Barbara Castle's Social Revolution ...

..I welcome the opportunity to pay tribute to Barbara Castle's pioneering work in the field of transport safety.

• When Barbara assumed the Transport portfolio in 1965, road deaths were climbing to a post-war peak. In three years at the Department, she reduced this toll by nearly 15 per cent and set in hand many of the tools of casualty reduction which have served the road safety cause so well in the ensuing years. ...her name is, of course, synonymous with anti-drink-drive measures where, for the first time, a scientifically-based legal limit was introduced and the advent of the breathalyser allowed the police to take objective decisions about prosecution.
  
  ...Any relative of a victim knows the misery caused by drinking and driving. Barbara's success in combating this blight and changing attitudes remains an inspiration to us all as we continue the fight against drinking and driving.

The Rt Hon Tony Blair, The Prime Minister

• I remember Breathalyser day in 1967 and the vitriolic attacks on Castle the Killjoy, the enemy of freedom, the scourge of the moderate drinking classes - and much more in the same vein.
  
  So I hope that, thirty years on, everyone remembers that thousands of lives have been saved and awful tragedies prevented...
  
  There is, of course, more to be done in the United Kingdom and everywhere else, as Barbara would be the first to recognise. But she deserves warm tribute for being the trail blazer...

The Rt Hon Neil Kinnock, European Commissioner for Transport

• I opposed you at the time, but you were right and I was wrong. It was the most important thing you did."

Lord (Norman) Tebbit