener

Adrian Davis, I will bring you in. I will not bring in Gavin Thomson at this point, because I think he will be the first to respond to the next question.

Professor Davis

I echo what Rod King has said. One way of addressing road safety is through fear. If we just remove pedestrians and cyclists from the roads, which is what has happened increasingly over recent decades, we can achieve the casualty reduction targets. Traditional road safety practitioners will say that that is fine, but it is not fine if we want to achieve the important public health outcomes and the climate targets that we need to achieve.

Other aspects relate to social inclusion. Stuart Hay mentioned that people feel they are no longer able to go out—that is what we call community severance. An example of that is when someone in their 70s feels that they cannot get across the road and is fearful of the environment out there—they are fearful that people are driving too fast and they are walking too slowly.

A whole welter of benefits come from slower speeds, including a reduction in the number of casualties and in the associated misery and suffering, which, in turn, leads to savings to the national health service. However, the benefits go well beyond the traditional road safety concept; it is about freedom from fear.

11:00

John Finnie

I thank the panel for those answers. In your replies, some of you alluded to something that also features in all your responses—active travel and its potential. The written submission from 20’s Plenty for Us states:

“Look at any city/place that has successfully encouraged active travel and you will find low speed limits of 20mph or 30kmh on most streets.”

I understand that, if people were confident to walk and cycle on the streets, there would be an increase in their doing so. Has any assessment of that been made, or are you able to quantify from experience elsewhere what the increase in active travel would be as a result of any reduction in the speed limit?

Rod King

One of the issues is that a 20mph limit is not a silver bullet for active travel. No one expects a big change, but a 20mph limit is a foundation for active travel. It provides a foundation for all the other initiatives on active travel that are going to be taken, such as cycle training, making dangerous junctions better, creating better off-route cycle paths and better walking facilities, having wider pavements or whatever. That is what happens when, as I mentioned, there is an approach to the community and it is told that active travel will be made easier.

Having a 20mph limit is one of the things that is done, although it is never done in isolation, which makes it a little hard to quantify the difference that it makes to active travel. Professor Davis will probably have more to say on that.

The Convener

I promised Gavin Thomson that I would let him in now, so I will make good my promise.

Gavin Thomson

I am checking my notes. A study came out last year that looked at 20mph zones in London, which showed that 5 per cent of the residents who were surveyed said that they were walking more and 2 per cent said that they were cycling more. Given those statistics, if we expand 20mph limits so that they are the norm, I think that we can expect the figures to rise. Creating behaviour change is about people seeing it, demonstrating it in their communities and gradually, over time, changing their travel choices.

Bruce Whyte

I will give you a specific example of that. Prior to the introduction of Edinburgh’s 20mph limit, a 20mph limit was piloted in south-central Edinburgh—members might be aware of that. There were before-and-after surveys of residents that involved over 1,000 households; I will give some of the statistics from those surveys. The percentage of children who walked to school increased marginally from 63 per cent to 65 per cent, and the percentage of older primary school children who were allowed to play unsupervised outside their home, on the pavement or in the street, rose from 31 per cent to 66 per cent. When people considered how safe their street was, the percentage of people who felt that speeds were safe increased from 71 per cent to 78 per cent. The number of people who considered traffic speeds in their local area to be safe improved, the proportion of children who cycled to school increased from 4 per cent to 12 per cent, and overall support for the 20mph speed limit increased from 68 per cent to 79 per cent. That is a specific example from south-central Edinburgh.

Richard Lyle

No one in the room can dispute that reducing the speed limit would be an improvement. We know that speed kills—that is accepted. Mr King talked about drivers not knowing what the speed limit is on a particular road, but most new cars show the speed limit on their dashboard, which tells the driver whether they are in a 30mph zone or a 40mph zone.

The Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee recently carried out a piece of work on air pollution. Air quality is important to people. In its submission, Living Streets Scotland says:

“Evidence on carbon reduction and air pollution is mixed and inconclusive”.

Gavin Thomson of Friends of the Earth Scotland says:

“Reducing the speed limit would improve the flow of traffic, reduce congestion and emissions”.

However, the RAC, which has been called the motorist’s friend, says that

“the potential impact on urban congestion from reduced speeds and the inevitable longer journey times may increase emissions.”

What impact will reducing the default speed limit on restricted roads to 20mph have on vehicle emissions and on local air pollution? Can you highlight any relevant research in the area that might be of interest to the committee?

The Convener

I will let Gavin Thomson and Stuart Hay answer that question first, given that their organisations have been quoted.

Gavin Thomson

I will talk about the research in a moment. As I have mentioned, the evidence base suggests that 20mph limits improve traffic flow and—importantly, from an air pollution point of view—result in less stop-starting and less acceleration and deceleration. That means less particulate pollution. Particulates are tiny particles that cause a lot of damage when you breathe them in and, indeed, a lot of the air pollution work that we do focuses on particulate matter. When there is less acceleration and deceleration, and less stop-starting of traffic, there is a lot less particulate pollution and an improvement in air quality.

Bruce Whyte

I will take the discussion back to safety. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the World Health Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Faculty of Public Health all support 30kmh—which is equivalent to slightly less than 20mph—or 20mph as a safe speed on urban roads, particularly where there could be conflict between cars and walkers, cyclists and other vulnerable road users.

NICE also publishes guidance on air pollution, and in that guidance it strongly supports 20mph limits for smooth driving and speed reduction.

Gavin Thomson

The picture for exhaust emissions if we change the 30mph limit to 20mph might be mixed or have a degree of nuance, but when we look at air pollution as a whole, including tyre wear and brake wear, it is pretty clear that 20mph limits would improve air quality.

This is important, because what we are talking about are the public spaces between buildings that we call streets. We must not forget that they are public spaces.

There is very clear evidence from Donald Appleyard in America and Josh Hart in Bristol on how dependent community cohesiveness and communications are on the traffic conditions on roads that separate the people in communities and how they affect their ability to visit neighbours, walk to the shops and, indeed, be in the community as a person. When you walk, you talk to people. This approach makes a very beneficial change in the cohesiveness of communities and how people feel about them; indeed, the Appleyard research quite clearly shows that increased traffic leads to reduced communication between neighbours and less of that collective community feeling. If we can get lower speeds and thereby do something that is symbolic of making communities better, it will help.

The Convener

Thank you. The next question is from the deputy convener, Gail Ross.

Gail Ross

I want to cover two areas, but I have been told that I need to roll them into one question to save time. I apologise, therefore, because that question might be a long one.

I want to ask about awareness raising and enforcement. Evidence that we have received suggests that awareness raising should be along the lines of the drink-driving campaign, with the focus on social stigma and the like, but obviously the safety and environmental aspects need to be highlighted, too. What form should an awareness-raising campaign take?

On enforcement, we are obviously—or, I should say, maybe—going to get people who say, “I wasn’t aware of the speed limit.” There will be an implementation period to allow local authorities to get the signs in place, but how should the police handle any such instances that might arise during—or, indeed, after—that implementation period?

The Convener

I am not sure how strictly the police are enforcing the 20mph speed limit around Edinburgh, but perhaps someone will bring that up in their response. Who would like to kick off?

Rod King

I will cover the enforcement issue. In that respect, we can look at best and worst practice around the UK. Worst practice is for the chief constable to say, “We’re not going to enforce 20mph limits,” because that sends out a huge message to non-compliers not only that they are not going to get caught but that it is not a proper speed limit in the first place.

The level beyond that worst practice would be some form of enforcement. In other words, the speed limit would be seen as just another speed limit; it could be any road anywhere, but the limit, whatever it was, would be enforced.

Then there is the kind of best practice followed by, for example, Avon and Somerset Police. First of all, it has 20mph speed awareness courses, and when it puts people on such a course, the administrative fee that it gets from attendees helps to pay for the enforcement process. It also publishes where the speed camera sites are going to be each week, and they cover 20, 30 and 40mph sites. That sort of approach spreads a consensus that 20mph limits are being enforced just like any other limit.

It is not a case of having a policeman on every corner. It is about establishing something that I would say is not just a social consensus but an establishment consensus, under which people know that 20mph is the legal limit and that if they get caught breaking it, they will face a restriction by way of a course or a fixed-penalty notice. That is the experience that we have.

The Convener

Rod, can you please clarify whether you are suggesting that speed awareness courses—which I do not think are available yet in Scotland—would be good practice? Is that right?

Rod King

I am saying that they are part of a method that is used in some places in England in order to impose a restriction on someone without necessarily putting points on their licence, if that is appropriate. Yes, it can be done.

The other option is that the police can delegate responsibility for enforcement to local authorities or other agencies, which has been explored in some areas.

The Convener

Until you said “yes”, I thought that you were going to give a politician’s answer.

Professor Davis

I will come back to my point that introducing a 20mph limit is a behaviour change intervention, as well as a road safety intervention. One example is the Think! drink-driving campaign, which has been running for decades and is trying to relieve the scourge of drink-driving. West Midlands Police provide a really good example, which I cited in my written submission. Although they are a relatively small force, their tactic is to deliberately go out and make a lot of noise in communities. They often go round school areas and other population-specific settings and deliberately book people for speeding and other infringements. In the case of a school area, they will tell the headteacher and ask them to put it out through their social media networks. They create a dialogue and cause quite a bit of noise for those people who say that the police should be out catching real criminals. They will explain exactly why someone is a criminal as a result of the action that they have been caught doing. That approach creates a consensus that the police are out there and it means that, with the level of capacity that the police have, they can create the impression that someone will be caught if they speed.

We need more police enforcement, but there needs to be a bigger discussion, which probably requires more time than we have in this evidence session, about a national awareness campaign and the constituent ingredients of that campaign, which, as I have mentioned before, need to have a strong social marking element of what people gain and what we take away. We take away a person’s right to drive at 30mph, but with a 20mph limit there are a lot of benefits, which we have talked about. Studies across the UK, such as the British social attitudes survey, consistently show that there is clear majority support for 20mph.

John Mason

I am interested in the financial memorandum and some of the costs of all this. I realise that that might not be the panel’s specialist subject, but it is connected to some of the questions that Mike Rumbles asked. The financial memorandum specifically mentions Angus, so I had a quick look on Google at Brechin. The A935 runs through Brechin and, as the bill stands, the speed limit would be 30mph. I counted at least 40 side roads that would all need to be in a 20mph zone, and there would be a 30mph zone around all those roads. There is a considerable cost to that and the council has made an estimate of the cost. Presumably, it would be cheaper to have only 20mph zones around the town, and for every road in the town to stay at 20mph. In many ways that would be simpler for people to understand, because otherwise a child who was playing in one street would not know that the next street had a different speed limit, for example. Would that be cheaper to implement and easier for people to understand? Why are we looking only at restricted roads for the purposes of the 20mph limit?

Stuart Hay

There is no reason why we should not be looking to bring some of the high streets that are part of the trunk road network down to 20mph. To be honest, Transport Scotland has attempted to do that, but it has faced the challenge that the local authority would have to bring down the speed limits on all the side streets. The problem is almost reversed. If Transport Scotland and councils worked together, we could make the change cheaply—that is the whole point; Transport Scotland would not exactly have to make a policy change.

Your point is valid. The bill would introduce an approach that was cheaper overall than making all the different orders would be. We would end up with fewer signs, rather than more signs, if we planned implementation on a network basis as a national programme. If changing the speed limit was a national initiative, there would also be an onus on the national Government to bear some costs.

11:30

John Mason

To play devil’s advocate on my point, would the transport industry oppose 20mph zones on major routes through small towns?

Stuart Hay

The sections of road that are involved are relatively short, and such limits have been introduced before. What is proposed is not new, but doing it has been technically difficult. There is support in communities for 20mph limits. Most of the time, the average speeds on shopping streets where vehicles are loading and there are pedestrian crossings are not particularly high, so the impacts on businesses would probably be marginal.

Rod King

The beauty of the bill is that it is set at the optimum level, which addresses restricted roads and leaves it to local authorities to decide on A and B roads. That provides the flexibility that is needed. The bill combines national consistency with local flexibility, which is really good.

If the bill was the other way round and proposed to change the speed limit on all roads in urban or village environments to 20mph, the committee would ask different questions about whether that was appropriate. The bill achieves a fine balance and I commend it for that.

John Mason

That is fine. When Mark Ruskell appears as a witness, I will follow up the point with him.

I have another question on costs. The financial memorandum refers to a cost of £1 million to £2 million for removing repeater signs. I understand that present regulations say that repeater signs cannot be erected for whatever the default speed limit is but that if the speed limit is not the default—if it is 20mph or 40mph—repeater signs are needed.

The community councils in my area often ask for repeater signs. The Clyde Gateway, which is a new dual carriageway in my area, is a big sweeping road that looks and feels as if it should have a 40mph or 50mph limit, but its limit is 30mph. People have asked for repeater signs there, but the council says that it cannot put them in.

Should we change the rule about repeater signs? That would save us quite a lot of money, because the City of Edinburgh Council could leave all its 20mph signs up.

The Convener

I am not sure whether John Mason is suggesting that he could become a middle man for the City of Edinburgh Council to sell on its repeater signs.

Rod King

John Mason raises technical issues that relate to the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions, which are different from the guidance on setting speed limits. The TSRGD has had numerous changes over the years.

Repeater signs are required when the national speed limit does not apply. If the national speed limit changed, 20mph repeater signs would not be needed on restricted roads, but repeater signs would be needed on 30mph dual carriageways, where the national speed limit would no longer apply. There are opportunities, because the position in the TSRGD has been relaxed, and the number of repeater signs is now at the local authority’s discretion.

John Mason

Does the local authority have discretion over the number of repeater signs, whether it has them, or both?

Rod King

At least one sign is needed in an area—the issue is obscure—but the TSRGD does not necessarily say how many are needed, as long as drivers know what the speed limit is.

Other countries do not have repeater signs, which are a UK phenomenon. We keep on reminding drivers of the limit because they are not smart enough to know whether the limit is 30mph or 20mph.

John Mason

This proposal will complicate it, will it not? At the moment, if you are driving in Glasgow you assume that you are in a 30mph-limit area, but under the plan there will be confusion because some roads will have a 30mph limit and some will have a 20mph limit.

Rod King

There can be simplifications. You will have to look at changing the TSRGD, because in some places it refers to not having repeater signs on 30mph roads, and it conflates that with roads that are subject to the national speed limit. Some changes will be required anyway. That would allow you to say that where you have 20mph or 30mph roads, it does not matter if you have 20mph repeater signs and that you can leave them in. The detail of that could be worked out and addressed by a statutory instrument, rather than by legislation.

John Mason

I accept that. That is great. Thank you.

Colin Smyth

The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities says that the current budget going through Parliament is a £147 million cash cut for local authorities. The Scottish Parliament information centre says that it is a £230 million real-terms cut for local authorities. Nobody believes that the Government will hand local authorities an extra £20 million to pay for this proposal. Do you think that it is fair to ask local authorities to pick up the bill for it? I will play devil’s advocate by asking whether that is local authorities’ priority and what you think should be cut. Do you think that what is proposed is the most effective road safety investment that local authorities could make?

The Convener

Gosh, that was quite a subjective question.

Professor Davis

I will try to answer Mr Smyth’s question. He asked whether the proposal would be the most effective intervention. We have already had a debate about that in the wider literature. Yes, in terms of cost to the nation, it looks like one of the most effective interventions that we could make to try to reduce casualties.

I remind you at national Parliament level to consider that the value of a statistical life is more than £1.8 million—that is the cost if you kill someone on the road. That is a crude assessment, of course—it does not include misery, loss and all the other things that are not easily quantifiable.

There are big savings for the national health service. That is a question that needs to be addressed at national level. Given that there are savings to the national health service—which we can estimate from the studies that have already been done—could money from NHS budgets be crossed over to help the implementation of the 20mph programme? I know that my NHS director colleagues would not like to hear that, but it is a viable suggestion and the question should be asked.

Bruce Whyte

I will duck the question about who should pay for this, but it is clear that there would be up-front costs of having more signage and changing signage. However, over the piece, if we see reductions in casualties and fatalities, which we might expect year on year, there would be a long-term benefit in the savings we would make from that, and there would be public health benefits to having a slightly more active population. This intervention is not the only thing that we need to do to improve physical activity and health in Scotland, but, given that we are building pedestrianised areas and segregated routes, it will help by making people think that it is safe to use them—it will improve the effectiveness of some of those other schemes.

Maureen Watt

The financial memorandum says that the annual cost to local authorities in the first two years will be £9 million to £10 million. In its submission, Aberdeenshire Council—I represent part of Aberdeenshire—says that it will cost it £0.5 million. Half a million pounds times 32 local authorities is £16 million. Is the figure therefore not grossly underestimated? Where did it come from?

Stuart Hay

I did not prepare that figure, but the proposal will affect local authorities in different ways, depending on what level of progress they have already made on 20mph limits. Some local authorities, such as Glasgow City Council, which is rolling out the measure, will see a saving if they have a programme already—they will be able to do it more cheaply and efficiently. For local authorities that have not done anything or that have a very small network, it will cost them a lot more money in the short term, but even they will benefit because it is the cheapest and most efficient way of rolling out the limit. National Government needs to stump up and contribute if it wants to deliver the road safety framework. This is a national initiative that will deliver national benefits. There are not a lot of things left in the locker, and this is one of the cost-effective options for the Government to tap into.

The Convener

In rural constituencies where there are lots of trunk roads, it will be a big problem.

Jamie Greene

I want to follow on from Maureen Watt’s line of questioning. I have had specific conversations with many local authorities about this, among other transport issues, and they are gravely concerned about the potential costs of it.

6 February 2019

Second meeting transcript

The Convener (Edward Mountain)

Good morning and welcome to the sixth meeting in 2019 of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. I ask everyone to ensure that mobile phones are on silent.

Agenda item 3 is the Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill. This is our second evidence-taking session on the bill, and we will take evidence from motoring, road and passenger organisations. I welcome Neil Greig, policy and research director, IAM RoadSmart; Paul White, deputy director, Confederation of Passenger Transport Scotland; Tony Kenmuir, chairman, Scottish Taxi Federation; Martin Reid, policy director, Scotland and Northern Ireland, Road Haulage Association; and Eric Bridgstock, independent road safety researcher, on behalf of the Alliance of British Drivers.

For the benefit of those of you who have not given evidence before, I should say that members will ask a series of questions and, if you would like to come in, you should try to catch my eye. I will not necessarily get you in on every single question—there are quite a lot of you—but I will do my utmost to do so. Do not touch any of the buttons in front of you as they will be operated for you. Keep your eye on me once you start talking because, sometimes, when you get passionately involved in a subject, you may wander on for a bit, so if you see me wagging my pen, it probably means that you ought to come to the end. The pen can fly out of my hand to attract your attention if you are not paying attention. Hopefully, you will all get a chance to come in.

Before we go any further, I invite members to declare any relevant interests.

Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP)

I draw attention to an entry in my register of interests, which shows that I am a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists—now known as IAM RoadSmart.

The Convener

As no other members have made a declaration, we will move on to the first question, from Gail Ross.

Gail Ross (Caithness, Sutherland and Ross) (SNP)

We have some of your written evidence, but could you briefly outline whether you support the move from 30mph to 20mph on restricted roads, and give us the reasoning behind your answer?

Neil Greig (IAM RoadSmart)

We do not support the bill because of the blanket nature of its intention to change everything in an unfocused way. We are not against a 20mph limit where it is required—that limit is very popular on roads outside schools. A few years ago, we did a survey of several thousand drivers, and 49 per cent said that they could not support 20mph becoming the new 30mph; 21 per cent said that they could support that; and a big chunk in the middle, about 20 per cent, said that they did not know yet.

There is no huge anti-20mph feeling among drivers, but the approach in the bill is too broad brush. If you have an issue with a street and you want to change behaviour, you have to change the look and feel of that street. The evidence from the Department for Transport and from various studies is quite clear: just putting up signs—Edinburgh is perhaps an example of that—does not have a huge impact on behaviour.

A number of studies have come out recently, such as the Atkins study down south, all saying basically the same thing: a 20mph limit without changing the character of a road does not really change driver behaviour. We would rather see a targeted approach, not a blanket approach.

Paul White (Confederation of Passenger Transport)

The CPT’s membership is divided on the issue. I think that all our members are supportive of the bill’s aims. For some members, particularly urban operators, getting to 20mph, never mind 30mph, is aspirational. Other members are worried about the impacts on their business, particularly in marginal services, where an increase in journey times could lead to reduced patronage and make a service non-viable.

There is a bit of a mix of views, but we support the bill’s aims. Perhaps elements can be changed—either in the supplementary guidance or in the bill itself—that would make the legislation more palatable to more of our members.

Tony Kenmuir (Scottish Taxi Federation)

I speak for just over 23,000 public hire taxi drivers. I have not seen a single response in favour of the bill. Having said that, I highlight that the responses are generally supportive of 20mph where it is appropriate.

The feeling is—I imagine that this will be a very consistent message—that the blanket approach is likely to cause a lack of compliance. There is a likelihood of increased compliance if the 20mph limit is applied specifically where required.

Martin Reid (Road Haulage Association)

Our position is very similar to that of the other panellists. Our members’ response has been along the lines of objecting to having a blanket approach. Nobody has a problem in principle with 20mph speed limits, if they are used to protect the vulnerable and where there are known hot spots and problem areas. It is the blanket nature that people find unpalatable rather than the 20mph limit itself.

Eric Bridgstock

I make it clear that I am here today because the ABD has not got anyone who could be here today. I am an independent in this field. ABD contacted me last week on the basis that it knew that I had done work on this issue in the past.

Neither ABD nor I support 20mph limits generally on the basis that there is no evidence at all that that makes anything safer from a casualty point of view or in relation to collisions. In fact, it makes things worse, because people are lulled into a false sense of security on the road if they are walking or whatever. There are lots of other reasons in addition to that, which I am sure that we will go into later.

Stewart Stevenson

I have just heard almost every witness use the term “blanket nature” in relation to the ban. In fact, the bill applies to “restricted roads”. In other words, it does not apply to anything that is an A or a B road; essentially, it applies to the housing estates and the side roads off main roads. I wonder whether, in making the comment “blanket nature”, the witnesses are talking about what the bill says, or whether they are making a more general objection to a universal 20mph limit in all urban areas. I want that to be clear, particularly in relation to IAM’s survey. Was that in the context of this bill’s limited objective or in the context of, basically, all roads in urban areas?

Neil Greig

It was in the context of all roads in urban areas. The survey question was:

“do you agree or disagree that all current 30mph limits should be replaced with a 20mph limit?”

Stewart Stevenson

Right. That is what I thought.

Mike Rumbles (North East Scotland) (LD)

I think that Stewart Stevenson is slightly misdirecting the panel. The bill applies not only to urban roads but to all our villages in our country areas. A 30mph road through a village is not affected, but every road and lane off that road would be a restricted road. It applies not only to urban areas but to rural areas

Stewart Stevenson

Correct.

Gail Ross

It is correct that the bill applies only to restricted roads. Some local authorities already have 20mph limits outside schools and in certain housing estates and areas like that, as has been mentioned by panellists. Variable speed limits at different times of the day were mentioned in our previous evidence session on the bill. Is that possible, or is it just confusing?

Paul White

I will answer with our experience of bus lanes. If speeds are varied, it muddies the water. We have lobbied in Edinburgh for set times—for example, 7 am to 7 pm, seven days a week—so that people know that the time is set. If you are looking for a mindset change, it would help if you make it as easy as possible to comply. If you were to set different times, I worry that it would add to confusion and create a lack of compliance.

Tony Kenmuir

A 24/7/365 approach is possibly more of an issue for us, because there are taxi drivers across the nation driving at all times of the day and night. Driving at 20mph on a dual carriageway with no other vehicle in sight for a mile in front and a mile behind does not make any sense to anybody. We are in favour of a timed approach. However, I am inclined to agree with the point about bus lanes. Nobody uses them at any time—everybody moving to the left because a clock has changed does not happen and is never likely to.

The signage in the RAC report looks very practical and is a much better solution than a 24/7/365 approach to 20mph limits.

Neil Greig

We can get hung up on fixed speed limits. Other parts of Europe use variable limits; France, for example, varies the speed limit with the weather. The issue is that roads should be self-explaining. If you have to put in extra technology to explain why the limit is there, you have lost the narrative. It should be clear to people why they should do that speed at that time, whether it is because pedestrians are there or because of the nature of the road. That goes back to the concept that there will be an issue in convincing people about a change in speed limit if the character of the road has not changed. In addition, the technology would be very expensive.

