Responsibility for Safety Bill 2024

A

BILL

TO

Establish statutory responsibility for road safety on behalf of highway authorities.

BE IT ENACTED by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

1 Interpretation

In this act—

“Highway Authorities” has the meaning provided by the Highways Act 1980

2 Responsibility for Safe Design

(1) Highway authorities have a responsibility to design and maintain roads, cycle paths and pedestrian paths and spaces according to modern safety standards for motorists, pedestrians, cyclists and other road users.

(2) Highway authorities have a responsibility to design and maintain roads, cycle paths and pedestrian paths and spaces in such a way as to limit or prevent the impairment of the character of a place or area by traffic.

(3) Highway authorities have a responsibility to design and maintain roads, cycle paths and pedestrian paths and spaces in such a way as to limit the following forms of polluting and environmental damage as much as possible;

(a) environmental noise pollution assessed to cause either adverse impact or significant adverse impact to existing residential receivers predating the construction of the road—

(i) adverse impact and significant adverse impact are to be interpreted as defined in BS 4142:2014 A1:2019.

(b) carbon dioxide equivalent emissions;

(c) air pollution in general;

(d) PM10 and PM2.5 fine particulate matter in particular; and

(e) any other pollutant as may from time to time be decided by the Secretary of State.

(5) Any design standards for roads and pedestrian spaces put forward by His Majesty’s Government prior to the passage of this legislation are to be seen as recommendations rather than as legally binding regulations.

3 Liability

(1) A highway authority is liable for damages under this subsection 2(3) of this Act if it cannot prove that it followed the design responsibilities laid out under section 1 of this Act.

(a) A highway authority is not liable if the road design is less than twenty years old and was designed according to the best safety practices of the period.

(b) If a highway authority is not liable for damages under subsection 2(2)(a), it will be liable if a similar accident occurs more than five years after the initial accident.

(2) A court can fine a highway authority up to £5,000,000, with the sum divided in equal part between the victim or the family of the victim and towards improving road safety.

4 Road Safety Research Institute

(1) There shall be an entity known as the Road Safety Research Institute under the Department for Transport.

(2) The Road Safety Research Institute is responsible for the research of practical rules, advice and designs with the goal of making Britain’s roads safer for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists whilst encouraging active travel.

(3) The Road Safety Research Institute is responsible for the translation of foreign guidelines and advice to English, and to give advice as to how these can be implemented in the United Kingdom.

(4) The Secretary of State may, from time to time, appoint a chairman to lead the Road Safety Research Institute.

(5) The following types of local council shall be obliged to make a contribution to the Road Safety Research Institute equivalent to £0.893 per resident of the locality, annually adjusted by the change in the Consumer Price Index—

(a) The Greater London Authority;

(b) A Combined Authority;

(c) a metropolitan district council for an area for which there is no combined authority;

(d) a non-metropolitan district council for an area for which there is no county council and no combined authority; or

(e) a county council for an area for which there is no combined authority.

5 Extent, Commencement and Short Title

(1) This Act shall extend to England.

(2) This Act shall come into force on the 1st of January 2025.

(3) This Act may be cited as the Responsibility for Safety Act 2024.

This Bill was written by The Most Hon. Dame Ina LG LT LP LD GCMG DBE CT CVO MP MSP MS MLA FRS on behalf of His Majesty’s 34th Government.

Deputy Speaker,

Solidarity has long been a party that supports active transportation, but in our advocacy for cycling, walking, safer design and decarbonisation of transportation, we have often run into the issue that many of these issues are rightfully devolved to Britain’s local authorities. This makes sense, because these very important and local issues are best handled by the representatives closest to the people being impacted, with these people held to account for those decisions rather than the accountability being lost in the process of discussing a hundred different topics like we do here in the House of Commons.

Simultaneously, we have to realise that the United Kingdom does not achieve the goals of safety and sustainability that all of us in this House support. Local authorities, given their current incentives and powers, cannot deliver the true change that is needed. The Netherlands, back in the 1980s, faced the same issue: they were no longer able to significantly improve the safety of travel in the country given the same rules. Deputy Speaker, what they did was change those rules and created a system of incentives and legislation that encouraged further progress.

Rules are great, and can significantly improve design. Funds can incentivise communities to use them and invest into projects supported by a majority of the population. But if we want a consistency of design that truly encourages people to use active transportation we have to create a system of incentives that achieves that. In this bill, we are creating those incentives to make our roads as safe as possible. If a local authority fails their responsibility to design things in such a way that people are safe, deputy speaker, they are liable for damages which are then reinvested into the safety of the roads. Simultaneously, we are giving these councils more room to diverge from national standards so they can, indeed, achieve the goals of this bill through experimentation done by the Road Safety Research Institute, as well as practical results from other councils across the nation. The effects will not be immediate, but, Deputy Speaker, in fifty years they will be obvious to all. And that is what we fight for.

This division ends at 10pm GMT on 25th March.