The Convener

Eric Bridgstock wanted to come in.

Eric Bridgstock

Drivers need to be told about hazards—such as a school—but they do not need to be told what speed to go. I have seen no evidence that a 20mph limit is positive. It makes things worse from a safety point of view. Signs can come on to say “Beware: there is a school here”—or a hospital or whatever—but a change in the speed limit would be a negative.

Gail Ross

Other members will ask about safety. I will continue this line of questions. Local authorities have the power to issue a traffic regulation order to turn a 30mph limit into a 20mph limit. Would an alternative approach be to streamline the system to make that easier to do now?

Martin Reid

One of our concerns with the TRO system—even in its current form—is that local authorities face resource shortages across the board. Adding this suggestion to what are already troubled waters could mean that authorities take the easiest options because of resource constraints and just take a blanket approach rather than looking at individual roads. Anything that could mitigate that would be very welcome, probably at the next stage of the bill when more detail will be forthcoming. If the proposal is to be dealt with under the TRO system that already exists, we would have concerns about the ability of local authorities to carry that out.

Gail Ross

If local authorities have the ability to carry it out at the moment, surely making the process easier and quicker would be good for them, because it would take less time and resource.

Martin Reid

Why would changing the process make it quicker? They already have an established system.

The Convener

I think that the point that the deputy convener is making is that the process to reduce the limit to 20mph is quite laborious. The suggestion is that, if that process was quicker and easier, it would make the requirement for a blanket 20mph limit superfluous, because authorities could quickly and easily target the areas in question. Tony Kenmuir, do you agree with that point?

11:00

Tony Kenmuir

It seems logical. I am not clear what the alternative to the TRO process would be.

Jamie Greene (West Scotland) (Con)

I want to follow up the TRO issue, which is important. If the current system means that you have to apply for a TRO to reduce the limit on a road to 20mph, presumably the same would be true in the obverse—if you wanted to increase the limit to 30mph. Do you have a view on whether there would be an additional or a reduced workload if you did it the other way round?

Paul White

I refer to the evidence that you received in your previous evidence session. The quantity of roads that you would be looking to change to 30mph limit roads would be slightly less, so the workload would be slightly less as a percentage.

On TROs, I support streamlining as long as it does not affect any consultation with key stakeholders who are impacted by a TRO. If the bill is enacted, there should be a period of time before measures are introduced when you consult stakeholders, such as the people on this panel, to decide which roads should retain the 30mph status, and the relevant TROs should be in place before the 20mph zones are introduced.

Neil Greig

The feedback that I am getting from local authorities is that the cumulative effect of everything that is happening is causing them a resource issue. If measures on pavement parking, low-emission zones and the bill all came in at the same time, they would struggle. If the bill goes through, we would like to see a streamlined process, which would make things easier for local authorities, given all the other things that they have to do day to day, such as fixing potholes.

Jamie Greene

Indeed. Presumably there would need to be a mapping exercise to work out which roads people wanted to change.

Many reasons have been given to explain the rationale behind the bill. In responding to my question, I ask you not to focus on air quality, journey times or congestion, because my colleagues will ask other questions about those issues. I will focus specifically on road safety, which is perhaps at the nub of this.

What are your views on the effect of the reduction from 30mph to 20mph on road safety for all road users—drivers and vulnerable road users such as cyclists and pedestrians?

Eric Bridgstock

Who would like to start on that quite lengthy question?

Claudia Beamish

Sorry, but I needed to preface it with the report.

Tony Kenmuir

I do not claim to be an expert in road safety; I am an expert in the practicalities of shifting people around from one place to another. However, I was very closely involved in the consultation in Edinburgh and we monitored very closely what happened in the 16 test areas around the city. I think that the reason why evidence of a change in road safety is inconclusive is that there is very little change in driver behaviour and the speed that they are moving at in the first place. In a couple of the areas that were restricted in Edinburgh, the average speed went up a little bit and in some areas, it went down a little bit. The overall effect was to change the speed of the traffic from 21.5 to 20.5mph. In respect of the actual speed at which traffic is moving, I know that a taxi moves on average at about 13mph in the course of a 12-hour shift.

I do not think that anybody would deny the people of the Borders safe streets, but we are talking about the practicalities of the fact that, in the streets around a school when there are lots of parents picking up and dropping off and lots of kid moving around, people generally move quite slowly anyway. Therefore, changing the speed limit from 30 to 20mph when the traffic is moving around at 3 or 4mph is academic. The issue for me across the board, which I think reflects the views of our members, is that changing the speed limit from 30 to 20mph is pretty much an academic exercise, because traffic mostly moves in line with the conditions anyway. That is my point of view.

Claudia Beamish

If we take an area where there is a school, once you are in the school zone the speed limit is 20mph, but there are residential streets around about where children are crossing the road and going away from school. Would a 20mph blanket arrangement, apart from in the case of exemptions, not send a clear message that it is an appropriate speed to stick below?

Tony Kenmuir

It is a question of paying regard to the reality, and the reality is that the traffic does not get up to 30mph anyway. The signs can be whatever people want them to be, but all the evidence shows that that does not actually change average speeds or driver behaviour. I do not know if that changes people’s perceptions.

Peter Chapman (North East Scotland) (Con)

I will take a different tack and ask about vehicle emissions and air quality. Will they change for the better or for the worse if we move to a blanket 20mph? There are mixed views on whether the move will make emissions better or worse. What impact does the panel think that a move to a default 20mph on restricted roads would have on vehicle emissions and air quality in our towns and cities?

The Convener

Tony Kenmuir, do you want to comment on that? I think you intimated that the average speed of taxis in Edinburgh is about 13mph. Did I get that wrong or is that what you said?

Tony Kenmuir

That is correct. The emissions that we generate are generally caused because we are crawling around at low speed; changing the speed limit from 30 to 20mph is academic if you are stationary. Emissions would be reduced if we could all get to a cruising speed and keep it going. Wouldn’t that be nice?

John Finnie (Highlands and Islands) (Green)

I thank all the panel members for their written submissions and their evidence today. As a number of colleagues have said, your opinions are valued, but we are seeking to hear an evidence base for them. We are not interested in erroneous opinions or opinions that are unsupported by robust research findings.

That is fine. Views are important and I am not suggesting that everyone does endless research, but there has to be some evidence base for those views.

I am trying to understand the value that we would place on your opinions given that, in your submission, you say:

“Pollution levels are illegal because we made it illegal, not because it’s dangerous”.

For the avoidance of doubt, you attribute that comment to a transcript of a BBC “Sunday Politics” programme at 25 minutes 34 seconds in. Is it your view that urban pollution is not dangerous?

Eric Bridgstock

I say again that I did not write that part of the paper, but I am prepared to answer the question.

Is that not just the situation in Edinburgh? What about Motherwell, Bellshill or Dumfries? Would the average speed in those areas not be higher?

Tony Kenmuir

My experience, and the feedback from our members, is that, where a 20mph speed limit is in place, and it is, for example, late at night when a road is not congested, nobody particularly abides by that limit anyway.

I tend to refer to what actually happens in the real world. In the real world, we are not complying with the 20mph limit; therefore journey times are not being significantly affected and the cost of taxi journeys is not being significantly impacted. On a journey of several miles in which somebody is driving a consistent 20mph rather than 30mph, that would moderately affect the overall journey time and the cost. However, in the real world, I do not think that that happens—or at least, not enough to measure its impact.

Martin Reid

We have had no feedback whatsoever from members to say that journey times have increased in 20mph zones or, indeed, in most cases, where speed limits have dropped. Take the A9 as an example. Journey times have moved slightly, but the driver experience has balanced that out. It is a better drive now. Drivers tend to make provision for the additional 10 or 15 minutes that it will take between Perth and Inverness.

On the urban argument, I believe that Fife and Clackmannanshire are two of the areas that have adopted the 20mph approach. Again, I reiterate that we have had no adverse feedback from members to say that journey times are longer in those areas.

Paul White

Journey time reliability and punctuality are so important to bus operations. I have no evidence to present to you, but I know from discussions with operators that they found that the zones have perhaps increased journey times, but only marginally. In discussions with local authorities, they have been able to suggest measures that could be put in place to mitigate that small increase.

Richard Lyle

When I asked this question at our previous meeting, quite a lot of comments were made on Twitter. I asked whether bus times and timetables would be affected. I am now assured that they will not be and that reducing the limit to 20mph would improve things, given the stop-start traffic flow. Mr Kenmuir said that taxis are going at only 13mph on average anyway.

In your opinion, would reducing the default speed limit on restricted roads to 20mph have any specific impact on bus operators, logistics companies and taxi operators? We got an answer to that last week. I would like to hear your answer to it, given that you operate taxis going at 13mph.

Tony Kenmuir

I do not believe that it will have any measurable effect on journey times.

Paul White

I clarify that I was referring to certain operators that have experienced 20mph zones. I would not like my comments to be taken to mean that the introduction of the bill across all restricted roads would have zero impact on all operators, because that is not what I am saying at all. There are certainly CPT members, particularly in rural areas, who have voiced concerns that there would be an impact. I do not know whether those concerns will be proved to be correct, but I make it clear that I was not saying that there would be no impact.

On costs, if there is an impact on journey times and you have to put more resource in to retain frequencies, that generates a cost in drivers, fuel and vehicles. If the bill encourages active travel, that might lead to an increase in bus patronage—that would be the hope. I am therefore unsure what the impact will be.

Martin Reid

I return to the point that there are vastly fewer HGVs on such roads in the first place. My concern is about the more unregulated industries, involving vans that are brought in to do multi-drops in a number of different areas within those zones or within residential areas. The compliance side of that gives me concerns. As far as haulage goes, as my colleague from the CPT said, until we know which roads are likely to be affected we cannot say with any degree of certainty what will be the impact on journey times. On the urban side of things, we have had no feedback from members to say that journey times are being impacted, because of the nature of the roads that they are on, and the understanding that that speed limit is there for a purpose.

Jamie Greene

I want to follow up Mr Lyle’s line of questioning. If you are focusing purely on cities where average journey times are perhaps already below 30mph anyway, it is easy to see why there is only a nominal effect. However, we know the roads that the measure will apply to, because that is stated in the bill, and that the experience might be different across other parts of Scotland. The RAC, which is not represented here today, stated in evidence to us that the potential impact on urban congestion from reduced speeds and longer journey times might increase emissions—that goes back to our previous line of questioning. I do not think that we ever really got to the nub of whether slower speeds increase emissions. Do you agree or disagree with the RAC’s comments on that?

Neil Greig

“Inconclusive” is the word of the day. The evidence is inconclusive on emissions and congestion. I have seen no real evidence to show that the journey times would change in a way that people would notice. The studies so far show that the speed limit and driver behaviour in 20mph zones reduce speeds, particularly at the top end—if the speed starts at 28 or 29mph it comes down to 26 or 27mph, but the difference is imperceptible and people just do not see it. If you do not see any difference and it is not causing any issues, people think that, given that journeys can be stop-start, they will not have a problem with it. You have highlighted that when it comes to villages and rural areas, there is absolutely no research to back up the decision making. There is a lot of research on urban areas, but there is very little research on villages and less-populated areas, and that is not very helpful I am afraid.

Eric Bridgstock

As an engineer, my view is that if a village has a 30mph limit, a driver who has to go a mile at 20mph will probably be in a lower gear—revving harder with more emissions—and doing that for longer. It is a double whammy, which will put out more emissions. Others have spoken about acceleration and deceleration, but once a driver has come down to 20mph and dropped into third gear, rather than staying at 30mph, the vehicle must put out more emissions.

11:30

Maureen Watt (Aberdeen South and North Kincardine) (SNP)

Good morning, panel. I hope that we all agree that we want our citizens to live and work in safe and healthy environments. Over the decades, that has not necessarily been the case. Our streets have been taken over by the car and the car has become king. Pedestrians and children playing have to jump out of the way of cars, rather than car drivers realising that they should give way to pedestrians and to children playing.

In the written evidence, we have seen suggestions that the liveability of our neighbourhoods and streets would increase with 20mph limits. Given our problems with obesity and active living, surely it would be a good thing to make our streets more liveable—to make them places where people feel safer about taking more exercise and where our children go out to play—and without cars flying through them, as happens now. I would like to hear panellists’ views on that.

The Convener

Would Tony Kenmuir like to answer? I am sure that he drives around Edinburgh at 20mph. We will then go to Neil Greig and Paul White.

Tony Kenmuir

I agree with all that Maureen Watt has said, which seemed to be about the number of cars—fewer cars on the streets and fewer cars parked—rather than about reducing the speed limit from 30mph to 20mph. We all want our children and grandchildren to breathe cleaner air and to be safe. I am not sure that reducing the speed limit from 30mph to 20mph would reduce the volume of traffic, which is what was reflected more in Maureen Watt’s points.

Neil Greig

We think that the benefits of 20mph zones have been oversold as the solution. They are only part of the solution. Healthier people, less traffic and less pollution is a great ambition that we would all like to see being fulfilled. If children are going to get out to play in the streets, we will have to spend more money to change the character of the roads: we would have to invest in play streets and in changing the engineering of roads. Car drivers would have to be clear that they are not meant to be there, which they would understand; most drivers take their driving-speed cues from the environment that they drive through. If they drive through a street that has been relaid with chicanes and planting and is clearly meant to be a shared space, they drive slowly.

Our main concern in the debate is that 20mph limits are seen as the answer—and that is it. Part of the answer must also be further investment in segregated spaces and shared spaces. If a person on a bike is overtaken by someone who is driving at 26mph, as opposed to 30mph, they are still being overtaken by a tonne and half of metal that is very close to them, which puts off older and younger people from getting out on bicycles.

The answer has to include more than 20mph limits. I am not convinced that you need to start with a 20mph limit; you could go straight to investment and target it. Not every street has cars rushing through it; these days, most accident black spots have been dealt with. The answer is to invest more in making the cityscape look better as a shared space, so that car drivers will get the message.

Paul White

I agree very much with my colleague and with Maureen Watt’s statement. I sympathise with the concern that the car is king; 20mph limits are but one element of what I hope would be a series of policy interventions to tackle the problem.

If we want to build on what has been done, we have to prioritise active travel, including walking, cycling and bus travel, in accordance with the travel hierarchy. It is about giving people the option to walk and cycle, and it is about maintaining bus speeds and making bus travel attractive. A 20mph limit is part of the solution, but it will not on its own have the impact for which we hope.

The Convener

Maureen, do you want to hear from anyone else?

Maureen Watt

Everyone should have the chance to give their views.

Eric Bridgstock

Maureen Watt’s description is a perfectly valid one, but it seems to describe the same picture that leads to people feeling that they can lower their guard. We can say that a street is safer, yet it still has people going along it at 24mph, and kids should not be playing where there are cars. Crossing the road is one thing, but playing in the street is quite a different matter. The street is there for all manner of uses—lorries, taxis, cars, buses, cycles and people. It is not a case of one versus the other.

Martin Reid

I agree that we should try to make urban streets as safe as possible. I have two kids and I am more than happy when they are out playing because, apart from anything else, they are not under my feet. It is very important that we create safe spaces.

My situation is slightly different from the situations of other panel members. Nobody gets in a lorry other than to use it for delivering freight: people do not do so for recreation or for going to the shops. The number of vehicles—predominantly cars—that are on the roads contributes heavily to congestion, which we have touched on. If we had the infrastructure and if the public services were up to speed to encourage people to use other modes of transport and take up active travel, that would make everybody’s lives a bit better.

Richard Lyle

For years, I have seen adverts on the television that say, “Speed kills”. I know of a child who was knocked down by someone who was driving at 20mph. The child survived, but if the person had been driving at 30mph, the child would have been dead. Therefore, does the panel not agree that speed kills?

The Convener

Paul White is nodding. It is always dangerous to do so, because if you nod it looks as though you want to contribute and I will bring you in. Having given you a moment to think, do you want to answer that question?

Paul White

It is a straightforward yes. Speed kills. Will the bill bring speeds down to 20mph? Maybe it will not, but I agree that speed kills.

Richard Lyle

That has been proved. We asked earlier about evidence and it has been proved that someone who is hit by a car at 30mph will bounce back and hit their head on the road, but if we reduce the speed of a car, and they get hit at 20mph, they have more of a chance. I know of a specific case in which that happened, and the child, who was aged three at the time and would now be about 30, survived. Do you agree that Mr Ruskell’s proposal to have a 20mph limit could possibly save people’s lives?

Eric Bridgstock

I honestly do not think that it will, for the simple reason that—as we have seen—all the surveys and reports so far say that the mean speed of a car in a 20mph zone is perhaps 1mph less than it is in a 30mph zone. It is not speed that kills—it is bad driving. A driver who is going at 20mph and who is half asleep is more likely to hit a child than is an alert driver who is going at 30mph.

There is a reason not to mix up travelling speed with impact speed. Was the child hit at 20mph? In the instance that Mr Lyle mentioned, do we know what the driver was doing when he saw the child, and did he brake hard to the point at which he hit the child? Do you know more details? Is there an example of a child who was killed in which it can be claimed that, if the speed limit had been 20mph, the child would have survived? In the instance that has been mentioned by Mr Lyle, was it the case that the driver was driving dangerously or illegally, perhaps by driving above the speed limit, anyway?

Richard Lyle

The person was travelling at 20mph and the child walked right out in front of him from between two cars that were parked along the road. The driver did not have time to brake, and hit the child at 20mph. However, the child survived.

Eric Bridgstock

The driver was driving according to the conditions. For example, where I live in St Albans there are roads on which there are cars parked down each side. Even if the speed limit on them is 30mph, I would not drive at more than 20mph. Sometimes I have done 15mph. I do not like looking at my speedometer at such times, because I am too concerned about what is at the side of the road.

The Convener

It is dangerous to examine individual cases without having all the information to hand. We will move on to the next question, from Mark Ruskell, then we will move on to John Finnie.

Mark Ruskell (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green)

I have a supplementary question. I was interested to hear Neil Greig’s views about 20mph zones. As an organisation, IAM RoadSmart supports having such zones outside schools. However, we know from Automobile Association reports that 80 per cent of road accidents involving children do not happen there but happen in residential areas. Why do you not support 20mph zones in every residential area in which children live?

Neil Greig

That is because we would prefer limited resources to be targeted at locations in which there is a real and quantified problem.

Mark Ruskell

So, you would target resources at areas where children are not being run over rather than at those where children live, and where they are being run over?

Neil Greig

We would target streets on which there is a problem with high speeds, children are crossing the road and there are accidents involving injury. Unfortunately, the way in which road safety engineering works is that we cannot quantify a life saved; a problem must exist before we do anything about it. That may be the wrong way of going about things, but that is the way it works, given our limited resources.

If 20mph zones are to work, they should be self-explanatory and there should be engineering measures to make that happen. We cannot take a blanket approach whereby we expect to change driver behaviour just because we have put up signs. I would have loved for the Atkins report and others to have come back and said conclusively, “Yes—this works. People are slowing down, and there are fewer crashes and lower emissions.” Unfortunately, however, that is not the answer that we are getting from the reports.

Mark Ruskell

What proportion of residential streets in urban areas should be 20mph zones?

Neil Greig

I think that nearly all residential streets are 20mph zones anyway—

Mark Ruskell

“Nearly all residential streets” should be 20mph zones. Right.

Neil Greig

They are automatically because they have dead ends or car parking, and the vast majority of local people drive on them at 20mph. However, if you are saying that 20mph is the speed that you want people to go at, you would have to consider physical restrictions as well. As I have said, 81 per cent of people who drive in 20mph zones break the speed limit. The issue is where we put our resources. We are not convinced that a blanket approach will make any difference—and we would like to make a difference.

Communicating messages is always problematic. The simple answer is that drivers should know where to look for the speed limit signs on any street, so if we change them they should see them. Beyond that, I am not certain how to answer that question.

The Convener

Does Paul White want to come in on that?

Paul White

I had not considered that aspect. There is public awareness and there is the awareness of those who are professional drivers and carry passengers. Companies will feed that into their training and awareness so that the professional drivers are aware, and they will expect drivers to adhere to speed limits. Perhaps for the public, who do not know why the vehicle in front of them is travelling at 20mph, there could be adverts on the backs of buses.

11:45

Eric Bridgstock

Awareness campaigns should be aimed at all road users. I re-emphasise what I said earlier, which was that they should avoid the mistake of making vulnerable road users feel too safe, which will lead them to take less care.

John Finnie

How likely is it that a campaign would increase driver compliance with the reduced speed limit? As has been mentioned, “RAC Report on Motoring 2018—the frustrated motorist” states that compliance on 30mph roads is 39 per cent, and in 20mph areas it is 39 per cent. The Atkins report found that the so-called acceptable speed—using the “10 per cent plus 2” rule—in 20mph limit zones, is broadly similar to that in 30mph areas. In answering that question on the likelihood of increasing compliance through an awareness campaign, what evidence do you have—other than anecdotal evidence—to counter that claim regarding the level of compliance?

Who would like to answer that? Martin Reid looked away. That is also dangerous.

Martin Reid

I should give up poker. That is a really difficult question because in the current systems we move from 60mph to 40mph to 30mph, or 50mph to 30mph, quite regularly. The truthful answer is that I do not know.

I suspect that keeping the same speed limit across the board would probably turn out to be safer, but that does not take into account factors such as driver frustration. I think that if there were no other vehicles on the road it would be difficult to stick to 20mph.

Neil Greig

I would take the contrary position. On a long stretch of road, I would prefer the parts where there is an issue and where it is clear that there has been a problem to be targeted, instead of just having one consistent message that does not highlight to drivers that there is anything to be aware of, but just suggests that the whole road is safe, when it is not.

Stewart Stevenson

My question is just for Martin Reid. Are you familiar with the psychological phenomenon of ennui? In a driving context, that is the phenomenon whereby, if someone drives consistently at the same speed all the time, they become desensitised to the speed that they are driving at. There is some research that is not specific to driving but which applies to other environments that suggests that it is of benefit for there to be periodic variations, to reset people’s attention to what is going on. Are you familiar with that concept? Do you think that it would apply in this context?

Martin Reid

I will be honest: as I said previously, I am not 100 per cent convinced either way. My suspicions are along the lines that I have outlined but, as an industry, we constantly face variations in speed limits. As Neil Greig pointed out, when there is a drop in the speed limit for a specific reason, which is clearly outlined and understandable, people will comply with that.

Eric Bridgstock

As I said earlier, drivers need to be told what the hazard is. They will drive more slowly if there is a genuine reason for doing so, but I think that the approach of telling people to go at a slower speed when there is no apparent change in the environment will fail. If drivers are told that there is a sharp bend ahead, they will slow down, but if they are just told to slow down, they will think, “Why is that?” Knowing that there is a sharp bend or a junction coming up is much more important to a driver than being told to slow down for no apparent reason.

Mike Rumbles

I want to move on from compliance to enforcement, although the two issues are linked. The Scottish Parliament information centre’s briefing on the bill, which is available to MSPs and everybody else, says that research on the effectiveness of a 20mph limit in south Edinburgh concluded that when the speed limit was 30mph, the average speed was 22.8mph—in other words, the vast majority of drivers were obeying the law—but when the limit was reduced to 20mph, the average speed was 20.9mph, which meant that most drivers were breaking the law. Because we are talking about the criminal law, that meant that most of those drivers were criminals. The average speed was reduced by 1.9mph.

In addition, the bill would mean that all repeater signage in the 20’s plenty areas would have to be taken down; I am not sure that everybody is aware of that. All repeater 20mph signage would have to be removed. What problems would that create for enforcement of the criminal law?

Martin Reid

In such a situation, the policing of the policy is vitally important. We know from our dealings with Police Scotland how underresourced it is, so enforcement will be an issue. Alternative options such as speed cameras have been mentioned, but they all have a cost attached to them. There would be very little point in implementing a 20mph limit unless there was a punitive element.

I will not speak for my colleagues, but the question that we keep coming back to is whether it would be better to consider having targeted areas in which there would be a stricter requirement than other areas and ensuring that those targeted areas were properly policed.

Neil Greig

Going back to a point that I made before, when we asked people how they would prefer 20mph speed limits to be enforced, 45 per cent said that they would prefer enforcement by signs only, 24 per cent preferred road humps, 14 per cent preferred speed cameras, 4 per cent preferred enforcement by traffic police, and 13 per cent said that there should be no enforcement and we should leave it to drivers to conform. There is a fall-off in support for strong enforcement of 20mph zones. It would be important to see how sensitive to that the police were in their approach to enforcement; they have said quite publicly that at the moment they do not really enforce the 20mph limit in Edinburgh.

Resource is a big issue, but it is really a question of public support. If we started booking people doing 25mph at 3 o’clock in the morning on a wide-open road, when the character of the road had not changed for years and there were no pedestrians around, we would risk the public support that is very important for such measures to work.

Tony Kenmuir

We would all be safer if there were no cars, but I suppose that we are just trying to figure out where the practicalities are. If my daughter did not ride a horse, she would not have fallen off it and broken her collarbone.

I understand the argument that hitting something at 20mph does less damage than hitting it at 30mph, but I am beginning to think a wee bit about prohibition—a great example of a law that nobody really adheres to, nobody can really enforce and everybody pretty much ignores until eventually the decision is reversed.

Looking at all the evidence that we have gathered over the past few years and at all the consultations that we have been involved in, does changing the speed limits from 30mph to 20mph really change the speed of the traffic? No. Does it improve safety? Not that we can evidence. Does it reduce emissions? Not that we can evidence. I have spoken to MSPs individually about this. I know that it would not change average speeds much, but it might bring down top-end speeds; I have not really seen evidence of that either, but I have heard the argument and it is possible.

My position, and that of our members, is that everybody accepts that people are likely to pay more attention if there is a focus on specific areas. That is more likely to have an influence on people’s behaviour than a very broad-brush approach whereby enforcement is not possible, signage disappears and, in the real world, nobody’s conduct is likely to be affected.

The Convener

Eric Bridgstock, would you like to come in briefly before we move on?

Eric Bridgstock

I do not wish to put words in Mike Rumbles’s mouth, but what he said sounded like an argument not to roll out the policy at all, because there will be a very small change in actual speeds: they will still be just over 20mph. As Tony Kenmuir said, there will be no change to emissions either, so I wonder what the benefit of the criminalising approach is. In fact, if the normal margin of 10 per cent plus 2mph were applied, no one would be prosecuted in those areas at the previous average speed of 22.8mph, let alone at the new average speed of 20.9mph after the introduction of the 20mph limit. It is a curious argument to use in support of that limit.

Mike Rumbles

No one has commented on my point that if we pass this law, all the 20’s plenty repeater signs will have to be removed, so there will be only one sign in the 20’s plenty zone. Do you think that that will have an effect on compliance and enforcement?

I was taken by Tony Kenmuir’s comment about prohibition. When we produce laws of the land, they should have public support, because they will be undermined without it. Do you think that that will happen in this case?

Eric Bridgstock

I agree: I am sure that it will happen. People need to know what the speed limit is.

Neil Greig

That is a fair point. The compliance figures that I cited suggest that not having 30mph repeater signs is an issue, because people break the speed limit and claim that they do not know what it is.

12:00

On awareness campaigns and enforcement, there could be an opportunity to take the approach of introducing 20mph speed awareness courses. Rather than issuing tickets, penalties and fines, you could get people in and get the message over to them. If people do not understand why the 20mph limit is there, we should get them in and put them in a room to do such a course. Speed awareness courses work for other limits. A 20mph speed awareness course is being developed south of the border. If we introduce such courses up here, they could be an opportunity to educate people and raise awareness.

John Mason (Glasgow Shettleston) (SNP)

I realise that we are going over the same ground but approaching it from different angles. My angle relates to the financial memorandum. We are talking about a cost of some £20 million. Is this the best thing that we could do with £20 million? It seems to be my role on the committee to ask such questions.

If we are going to include only restricted roads, the cities will be full of main roads that are still 30mph roads, but all the side roads will be 20mph roads. If you are going along a major road at 30mph, you might turn into a minor road and see a sign that says 20mph, and when you get to the end of that road you will see a sign that says that the limit is going back to 30mph again. There will be a big cost in that signage for councils. From a cost point of view, would it not be better just to make the whole of Glasgow a 20mph area, because that would be cheaper for the council? I am interested in your views on that.

A kid might think that because they are on a side road and the traffic is going at only 20mph they can be more relaxed, but once they go round the corner on to the main road, the limit will be 30mph. From a safety point of view, would it not be both cheaper and safer if we just said that roads in small towns and big cities will all have 20mph limits?

Neil Greig

Colin Smyth (South Scotland) (Lab)

We have now asked most of our questions and I think that it is clear that the panel are sceptics about the bill.

I want to come back to a point that was made by Eric Bridgstock, who seemed to imply that the bill would make things worse. The submission from the Alliance of British Drivers said:

“Vulnerable road users are given the perception that 20mph zones are safer than 30mph areas and behave less cautiously”.

12:12 Meeting suspended.

12:14 On resuming—

20 February 2019

Third meeting transcript

The Convener (Edward Mountain)

Good morning and welcome to the eighth meeting in 2019 of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. I ask everyone to ensure that their mobile phones are on silent. No apologies have been received.

Agenda item 1 is two evidence-taking sessions on the Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill. In the first session, we will take evidence from Police Scotland, local authorities, an academic and the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland; in the second session, we will take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity and Scottish Government officials.

I welcome to the meeting our first panel: Walter Scott, vice-chair, liaison committee, and Kevin Hamilton, member, traffic and road safety working group, Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland; Chief Superintendent Stewart Carle, divisional commander, road policing division, operational and specialist support, Police Scotland; Dr Ruth Jepson, reader in public health and principal investigator on research into the impact of 20mph speed limits in Edinburgh, University of Edinburgh; Andrew Easson, road safety and active travel manager, City of Edinburgh Council; and Brian Young, infrastructure manager, Scottish Borders Council.

You have all probably given evidence to or attended a meeting of a committee of the Parliament before—or not, as the case may be—but I will try to make things easy by going through some of the rules. First, you do not need to touch anything on the panel in front of you—that will be operated by the gentleman on your left. If you want to answer a question, you should catch my eye, and I will bring you in. Once you have caught my eye, the secret is not to look away while you are talking, because I will have to interrupt you if you go on too long. If I think that you have made your point—and are probably labouring it—I will waggle my pen to give you a good indication that I want you to wind up so that I can bring someone else in. With so many of you on the panel, it will be difficult for all of you to answer every question, so do not be offended if I do not bring you in. I will try to balance things as best I can.

I should also say that it is incredibly dangerous for you to look away when someone asks a question, even if that is a clear indication that you do not want to answer it, because I will just pick one of you—and it will probably be the one who looked away first. I hope that you will all get a chance to answer a question during this session; we have a lot of questions, but there are quite a lot of you, too, so I will appreciate short answers. We will try to keep things moving so that you all get a chance to respond, but if you want to speak, the secret is: catch my eye and I will bring you in.

The first question is from the committee’s deputy convener, Gail Ross.

Gail Ross (Caithness, Sutherland and Ross) (SNP)

Thank you, convener. You will no doubt appreciate short questions, too.

I suggest that it would be more complicated if you tried to put it into the bill. If you did, there would have to be local consideration about A roads and B roads, which might be deregulated or have speed limits of 50mph, 40mph or 30mph. Strictly applying a 20mph speed limit for all roads in such an environment would be overly restrictive on local authorities in demonstrating the local applicability of that limit.

09:15

Andrew Easson

Edinburgh’s approach to a blanket roll-out of the 20mph speed limit was to apply it only to city centre roads. A cordon was put around the city centre and every road within it was made a 20mph road. Outwith the cordon, we made judgments based on the type of street, how it functioned and its use. We applied the 20mph limit primarily to residential streets, streets with high numbers of pedestrians and cyclists, and shopping streets. There are arterial routes that are still 30mph for part of their length, but are 20mph for the rest. A bit of route consistency is to be achieved there.

As my colleague said, if the bill were to go through, local authorities would still have the option of tailoring the speed limit using TROs. In our road network, for instance, about 80 per cent of the roads are now 20mph so, under the current legislation, we have to do TROs for 80 per cent of our roads. If the bill were to go through and we wanted to retain a network of streets with a 30mph limit, we would only have to do TROs for, say, 10 per cent of the road network. That is where the difference comes in with the process.

Kevin Hamilton

I want to give a bit more information about the restricted road issue. I have had a look at the situation in West Lothian, and most of the A and B roads that run through built-up areas in West Lothian are already covered by an order under section 82 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, which designates them as restricted roads. In effect, if the bill were to be passed, those roads would default to 20mph.

I understand that that position is probably similar in other authorities that made a restricted road order in 1985, after the 1984 act was enacted. There was a historical situation whereby, on enactment, it was not clear whether A, B and C-class roads were included in the definition of restricted roads. The regulations that made A and B roads unrestricted roads came some time later; in the intervening period, local authorities made restricted road orders that designated many of the A and B-class roads in their urban areas as restricted roads.

The Convener

I will bring in Stewart Stevenson. We are all looking confused—certainly, I am confused—by this, as we have never heard it before.

Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP)

It is just a technical question. Did one road order achieve the redesignation of all the A and B roads as restricted, or did you have to redesignate the roads individually?

Kevin Hamilton

I can speak only for the Lothian Regional Council order, as that is the one that I am familiar with. One order designated all the A and B roads that the then authority wanted to make restricted roads. Since that time, certainly in West Lothian, we have continued to vary that order when new built-up parts of A and B roads have come on stream.

The Convener

That does not shed any light on what other councils did.

Mike Rumbles (North East Scotland) (LD)

I hope that members of the panel can help me out with my question. I am in favour of 20mph zones where we can have them, but the question is whether the bill is the best way of achieving that.

We have already received evidence on this. The City of Edinburgh Council—which, under the current law, has basically done what the bill aims to achieve—said that, if the bill is passed, it will cost up to £1 million in Edinburgh to remove all the repeater signs and do everything else that would have to be done.

We spoke to Highland Council, which said that it would cost a great deal of money. The council gave the example of Wick in the north of Scotland. I asked whether the bill would make their lives easier work-wise, if not cost-wise. The response was that it would not, because there would be a similar amount of work to do to change the roads that go through Wick.

If we are all in favour of reducing the speed limit to the appropriate level to make roads safer, is the bill the best way to do that, considering that the councils’ evidence to the committee is that it will cost a lot more than the amount in the financial memorandum and it will not save them any work?

Brian Young

The intention of the bill is to make the process simpler, and to make it easier for authorities to introduce a widespread 20mph speed limit. The difficulty is that not all authorities have decided to do that. My authority has researched the matter and we have introduced 20mph speed limits at schools and on routes to schools. We believe that that is where the limits can be most effective, and where people are most likely to understand and comply with them. It would not be our choice to extend the 20mph limits further than that. Part of the reason is that we fear that, as with other road safety initiatives, the wider we spread them, the more diluted they become. We feel that introducing 20mph limits through all our towns and villages may impact on the places where they are in place just now.

Peter Chapman (North East Scotland) (Con)

The potential for the speed limit on A and B roads passing through towns and villages to go down to 20mph is new evidence that we have not heard before. I have concerns about that. People need to get about their business, lorries need to deliver stuff and folk need to get to their work. I am concerned that it is a step too far, but how do the police look on it? Will they actively enforce 20mph limits on A and B roads through the middle of towns and villages? If not, I think that 90 per cent of people will break the law and we should not put folk in that position. Will Stewart Carle comment on where the police stand on that possibility?

The Convener

Mr Chapman will have to apologise to Mr Finnie afterwards for asking his question but, as the question has been posed, I will bring in Stewart Carle.

John Finnie (Highlands and Islands) (Green)

He can apologise now, if he likes.

The Convener

We will sort it out afterwards.

Chief Superintendent Carle

The figures do not bear that out. The greatest number of casualties so far this year have been motorists—typically motorists who lose control of their car at high speed on rural routes.

John Finnie

That is because of irresponsible driver behaviour.

The Convener

Mr Finnie, you may ask one more question and then we must move on.

John Finnie

Okay. I am surprised by your comment that the perception of enforcement is that it is “overly punitive”. How do you gauge that and what do you mean by saying that the 20mph must be “self-enforcing”? Does that apply to other speed limits?

Chief Superintendent Carle

First, on enforcement being punitive, we have already heard that the public have to see a law as being fair if they are to comply with it—that is where we get the greatest level of compliance. Secondly, a method of self-enforcement is a road layout that conveys a signal to the driver that there is more risk and greater danger. Road engineers use signage, paint and other engineering methods to convey to motorists that there is greater risk. Such self-enforcement tends to happen around housing estates. Where new housing estates are built, we would expect to see engineering measures that convey to drivers that they should be travelling at less than 20mph.

We started with the twenty’s plenty campaign and now we are seeing local authorities promoting 20mph. The driver needs to recognise the type of road that they are travelling on and comply with that, rather than expect to see a police officer on every corner.

Mike Rumbles

I have a supplementary question that relates to my first question, and perhaps Walter Scott can answer. Let us be kind to the financial memorandum. When the bill was lodged, it said that there would be costs up to £10 million. The evidence that we have received is that the City of Edinburgh Council would have to spend £1 million and rural councils in particular would have to spend millions of pounds. It is not a robust financial memorandum. Are you convinced that it will be value for money for councils if we operate 20mph areas in the system that is proposed by the bill? I am particularly interested in whether councils will get value for money.

09:30

Walter Scott

We were involved in the development of the costings for the financial memorandum. The figures in the cost report that SCOTS prepared last summer—I was the author of that—were £19 million at the low end and £33 million at the upper end. That is fairly consistent with some other figures that you have no doubt heard from local authorities. The people who drafted the financial memorandum took those figures and applied certain considerations and assumptions.

We stand by the figures that we produced. We used a pretty rudimentary model to develop the cost for implementation. As I said, that model would not suit every situation or council, but we felt that that was the appropriate way forward for the range of councils that we considered.

When it comes to the value to local authorities of the policy, local authorities have shown that, under the current powers, there is a reluctance to roll out 20mph limits more widely. We have evidence of that across the board. There seems to be a smattering or a smooth area and then less smooth areas. The passing of the bill would give local authorities a duty to have such zones. They would then be required to look at the issue, or, at the very least, to write it out. That is the stage at which the funding for local authorities that is attached to the bill is essential.

Dr Jepson

I want to make two comments from a public health perspective. We are doing an economic evaluation of the 20mph schemes in Edinburgh and Belfast. Unfortunately, the results will not be available until next year, but we are interested in the cost effectiveness of the policy.

With regard to whether the policy is a cost-effective public health intervention, I can talk only from a public health perspective. The proposal is seen as one that has high up-front costs. However, you need to think about the gains that you would have as a result of that investment over 20 or 30 years in terms of a reduction in mortality and the number of non-fatal accidents. That brings the cost into perspective. There is a cost of enforcement, but most of the costs are up front. That is unusual for a public health intervention. Often, the costs are on-going.

The Convener

Jamie Greene has a question that is linked to this issue.

Jamie Greene (West Scotland) (Con)

The Convener

I will bring in Mark Ruskell, because I want us to focus on the national picture rather than on a particular area.

Mark Ruskell (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green)

Thank you, convener.

Scottish Government guidance is that 20mph should be the norm in residential areas, but how seriously the guidance is taken varies considerably. Why is that the case? Why do some local authorities, such as Scottish Borders Council, not really want to implement the guidance, while others, such as City of Edinburgh Council, are going a lot further?

Walter Scott

Let me speak on behalf of Brian Young: I do not think that it is a case of Scottish Borders Council not wanting to implement the guidance; the council is taking the 20mph roll-out seriously, as are many authorities.

To a degree, there is an issue of timeliness and willingness in regard to looking at the guidance. I am sorry, but I am going to quote figures—I am happy to make them available to the committee for your consideration. Eighty-six per cent of the councils that responded to us have a policy, plan or strategy in place for dealing with 20mph zones, but we do not see that transferring to actual roll-out of the policy. About 20 per cent have rolled it out completely, 20 per cent have rolled it out in most places, 30 per cent have it in some places and 30 per cent have it hardly anywhere.

Therefore, the implementation of the guidance is subject to some kind of filter. I do not believe that that is necessarily related to the complexity or timescales involved in the process for making traffic regulation orders—the democratic process, I hasten to add; it is not just a bureaucratic process. It takes a certain degree of guidance and something to shake things up.

The policies that were in the guidance that initially came from Transport Scotland brought the issue to the fore. Councils considered the issue. It has been more than five years, on average, since they updated their plans, and it is more than five years since they looked at 20mph zones seriously.

This is the opportunity for councils to reappraise their position. They require every encouragement in relation to the aspirations in the bill and its implementation, but it is for local councils to determine how best to implement the approach locally.

Kevin Hamilton

I was involved in the working group with Transport Scotland that developed the most recent 20mph guidance. Since then, one key issue for local authorities has been funding and another has been knowledge, experience and staff resources in councils. A lot of knowledge and experience has disappeared over the past five years, and that has been a barrier, along with the fact that funding for such initiatives has been very thin on the ground.

Colin Smyth

I have a brief question for Ruth Jepson. You mentioned that you are carrying out assessments of the impact in Edinburgh and Belfast. Unfortunately, that work is on-going and is not available at the moment. Do you have any current assessments of the effectiveness of 20mph zones where they have been rolled out?

The Convener

I think that Stewart Carle ought to answer that question, as well. Has the number of people who seriously exceed the speed limit reduced since the introduction of the 20mph speed limit?

Chief Superintendent Carle

Dr Jepson

Last year, we asked two masters students to look at that issue. They looked at both particulates and emissions in 20mph zones and non-20mph zones in Edinburgh. Basically, the results were inconclusive. The effect is likely to be minimal and could go either way, but it is not a big problem. That is the best information that we have. We are replicating that study later this year to get some more data.

Brian Young

It is not about the percentage reduction from the 30mph speed limit down to the 20mph speed limit; it is about the 2mph reduction in speed. It is almost a moot argument, as it will be overtaken by the reduction in diesels and the increase in electric cars. It is not the most important argument to consider.

Stewart Stevenson

On the maths, is the pollution emitted by a petrol or diesel engine not related to the number of ignition cycles? It has nothing whatsoever to do with the speed. In other words, if you are operating in a lower gear because you are driving more slowly, the number of ignition cycles for distance covered increases and therefore, the amount of emissions coming out of the tailpipe per mile increases—or is that to misunderstand the mechanics of how things actually work?

The Convener

You have managed to get everyone to look in the opposite direction, Stewart. Maybe Kevin Hamilton would like to try to address that question along with Jamie Greene’s question.

Kevin Hamilton

Richard Lyle

Nowadays, we do not see adverts on television that tell us that speed kills. We all see the nutters on the motorways who drive at 80mph or 90mph.

I was criticised on Twitter because I asked a question about bus times in a previous evidence session, but we have received conflicting evidence about the effect of reducing the speed limit to 20mph. Some members have touched on that. Are you aware of any evidence that 20mph speed limits result in longer journey times or increased traffic congestion for buses and people who are going to their work?

Dr Jepson

We have been looking at that issue in our evaluation. I spoke to John White about two weeks ago, and I think he was going to put out a statement saying that introducing 20mph speed limits has not made any difference to bus journey times. I cannot say anything about passengers, but he thought that many other things in Edinburgh, such as road works, are having more of an impact on bus journey times than the 20mph speed limit.

Andrew Easson

In Edinburgh, as part of the development of our network, we consulted bus operators on that issue quite a lot. It was one of the factors to which we gave a great deal of consideration when we were thinking about which strategic routes to leave with a 30mph speed limit, and we decided to leave the ones that carried heavy bus services. Part of the reason why there has not been much impact on bus services might be that, for much of the length of many bus routes, there is a still a 30mph speed limit.

Chief Superintendent Carle

Buses tend to restrict traffic flow and reduce speeds, and we do not want people overtaking at high speeds. Although it is still at a very early stage, the early indications from an average speed camera system in Mill Street in Rutherglen, where the speed limit has been reduced from 40mph to 30mph, are that traffic flow has improved. Transport Scotland reports better traffic flows on trunk roads where traffic behaviour is regulated so that speeds come down.

Richard Lyle

So, reducing the speed limit to 20mph will make no difference to people’s journey times but could help to ease the traffic flow and ensure that people get to where they want to go safely.

Chief Superintendent Carle

That could be the case during the busiest times, but the issue is in getting drivers to comply with the speed limit at 2 o’clock in the morning. As I said earlier, the risks are not removed just because the roads are quieter and higher speeds can be achieved. In the past year, there have been a number of pedestrian fatalities due to drivers travelling at high speeds and not seeing a pedestrian.

Walter Scott

There is rightly a focus on the city environment, where there is a denser population, but there will need to be local consideration of bus routes. The arterial routes that have been mentioned are likely to stay as 30mph zones to allow bus services to get from A to B. Reducing the speed limit to 20mph would be advantageous to buses when they got into the urban environment to do their pick-ups and drop-offs.

Stewart Stevenson

We have had a fair bit of discussion about TROs, but I want to briefly explore some other aspects of them. Andrew Easson suggested that it cost City of Edinburgh Council £2.5 million to do what it has done using TROs and that it might—I put it no stronger than that—have cost £1 million under the new arrangements. That is 40 per cent of the cost. Would it be possible to simplify the traffic regulation orders to make the cost of an order 40 per cent of the current cost? That would be an alternative, cost-effective way of introducing the legislation.

Andrew Easson

The cost of the TRO process is only a very small part of the implementation costs, which are mainly to do with signage. The bill would change the signage requirements, so that is where the main financial saving would be.

We are at an interim stage just now. The direction of effect is roughly the same as what has been found elsewhere, so I do not think that the analysis will contain anything surprising. It is just that some of the effects that have been found elsewhere are likely to be replicated. I do not want to say too much, because, as a researcher, I have to keep in mind that these are interim results. However, at the moment, we are seeing similar reductions in speed as there have been in other areas that have done the same thing. I cannot imagine the outcome being hugely different. The information that you will have is likely to be about the economics of the approach. That work has not been done elsewhere and will be pretty robust. We are also doing that work for Belfast, which has a different model that looks only at the city centre. In a way, looking at the cost effectiveness of one model versus the cost effectiveness of the other provides a good comparison.

The Convener

We will have to leave it there, purely because we are short of time. I know that a couple of people wanted to come in, and I apologise for not reaching them.

I thank the panel members for coming in this morning and for giving evidence to the committee. It is always very helpful to hear the views of a wide variety of people. Thank you very much for giving us your time.

I suspend the meeting for five minutes to allow the panel to depart.

10:25 Meeting suspended.

10:33 On resuming—

The Convener

I welcome our second panel of witnesses this morning: Michael Matheson, the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity; and Donna Turnbull, road safety policy manager, and Stuart Wilson, national operations manager, from the Scottish Government. We will go straight to questions.

Richard Lyle

Good morning, cabinet secretary. Will you outline the Scottish Government’s view on the proposals in the bill and advise whether and how that view has changed since the publication of the Atkins and Department for Transport research into the effect of 20mph speed limits?

The Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity (Michael Matheson)

The bill is trying to achieve two things: to introduce a standard 20mph speed limit across restricted roads; and to support greater provision of active travel and the benefits that can arise from a 20mph speed limit.

We have been considering several challenges in relation to the bill. For example, we do not know the number of restricted roads in Scotland. There are some restricted roads that we would not want to be 20mph zones and there are roads that are not restricted that we might want to have as 20mph roads. As the bill stands, we do not think that it is the most effective way to take forward the agenda of getting a greater number of 20mph roads and zones in the right places.

One of the key things that the Atkins report confirmed was that in looking to introduce a speed limit on a road, several measures must be put in place to achieve that effectively and to encourage compliance. Speed limits are self-enforcing to a large extent, as the police will tell you. The design of the road and other measures are important elements in supporting compliance with the speed limit.

To some extent the report reinforces our view that taking a blanket approach is not necessarily the best way to ensure that we achieve what we are trying to get from introducing 20mph zones.

Richard Lyle

On 30 October 2018, you wrote to the committee and said:

“we believe that more evidence and more detailed analysis is needed before the measure proposed in the Restricted Roads (20 mph Limits) (Scotland) Bill can be fully supported.”

I am sure that it was adequate the first time.

Currently, a local authority needs to go through a process to alter a 30mph road, if it thinks that it would be better suited as a 20mph zone. In effect, the bill seeks to do the reverse: the default will be 20mph and if a local authority feels that a road should have a 30mph limit, it will have to go through a similar process. Part of the reason for the bill is the fact that there is criticism of the current process—the timescales, the cost and so on. If the bill is not passed, will the cabinet secretary give a commitment that if local authorities have any concerns about implementing 20mph zones in their areas, the Government will make it easier for them to do so and will help to roll those out, when and where required?

Michael Matheson

The member raises a fair point. Part of the reason why we have engaged COSLA and SCOTS in the process is to understand what the issues of concern are.

I will give a practical example. One of the concerns that has been raised is the length of time that it takes to go through the TRO process, a significant part of which is spent on the consultation exercise. I am keen not to see communities lose the opportunity to be involved in the consultation exercise, but there are two parts to it: a statutory consultation element; and a public consultation element—the statutory consultation takes place first, followed by the public consultation. One of the suggestions that I have made is to bring the two together, so that they run simultaneously. If we can do that, I am more than happy to look at taking that potential option forward. However, I do not want to see communities curtailed in their ability to engage in the consultation process. There is a balance to be struck.

I am certainly open to looking at how we can improve the system. If we can identify how to speed it up and get greater consistency of application, I give an undertaking to be prepared to do that. The exercise that we are undertaking is to try to achieve that.

10:45

Jamie Greene

I have spoken to a lot of local authorities about the bill, and they have fed back their concerns about not having done a road mapping exercise, which they have neither the resource nor the time to do.

You said that about 21 per cent of local authorities already have the data to hand. I am not dismissing your point, but that means that nearly 80 per cent do not have the data. It is a major undertaking for any local authority to collect the data. It is good that some local authorities have the information, but the vast majority do not. We should not dismiss that.

We are doing work on inconsistency in approaches. We are trying to understand why neighbouring local authorities take different approaches to 20mph zones, and what we can do through processes, guidance and information to achieve a more consistent approach. Once we have had feedback on that from councils, we will understand better what we can put in place that would assist in achieving greater consistency across local authorities’ approaches.

Maureen Watt

The argument is made that creating a national 20mph limit on restricted roads would result in cultural change and a change in attitudes to vehicle speeds, which might produce better results than the current piecemeal implementation of 20mph limits. What is your view on that argument?

Michael Matheson

It is clear that drivers take a number of factors into account in relation to the speed at which they go, including the design and layout of the road and whether it has lighting. All those issues need to be taken into account in trying to achieve compliance with any speed limit, including a 20mph speed limit. One of the biggest challenges that we will always face in trying to change behaviour is in creating a cultural shift. By and large, that takes a long time and can be difficult to achieve.

The best way to achieve the cultural shift that we are looking for is to have 20mph limits and 20mph zones in areas where we can most effectively ensure compliance, and to put in place the range of measures that need to be in place to support that. We know that just changing the speed limit does not work in itself, and that the other factors that have to be taken into account to encourage compliance are extremely important. That is why it is better to introduce 20mph limits where we think that that is most appropriate and where compliance can be achieved. In that way, we will get the cultural shift that is necessary to go along with the changes—but that always takes time.

The Convener

Stuart Wilson

John Mason

I made the point in passing.

The financial memorandum refers to £450,000 for marketing. That is based on the cost of previous campaigns on cancer and all sorts of things. If the bill was passed, even if the Government was not keen on it, would the Government be willing to roll out such marketing or promotion across the country? Is that figure reasonable? Having a default limit of 20mph instead of 30mph would be a major change.

Michael Matheson

When I was the Minister for Public Health—I am conscious that another former Minister for Public Health is here—we often had a variety of public information campaigns on a range of conditions. By and large, a six-week campaign costs about £500,000 for preparation, research work, media work and assessing its impact at the end. That applies to cancer information programmes, for example.

The police have said that road speed limits are effectively self-enforcing—we should not ignore that. That is why it is important that we take an evidence-based approach to the areas in which we choose to locate the zones in order to get the maximum benefit. That is to some extent the approach that the City of Edinburgh Council has taken. It has used different criteria from those in the bill; it looked at a range of factors in determining where it thought that the 20mph zones should be—they were not restricted to restricted roads—in order to address areas where it thought it could get better compliance.

Mark Ruskell

With all due respect, Edinburgh has rolled that approach out on a sign-only basis, but it has also invested a limited amount of funds in putting in additional infrastructure in areas where there are potentially high casualty rates and high footfall. Do you not see that, within an area-wide 20mph limit across Scotland, on restricted roads, it is still possible to target resources to areas where compliance is poor, whether that be through police enforcement activity or additional investment by councils in speed reduction measures? The two are not mutually exclusive. We have a blanket 30mph limit at the moment. It is possible to switch to a blanket 20mph limit and then invest in those areas where we see continued compliance issues.

Michael Matheson

Part of the challenge that we have is that we do not know the extent of the network that will be affected by the bill.

Mark Ruskell

Fifty per cent of councils do.

Michael Matheson

We do not know—that is the reality. You say that we should focus on addressing compliance issues, but to what extent? We do not know the extent of the network that will be affected.

The Convener

I thank Mark Ruskell and the cabinet secretary. We are slightly ahead of schedule, and I think that one of the cabinet secretary’s officials is due to turn up shortly. With the committee’s agreement, I will move away from items 2 and 3 and move straight on to items 4 and 5. That will allow the cabinet secretary to rearrange his officials. We can move back to the other items afterwards. Is the committee happy to do that?

Members indicated agreement.

6 March 2019

Fourth meeting transcript

The Convener (Edward Mountain)

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the committee’s 10th meeting in 2019. I ask you all to ensure that your mobile phones are on silent. We have received apologies from Gail Ross, who is unable to attend the meeting. I welcome Claudia Beamish, who is attending the meeting for the only public agenda item: agenda item 1, which is on the Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill. This is our fifth and final evidence session on the bill, and we will take evidence from the member in charge of the bill, Mark Ruskell, from his colleagues and from officials.

I welcome Mark Ruskell; Malachy Clarke, Mr Ruskell’s researcher; Andrew Mylne, head of the Scottish Parliament’s non-Government bills unit; and Claudia Bennett, from the office of the solicitor to the Scottish Parliament.

Mark, I will shortly ask you to give an opening statement of up to three minutes, and we will then move to questions. I know that some of you have given evidence before, but you do not need to touch the microphones. If you just catch my eye, Mark, I will get you to bring in the right people. I now invite you to make an opening statement.

Mark Ruskell (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green)

When I was at school, a classmate of mine was struck down and killed while out playing on his bike. He was not killed outside the school gates; he was killed in the residential street where he lived, like four fifths of child casualties on our roads.

Speed limits of 20mph make a big contribution to the safety of everyone on the streets where we live, especially children. They reduce speed, prevent deaths and injuries and encourage choices to walk and cycle. Public support for them continues to grow year on year.

A small reduction in speed has a big effect in reducing casualties, especially when scaled up nationally. As you have heard in evidence already, every 1mph reduction in speed means at least a 5 per cent reduction in the number of accidents. We estimate that nearly 600 casualties will be prevented every single year, based on an average speed reduction of just a couple of miles per hour.

Government policy in Scotland and at Westminster recognises that 20mph limits should be the norm on the streets where we live. That has been backed up by the World Health Organization, the European Union and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

However, 20mph streets are often isolated exceptions to a blanket 30mph rule, which was set back in the 1930s. I am asking the committee to consider the fundamental question: what should the default limit be on restricted roads? If the answer to that question is 20mph, the Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill is the only way to deliver that in a way that is nationally consistent, timely and cost effective.

In my previous role as a councillor, I witnessed huge frustration from communities who wanted a 20mph limit but were denied that. They were often told that it was not a priority for the council, that it might get scheduled in several years’ time, that councillors were sceptical, that there was no budget for repeater signs or that an area with an active community council had made a better case than theirs.

When I was elected as an MSP, I looked at the national picture and saw that it was very similar. Although Clackmannanshire and Fife councils had managed, painfully, to roll out 20mph limits in almost every residential area by seeking exemption after exemption from the 30mph limit, other councils had struggled or had scrapped the 20mph roll-out completely.

After two and a half years of working on the proposal for this bill with academics, councils, road safety organisations, Police Scotland, Transport Scotland and many others, I believe that it is time to end the illogical 30mph blanket speed limit and for councils to use the current mechanism for roads where they wish to retain a 30mph limit. There is a clear opportunity for Scotland to take the lead, as we did on the smoking ban, and to make a lasting public health intervention that will make our streets safer for generations to come.

The Convener

Thank you. We will move straight to questions, of which there are a lot.

Richard Lyle (Uddingston and Bellshill) (SNP)

Good morning. Some of us may agree with the comments that Mark Ruskell has just made, but others do not. What is his response to the view of witnesses who have told the committee that a national 20mph speed limit is too broad a brush and that the current arrangements, which allow local authorities to set 20mph limits on roads where they consider that to be appropriate, should remain in place?

Mark Ruskell

As I said in my opening statement, the current system is not working. It is not delivering protection for children and vulnerable road users throughout Scotland. Children in the Borders, for example, do not have 20mph limits in their residential streets, whereas children in Edinburgh do.

The current system is cumbersome and leads to inconsistency. I have already outlined some of the reasons why that is so. Approaching the situation from the perspective of creating a national default will ensure that we have consistency across Scotland. It is important to emphasise that councils will still have the ability to exempt arterial and through roads from a default 20mph limit where that makes sense. That will enable councils to use the existing mechanism to fine tune the layout of 20mph and 30mph zones in communities to reflect the local road conditions.

Richard Lyle

What evidence do you have to support claims that setting a 20mph speed limit on all restricted roads will lead to a culture change in driver attitudes to speeding in urban areas?

Mark Ruskell

We have seen examples of area-wide 20mph roll-outs across the country, and the committee has heard evidence from Edinburgh and from more rural local authorities. The Atkins report showed that the current roll-out of 20mph makes it very difficult to deliver that cultural change, because there are isolated 20mph zones outside schools, which do not reinforce the message that the national speed limit for restricted roads should be 20mph. The situation is very piecemeal and confusing for drivers.

It is important that we move towards a national default to ensure that there is consistency. We have done a lot of work with academics on the advantages of a national default in terms of education and reinforcing messages about a 20mph limit. Through a campaign of national education, and police enforcement combined with work with communities to point out to drivers the implications if they speed in terms of causing an accident or being caught, we can create a very strong message about the importance of the 20mph limit.

I will be honest and say that it has not been done before. All the 20mph roll-outs that we have seen so far have been incredibly piecemeal outside of schools. However, there is evidence from places where a 20mph limit has been rolled out in a wider area and has been more effective at reducing speed. That has enabled local authorities such as Bristol to do more work in communities to reinforce the importance of 20mph, and there are signs that that has had a good effect. For example, the figures from Bristol on speed reduction and casualty reduction are very strong. It does not make sense to simply reduce the speed limit within 100m of a school gate. If it is an important speed limit for restricted roads near schools where people live, it is an important speed limit for all restricted roads where people live.

When Chief Superintendent Carle gave evidence to this committee, he said:

“to borrow a phrase from the violence reduction unit ... road violence is preventable, not inevitable. We need to make inappropriate speeding and exceeding speed limits as socially unacceptable as drink driving.”—[Official Report, Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, 6 March 2019; c 21.]

That is an important point, and I would argue that you can only do that if a safe limit is established nationally.

My other point is on wider cultural change. If the bill becomes law, the “Highway Code” will be updated and new drivers who are learning to drive on the streets of Edinburgh and around the country will be driving on roads with 20mph speed limits. There will be national consistency. The new drivers who will be the drivers of tomorrow will be trained on 20mph roads. That cultural change can be brought about over time, but the starting point is a sensible speed limit.

Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP)

I want to pick up on the remark that the current system is not working. I do so in the context of the helpful report that you have provided from the transport research institute, which, in table 1 on page 5, replicates the Scottish Government’s road casualty figures and gives 10 years of numbers. Looking at the headline figures, it is very clear that there were 255 fatal accidents in 2007 and 141 in 2017, which is almost half the 2007 figure. Overall, the figure has gone from 12,500 to 7,000. When I look down the table at the figures for built-up roads, there is a similar pattern, although progress on fatal accidents is slightly erratic. Is it fair to say not that the current system is not working, but that the changes in the bill would augment the many other safety initiatives that are already bringing benefits? Is that not the proper way to look at the matter? The 20mph limit is not the magic bullet that will take those numbers down to zero.

Mark Ruskell

The evidence shows that 20mph limits can make a significant contribution to tackling these issues. I would point out that the transport research institute report contains significant statistics on people who are killed and seriously injured on our rural A and B roads, which are not covered by the bill, and it is clear that the police focus a lot of their resource on those roads. However, table 2 shows that the numbers of seriously injured people are significantly higher on roads in built-up areas than on roads in non-built-up areas.

There is an important point to make here about the level of injuries outside our homes and on our streets in our residential communities. That raises questions about whether councils or the police are prioritising those particular types of injuries. Of course, those statistics do not capture the near misses. Some people are injured, but others have their confidence severely dented by a near miss. They suffer a psychological impact that can put them off walking and cycling. We need more care and attention on the streets where we live, work and play. Serious accidents happen on those streets and there is a need to drive up the levels of walking and cycling there.

Jamie Greene (West Scotland) (Con)

Thank you for introducing the bill. It has been a fascinating subject for the committee.

I want to return to Mr Lyle’s original question. What evidence do you have to support claims that a 20mph speed limit on restricted roads will lead to a culture change? I understand from your response to Mr Lyle that there is no evidence, because it has not been done before. The only evidence is from localised blanket changes in areas such as Edinburgh and Bristol. The committee heard evidence that in those areas the reduction in speed was nominal. A 30 per cent cut in the speed limit equated to a small reduction of 1 or 2mph in average speed, which does not seem to me to be evidence to support your proposition. Do you have more concrete evidence that there will genuinely be a shift in driver behaviour?

10:15

Mark Ruskell

As I said in my opening remarks, an average speed reduction of a couple of miles per hour is significant. I would not discount the benefits that can come from that. You will see from the financial and policy memoranda that accompany the bill that even a speed reduction of 1 to 2mph can prevent 600 casualties in Scotland every single year. The average life of a speed sign is 30 years; you can do the maths and work out how many lives would be saved and severe injuries prevented as a result of the change.

The bill is predicated on a modest reduction in average speed. I think that you heard in evidence that people who drive at higher speeds reduce their speed at a more significant rate than people who go at a lower speed do, so the statistics on average speed do not fully show what is happening on our roads.

However, even if we accept the average speed reductions that we are seeing as a result of roll-out in Edinburgh, Portsmouth, Calderdale and other areas, we can see that they are very significant. If, on the back of that, we drive further culture change by building in the approach that I discussed with Mr Lyle—national education, enforcement and reinforcing the approach throughout Scotland—we can get greater speed reductions.

However, the bill is not predicated on our doing that; it is based on what we know already, which is that roll-out of 20mph will lead to a significant reduction in casualties and deaths in Scotland and improvements in relation to walking and cycling. If we are looking for a cost-effective public health measure that can be applied across the whole of Scotland, this is it.

We are seeing cultural change in Scotland. Survation produced a poll two years ago that showed that—if we discount the people who did not have an opinion—around 66 per cent of people supported a default 20mph limit in their communities. We repeated that work last week and showed that the proportion has gone up to 72 per cent.

That reflects some of the evidence from Edinburgh, which is that, post-implementation, public support for 20mph goes up. You heard that from Ruth Jepson. Opposition to 20mph in Edinburgh has gone down. We are seeing a cultural shift here, anyway, where drivers and communities are becoming more aware of 20 and are waking up to the benefits.

That is a good basis on which to build and drive the benefits further. The bill is predicated on modest benefits. Can we go further? Yes, the evidence suggests that we can. Can I pinpoint exactly what the speed reduction will be in 10 years’ time? No.

Jamie Greene

You said that the bill’s approach is modest, but why do we have to cut the speed limit by a third to achieve a 1mph reduction in average speed? Is that really the only way to achieve that? Are there better ways to reduce average speeds than by making such a huge reduction in the statutory speed limit?

Mark Ruskell

The evidence shows that this is the most cost-effective way to achieve that. You asked about other ways to reduce speed. Putting speed humps on every restricted road would be incredibly costly. The speed limit is traffic law, for which there is a well-established framework. We have restricted roads, with a 30mph speed limit. A low-cost intervention is to reduce that speed limit to 20mph.

To carry out interventions to physically design every single road to reduce speed would be a vast public expense. That is not what we do at the moment: the roads around Edinburgh were not designed to be driven at 30mph; someone could drive up Holyrood Road at 40 or 50mph if they wanted to, but there is an element of self-enforcement of speed limits. That is what we currently have with the designation of speed limits in this country. What I am proposing is not to rip up the system but to go with the grain of the system and to reduce speed from 30mph to 20mph. That will result in a modest but substantial reduction in the number of speeding casualties.

Mike Rumbles (North East Scotland) (LD)

I would like to follow up on your response to Richard Lyle’s question. You seem to be somewhat critical of the local authorities that have not gone the way that Edinburgh has gone. Surely, however, our authorities have examined their local areas and they know where they want to have 20mph streets. Are they not best placed to decide where to have those streets, rather than our taking a national approach? You seem to be critical of local decision making.

Mark Ruskell

Not at all. I have engaged with many local authorities throughout this process, and with the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland, which represents the heads of transportation in all the local authorities. As a former councillor, I recognise the challenges that councils face. However, we have to bear in mind that the majority of local authorities that have responded to multiple consultations on the bill have supported the measure as being the most cost-effective way to deliver 20mph limits across the areas. I believe that local authorities support the measure and will continue to support it as a way to deliver on the aim.

I agree that councils need to have local discretion on how they implement the 20mph limit and which streets to retain a 30mph limit on. There has been interesting discussion in the committee, including on points that you have raised, Mr Rumbles, about Alford and similar rural communities. I understand where you are coming from in that regard—I live in a rural community myself. If you look at the roll-out that Fife Council has done, you will see that it has decided to create a wider network of 20mph roads in some areas including the through roads in certain villages but that, because of the volume of traffic involved, it has decided not to have that limit in other villages.

It is right that local authorities should decide on the precise nature of the roll-out of the 20mph limit and the retention of a 30mph limit in various villages and areas, but that should be within the context of a national default limit of 20mph. The current context is that there is a national default of 30mph. Local authorities already work with a national speed limit and seek to make adjustments within that to reflect the conditions and requirements of each area, and what is proposed will make it easier for them to do so.

In Fife, the council has had to put in exemption after exemption from the national default because, unfortunately, that is the only tool that councils can use to bring in a default limit of 20mph in their areas. That approach has been costly and time consuming. That is why a substantial number of local authorities are waiting for the bill to be enacted before they do any more with regard to 20mph limits. The legislation will make it simpler and more cost effective to do such things, while retaining councils’ ability to make local decisions about where to retain a 30mph limit and what kind of signs to put up, in consultation with communities.

Maureen Watt (Aberdeen South and North Kincardine) (SNP)

You said that the highway code would need to be updated. It is a United Kingdom-wide code. How would it be updated? What has happened in the places in England that you said have introduced the measure?

Mark Ruskell

The highway code is the highway code, and I am not sure whether there would need to be a supplementary page for Scotland. My point is that all the training documents and programmes that are put in place and the work that is done by driving instructors and organisations such as the Institute of Advanced Motorists are predicated on a 30mph speed limit on our restricted roads. I did my driving test in Edinburgh around 30 years ago—I failed it twice—on 30mph roads. The experience now, on 20mph roads, would be very different.

I do not think that changing those training documents to reflect what we would have in Scotland—a default speed limit of 20mph, which is a safer speed limit, on our roads—would be an insurmountable challenge. My colleague has just informed me that there is already a separate highway code for Northern Ireland.

The Convener

Stewart Stevenson has a related legal question.

Stewart Stevenson

My question is directed to the solicitor on the panel, although she may not be able to answer it. I am aware that the Scottish Parliament has powers over signage. As transport minister, I had the power to redesign the lollipop ladies’ lollipop, although we did not do that in a way that was particularly different visually. The manufacturer had stopped making the black piece of plastic round the edge at the required width, so we had to change the spec. The point is that the Scottish Parliament has powers over signage, which could lead to differentiation across the UK. Can you say how widespread that could be, or would you need to research it more fully in order to answer that?

Claudia Bennett (Scottish Parliament)

I am aware that, following the Scotland Act 2016, that area now falls into the devolved remit. I can research that further and come back to you on how far it goes, how it would work and whether there would have to be agreement with the secretary of state.

Claudia Beamish (South Scotland) (Lab)

I want to go back to what Mark Ruskell said about the cultural shift. Earlier this week, I received information from 20’s Plenty for Us, which is a UK organisation, on the poll that he mentioned. I understand that it was done specifically in Scotland. It says:

Peter Chapman

The point that Scottish Borders Council was making was that the number of such accidents on streets in built-up areas is minuscule, and it does not believe that the bill would make any significant difference at all. The figures that we have are virtually zero anyway.

Mark Ruskell

I will answer that point briefly, and this is also an answer to Mr Stevenson’s point. Table 5 in the report by Professor Adrian Davis gives a figure for those who are seriously injured on roads in built-up areas. It is 787 people every single year, at a cost of £167 million, which is a substantial cost. I am not for one minute saying that Scottish Borders Council does not take that into consideration. My point is that it is wrong for us not to consider the needs of people who live on streets and the dangers that they face.

John Finnie (Highlands and Islands) (Green)

Before asking questions about reductions in the numbers of casualties and collisions, I want to refer to the letter that we got yesterday from SCOTS, which was directed to the convener and circulated to the committee. The members of SCOTS are the senior practitioners in all the local authorities. The final paragraph of the letter says:

“In summary, the Society maintains its general support of the Restricted Roads (20mph speed limit) (Scotland) Bill and its intentions.”

Members will also be aware that 20’s Plenty for Us issued a press release yesterday, and on the tension between central decision making and local costs, it says:

“A National policy pays for itself in the first year for eight times less money than if councils implement 20mph individually at local level”.

That is a compelling piece of information.

Mark, you mentioned the World Health Organization and talked about the bill being a public health intervention, which is how I like to view it, rather than it being about administrative processes or signs. We heard from the cabinet secretary last week about the cost—I do not like it to be referred to in this way—of £2 million for a fatality.

Among the evidence on reductions in collisions and casualties, the Scottish Parliament information centre briefing paper talks about research by the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, which we have taken evidence from. Will you comment on scenarios 1 and 2, which it alludes to?

Mark Ruskell

I am just looking for the paper.

John Finnie

It relates to reductions in casualties and fatalities, and the cost that is put to that.

The Convener

Before we go any further, I want to clarify something. The SCOTS letter that was referred to was sent to individual members rather than to the committee clerks. Have all members seen it? Did you see it, Jamie?

Jamie Greene

Maybe.

The Convener

It was sent to individuals; it was not circulated through the committee. I received a copy. If anyone on the committee has not received the letter, I will ensure that they get a copy afterwards.

John Finnie

I just assumed that we had it, so I printed it off.

The Convener

I am double checking, because the clerks looked at me blankly. The letter should have been sent to the committee, but it was not. If anybody has not got it—I note that Richard Lyle and Jamie Greene have not—I will make sure that they get a copy.

Mark, that probably gave you a brief interlude to find the information that you need.

Mark Ruskell

Yes. We make an estimate in the bill of what the benefits would be, which is focused on improvements to road safety. We have not tried to estimate in pounds and pence what the public health benefits would be in increased rates of walking and cycling, but we can assume that they would be substantial.

We wanted to get an independent view of what the road safety benefits would be and the casualty reductions that we could expect from a modest reduction in average speed. Two scenarios were associated with that, which correlate broadly with what we had worked up ourselves to put into the financial memorandum for the bill. In the Glasgow Centre for Population Health figures, the first scenario estimates 755 fewer casualties, five fewer fatalities and a cost saving of nearly £40 million every year. The second scenario estimates slightly less—531 fewer casualties, three fewer fatalities and a saving of £27 million every year. Those are substantial figures, but what they do not tell us is the human cost and the cost to a community of the loss of a life. I experienced that when I was a young child. Although I did not know the child who was involved very well, the impact on the school community and the family was huge, and it stays with me to this day.

We must also look at the impacts of not only fatalities but severe injuries—such as the lifetime care costs—and near misses. If somebody is involved in a near miss and comes very close to being seriously injured, that can affect their life chances and their choices in the future. I have met people who were nearly run over or knocked off their bike in a minor incident when they were younger, and they have never touched a bike again. The perception of how safe our communities are is also hugely important.

I will ask Mr Mylne to explain a little bit more about the estimates for the hard savings that we identified from the bill.

Mr Finnie, does that answer your question?

John Finnie

I have to be honest: I am uncomfortable with putting a sum beside a life. However, given that cost has featured so much in consideration of the bill, and given that we have heard about the cost benefits in that crude way, I would like to hear more about that, because it is important. I do not know what price you could put on the loss of a child’s life and the loss to the community, which you mentioned, but, if Mr Mylne has further information, it would be helpful to hear it.

Andrew Mylne (Scottish Parliament)

We have included some estimates of savings at the end of the financial memorandum. We break them down according to a number of different factors, and they use standard figures that are widely used across Government to calculate costs. For example, table 4 gives the value of accidents prevented according to likely costs to the police, and we have a separate table for the impact on the national health service.

Table 6 is, in some ways, the most significant. It shows the value of accidents prevented in terms of pain, grief and suffering, which I think is exactly what Mr Finnie has expressed some unease about. The point is that we have used standard figures that have been generated centrally within Government as a tool for policy analysis. There has to be some way of quantifying the cost of fatalities, and this is how it is done. It is a sort of actuarial calculation.

We could argue that, in a sense, it is not real money, but the approach is a way of quantifying costs in some meaningful way and we can use it for comparative analysis of the impact of fatalities and serious injuries. We have simply used standard figures. As I understand it, when the NHS assesses the value of new medicines or interventions that might save lives, it uses these figures to calculate the cost benefit.

We have come up with figures with lower and higher estimates, and they are very similar to the ones that Mr Ruskell quoted. There is a higher estimate of £36.1 million, which is very similar to the nearly £40 million that was quoted, and so on. I think that that demonstrates that there is a standard methodology that we can use to get meaningful numbers for the potential savings that we can gain from something that saves lives.

John Finnie

Do you have any evidence that a national 20mph speed limit on restricted roads would produce greater benefits in those areas than the current system does?

Mark Ruskell

The problem with the current system is that it is not delivering 20mph limits beyond zones outside schools and, for people who are lucky and live in Edinburgh, a substantial number of residential streets. It is not delivering those benefits universally, on a population-wide basis, in rural and urban areas. That is where the intervention that is proposed in the bill will start to deliver. It makes sense that, if we apply it throughout Scotland, we will get greater reductions in casualties and more benefits over time.

The Atkins review, which has been discussed in committee several times, also found that the bigger and broader a 20mph area is, the more effective it will be in reducing speed. It did particular work that looked at Brighton, where there had been a big roll-out, and it found that there was a greater reduction in speeds in the area because of the extent of the roll-out. There were also speed reductions on accompanying A and B roads outside the area. That demonstrates the benefits of applying the measure in a nationally consistent way—not just with piecemeal zones outside schools, but on an area-wide basis throughout the country.

John Finnie

The SPICe briefing, under the heading “Do 20mph speed limits improve road safety?”, alludes to what is referred to as

“A systematic review of evidence on 20mph zones, where physical traffic calming measures are present, and 20mph speed limit areas”.

That review, which was published in the Journal of Public Health, says that

“20 mph zones and limits are effective in reducing accidents and injuries, traffic speed and volume”—

we have heard about that—

“as well as improving perceptions of safety”.

Will you expand on that and say why it might be important?

Mark Ruskell

We make choices in our everyday lives about how we get to work and whether we allow our children to walk to school or whether they need to be driven to school, and a lot of that is down to perception. I do not go out of my house with a speed gun every morning and decide whether I am going to let my child walk to school, but I do have a sense of what my community feels like and whether it feels safe. It is a safer community as a result of the 20mph limit. Perception is important, and some of the research that has been done, particularly around the Edinburgh pilot and as part of the Atkins study, points to the fact that people feel safer when the limit in the streets where they live, work and play is 20mph. That has a positive impact on their choices.

I feel that we are not focusing just on road signs. It is an important issue, because if you read the overview of the bill, it says that the premise of the bill is

“to reduce the general speed limit on restricted roads to 20 miles per hour”.

That is the route that Mr Ruskell has chosen to take, rather than other approaches that might have been discussed. It is important that we get to the bottom of the issue. I will ask some simple questions about that to inform the committee. As the member in charge of the bill, does Mark Ruskell know how many restricted roads there are in Scotland?

Mark Ruskell

That information about a total length of restricted roads does not exist, because of the issues that we have just discussed. That is a question that I asked two and a half years ago, because I thought that it would be quite simple to say, “Here is the total road length of restricted roads in Scotland; multiply that by a certain number of signs and that gives you an understanding of the costs.” However, I was informed by roads officers and professionals in the area that that is not the way to work out how much it would cost. The way to do that is to look at where a 20mph limit has already been rolled out. We took a financial costing model based on Angus Council, where we looked at real settlements and what the signage requirements would be. That makes sense, because if you are in a large urban conurbation, there will be fewer entry and exit points out of a suburban area on to a through road than there will be in a smaller, rural village. We need to look at the roads and the types of settlements in Scotland, and build an understanding of what the costs would be in the implementation phase, rather than simply taking a figure and multiplying it by 20.

11:00

Jamie Greene

I am sorry to interrupt you, but we will talk about costs later in the session, and I do not want to impose on other members who have questions on the subject. You have pre-empted an explanation of the reasons for my questions. I am asking for some simple data. This is the fifth evidence session on the bill, but no one has been able to answer basic questions on how many restricted roads there are in Scotland; the total mileage of those roads; the percentage of roads that are restricted; and—we heard about this in the previous evidence session—how many B roads are also designated as restricted roads. We heard specific evidence on West Lothian from one panellist, but I have no idea how that correlates with the number of B roads in other local authority areas.

Have you, in the past two and half years, been able to answer any of those fundamental questions in order to give us an idea of the scale of the bill’s effect?

Mark Ruskell

No, in terms of creating national totals for restricted roads. However, as I pointed out, the question needs to be answered at local level. We have worked with SCOTS to think through what an implementation plan would look like. That includes the phases of work that local authorities would need to undertake to establish the exact layout of restricted roads in their areas and which roads they would wish to retain as 30mph zones, and to develop a plan to put up signs and introduce traffic orders to maintain the final network. We have been informed by councils that implementation at that level would need to happen after the bill is enacted. There would be a decent timescale between the point at which the bill achieves royal assent, if it does so, and the beginning of the implementation period, which would allow councils to do that detailed work. Unfortunately, no magic figure exists.

Jamie Greene

That is unfortunate, because such a figure would help to put the bill’s premise in context. It is unfortunate that no one—neither the bill team nor the local authorities involved—has been able to answer those questions.

The letter that the committee received from SCOTS yesterday—I thank the clerks for forwarding it to us—is quite clear. It says:

“It may be accurate to state that ‘We do not know the number of restricted roads in Scotland’”.

It goes on to say that, for one third of roads, there is

“no or limited asset data to allow roads to be identified.”

At this stage of the bill, not only do nearly one third of local authorities still not know the answer to that question, they feel that they do not even have the data to enable them to answer it. It seems that there is still a problem with the availability of data. I am not saying whose fault that is or whose duty it is to collate the data; we can discuss that. However, it seems that there is a fundamental problem with regard to knowing and identifying which roads the bill will affect. That is a fundamental flaw.

Mark Ruskell

It is a challenge that has been well recognised since the inception of the bill. It is incorporated in the thinking around the timescale for implementation and the work that local authorities would need to do. We have had detailed conversations with those who would have to implement the bill about what would be required to provide certainty and to enable councils to work with stakeholders to identify which roads they wish to retain as 30mph zones. I am confident that the matter can be addressed.

Mike Rumbles

One of my major concerns about the bill arises from the evidence that we have received from rural councils in particular. They feel that the bill will have a disproportionate financial impact on rural councils and authorities, which calls into question whether the financial memorandum is fit for purpose. Even the City of Edinburgh Council, which has successfully done good work with 20mph zones, has told us that it will cost it nearly £1 million to adjust for the implementation of the bill by taking down signs and so on. In addition, there are issues for rural councils such as Highland Council, which told us in evidence that it has 700km of restricted roads.

Scottish Borders Council said to us, “Hang on—the accidents in the Borders have occurred because of vehicles reversing or going at very low speed.” From its perspective, the issue is not important enough for it to decide to put its financial resources into it. It will cost rural councils a hugely disproportionate amount of money to implement this. You have mentioned Alford, and I, too, have mentioned it; instead of having just one sign at the entrance to and exit from the village, it would have to put in more than 40, and the same situation would be repeated, at enormous cost, in every village in our rural authorities across the country. Do you have any response to that?

Mark Ruskell

Mr Rumbles has raised quite a few issues, and I thank him for giving some specific examples, because we sometimes need to drill down into such things if we are to truly understand an issue.

On the issue of costs, the bill is largely predicated on estimates provided by Angus Council, which, as we know, is fairly similar to much of rural Scotland, with a mixture of urban towns and conurbations, smaller villages and hamlets. I believe that the costings are accurate. Having discussed the matter with the council, I know that it has factored in the possible requirement for buffer zones and what I agree will be the inevitably higher cost of introducing signage in relatively small villages. The costs for Scotland, particularly for entry signage, are based on Angus’s estimates, so the costs have been weighted towards those that rural local authorities would have to shoulder.

There is a question as to whether certain local authorities will have disproportionately high costs. If the bill is passed, it will be important for the Scottish Government to find some way of equalising some of those costs. I appreciate that, if you are in Clackmannanshire, the smallest local authority in Scotland, and have already introduced a 20mph limit on every single road, the cost of integrating the signage for your current scheme with the national default scheme and taking down a few repeater signs will be less than the costs for, say, Highland Council, with its larger geographical area.

However, although it is important to recognise that, I point out that the majority of rural councils back this measure. Aberdeenshire Council was one of the few that were neutral, and Scottish Borders Council had concerns, but Highland Council, which you mentioned, Orkney Islands Council, Angus Council, Stirling Council and numerous community councils across Scotland back this approach. The equalisation of costs according to the need of rural local authorities is a valid issue, but I believe that the national estimates that we have provided are accurate. I have certainly seen no figures that show that we have underestimated costs.

What I am frustrated about at the moment is that I do not have from the Scottish Government a clearer understanding of how it might change the signage regulations. If it decided to change them to require repeater signs to remain up in 20mph zones or to reduce the requirement for 30mph repeaters, that would substantially reduce the costs of the bill even further. Unfortunately, I do not have that information for the committee at this point.

Mike Rumbles

I want to press you on your point about rural councils’ support for the bill. I signed your motion to allow the bill to be introduced, because I am very much in favour of 20mph limits, but the question that I have to ask myself as a committee member now that I have seen the bill, taken the evidence and interrogated witnesses is whether the bill is the best approach. I was particularly taken by Scottish Borders Council’s evidence that it does not think that a blanket 20mph approach will save lives. The council’s evidence to the committee was that the very few instances of accidents tend to involve reversing vehicles or vehicles at low speed, so why, at a time of financial constraints, should it spend a huge amount of money to solve a problem that does not exist, from its point of view? How recently did all those rural councils say that they support the bill? If I had been asked about support before I heard the evidence, I would have said yes. However, I am not so sure now.

Mark Ruskell

I point to not just my consultation at the beginning of the process to discuss the bill but the committee’s consultation and the responses from councils. You have taken evidence from a council that is in favour and one that is against and had discussions with Highland Council.

The majority of councils are in favour. I have run seminars in Parliament over the past two years for councils to discuss the issues with the implementation of 20mph restrictions. Rural councils such as East Lothian Council have said, “We are not doing 20mph restrictions any more, because every time we try to introduce a 20mph zone, we get 55 objections and 50 are from the same person. We will wait for your bill to be enacted.” Significant numbers of local authorities, of which a significant number are rural councils, are not rolling out 20mph restrictions now because they want a national default. The bill is what they are waiting for.

Earlier, I spoke about the views of Scottish Borders Council and I accept that this issue is not a priority for it. I point again to the report that has been furnished to the committee by Adrian Davis, which shows that the number of people who are seriously injured or killed in built-up areas in Scotland is significant. Those areas are in my rural community and your rural communities—they are not exclusively in the centre of Edinburgh and other cities. They are everywhere where children and vulnerable people live.

The Convener

Before we move on, I have a question that you have neatly led on to. At the weekend, I drove through Keith on the A96, which would not be covered by the 20mph speed limit. Boringly, I counted 60-plus streets off the main road, each of which would require signage each way. Then I looked to see whether the schools were on that road and I looked at the traffic, given the effect of the traffic lights. My truthful view was that the new signage and the change in the law would not make much difference, but it would be at a vast cost. Is that situation reflected in many rural areas, or is Keith exceptional?

I return to the figure that most people driving on a 30mph road are breaking the law—they drive at more than 30mph. Perhaps even more important than that is that they drive at speeds such that if they hit a pedestrian that person would be seven times less likely to survive.

Mike Rumbles

That is not the evidence about Edinburgh that the committee received in the SPICe briefing, which I think John Finnie might have in front of him.

Mark Ruskell

As for the point that we would, in effect, criminalise people by dropping the speed limit, the police apply a rule of thumb to detection and prosecution of people for speeding. The rule of thumb is that an acceptable variance from the speed limit is 10 per cent of the limit plus 2mph. The numbers of people who drive on a 20mph road at between 20mph and 24mph show that compliance is broadly the same as it is with the 30mph limit, so I do not get the sense that we would criminalise a large number of people by dropping the speed limit. Over time, as people come to understand the implications of driving at a higher speed and being caught doing so, speeds would drop further.

Page 2 of one of the committee’s SPICe briefings from a previous week includes a graph, which is difficult to describe, that is based on Department for Transport statistics. It shows that the range of vehicle speeds—from those who break the speed limit by travelling at 39mph down to those who travel at under 20mph—shifts towards 20mph on 20mph limit roads.

Mike Rumbles

Can we talk about the information that I referred to? I have it in front of me now, as John Finnie has kindly produced it. Page 6 of the SPICe briefing on the bill says, of Edinburgh:

“The average speed of vehicles on streets, provided with a 20mph speed limit, has dropped by an average of 1.9mph from 22.8mph to 20.9mph.”

When the speed limit was 30mph, the average speed was 22.8mph, so most people were obeying the law. Where the limit has been dropped to 20mph, the average speed is still more than 20mph. The Edinburgh statistics are clear in the SPICe briefing. Surely we should accept what the briefing has established.

Mark Ruskell

That is an average speed reduction, and the average is made up of a number of people driving at different speeds—some are going fast and some are going more slowly than the average. That is divided by the number of drivers to end up with an average speed reduction. That does not tell us that everybody is suddenly driving 1.9mph slower. What it shows, as some studies in Edinburgh have shown, is that the reduction in speed on higher-speed roads is greater than that on lower-speed roads. That stands to reason; implementing a 20mph limit on a road where it is difficult to drive at 20mph because it is incredibly narrow and is residential would mean a low reduction in speed, whereas putting a 20mph limit on a faster road would reduce speed more.

Can you move on to your next question?

11:30

Stewart Stevenson

Therefore, 20.1mph is actually within the 20mph limit.

I want to pick up on something in the report that the transport research institute has helpfully provided, although we have covered much of this already. Paragraph 3 on page 3 states:

“There was a general agreement that greater levels of road traffic policing results in lower numbers of collisions and injuries and traffic violations.”

We have a conflict here, given that the report points out at the bottom of page 4 that, in essence, the police are not particularly enforcing the issue in urban areas. They enforce in rural areas, where speeds are higher. However, the majority of serious casualties occur on roads in built-up urban areas. Have the police adequately addressed that in the observations that they have provided to the committee so far? I note that the police intend to have a special enforcement period of at least six months after implementation of the bill.

Mark Ruskell

We have had detailed engagement with Police Scotland. We recognise that it is in a difficult position, because it has resource constraints and needs to prioritise in order to deliver the most public benefit from its policing. That is partly why I commissioned the work from Professor Adrian Davis and the Scottish institute for policing research—I wanted to help the police to drill down into the data to consider how they would react to a national default, and where they might choose to prioritise their resources. It is welcome that the police have acknowledged that there would be a need for strong police involvement in the initial six months. However, we need further discussion with the police on numbers of seriously injured people in built-up areas. We need to consider whether we have the balance right.

Peter Chapman

As I said, the traffic often travels at around 20mph—not because that is the limit, but because traffic conditions are such that it is physically impossible to go any faster than that at peak times. Outwith peak times, when traffic levels are a lot lower, the temptation for many drivers will be to drive above the 20mph limit, because they can do so at those times. I accept that there is a duty on the police to enforce a 20mph limit, but I also accept the point that, as we heard, there is no more resource to do that. The end result will be that many more drivers will break the law—end of story. I ask you to accept that that is the reality.

Mark Ruskell

I will ask Andrew Mylne to talk about where we think there might be an increase in fines. The evidence is clear, from the Atkins study and other studies, that a 20mph limit does not undermine other speed limits. In fact, the evidence shows that speeds reduce on surrounding 40mph and 60mph roads: overall speeds are reduced.

There will be variance throughout the day, but you have heard from Police Scotland that it does not say to people that it is okay to speed up at 3 o’clock in the morning and that they can rumble down the Royal Mile at 40mph if they want. At any time of day, there are implications of speeding. Part of the issue is about education. When people are driving fast through the centre of Edinburgh at 3 in the morning, there might be fewer pedestrians and less traffic on the road, but there might also be people who are particularly vulnerable and who could step out in front of a taxi or other vehicle. We need a process of engaging with drivers so that they understand the message on the impact of speeding.

People need to understand the implications not just of getting caught but of being in an accident, which could have an extremely serious impact on their career, and on the wider community and all the individuals involved—the person who is in the accident and the driver. Perhaps Andrew Mylne could explain about the fines income.

Andrew Mylne

Yes—

The Convener

You should look to your researcher, Malachy Clarke, on your left as well, because he might want to add to what you are saying.

Andrew Mylne

When we were doing the financial memorandum, we took into account levels of compliance with speed limits. Table 1 on page 4 of the financial memorandum gives current statistics for levels of compliance with different speed limits, which back up Mark Ruskell’s earlier point. There might be greater non-compliance with the 20mph limit, but it is not as great as you might think. We used the statistics as a basis to work out what additional costs might arise if there was a need for a greater number of prosecutions, penalties and so forth. That is all carefully costed.

What we have set out in the financial memorandum is based on a certain number of assumptions and comes up with certain numbers, but if the bill is successfully implemented, with an effective public information campaign that succeeds in changing the culture—as is the intention—levels of non-compliance might not go up at all, so it is possible that some costs will be avoided. However, we have costed quite carefully on the basis of there being some increase in speeding.

The Convener

That leads neatly on to Jamie Greene’s question.

Jamie Greene

Mark Ruskell probably shares a lot of the frustration around the narrative, as we focus on numbers, percentages and costs. I would like to talk about the costs because they are important, but before I do so, I will share a short anecdote.

I promote active travel, as Mark Ruskell will be aware. However, I chose to drive to work this morning from my home in Edinburgh at 20mph or less for the entire journey—as I always do, of course.

Mike Rumbles

Well done! [Laughter.]

Jamie Greene

Thank you. It is important to put the bill in the context of what motorists experience in the real world, because this is about what happens out there to driver behaviour, and about pedestrians’ and cyclists’ perceptions of road safety. This really gets to the crux of the bill. During my journey to work, two cars overtook me because, in the eyes of the drivers, I was driving too slowly. One pulled out in front of a bus. A cyclist overtook me because they thought I was going too slowly down a hill and another driver sat so close to my rear bumper that I could see the whites of his eyes.

Do you understand people’s genuine concerns that not everyone will drive at 20mph and that when drivers try to do so, it can be incredibly difficult?

Mark Ruskell

The Edinburgh experience is interesting. We all have our experiences of driving, cycling and walking in Edinburgh. I would point to the evidence that Ruth Jepson presented to the committee. She is doing the largest study anywhere in the UK of 20mph roll-out, and it has shown that the level of public objection to the 20mph limit in Edinburgh has gone down over the past year.

Richard Lyle

Exactly. I wish you well, Mark.

The Convener

That is probably a very good point on which to leave the discussion.

Thank you, Mr Ruskell, for the evidence that you have given this morning. You have presented your case, and I thank you for that. I thank Malachy Clarke—I think you had the chance to come in. Andrew Mylne had a few chances, and Claudia Bennett had a chance to come in, too. Thank you very much for giving evidence this morning.

11:54 Meeting continued in private until 12:30.

20 March 2019

6 February 2019

20 February 2019

6 March 2019

20 March 2019

What is secondary legislation?

Secondary legislation is sometimes called 'subordinate' or 'delegated' legislation. It can be used to:

bring a section or sections of a law that’s already been passed, into force

give details of how a law will be applied

make changes to the law without a new Act having to be passed

An Act is a Bill that’s been approved by Parliament and given Royal Assent (formally approved).

Debate on the Bill

A debate for MSPs to discuss what the Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill aims to do and how it'll do it.

Stage 1 debate transcript

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Christine Grahame)

The next item of business is a debate on motion S5M-17660, in the name of Mark Ruskell, on the Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill.

15:01

Mark Ruskell (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green)

Since devolution, there have been choices for the Parliament to make, in order to break from the status quo, be bold and lead the change. From the smoking ban to the minimum pricing of alcohol, the Parliament has led the way in making small changes that will have a big impact on the health of our nation for generations to come.

Today, I am asking Parliament to take another step forward to make our streets and communities permanently safer. Speed limits of 20mph make a big contribution to the safety of everyone on the streets on which we live, especially to the safety of children. They reduce speeds, prevent deaths and injuries and encourage choices to walk and cycle, while public support for them continues to grow year on year. Yet 20mph speed limits remain exceptions to a blanket 30mph rule that was set nearly 90 years ago; they are expensive to introduce and inconsistently applied. It a postcode lottery as to whether a community is protected and our most deprived communities are often left behind.

I am asking Parliament to consider the fundamental question: what should be the default speed limit on the streets on which we live? If the answer to that question is 20mph, the bill is the only credible approach that delivers that goal in a way that is nationally consistent, timely and cost effective.

Over the past three years, I have been delighted to work with a wide range of organisations, including councils, public health bodies, road safety organisations and schools, and many thousands of individuals who back the bill. Public support has been strong—countless studies have shown that the majority of the public supports 20mph limits and that the support goes up when the limits are introduced.

More than 1,900 people responded to the initial consultation on the bill and well over 6,500 people responded to the consultation that the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee ran, which showed 62 per cent support. I particularly thank Rod King and the team at twenty’s plenty for providing support through their extensive networks across the United Kingdom in building the case for the bill.

Last year, I was delighted to be invited to address meetings in Wales, including in the Senedd, where there is now a strong cross-party consensus, with the First Minister recently announcing that Wales will be switching to a 20mph default national limit. The Welsh proposal to allow councils to retain 30mph limits on a minority of roads of their choosing exactly mirrors my bill, and will make Wales the first 20mph nation in the UK.

I also thank councils for their active support: Orkney Islands Council, Shetland Islands Council, Glasgow City Council, the City of Edinburgh Council, Angus Council, East Renfrewshire Council, Dumfries and Galloway Council, Midlothian Council, Renfrewshire Council, Stirling Council, East Dunbartonshire Council, Highland Council, Aberdeen City Council and South Lanarkshire Council have all been strong supporters.

Glasgow City Council recently passed a motion in support of the bill, while the City of Edinburgh Council has said that, had the bill been in place at the time, it would have halved the cost of its 20mph roll-out. Councils that want to make the streets where we live safer want a default 20mph limit. Only a small minority of councils, most notably Scottish Borders Council, are out of step in wanting to choose whether to implement 20mph limits. Why should a child who is growing up on a street in Galashiels deserve any less protection than a child who lives on a street in Edinburgh?

Throughout the development of the bill, my team has also worked closely with the members of the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland, which is the representative body of all roads authorities. They are the people who will be directly responsible for implementing the bill. I thank them for their input into the costings and their continued support, which was reaffirmed last night in their formal response to the committee’s report.

Many councils now await the introduction of this bill to make the full roll-out of the 20mph limit cheaper and easier across their communities. On the public health case, I have been delighted to work with organisations including the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, the Faculty of Public Health, the British Heart Foundation, the British Lung Foundation and NHS Scotland; they all back the bill. The Glasgow Centre for Population Health was instrumental in helping us to understand the impact that the bill would have on protecting and saving lives. Its study showed that, even with a modest reduction in average speeds, every year, the bill would save five lives, 750 casualties and £39 million. Real people’s lives will be saved and transformed and real savings will keep coming every year for decades to come—all for the cost of simply changing the road signs.

Liam Kerr (North East Scotland) (Con)

Will the member take an intervention?

Mark Ruskell

Yes, if I can get the time back.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

Yes, you can. There is time in hand in this debate. I can be flexible, which is good for everybody.

Liam Kerr

Does the member not concede that that only happens if the impact of the bill is, as he wishes, to reduce the speed limit in practice?

Mark Ruskell

That is a basic question and I point the member to the extensive policy memorandum, which details all the studies that show the kind of speed reduction that we would get if we implemented the 20mph limit across the nation. The bill is predicated on the existing roll-out of the 20mph limit in cities around the UK. We are not starting with some kind of rocket science. We already know the impact of 20mph zones. We know what the impact will be if we go for a national default.

We also know the devastating impact that a fatality can bring to families and communities. Even minor incidents can destroy a person’s confidence, leaving them unable to cycle or fearful of traffic for the rest of their lives. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said that the bill would

“have an immediate beneficial impact on”

the health of children and young people, creating

“safer places to walk, cycle and play, reducing fatal and non-fatal injuries”.

I have also been pleased to work with a huge range of organisations that know that the bill will transform the liveability of our communities. Sustrans, Living Streets Scotland, Cycling UK, British Cycling, Scottish Cycling, Transform Scotland, pedal on Parliament, Ramblers Scotland, Friends of the Earth, Paths for All, Brake, Spokes, GoBike, Guide Dogs Scotland and dozens of community councils and parent councils all back the bill.

A joint letter from more than 20 national bodies and the newly appointed active nation commissioner, Lee Craigie, was clear and unequivocal in its support, saying that

“A Scotland-wide reduction in speed limits will save lives every year, not only through reduced casualties but, as more people choose active forms of travel and the air quality in our communities improves. We cannot wait for local authorities to implement this in a few limited areas, as and when they have the resources. We cannot wait for more studies.”

The Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee heard many of those arguments. They were highlighted in its report, which concluded that sign-only 20mph limits deliver “important increases” in walking and cycling and agreed that

“20mph zones can contribute to social inclusion, the quality of life and the ‘liveability’ of neighbourhoods and streets.”

The report went on to say that

“the Committee supports the deployment of 20mph zones in Scotland, especially where pedestrians are present, and acknowledges the road safety benefits that this would deliver.”

How, then, could both the committee and the Government conclude that discretion should be given to councils to do nothing about a 20mph speed limit? I find that quite unfathomable, given that we know that the current blanket 30mph limit will continue to kill, maim and destroy lives. That is a fact that every MSP must think on when they choose which way to vote on the bill.

If the Government wants Scotland to be the best place for children to grow up in, it should prove it by making their streets safer places to play, walk and cycle in. If it backs 20mph as the safe speed limit in those streets, I ask it please not to leave it to a postcode lottery. Leave the change to Parliament instead, and back this bill for the sake of all future generations.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill.

I am sure that other members of the committee will comment on that. However, what we heard from Police Scotland is that it does not prioritise enforcement of current 30mph or 20mph zones. Police Scotland confirmed that its focus is on enforcing speed limits on higher speed roads where serious accidents are more likely to occur.

Daniel Johnson (Edinburgh Southern) (Lab)

Will the member give way?

Edward Mountain

I am afraid that I have already taken two interventions. [Interruption.] I think that it is fair to allow the committee convener to try to put the committee’s view across without questioning him on it, as members will have an opportunity to question each committee member.

As I said, Police Scotland is focused on enforcing limits on higher speed roads. That might not be viewed as an impediment to compliance with 20mph limits. However, the committee was of the view that the proposals in the bill would be unlikely to result in any change to Police Scotland’s approach to enforcing speed limits.

On the issue of public awareness, the committee heard that a detailed, concerted campaign would be required to raise awareness of the proposed reduced speed limit, should the bill be passed. We learned that such a campaign would need to be more extensive and sustained than the bill proposes. Overall, it would need to create a major shift in the cultural understanding of why the speed limits exist, with the aim of increasing compliance rates.

The committee also found that the existing processes for local authorities to implement 20mph speed limits are cumbersome and resource intensive. We are of the view that those processes should be more straightforward to make implementation easier. Consequently, we welcomed the Scottish Government’s current exercise with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland to consider ways in which those processes can be simplified and improved. The cabinet secretary’s response to the committee’s report does not provide any further information on that exercise. I ask him, on behalf of the committee, to ensure that the committee is kept updated on the progress and outcomes of the review.

The committee also heard about wide-ranging uncertainties around the estimated costs and savings for the bill, leading the committee to conclude that the financial memorandum is not robust. Costs that were not fully recognised include the following: assessments of affected roads; local authorities wishing to retain roads as 30mph zones; and establishing the total number of restricted roads that would be subject to the bill’s proposals, given that this number is not known. There was also no estimation of the costs related to staff and resources in the police force and criminal justice system or of Scottish Government costs for the trunk road network.

The cabinet secretary has clarified in his response that the Scottish Government would have to provide additional financial support to local authorities if the bill were passed. However, that financial support would have to come from existing transport budgets, potentially diverting resources away from existing activities.

Finally, the committee also noted the very clear message given by the Scottish Government throughout the stage 1 process that a great deal of further consideration to the process, impact and consequences of a nationwide default 20mph limit on restricted roads would be required before it would be in a position to fully support the bill.

The key point for the committee has been to determine whether the bill’s proposal to introduce a 20mph speed limit on all restricted roads in Scotland by default is the most effective way to deliver a significant increase in 20mph zones. Our majority view is that the default approach proposed in the bill is not appropriate, as it does not give local authorities the flexibility to devise 20mph limits that they consider appropriate for their areas.

As a result, the committee is unable to recommend the general principles of the Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill to the Parliament. I look forward to hearing other members’ contributions to the debate.

15:18

The Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity (Michael Matheson)

First, I thank Mark Ruskell for his member’s bill, which has generated a wide-ranging national debate on 20mph speed limits.

I have followed the committee’s consideration of the bill closely, and I would like to thank its members for their diligent and comprehensive scrutiny of the bill’s proposals. I note the findings of the committee; I am sure that the committee’s decision was a difficult one to reach, which highlights the complex nature of the matter.

I will briefly explain why the Scottish Government is not in a position to support the bill. Through “Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2020”, we are committed to reducing road risk. Scotland has well-established casualty reduction targets on which we have successfully made progress in recent years. The Government is also committed to an active travel vision in which communities are shaped around people, and in which walking and cycling are the most popular choices for shorter everyday journeys.

The bill brings together two issues that must not be conflated. The first is the question whether 20mph speed limits are beneficial. The Scottish Government’s clear view is that we support implementing 20mph limits in the right environment, because they have the potential to encourage more active travel and increase people’s feeling of safety.

The second issue is the question whether the blanket approach is the best way of achieving the desired benefit.

Andy Wightman

The cabinet secretary refers to a “blanket approach”, which reflects the committee’s language about “a one-size-fits-all approach”. Surely, as a matter of principle all around the world, a default speed limit is a default speed limit: it takes a one-size-fits-all approach. The only question is whether the speed limit should be 30mph or 20mph.

Michael Matheson

The committee’s point was about compliance and effective operation. We must have a default speed limit on which we can get greater levels of compliance. The evidence shows that if additional measures are not provided alongside the speed limit reduction, compliance is not of a good standard.

Will the cabinet secretary give way on that point?

Michael Matheson

I want to make progress, and I am about to finish.

Solutions can be taken forward through collaborative working with our partners in local authorities. I consider that the blanket sign-only approach that is proposed in the bill, without identification of the roads that would be affected, will not achieve its aims. The road assessment is required in order to examine whether the current speed profile and road design lend themselves to sign-only 20mph speed limits, and whether they will achieve the benefits that we all wish to see.

Given all of the above, I support the conclusions and recommendations of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. I can also assure the chamber that we will continue to take forward measures to assist our colleagues in local government to introduce a wider range of 20mph speed limits in urban areas.

15:27

Jamie Greene (West Scotland) (Con)

I sincerely thank Mark Ruskell, his staff and his team for bringing forward the proposed legislation. We appreciate the hard work that goes into a member’s bill; I can only imagine the workload that it has added to his office. I give credit to the member, because in the very early days of the process, from day 1, he took a great deal of time and effort to meet Opposition members, to share his thoughts and to listen to our views and concerns. I was happy to welcome members of the twenty’s plenty group to my office and to have a frank and productive conversation with them. Such was and is my good will in approaching the bill logically and respectfully.

Even though the majority view of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee was not to recommend the general principles of the bill, that does not mean that Conservative members do not support the concept of lower speed limits or zones, nor is this the end of the road when it comes to how we, as a Parliament and as politicians, hold the Government to account on the issue.

I will not lie: when the bill was originally announced, I was quite sceptical. However, as a member of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, as my party’s spokesman on transport, and as a pedestrian, cyclist and driver, I approached the debate with an openness to listening and learning. What struck me most in the stage 1 evidence sessions was the sheer inconsistency of the evidence and data that were presented to us, and the conflicting and, at times, confusing views that were presented. I see members shaking their heads, but I sat there for every evidence session.

The committee genuinely found it difficult, when meeting in private following the evidence sessions, to agree on the outcomes and to accept the veracity of the evidence. A bit of me hoped that such would be the strength of the evidence that it would be profoundly helpful, one way or the other. However, that was not the case.

I appreciate that the recommendations in the committee’s report will not please everyone, and must be deeply disappointing and frustrating to the lobby that supports the bill, but I assure members that we approached and considered the issue diligently, as parliamentary committees should do. We gave the member and the bill the respect that they are due, but we came to the conclusion that we could not support the bill. That did not feel in any way like a victory to the people who were not keen on the bill from day 1.

Let me be honest and ask this about the status quo: is the system for rolling out 20mph zones in this country working perfectly? Is every community that wants a reduced speed limit in its area able to secure a zone easily and efficiently? If the answer to those questions is no, I suggest that today’s debate is not the end but the beginning of the conversation, because any suggestion that the committee did not support the principles of the bill because we do not care about public safety, children, cyclists, pedestrians or the environment is misguided and unhelpful.

Daniel Johnson

I appreciate that Jamie Greene would like to go further on 20mph. Will he enlighten Parliament on the proposals for 20mph limits that the Conservative Party will have in its next manifesto?

Jamie Greene

We are happy to support the further roll-out of 20mph zones. Let me say two things about that. I was going to come to this later, but I am happy to do so now. First, the current TRO process is, as the committee said, “cumbersome”, “onerous” and “difficult” for local authorities that want to introduce 20mph zones; it should be improved. Secondly, as other members said, it is for local authorities to make those decisions: I do not think that the approach in the bill gives local authorities sufficient flexibility to do what is right in their areas. What is right for urban Scotland might not be right for parts of rural Scotland.

Colin Smyth

Will the member give way?

John Finnie

Will the member take an intervention?

Jamie Greene

I ask members to let me make progress, please—

John Finnie

It is on that very point.

Jamie Greene

I have a lot of points to make. I will make progress, and then I will happily let members in.

We heard from a wide range of stakeholders. I will not go into the evidence that we heard; other committee members or members who have an interest in the matter will do so.

We need to look at the practicalities of what a nationwide change from 30mph to 20mph would look like. The convener talked about the rather controversial comments from Police Scotland, which said in March that catching people who break the 20mph limit would not be a priority. I think that Police Scotland has acknowledged that that was not an easy or popular thing to say. In a subsequent submission, Police Scotland said that people

“may not understand the evidence-based decisions behind our current deployment priorities nor accept that resources are finite.”

Of course, it is right that the police should tackle all rule breaking on our roads. In a perfect world they would. However, it is logical that the police must deploy their resource in the hotspots where there are the highest number of road traffic accidents and fatalities. They must tackle dangerous and high-speed driving on roads such as the A909 and A809, not people who drive down Broughton Street in Edinburgh’s new town at 25mph at 2 am.

We have to be realistic, and we have to legislate sensibly.

Mark Ruskell

Will the member give way?

Jamie Greene

I will, if I have time.

The Presiding Officer (Ken Macintosh)

Indeed you do.

Mark Ruskell

Did Mr Greene engage with the evidence from Professor Adrian Davis that said that although a high number of people are killed on rural roads, a far greater number of people are seriously injured—with life-changing injuries—on residential streets? We are talking about people dying in residential streets—where my school friend died. He did not die on a road like the A9; he died on a residential street in the area where he lived, and it is in residential streets that the police need to take more enforcement action.

Jamie Greene

The member has made his point and I hope that the police are listening to it and will reflect on it.

This has not been an easy bill to consider, but the committee gave its all. There is nothing in the bill that we did not look at. We looked at the finances—I know that it is not all about money. We looked at the impact that the approach would have on average speeds, and we found that the result would be negligible. We looked at congestion, we looked at air quality, we looked at accident reduction and we looked at adherence to and enforcement of 20mph limits. Nothing was left out. The bill did not garner sufficient support, and although our scrutiny answered some questions, it generated many more.

I will end on a mixed note. As I said at the outset, I do not think that the Government has been let off the hook on the issue; I would like the current process to be improved. Mark Ruskell’s aims and ambitions are laudable, and I hope that he will command the respect of the chamber for introducing his bill. However, in my view, it is the wrong answer to the right question. Mr Ruskell can rest assured that, if the Government does not react to his concerns or to the committee’s concerns, Conservative members will work with him and anybody else to ensure that, if there continue to be barriers to establishing 20mph zones where they are wanted, he will have our support in tackling them.

15:35

Colin Smyth (South Scotland) (Lab)

I am pleased to open the debate on behalf of Labour and to make it clear that we will vote to put children’s safety first by supporting the bill.

It is important to put on record the fact that, although some members have referred to “the view of the committee”, it was not the view of the whole committee; almost a third of the committee’s members clearly dissented from that view.

I thank Mark Ruskell for introducing the bill, because it has put the issue of lower speed limits on the political agenda and forced a long-overdue discussion on the failure of the current approach to 20mph limits to deliver the benefits to more communities.

Those benefits are clear and evidenced. Research by the Glasgow Centre for Population Health showed that the introduction of a 20mph speed limit in Scotland could result in up to 755 fewer casualties a year and five fewer fatalities. Multiple studies have shown a reduction in emissions, with research in Wales suggesting that transport emissions are reduced by 12 per cent where there are 20mph limits. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends that 20mph limits be introduced because of the benefits that that brings in reducing air pollution. Research by the Department for Transport reported a “statistically significant” increase in active travel in response to the introduction of 20mph speed limits, and Edinburgh’s pilot showed that there was a 7 per cent increase in the number of journeys that were taken on foot, a 5 per cent increase in the number of journeys that were taken by bike and a 3 per cent decrease in the number of journeys that were taken by car.

During stage 1, the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee heard about the social, environmental and safety benefits of 20mph speed limits. From improved road safety to reduced emissions to increased levels of active travel, the case for 20mph limits in built-up areas was clear. We are not talking about a rural versus urban issue. The bill would enable residential areas, whether they are in villages or cities, to gain from those benefits, and that is why it has strong public support—indeed, it received the backing of more than 80 per cent of the respondents to its consultation. Given the strength of the evidence and the support for the bill, I am disappointed that a majority of committee members decided not to recommend that the general principles of the bill be agreed to.

One of the myths that people cite in opposition to the bill is the claim that it would not work because, in existing 20mph areas, many people do not stick to that speed limit. The cabinet secretary made that point. However, that is an argument against the current ad hoc policy. It is a reason to support the bill, not to oppose it. Drivers are used to driving at 30mph. It is only by making 20mph the norm that we will change that culture and habit such that people become used to driving at 20mph. A national approach would help to ensure that that happens and that the benefits of 20mph zones are shared more equally among communities. The Faculty of Public Health in Scotland raised that issue in its submission. It stated:

“Allowing each local Council to pick and choose the areas that implement 20mph limits or zones risks widening health inequalities.”

The introduction of 20mph limits has been proven to deliver significant health benefits, from safer roads to reduced pollution to increased active travel. A postcode lottery should not determine whether people get those benefits. Only a new national default 20mph limit will deliver those benefits for all.

One of the committee’s recommendations was that it

“supports the aim of seeking to widen the implementation of 20mph zones in Scotland with the objective of reducing death and serious injuries on roads.”

In reply to a question that I asked the cabinet secretary during our evidence session with him, he said that 20mph limits should be introduced

“where there is good evidence that they should be introduced,”

but the reality is that that will not happen under the current system. Although councils may choose to introduce 20mph zones in their areas, many choose not to do so, even when there is clear demand for that and evidence in support of it. The piecemeal, ad hoc approach that is taken at the moment has not, will not and cannot deliver the long-term cultural change that is needed.

The Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland told the committee that, in some local authorities, there is a

“reluctance to roll out 20mph limits more widely.”—[Official Report, Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, 6 March 2019; c 37, 10.]

SCOTS also stated that local councils have made it clear that simply tweaking the TRO process to reduce the financial and administrative burden of introducing a new speed limit street by street—welcome though that may be—will not deliver the change that is needed. We need national action and national leadership. Agreeing to the general principles of the bill and allowing it to move beyond stage 1 would enable us to start to have the debate about what form that national action should take.

It would also be an opportunity to test the myths about the bill, including the claim that it would implement a one-size-fits-all approach across the country, even where 20mph speed limits would not be appropriate. That is simply not true. The bill would change the default speed limit for built-up areas and local authorities would still have the power to exempt roads from the default speed limit, just as they are able to introduce higher limits in some 30mph zones now.

The bill is no more a one-size-fits-all approach than the current policy of 30mph is a one-size-fits-all approach. What is being dismissed as a one-size-fits-all approach is actually a call for consistency to avoid confusion, to encourage long-term behavioural change and to ensure that the benefits of 20mph limits are felt equally across the country.

Those who claim that local authorities should have to do the work to deliver 20mph street by street—because that is what they want—ignore the fact that many local authorities support the bill as what it proposes would be less onerous and expensive than the current system. The City of Edinburgh Council told the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee that implementing the new speed limit in that way, as opposed to doing it independently and street by street, would have more than halved the cost.

Another myth is that the bill would increase speed limit enforcement problems. That is simply not true—there is no evidence to suggest that enforcement problems for 20mph zones are any different from the ones that we face in existing 30mph zones. That is an issue about police resources and priorities.

If the Government is truly convinced that the approach set out in the bill is not the best way to achieve the aim of moving towards a speed limit of 20mph in residential areas, it needs to come up with alternatives, because the current system is failing our communities. It needs to show the same leadership in Scotland as that shown in Wales, where the Welsh Government has set up a task and finish group to look at how to achieve its aim of implementing a default speed of 20mph. Transport for London is also rolling out 20mph across central London, and the mayor, Sadiq Khan, wants that expanded beyond the centre.

It is time for Scotland to catch up with other parts of the UK. My challenge to the Scottish Government today is for it to make clear that Scotland will show the ambition that other parts of the UK are showing; that when a child walks to school or to the play park, they will benefit from there being a lower speed limit on those roads; and that where they live should not determine whether they get those benefits. The Government should establish a task force, with a very clear aim of delivering 20mph in residential areas, and make clear that Scotland will become a safer place to live.

15:42

John Finnie (Highlands and Islands) (Green)

I thank all my colleagues on the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee for their diligent attention to this matter. At the end of the day, we have come to different conclusions. I am disappointed about that, but I absolutely accept that views are held in good faith. My intervention on Edward Mountain, the convener of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, was not to question his role but to say that, although we all heard the same evidence, we drew different conclusions from it. Maybe it is worth considering why we drew different conclusions.

We are all shaped by our experience. Members who have had the misfortune to deal with a child casualty might have found that that altered their perception about the relative importance of road signs and put them in a different category. My word—any cursory check of the Official Report will show the inordinate and ridiculous length of time that we spent discussing road signs. Road signs are a factor, but the main issue is irresponsible driver behaviour. We know that speed is one of the main causes of casualties. In its briefing to us, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health very simply said:

“slower traffic makes for safer streets which means that fewer children are killed on Scottish roads.”

We all had that briefing; indeed, we have had a number of briefings.

In scrutinising the bill, people will have different views, but another issue is people having different priorities. Anyone analysing the language used in relation to this issue will see that it is shaped on a presumption that the motor car is king. A person walking anywhere who crosses the road at an uncontrolled crossing will find that the presumption is that the motor car is most important, with the right of way given to someone emerging from a junction for example.

I might have mentioned in the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee—although maybe I did so informally in private session—a great Walt Disney cartoon that epitomises a lot of the issues. The cartoon has a character called Mr Walker, who becomes Mr Driver. Mr Walker is a lovely, friendly dog, who walks everywhere and speaks to everyone. When he comes up in the world, Mr Walker gets a car and becomes Mr Driver. What a horrible piece of work he is! He shakes his fist out the window at everyone as he drives along.

Of course, not everyone reacts like that. However, first and foremost, we must consider human beings, and I would have hoped that the human beings who would be at the forefront of our considerations would be those involved in the 755 casualties and five deaths per year. Those are hugely important figures.

Another issue that is germane to the debate and that has peppered many of the discussions that we have had is that of central direction versus local autonomy. I am conscious that Government ministers in particular use that argument, and I absolutely understand why. We in the Green Party like local government, and we like local a lot. I just wonder whether, next week, when we discuss amendments to another piece of legislation, members will say that we should stick to the idea that central determination is inappropriate and that we need local decision making. I fear that that will not be the case, although of course we can take different decisions on different issues.

On enforcement, as a former police officer, I was bitterly disappointed by what I heard from Police Scotland. The approach that we heard about manifests itself in situations in which my constituents and other members’ constituents phone the police and the first thing that they are told is, “We’re very busy.” Well, we are all very busy but, if we tell someone that, we are saying that they are not a priority. Human beings are a priority, and we must direct resources to protect life and property. That is a key function.

The police said that they have a system for prioritising, which relates to deaths. I represent the Highlands, which is a largely rural region where there is not a village or small town that has not been blighted by deaths as a result of excessive speed on rural roads. However, if what shapes our priority is detecting offenders in 20mph areas, and we do not seek to detect them, that will skew the basis on which we formalise our priorities. That evidence was deeply disappointing, never mind the fact that some of it was contradictory.

Liam Kerr

I presume that the member recognises that, for whatever reason, the police have limited resources and limited time and therefore must make prioritisation decisions accordingly.

John Finnie

Absolutely. My priority—I imagine that it would be the public’s priority if we asked them—is the 755 casualties that could be prevented and the five lives that could be saved. As I said, irresponsible driver behaviour is a main factor. The cabinet secretary is entirely right that we can design out problems and that some roads are more amenable to 20mph zones. However, there are roads that are designed in that way, such as Easter Road, which I walk every other day, but where people go at excessive speeds. There must be enforcement of the existing arrangements.

On the idea that cost is a factor, everything is absolutely about priorities. My colleague Mark Ruskell mentioned a considerable number of organisations that support the bill. Are we really saying that the number of signs in a rural village is more important than taking steps to address the issue? We assess the risk and put in place steps to ameliorate that risk. The most obvious step that we can take is on speed, and everybody accepts that, including the road professionals and the police. The idea that we are not concentrating on addressing a situation by putting in place legislation that would result in five children’s lives being saved is deeply disappointing.

15:48

Mike Rumbles (North East Scotland) (LD)

No one could be against a bill that is designed to reduce death and serious injury on our roads, and who could be against measures that would increase child safety? On the face of it, the bill that is before us purports to be just such a bill. Indeed, when its author, Mark Ruskell, responded to the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee’s report on it, he said that the report

“puts the motoring lobby ahead of child safety.”

His approach and response to the committee’s findings about the inadequacies of his bill seem to me to have been designed to try to deflect our criticism of his bill and pretend that some kind of “motoring lobby”, to use his words, has captured committee members. I am pleased that he did not repeat that ridiculous charge today, and I contrast his response with the measured response that we have just heard from my fellow committee member John Finnie.

Members of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee have given the bill a fair hearing. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I want there to be fewer accidents and safer roads across the country. However, according to the evidence that I heard, the bill would deliver neither of those aims.

It is a myth that the bill would deliver a standard 20mph speed limit to replace the 30mph limits across the country—it would not. Despite the bill’s name, it is designed to reduce the speed limit only on C-class and unclassified roads. Many people in our rural communities want to reduce the speed limit to 20mph on our A-class and B-class roads that run through our villages, but the bill would not do that and, to be fair to Mark Ruskell, he does not pretend that it would.

The bill would force every single road and track in our villages that are covered by street lighting to have 20mph signs erected at the junctions where they meet the through-village roads. It would miss the road safety target spectacularly.

Mark Ruskell

Will the member give way?

Mike Rumbles

No.

Claudia Beamish (South Scotland) (Lab)

It is his bill.

Mike Rumbles

Members have had their chance. We have had two speeches from the Greens already. They have made their points. Let me make the points from my perspective, and then I might take an intervention later.

The evidence from rural local authorities such as Scottish Borders Council—we have heard criticism of that council—repeatedly suggested that speed is not the major cause of death and serious injury in the areas that would be affected by the bill. Slow-moving vehicles reversing and the like were far more of a danger. Such councils were concerned about the need to spend scarce resources on safety measures on their rural 60mph roads, where deaths and serious injury are far too common. I can vouch for that in Aberdeenshire. The councils were concerned that the money that they would have to spend as a result of the bill would be taken away from their road safety focus.

Addressing the issue of money head on, the transport secretary, in a letter to our convener, said:

“the costs associated with this Bill have been significantly underestimated and if this Bill was passed would divert resources away from existing road safety and active travel activity, potentially undermining work that would be more effective at reducing casualties.”

When the committee said in its report that it

If I had more time, I would love to take interventions.

I have heard the evidence. Many members in the chamber did not sit through all the evidence-taking sessions that we sat through in the committee. What convinced me that the bill is unnecessary was the evidence from the transport secretary, who told the committee that he already has the power to change speed limits through regulations. If he thought that that was the right thing to do, he would do it. He does not think that it is the right thing to do, and I agree with him. I will say that again: I agree with the transport secretary. For road safety, the bill would be counter-productive.

I gently say to Mark Ruskell that members of the committee have all listened carefully—I would like other people to listen carefully—to all the evidence that was presented to us. To use an advertising slogan, we found that the bill does not do what it says on the tin, and it should not be supported at decision time.

The Presiding Officer

That concludes the opening speeches and we turn to the open part of the debate.

15:54

Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP)

I rise to speak as someone who signed in support of the proposed bill, but who, having heard the evidence, has come to a disappointing conclusion—it is as disappointing for me as it will be for others.

Let us start with the fundamental thesis, which is a matter on which we will undoubtedly agree. There is European Union research that says that a human-car collision at 20mph has a 10 per cent probability of fatality. At 30mph, the probability of fatality rises to 40 per cent, and at 50mph, the probability is 100 per cent. We can draw the line on a chart: increasing speed in a collision causes deaths.

Those figures are for an adult being hit by a vehicle. I do not have equivalent figures for a child being hit by a vehicle. However, we should not think for a second that the effects would be substantially less severe. I think that we have a shared view—I am sure that Mike Rumbles would agree with this—that speed kills. The question is not so much whether there is a problem waiting to be solved and to which we should turn our attention as how we should solve that problem.

I have some numbers from other research. A 1 per cent increase in speed results in a 4 per cent increase in fatal accidents. The relationship between speed and the outcome of accidents is clear and unambiguous. The work of the committee absolutely recognised that.

We must be careful about what the bill does. There is a danger that we mislead ourselves on that. I confess that I have not looked at the detail of what the Welsh are proposing to do. I heard Mark Ruskell—whose every effort on the bill I utterly commend, without reservation—say that the Welsh are changing the national speed limit. However, the bill before us does not do that—it addresses only restricted roads.

Despite previously having been transport minister, I had never heard of restricted roads or knew what they were—it was not a distinction of which I was aware. Mike Rumbles referred to a restricted road as being a road that is not an A road or a B road and has lampposts no more than 185m apart. That properly covers most of the roads in most of our towns and villages where pedestrians, and young pedestrians in particular, are likely to be found.

John Finnie

I am very grateful to the member for taking a brief intervention. Given what he has just said, does he agree that it is astonishing that people, including the cabinet secretary, say that they do not know the total length of such roads?

Stewart Stevenson

Paragraph 140 of the committee’s report notes that the committee heard that

“21 per cent of local authorities have ... identified the roads that they would wish to switch to a 20mph limit and those on which they would retain a 30mph limit. Another 29 per cent say that they have the asset data to allow roads to be identified.”—[Official Report, Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, 6 March 2019; c34.]

There is certainly a lot of ignorance out there about the state of our roads and I accept that that is a driver to do something about it. That is unambiguous. It is disappointing that the percentages are as low as reported at paragraph 140 of the committee report, because ignorance is not a good basis for policy making and action on the ground. I congratulate urban areas, such as Edinburgh, that have invested the time and effort in making the difference.

16:01

Liam Kerr (North East Scotland) (Con)

I am pleased to be given the opportunity to speak today, not as a committee member, but as an advanced driver of 26 years who used to put in around 40,000 road miles a year through most UK towns and cities. I am also a commuting, road and racing cyclist who believes strongly in active travel and the need to get more people cycling, particularly on urban roads.

I say that at the outset, because I want to recognise the work that Mark Ruskell has put into the bill. I believe that he is asking the right questions. He is seeking practical measures that could improve air quality, encourage active travel, reduce pollution and reduce accidents. That is the right thing to do, but I do not believe that the bill will achieve it.

For example, if everybody was driving at 20mph then of course any accidents—which will still happen—would be less serious than they would be at greater speeds. However, despite the member’s response to my earlier intervention, I know that that will not happen. I saw the committee’s conclusion that compliance with 20mph limits is poor, and that supports evidence from Transport Research Laboratory research several years ago that found that 20mph limits reduced average speed by 0.9mph. The first area to introduce a blanket 20mph limit was Islington, and it cut the speed of 85 per cent of traffic—not all of it—by 1mph on average. The evidence suggests that a mandatory 20mph limit would not significantly reduce speed, and I am not convinced that it is right to mandate a cost of £10 million on to our local authorities for a possible return of 1mph.

Mark Ruskell

It would be £10 million across the whole of Scotland. There has been a lot of confusion about this in the committee, so does the member not recognise that an average speed is an average, and that there has been a much greater reduction in speed, particularly on higher speed roads, when the 20mph limit has been introduced? We might be looking at a reduction of 8, 9 or 10mph on those higher speed roads; that is what the evidence has shown.

Liam Kerr

I do not accept that that will happen across the board. I point the member to what Stewart Stevenson said about average speed. His point was well made. When we average out the speeds, we get a certain answer, but we need to understand what happens when people do not comply. I will come back to that point shortly, if I may.

I am not convinced that a 20mph limit would impact materially on safety. There is a Department for Transport study that suggests that. Ironically, a study from York suggests that 20mph limits could increase rather than reduce the risks, because they lull pedestrians into a false sense of security. That understanding of behaviour is important, as it applies equally to drivers. If the need for people to consciously drive is removed, their attention is reduced. If an arbitrary limit is imposed on a straight and clear urban artery with minimal traffic on a sunny day, drivers will glaze over, or they will simply ignore it, as happens now with blanket prohibitions that take no account of prevailing conditions.

Mark Ruskell

It is just incredible that Liam Kerr has not engaged with the evidence. The four-year Department for Transport report found no evidence for the claims that he is making.

Liam Kerr

I absolutely do engage with the evidence, and I speak as a driver. The problem is that we cannot divorce the bill from the reality of what is going on outside and what will happen.

Research suggests that drivers use clues from the environment around them to judge appropriate speeds. Good drivers know that a limit is just that: it is a limit, not a target. As a practical solution, we should ensure that drivers are trained to judge the appropriate speed and not delegate responsibility to an arbitrary yet mandated limit. Where limits do not match the environment or prevailing conditions, uncertainty and confusion are generated, which distract from appropriate decision making. On the contrary, a speed limit that matches the road environment and promotes self-compliance and confidence in the system removes the need for enforcement.

Would the limit be enforced? No. I found Chief Superintendent Carle’s evidence to the committee persuasive. He said that he would target limited resources to where the majority of casualties take place.

I think that the committee heard that mobile camera units are not even calibrated for 20mph.

Stewart Stevenson

Will the member take an intervention?

Liam Kerr

I am very short on time.

Stewart Stevenson

It is information that Liam Kerr needs. That was initially said to the committee and subsequently corrected.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

I can allow Liam Kerr some extra time.

Liam Kerr

I am very grateful to Stewart Stevenson.

John Finnie is right. As he said, what causes casualties is irresponsible driver behaviour. I go back to what Stewart Stevenson said. A speed limit will be breached by irresponsible drivers, whatever happens.

I simply do not believe that there would be an increase in the safety of cyclists. Even if a 20mph limit were put on the Great Western Road in Aberdeen, my wife and kid would still not be on it. If the £10 million that the committee heard about was spent on segregated bike lanes, we would then start to talk.

The solution—the way to increase road safety and remove decisions on adherence to road laws, and the solution to the issue of enforcement—is targeted 20mph zones that are enforced by appropriate measures such as speed bumps and road designs that are determined by those who know a community’s roads best, who are the people who live in the community, key stakeholders and the local authority. The measures should be restricted to locations in which, and times when, the need for a 20mph zone is obvious.

Any 20mph zone must be self-enforcing by ensuring that the signposting, features and traffic-calming measures make sense to the road users. Instead of imposing restrictions on all drivers to catch the careless, the uncaring or the irresponsible, segregated design features for enhanced pedestrian and cycling safety should be built in.

The bill’s fundamental premise of a blanket 20mph limit would fail to achieve its stated aims, and there are better ways to achieve behaviour change. For that reason, I will not support the principles of the bill at decision time.

16:08

John Mason (Glasgow Shettleston) (SNP)

I am very pleased to speak in this debate, having been on the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee as we took evidence from Mark Ruskell, the Government and many others.

The first thing that I want to stress is that, as other members have said, there was widespread agreement that 20mph is better than 30mph in residential areas. It is clear that a child or an elderly person who is hit by a vehicle going at 20mph will be much less seriously hurt than they would be if the vehicle was going at 30mph. The issue is particularly important to me, as there are more accidents in deprived areas, such as parts of my constituency.

The Glasgow Centre for Population Health, which is based in Bridgeton in my constituency, argues that there would be

“a significant positive health impact, specifically in reducing the number and severity of road traffic casualties.”

It also says, with regard to the south of central Edinburgh and the permanent scheme in Bristol, that

“significant reductions in road traffic casualties and accidents are potentially possible”

and that

“the introduction of 20mph limits in South Central Edinburgh and Bristol led to reductions in average speed, and in the case of Bristol significant casualty reductions”.

The disagreement on the committee involved not where we want to get to but how to get there. Edinburgh already has 80 per cent of its roads at 20mph so, clearly, that can be done under the present system. However, Edinburgh said that the bill would be helpful as it would save other councils from having to go down the lengthy and expensive route that it had to go down.

Glasgow City Council is supporting the bill. It sees it as providing a simpler and less expensive way of achieving a wider roll-out of 20mph zones. There is a strong argument that having a national approach would provide consistency and is more likely to change public perception. It is in people’s minds now that 30mph is the norm. We need to change that thinking so that 20mph becomes the norm.

I accept that there are arguments against the bill, including, for example, the belief that there would be some uncertainty about which roads are restricted and which are not. Personally, I question whether that uncertainty really affects a huge number of roads. Another argument against the bill involves questions over the robustness of the financial memorandum. However, frankly, having been in this place for about eight years, I think that you could say that about most financial memorandums. Again, I do not think that that is a killer point against the bill.

The potential multiplication of road signs is more of a real challenge. If every A and B road were to remain at 30mph while every restricted road were to be 20mph, it would mean that there would be speed signs on virtually every corner. However, again, the counterargument to that is that Edinburgh has avoided that, to some extent, by making wider areas 20mph—it is not only the restricted roads that are 20mph but, in fact, part of the A1, too. Therefore, councils would still have the power to reduce A and B roads to 20mph, thus giving more of a zonal approach and building on the bill’s focus on the exact classification of certain roads.

On the subject of signage and cost, one big uncertainty has been around repeater signs. Currently, repeater signs are not allowed in a 30mph zone, although they are required for 20mph and 40mph sections in cities. If the bill went through, and the rules were not changed, it would be 20mph repeater signs that were not allowed, while 30mph and 40mph repeater signs would be required. The financial memorandum gives a cost of between £1 million and £2 million for removing existing 20mph repeater signs.

There was quite a lot of agreement on the committee that that system perhaps needs to be reviewed. I think that the cabinet secretary said that he would be prepared to do that. There are certain roads in my constituency, such as Clyde Gateway, a relatively new dual carriageway that members might know, that, by Liam Kerr’s argument, should be 40mph roads. Clyde Gateway feels like a 40mph road, but it is a 30mph road. There are complaints about speeding on it, but the council is not allowed to put up repeater signs. There is an issue there, quite apart from the bill.

On the question of the environmental impact of the bill, the jury is still out. We heard evidence that slowing traffic down could cause some engines to perform less efficiently, whereas we also heard evidence that some engines perform well at lower speeds and that, if traffic flow becomes smoother, that would be positive, too. The Glasgow Centre for Population Health said:

“The health impacts on air pollution of this type of speed limit reduction has not been estimated due to data constraints”.

Enforcement is another key issue. There appeared to be some misreporting in the media of evidence that we received. The police seem clear that their emphasis should be on faster roads outside towns where there is a 60mph limit and on which any crash is more likely to lead to deaths. So, already there may be a question over whether more emphasis should be placed on tackling speeding in residential areas, even if the speed limit stays at 30mph. I do not think that the issue of the speed limit being 20mph or 30mph affects the argument.

One slightly ironic angle to the bill is that we often think of the Greens as the party of localism and decentralisation but, in this case, they appear to be the party of centralisation while the Government is arguing for local authority responsibility to remain unchanged.

In conclusion, I was one of the three who voted to support the bill as the committee prepared its report. I am still not persuaded to oppose the bill, despite strong Government arguments against it. As I have said, I recognise that there are arguments on both sides, and that there is broad agreement that we should be moving towards a wider use of 20mph limits. Therefore, I will be abstaining at decision time today, which will probably keep few people entirely happy. Hopefully, as things progress over time, we will see something else happening.

16:14

Daniel Johnson (Edinburgh Southern) (Lab)

I thank Mark Ruskell for introducing the bill and for doing the hard and diligent work that has gone into it. I know that it is no mean feat to introduce a member’s bill, as I am attempting to do the same thing. It is undoubtedly a worthy and important issue, but, unfortunately, it looks to be one that will not prevail today. We are going to lose the opportunity for Scotland to be, once again, at the forefront of change. At the end of the day, we will return to the issue but, I fear, as a laggard. That is the reality.

It is an important issue. I say that as much as the MSP for Edinburgh Southern, where the initial trial in Edinburgh took place, as I say it as a parent and an Edinburgh resident. It is unequivocal that, if we reduce traffic speeds, we will save people from injuries and we will save lives. Approximately 900 children were injured on our roads in 2017, and the reality is that 20mph limits make children seven times less likely to be injured if they are hit. Indeed, where 20mph limits have been introduced, such as in Hull and in London, we have seen casualty numbers drop by as much as half. That change is worth having and worth making the effort for. It is not going to be easy, and there will be costs, but if introducing 20mph limits saves lives, and if it saves people from injuries, it is worth doing. The decision that members have to contemplate at decision time is whether those injuries are worth preventing and whether those lives are worth saving. That is why I think that the bill is important.

My experience in Edinburgh is that the 20mph limit is achievable. I have had to take a small amount of leadership on it and have personally defended the 20mph limit policy, which was introduced by the previous Labour and Scottish National Party coalition at the City of Edinburgh Council. People said that it was unnecessary and inconvenient and that they do not like driving at 20mph. My favourite comment was someone saying, “My car doesn’t go at 20mph.” All cars go at 20mph. I had to stop myself giving people driving instructions—I did not go that far.

The 20mph limit is worth having and, indeed, it is enforced. I have been out with the local police as they have stopped cars that were going in excess of 20mph just one road over from the one in which I live. In Edinburgh, the experience has been that the average speed is down and local support for the initiative is up. We have already seen a drop in the number of casualties as a result, which is something that the whole of Scotland should enjoy.

My personal experience as a driver is that my car is more fuel efficient since the introduction of the limit—I have seen it on the trip computer. Frankly, I find driving calmer, because traffic speeds are down. I believe that, above all else, our roads in Edinburgh are a better place for all road users, whether they are walking, cycling or driving.

I believe that the bill is a good proposal. It is notable that the City of Edinburgh Council said that the costs that it incurred when it introduced a 20mph limit would have been halved if it had done so under the proposed system. Yes, there are costs, and perhaps the financial memorandum is not 100 per cent accurate—as John Mason pointed out, which financial memorandums are?—but the bill would make the measure cheaper to introduce.

There is a degree of inconsistency in some of the arguments that have been made against the bill. On the one hand, we have heard arguments about compliance, and, on the other hand, we have heard arguments against taking a one-size-fits-all approach. Surely, a consistent approach to the application of our road rules would drive up adherence to them. Are people really arguing that we should have localised highway codes in different towns and villages? That is nonsense. We have a single highway code on our roads because having a single, consistent set of rules is how we make sure that people follow them, as they know what the expectations are.

In 1861, when the first speed limit was introduced, the limit was 10mph. We do not hear people arguing for that limit now, nor do they argue for the red flag bearer who had to precede the car as it was driven down the road. Such things are a matter of habit and culture, and habits and culture can be changed. Indeed, it is our responsibility to seek to change habits and culture when we believe that there would be benefits in doing so, and I believe that this is one of those situations.

Greater consistency would make enforcement easier, and, if having the limit is a priority, we will enforce it. The matter is difficult for police. If 700 officers are removed from local divisions, how do we expect them to enforce even the existing speed limits, let alone the new 20mph ones? However, if it was a priority, we would make it happen. Frankly, it comes down to leadership.

I understand that there are mixed views. When it comes to change, there are always cautious voices. People can be defensive about how they use their cars to go about their local communities, but there is a need for change and it is incumbent on us to stand up and make the arguments for that change. The proposal would make people safer and would save lives. For those reasons, I urge all members to think of their consciences and vote in favour of the bill at decision time.

16:20

Clare Adamson (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)

I thank Mark Ruskell for bringing this important issue to the fore in his member’s bill. I also thank the members of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee for their diligence and deliberations as they went through the stage 1 proceedings. As a former North Lanarkshire councillor and a member of the Scottish Accident Prevention Council, and as the convener of the cross-party group on accident prevention and safety awareness, I am and will continue to be a full supporter of appropriate 20mph limits in Scotland. I was keen to be a signatory to the proposed bill when Mark Ruskell first brought it to our attention. I have listened to the debate and I have read the evidence and the stage 1 report. I accept that the bill is unlikely to progress today, but I will comment on a number of key areas.

In front of me, I have notice of North Lanarkshire Council’s award-winning entry in the Prince Michael international road safety awards. The entry—“North Lanarkshire – 20’s Plenty: highway engineering improvement, 2005”—explains that

“North Lanarkshire believes that speed reduction will result in casualty reduction. It introduced a 20mph speed limit in every residential area in North Lanarkshire in 2001-2 at a cost of £360,000. North Lanarkshire Council is still the only authority to have introduced the advisory 20mph measures throughout its full area. As part of an integrated programme of public education the 20’s plenty campaign increased public acceptability of this speed reduction measure.”

I also have the statistics for road traffic accidents from 1995 to 2017. In the year following the introduction of that 20mph speed limit, North Lanarkshire had its biggest percentage reduction in the number of road traffic accidents on record. In that time, there was a 15 per cent reduction and there were 144 fewer road traffic accidents. In line with other road traffic accident statistics across Scotland, that figure has continued to improve, and I commend the Government for the work that it has done to encourage safer roads. Those statistics brought home to me the impact that twenty’s plenty can have in a community. Although it was a local decision that was made for local reasons, such an approach could benefit the whole of Scotland.

We are not supposed to use props, but I have with me the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents publication “Scotland’s Big Book of Accident Prevention”. I will read out a couple of facts from the book. We have talked a lot today about money and the cost of the change, so the first fact is that,

“In Scotland, accidents cost society more than £12.4 billion per annum, of which A&E attendances cost the NHS £1.48 billion”.

As well as looking at the cost of a road accident or fatality in Scotland, the book looks at the wider societal costs such as the loss of income, the loss to the economy and what might happen when someone has a debilitating injury that leads to intervention for the rest of their life.

The second fact is that

“Children of parents who have never worked or are long-term unemployed are 20 times more likely to die as pedestrians than children of parents in higher managerial or professional occupations”.

That, for me, is a social justice issue. Reducing the number of accidents and making our society safer for children are as much about tackling poverty and societal inequality as, for example, the use of the pupil equity fund in schools and other interventions such as those that we are putting in place for the early years. This is absolutely crucial.

As has been mentioned, we want Scotland to be the best place in the world to grow up in. That being the case, we need to take accident prevention more seriously. As I have said in the chamber on several occasions over the past few weeks, I am delighted that the Government is looking to embed in our legislation the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has a specific section on accident prevention. Accident prevention will continue to be a social justice issue, and we cannot ignore it.

It is unlikely that the bill will go forward today, but I would point out that, although North Lanarkshire Council introduced its twenty’s plenty initiative in 2001, which means that it has been running for nearly the life of this Parliament, it is clear that some local authorities are still dragging their heels on this. Today, I am putting my faith in the Government, our colleagues in COSLA and everyone who has supported the principle of 20mph zones to work with those councils and encourage them to look at what they can do in their local areas to make real progress on the issue. We have had warm words for far too long now; it is time for this to get done.

Although this is not just about signage, among the many things that are coming our way as part of the fourth industrial revolution are black-box technology and modified signs that have the ability to report back on what is happening. At one point, there was going to be a digital map of Scotland that would show all our streets and the speed limit in each area, which could have been linked in to the whole system. That sort of thing would not only help with police enforcement; our insurance companies would surely be interested in it, too.

16:26

Claudia Beamish (South Scotland) (Lab)

Yesterday, I went outside Parliament to meet demonstrators from across the country who understand the significance of the bill. Friends of the Earth Scotland, Cycling UK, pedal on Parliament, Spokes Lothian, GoBike and the twenty’s plenty campaign joined forces to organise the demonstration after the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee failed to recommend that the bill be agreed to at stage 1 and claimed that a one-size-fits-all approach was not appropriate. Dissenting MSPs John Finnie, Colin Smyth and John Mason rejected the conclusion, pointing out that the current patchwork of different speed limits was confusing to motorists. Moreover, in the debate, Daniel Johnson has said that, having seen the effects of a 20mph speed limit in his constituency, he believes that it is achievable and something that all of Scotland should enjoy.

Why, then, can neither the Scottish Government transport secretary nor indeed the majority of the REC Committee grasp the importance of a change that, as Mark Ruskell pointed out earlier, so many councils are in support of? I sat in on two of the committee’s evidence-taking sessions, and found the evidence in favour of Mr Ruskell’s bill to be compelling. The consistency of approach would surely be similar for a default 20mph speed limit as for a 30mph default. This is about residential, living streets and, as Colin Smyth said, only a national default speed limit will bring benefits to all. I find it sad that there were not more MSPs at yesterday’s demonstration to listen to what was being said and to see 60 demonstrators place outside our Parliament a chair for every life that could have been saved. As they said, each chair represented a life interrupted. For that reason alone, we as a Parliament should support the bill at stage 1.

Sally Hinchcliffe of the pedal on Parliament campaign, and a resident of Dumfries, has stated that the bill would succeed in

“eliminating the postcode lottery of safer streets for children walking or cycling.”

I agree. As a city cyclist myself, I am keenly aware of the speed of cars, vans and lorries, and the evidence of a default 20mph speed limit clearly shows that it would encourage more citizens to take up active travel options such as walking or cycling. It is, frankly, a no-brainer.

A shift to active travel would, of course, mean fewer vehicles on our roads and, as John Finnie said, quoting the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health,

“slower traffic makes for safer streets”.

Is the car still king? Does the desire of motorists to go that bit faster count for more than the increased risk of a 30mph limit causing more serious injury and death to vulnerable road users? Surely not.

What of air quality? It is frankly shameful that Scotland has been in contravention of the EU air pollution standards. Air pollution causes about 2,500 early deaths a year in Scotland. It is not only the deaths that we should consider, but the effect of air pollution on vulnerable people with chronic lung conditions. There is increasing evidence about the effect of air pollution on children’s health and now there is research into cancer in children and mental health in children in relation to air pollution. There is also evidence about the contribution of air pollution to the development of Alzheimer’s in older people. Surely any measure that is proven to lower air pollution should be given serious further consideration and not be rejected at stage 1?

There is also evidence that more deprived communities are more affected by road traffic accidents. Analysis by Sustrans found that children in Scotland’s poorest areas are nearly three times more likely to be injured by road traffic. Surely it cannot be right that we fail to address that when we have the opportunity?

It is clear that a 20mph limit around our schools is not enough because many injuries, as I have heard in the committee meetings, occur in the residential streets beyond those limits.

Daniel Johnson stressed that the habits and culture of drivers can be changed and these concerns, as Colin Smyth said, are not restricted to our cities—large villages and small towns are impacted by the range of issues that Mark Ruskell’s bill would contribute to addressing.

Tony Hancock—not the Tony Hancock, but another Tony Hancock, who is vice-chair of the Royal Burgh of Lochmaben and District Community Council—told me recently:

“We have been trying to get a 20mph speed restriction in Lochmaben High Street for the past 10 years. Speed monitoring by the Council has shown that up to 800 vehicles per day are exceeding the 30mph speed limit. Lochmaben has an unusually wide High Street and an ageing population for whom crossing the road can be hazardous.”

Stewart Stevenson

Will the member take an intervention?

Claudia Beamish

I do not think that I have time—I am sorry. I want to make a few points in summing up.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

I can allow you the time.

Stewart Stevenson

Can the member confirm that the road through Lochmaben is an A road and therefore would not be covered by the bill?

Claudia Beamish

That is not the case for all the roads in Lochmaben, by any means.

Tony Hancock pointed out, as I said, that Lochmaben has an unusually wide high street and there is a primary school nearby that is accessed from the high street. The point that I am making—[Interruption.]

The Deputy Presiding Officer

Excuse me, Ms Beamish. I ask Mr Rumbles and Mr Stevenson to stop yelling at each other along their row of chairs. Thank you.

Claudia Beamish

It is important to understand that they also want the 20mph limit to apply in other parts of Lochmaben, including where the primary school is. Tony Hancock has asked me to vote for the bill, which I certainly will. Lochmaben and other villages can rely on the support of Scottish Labour for Mark’s bill.

As Friends of the Earth Scotland reminds us, the measures in the bill would also contribute to tackling the climate emergency by tackling transport emissions. That is also an important issue.

Recently, we have heard from the City of London Corporation that it will reduce the speed limit in the Square Mile to 15mph, subject to Government approval. The proposal follows a notable reduction in deaths and serious injuries on the roads in the region after the 20mph limit was introduced. That reduction was seen as a good reason to bring the limit down further. The corporation states that it will

“make the streets more attractive places to walk, cycle and spend time”.

How depressing that we appear to be falling behind and that we are having to fall back on a default task force—if the minister agrees to it—and some vague and frankly rather weak waffle from the minister. London has been consulting on a default speed limit of 20mph, as has Wales. Europe—let us face it—already has a default speed limit of 30km per hour, which is well below our 30mph.

This bill would make a significant contribution to a whole range of issues, including making roads and residential streets safer and more agreeable. Scottish Labour says, let us support Mark Ruskell’s bill, even at this late stage. We need national action and national leadership.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

I remind members to always refer to fellow members using their full names, please.

16:34

Peter Chapman (North East Scotland) (Con)

I thank the committee clerks for helping us to draft the report and I thank all those who provided evidence to the committee. Of course, I also thank Mark Ruskell for introducing the bill.

We have had a good debate and I want to start by saying that safer roads are obviously something that we all support, both in the committee and right across Parliament. That has never been in question.

We want everyone to be as safe as possible when they get in their car, jump on their bike or walk to school or work. That is why the committee supported the aim of widening the implementation of 20mph zones where that is appropriate, with the objectives of reducing deaths and serious injuries on our roads and encouraging more people to cycle and walk. However, the committee also had to decide whether it agreed with the bill’s proposal to introduce a default 20mph speed limit on all restricted roads, and we could not accept that proposal.

The committee made the bold but right decision to vote against the bill, because the evidence to support it is not there, as the committee’s report clearly reflects. It became obvious throughout our productive and informative evidence sessions that a blanket one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate for Scotland. In that evidence and in the debate, we have heard that a simple 20mph speed limit has a limited impact on speeds on the ground. Design features on roads are equally important or even more important in lowering speeds. We need self-enforcing limits.

The committee heard that Police Scotland does not monitor or prioritise the enforcing of 20mph limits, so real-time speeds are only about 1mph lower in areas with 20mph limits. That is not a significant reduction.

John Finnie

I know that the committee heard conflicting evidence about speeds, but does Peter Chapman acknowledge that the evidence was unequivocal about the implications of a child being hit by a vehicle and that any potential to reduce speeds at impact, however modestly, is welcome?

Peter Chapman

I agree and have said that that is welcome, but we need to reduce the speed limit in the right places. My problem is that the bill proposes a 20mph limit across Scotland, which I do not agree with.

I agree with Mike Rumbles that where resources are limited—let us be honest that resources are always limited—the bill would divert resources from other measures that could have a far bigger impact on road safety. That is relevant in rural areas such as my part of Aberdeenshire.

Some say that the bill would be good for air quality but, as John Mason said, the committee heard evidence that the effect would be limited—some said that air quality would be slightly better and others said that it would be slightly worse. That was inconclusive, so I disagree with Claudia Beamish that the bill would greatly improve air quality.

The committee agreed that the existing legislative processes that enable local authorities to implement 20mph speed limits should be more straightforward and easier to implement. We therefore welcome the Scottish Government’s current exercise to consider ways of achieving that. I ask the cabinet secretary to comment in closing on how that work is progressing.

The best way to implement speed limit changes is case by case. Local authorities should be able to decide on the areas where a 20mph limit is appropriate. We should let councillors decide that rather than be dictated to from above. It has been abundantly clear for many years and is clear to me as an Aberdeenshire MSP that, in my part of the world, by far the most accidents that cause fatalities or serious injuries happen on rural roads.

A prime example comes from the A947 from Aberdeen to Banff, where the rate of serious and fatal accidents is 60 per cent higher than the national average. The A952 from Ellon to Fraserburgh and the A90 from Aberdeen to Peterhead have similar rates that are horrendously bad. The sad fact is that serious accidents occur on those roads almost every week.

I want investment in infrastructure and in police time and resources for such roads. The message from Scottish Borders Council was very much the same—it said that the bill would have a detrimental financial impact and would be unlikely to have any impact on accidents in that council’s largely rural area. I therefore disagree with Colin Smyth. As far as this argument is concerned, there is a difference between rural and urban areas.

During our evidence sessions, the financial impact of implementing a blanket 20mph limit was unclear, and we consider that the financial memorandum is not robust.

It is clear that, although there is merit in what the bill is trying to achieve, its general principle of a one-size-fits-all, top-down approach is not the way forward, and I will not support the bill.

16:40

Michael Matheson

I have listened carefully to members’ speeches this afternoon, and I am grateful to all those who have contributed on this important issue. I reiterate my recognition of the work that has been undertaken by Mark Ruskell, and of the debate that it has stimulated on 20mph zones and the 20mph limit.

I set out two important issues in my opening remarks. One was whether 20mph zones and limits are the right thing to do in the right place. Yes, they are. Is what is set out in the bill the right way to go about that? I do not believe that it is.

John Mason summed up the debate very well when he stated that it is not so much about where we want to get to as it is about how we want to get there. That is a particularly important point. It is also important, from my perspective, to put on the record that some of us not agreeing with the proposals that are set out in the bill should in no way be interpreted as our not caring about the safety of children, about speeding on our streets or about safety on our roads. Nothing could be further from the truth. In particular, Mark Ruskell suggested in his speech that, if we are not supporting his bill, we are in some way doing nothing about the issue. Again, that is factually incorrect: I am afraid that it is not a reflection of what is happening.

Alison Johnstone

The latest Transport Scotland statistics tell us that serious accidents involving children walking and cycling have increased, that adult pedestrian deaths have increased, and that there has been a marked increase in the number of adult cyclists involved in serious accidents. Things are going in the wrong direction.

What I am trying to understand is this. The cabinet secretary’s investment in walking and cycling is really pitiful, at 3 per cent of a huge budget, he has never suggested that he is interested in presumed liability, and he does not like my colleague’s proposal. Is he therefore suggesting that he will just leave things to chance? What is he going to do?

Michael Matheson

That type of contribution does not take the debate forward as we try to have a serious and rational discussion about the best way to go about things. I have set out that we have “Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2020”, through which we are taking forward a suite of measures to tackle road safety issues. We will continue to pursue that approach with the funding that we are investing.

As an aside, on the issue of the “pitiful” amount that we are putting into active travel, I do not think that a doubling of the budget from £39 million to some £80 million reflects a Government that is not committed to the agenda.

I take exception when it is suggested that because I do not support the approach that is set out in the bill, I do not care about my children’s safety when they walk to school, as anyone in the chamber would. I do care about it—but I want to ensure that we take appropriate measures to address such things.

It is also important that we challenge ourselves to think about whether there are other measures that we can pursue to address compliance and greater use of 20mph zones in the right locations.

As Edward Mountain said in his speech, the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee recommends that the Government consider taking forward and exploring a number of things. One concerns traffic regulation orders and how they operate, at present. It has been highlighted by local authorities that they act as an inhibitor or barrier to their pursuing 20mph zones in their areas. That is for a variety of reasons, including the onerous nature of the consultation exercise that has to be undertaken, and the associated costs, which are largely to do with the advertisements that must be placed in the local press to make the public aware of the matter.

We have been consulting local authorities—the survey results have been returned to us and are currently being analysed—to ascertain what action we can take to remove the inhibitors that have been identified, and to reduce the timeframe and make the system much more flexible and amenable for local authorities to use, when they think that it is appropriate to do so.

Jamie Greene

I appreciate the update from the Government on improving the TRO process.

Another issue that has come up a lot in the debate is the need to shift behaviour and culture in respect of how we drive around our towns and cities. What will the Government do to educate people so that they make the behavioural changes that are needed? This is not just about legislative and technical processes.

Michael Matheson

That is a key part of the road safety framework, which runs until next year and must be refreshed, so that we target resources at driver education programmes and other support, such as school initiatives to promote road safety and cycling safety initiatives. A variety of measures contribute to tackling the issue, and the framework sets out a range of measures.

I heard the statistics that Alison Johnstone mentioned. We should never think that even one death on our roads is acceptable. Our aspiration, which is in the framework, is for there to be no deaths and injuries on our roads. That is, and will remain, our focus as we seek to address the matter.

I talked about action that we are taking. There is extensive guidance and information in place for local authorities on developing 20mph zones. To encourage local authorities to do that, we are engaging with COSLA to consider how we can add to that guidance and encourage a much more strategic approach to introduction of 20mph zones in urban areas.

Clare Adamson described very well how such an approach can be taken when she talked about the work that North Lanarkshire Council undertook in 2001 on the twenty’s plenty initiative. The council wanted to make the issue a priority and applied the approach consistently on the roads in its area on which it thought a 20mph limit was most appropriate. There is nothing to stop other local authorities doing that.

That is why, through our work with COSLA, I am determined to ensure that local authorities drive forward the approach much more consistently and identify the residential areas in which 20mph limits could deliver the benefits that we know they can deliver, where it is right to do so.

The most comprehensive study into a sign-only 20mph approach was undertaken by the Department for Transport and published in November last year. It is worth recognising that that three-year study found that sign-only 20mph speed limits have little impact on actual vehicle speed. We cannot ignore that evidence.

If we are to tackle the issue, we have to be informed by evidence and we have to act in a way that delivers the change that people will expect from a change in the speed limit. If we do not do that, we will undermine the integrity of the speed limit process. As local authorities highlighted in evidence to the committee, if we do not get the speed limit process right, we bring it into disrepute. We should not think that a sign-only 20mph limit will address the issue.

I am conscious of the time. This is a complex issue, on which there are many strongly held views in the chamber. Every member shares an interest in making our communities safer—for ourselves and for our children. No one in the chamber holds the moral high ground on that.

The Government will continue to do everything it can to address road safety. We happen not to believe that the bill is the best way to go about doing that, but we will continue to take forward measures that we think will make a difference, and will make our communities safer for everyone who lives in Scotland.

I am reflecting on it. I am reflecting on the fact that Mr Rumbles was using arguments that were put to the committee by the motoring lobby, which he is advocating, so I stand by my comments.

Maybe I should raise my voice a bit, Presiding Officer, and we will get this debate going.

We do not design every single road in Scotland to the speed limit that is assigned to it—we rely on signage, other compliance measures and education. The cabinet secretary quotes the Department for Transport report. There is no evidence that setting 20mph speed limits on roads undermines the speed limit compliance on surrounding faster roads. That is the opposite of the conclusion that the Department for Transport report came to. When it looked at the area-wide roll-out of 20mph in Brighton, it found that compliance went up on the surrounding faster A and B roads. Therefore, compliance in that regard simply is not an issue; there are misunderstandings here.

On costs, I think that John Mason made the very astute point that not every financial memorandum is 100 per cent accurate, and I take some criticism on that. However, I again state that I believe that the core, substantive costs in the bill are accurate. The figures were worked on with those who would be tasked with implementing the bill from the organisation that represents all the roads authorities.

The proposed measure would cost 0.75 per cent of the transport budget over two years. Once 20mph is rolled out nationally, we will get the benefits year after year after year—SCOTS has told me that the life of a road sign is 30 years. We will get five lives saved and a reduction of 750 casualties every single year.

This is not a matter of active travel interventions and investment competing against 20mph zones. The experience in Europe is that both are needed. The experience of European cities such as Copenhagen and Amsterdam is to set the speed limit at a sensible level—that is, 20mph—and to also invest in the infrastructure. To get the change in walking and cycling that we desperately need, we need to start by changing the speed limit.

Of course, the cheapest thing for local authorities to do is nothing. That would simply be unacceptable, but that is the problem that we have at the moment. We have a postcode lottery; we have local discretion. It is interesting to note that the cabinet secretary argues for national consistency when it comes to the Transport (Scotland) Bill and pavement parking, but there is no acknowledgement of our need for national consistency when it comes to 20mph speed limits, which is disappointing given that the Welsh Government has now adopted that principle and wants every single community in Wales to have 20mph speed limits. Whether they are rural or urban communities does not make any difference to the children and vulnerable road users living in those streets—they need that protection.

Jamie Greene asked what the answer is and what the alternative is to the bill. I do not have an answer to that. I have been engaging with the Scottish Government for the past two and a half years. The member says that he is happy to work with me on an alternative. I have been working with his Welsh Tory colleagues, who backed a national default 20mph speed limit for Wales. Maybe Jamie Greene should get in touch with them—David Melding will tell him why that is the most effective approach and why we need to move towards it.

I do not know how much time I have got left, Presiding Officer. Do I have a couple of minutes? I had a lot of interventions.

The Presiding Officer (Ken Macintosh)

You can take another minute or two if you wish, but I ask that you draw your remarks to a conclusion.

Mark Ruskell

Okay.

One alternative route that the cabinet secretary has put forward is to change the traffic regulation order process to make things simpler. Again, I point to the members of SCOTS, who are the people who would have to implement that measure. SCOTS says that simplifying the TRO procedure would be welcome but that the current procedure is

“not the fundamental cause of the low take up to date of 20mph speed limits”.

It goes on:

“We are therefore cautious on what actual difference any changes would make to a wider 20mph roll-out.”

The cabinet secretary can write as many letters as he likes to SCOTS and local authorities, but I fear that we will be back in the same place in the autumn and that local authorities will turn round and say, “Do you know what? The cheapest and most effective way to get national consistency is to have a national default of 20mph.” We will be back in the same place and I will be on my feet asking the same questions all over again.

Every child and every other person living on every street in Scotland deserves their freedom and their right to play, walk and cycle and to live without fear. Every country and city across Europe that values those rights and freedoms is setting a safer speed limit—a 20mph speed limit. This is Scotland’s moment to put our values first, to put lives first and to vote for safer streets for everyone.

13 June 2019

Stage 1 vote on the Bill

Stage 1 vote transcript

The Presiding Officer (Ken Macintosh)

The first question is, that motion S5M-17660, in the name of Mark Ruskell, on the Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill, be agreed to. Are we agreed?

Members: No.

The Presiding Officer

There will be a division.

For

Baillie, Jackie (Dumbarton) (Lab)
Baker, Claire (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab)
Beamish, Claudia (South Scotland) (Lab)
Bibby, Neil (West Scotland) (Lab)
Dugdale, Kezia (Lothian) (Lab)
Finnie, John (Highlands and Islands) (Green)
Grant, Rhoda (Highlands and Islands) (Lab)
Gray, Iain (East Lothian) (Lab)
Greer, Ross (West Scotland) (Green)
Griffin, Mark (Central Scotland) (Lab)
Harvie, Patrick (Glasgow) (Green)
Johnson, Daniel (Edinburgh Southern) (Lab)
Johnstone, Alison (Lothian) (Green)
Kelly, James (Glasgow) (Lab)
Lamont, Johann (Glasgow) (Lab)
Leonard, Richard (Central Scotland) (Lab)
Macdonald, Lewis (North East Scotland) (Lab)
Marra, Jenny (North East Scotland) (Lab)
McDonald, Mark (Aberdeen Donside) (Ind)
McNeill, Pauline (Glasgow) (Lab)
Rowley, Alex (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab)
Ruskell, Mark (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green)
Smith, Elaine (Central Scotland) (Lab)
Smyth, Colin (South Scotland) (Lab)
White, Sandra (Glasgow Kelvin) (SNP)
Wightman, Andy (Lothian) (Green)

Against

Crawford, Bruce (Stirling) (SNP)
Adam, George (Paisley) (SNP)
Allan, Alasdair (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Arthur, Tom (Renfrewshire South) (SNP)
Balfour, Jeremy (Lothian) (Con)
Ballantyne, Michelle (South Scotland) (Con)
Beattie, Colin (Midlothian North and Musselburgh) (SNP)
Bowman, Bill (North East Scotland) (Con)
Briggs, Miles (Lothian) (Con)
Brown, Keith (Clackmannanshire and Dunblane) (SNP)
Burnett, Alexander (Aberdeenshire West) (Con)
Campbell, Aileen (Clydesdale) (SNP)
Carlaw, Jackson (Eastwood) (Con)
Carson, Finlay (Galloway and West Dumfries) (Con)
Chapman, Peter (North East Scotland) (Con)
Coffey, Willie (Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley) (SNP)
Cole-Hamilton, Alex (Edinburgh Western) (LD)
Constance, Angela (Almond Valley) (SNP)
Corry, Maurice (West Scotland) (Con)
Cunningham, Roseanna (Perthshire South and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
Davidson, Ruth (Edinburgh Central) (Con)
Denham, Ash (Edinburgh Eastern) (SNP)
Dey, Graeme (Angus South) (SNP)
Ewing, Annabelle (Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
Ewing, Fergus (Inverness and Nairn) (SNP)
Fabiani, Linda (East Kilbride) (SNP)
FitzPatrick, Joe (Dundee City West) (SNP)
Forbes, Kate (Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch) (SNP)
Fraser, Murdo (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Freeman, Jeane (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley) (SNP)
Gibson, Kenneth (Cunninghame North) (SNP)
Gilruth, Jenny (Mid Fife and Glenrothes) (SNP)
Golden, Maurice (West Scotland) (Con)
Gougeon, Mairi (Angus North and Mearns) (SNP)
Grahame, Christine (Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale) (SNP)
Greene, Jamie (West Scotland) (Con)
Halcro Johnston, Jamie (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
Harper, Emma (South Scotland) (SNP)
Harris, Alison (Central Scotland) (Con)
Haughey, Clare (Rutherglen) (SNP)
Hepburn, Jamie (Cumbernauld and Kilsyth) (SNP)
Kerr, Liam (North East Scotland) (Con)
Kidd, Bill (Glasgow Anniesland) (SNP)
Lindhurst, Gordon (Lothian) (Con)
Lochhead, Richard (Moray) (SNP)
Lyle, Richard (Uddingston and Bellshill) (SNP)
MacGregor, Fulton (Coatbridge and Chryston) (SNP)
Mackay, Rona (Strathkelvin and Bearsden) (SNP)
Macpherson, Ben (Edinburgh Northern and Leith) (SNP)
Maguire, Ruth (Cunninghame South) (SNP)
Martin, Gillian (Aberdeenshire East) (SNP)
Mason, Tom (North East Scotland) (Con)
Matheson, Michael (Falkirk West) (SNP)
McAlpine, Joan (South Scotland) (SNP)
McArthur, Liam (Orkney Islands) (LD)
McKee, Ivan (Glasgow Provan) (SNP)
McKelvie, Christina (Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse) (SNP)
McMillan, Stuart (Greenock and Inverclyde) (SNP)
Mountain, Edward (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
Mundell, Oliver (Dumfriesshire) (Con)
Neil, Alex (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
Paterson, Gil (Clydebank and Milngavie) (SNP)
Rennie, Willie (North East Fife) (LD)
Robison, Shona (Dundee City East) (SNP)
Ross, Gail (Caithness, Sutherland and Ross) (SNP)
Rumbles, Mike (North East Scotland) (LD)
Scott, John (Ayr) (Con)
Scott, Tavish (Shetland Islands) (LD)
Simpson, Graham (Central Scotland) (Con)
Smith, Liz (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Somerville, Shirley-Anne (Dunfermline) (SNP)
Stevenson, Stewart (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP)
Stewart, Alexander (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Stewart, Kevin (Aberdeen Central) (SNP)
Swinney, John (Perthshire North) (SNP)
Todd, Maree (Highlands and Islands) (SNP)
Tomkins, Adam (Glasgow) (Con)
Torrance, David (Kirkcaldy) (SNP)
Watt, Maureen (Aberdeen South and North Kincardine) (SNP)
Wells, Annie (Glasgow) (Con)
Wheelhouse, Paul (South Scotland) (SNP)
Whittle, Brian (South Scotland) (Con)
Yousaf, Humza (Glasgow Pollok) (SNP)

Abstentions

Adamson, Clare (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
Doris, Bob (Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn) (SNP)
MacDonald, Angus (Falkirk East) (SNP)
Mason, John (Glasgow Shettleston) (SNP)

The Presiding Officer

The result of the division is: For 26, Against 83, Abstentions 4.

Motion disagreed to.

The Presiding Officer

The next question is, that motion S5M-17690, in the name of Mairi Gougeon, on the Wild Animals in Circuses (No 2) Bill, be agreed to.

Motion agreed to,

That the Parliament agrees that the relevant provisions of the Wild Animals in Circuses (No. 2) Bill, introduced in the House of Commons on 1 May 2019, relating to removing the current exemption for circuses from the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976, so far as these matters fall within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament, should be considered by the UK Parliament.

Meeting closed at 17:04.

13 June 2019

Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill

Overview

Why the Bill was created

Fallen

Introduced

Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill as introduced

Related information on the Bill

Scottish Parliament research on the Bill

Stage 1 - General principles

Committees involved in this Bill

Who examined the Bill

Who spoke to the lead committee about the Bill

First meeting transcript

The Convener

Stewart Stevenson

The Convener

Colin Smyth (South Scotland) (Lab)

The Convener

Rod King MBE (20’s Plenty for Us)

Stuart Hay (Living Streets Scotland)

Professor Adrian Davis (Edinburgh Napier University)

Bruce Whyte (Glasgow Centre for Population Health)

Gavin Thomson (Scottish Environment LINK)

Colin Smyth

Stuart Hay

The Convener

Mike Rumbles

Professor Davis

Mike Rumbles

Rod King

Mike Rumbles

Stuart Hay

The Convener

Professor Davis

The Convener

Stewart Stevenson

Professor Davis

Stewart Stevenson

Professor Davis

Stewart Stevenson

Bruce Whyte

Stewart Stevenson

Bruce Whyte

Stewart Stevenson

Bruce Whyte

Stewart Stevenson

Rod King

The Convener

Jamie Greene

Stewart Stevenson

Jamie Greene

Stuart Hay

Jamie Greene

Stuart Hay

The Convener

Rod King

Jamie Greene

Rod King

The Convener

Gavin Thomson

The Convener

Bruce Whyte

The Convener

Peter Chapman

Rod King

Mike Rumbles

Rod King

The Convener

Stewart Stevenson

Professor Davis

Stewart Stevenson

Professor Davis

Peter Chapman

Stuart Hay

Gavin Thomson

Jamie Greene

Gavin Thomson

Jamie Greene

Gavin Thomson

Jamie Greene