Government 'under the influence'

An influential House of Lords committee pulls no punches in accusing the Government of ignoring the advice of police and road safety groups and accepting the arguments of the alcohol industry. This occurred when ministers performed a U-turn on the drink-drive limit, which they had previously indicated that they were "minded" to reduce from 80mg to 50mg.

David Jamieson, the Road Safety Minister, announced in March that the Government was turning its back on this proposal, which would have lowered the drink-drive limit to that in force across most of the European Union. Just before the decision was taken, Mr Jamieson had several meetings with the Portman Group, the organisation established and funded by the drink industry which has always strongly opposed reducing the legal limit.

The Department for Transport chose to accept "research" commissioned by the Portman Group showing that cutting the limit was the least effective of a list of measures, which included better education and stronger enforcement of the existing law. The Lords' report points out that there is no inconsistency in combining such measures with a lower limit.

The drink industry is alarmed that the 50mg limit would damage the pub trade. On a wider front it, and the Portman Group, are eager to head off any move towards greater statutory regulation.

Mr Jamieson, when giving evidence to the committee, repeated a hypothetical line of argument put forward by the Portman Group that there might be a public backlash against a lower limit which could lead to drivers ignoring the law. This contention would seem to fly in the face of surveys indicating that a majority of the public appreciate that a lowering of the limit would save lives and favour the move.

Indeed, the House of Lords European Union Committee's report, in condemning the Government's U-turn, says it could cost fifty lives a year which would have been saved had the European limit been introduced.

"We note that the department's position coincides with that of the alcohol industry but is opposed by local authorities, the police, the British Medical Association, the Automobile Association, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, the Transport Research Laboratory, and the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety," the report concludes.

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, the committee's Labour chairman, said that he was suprised by the apparent influence of the drinks industry. He said ministers may also have been worried about alienating car drivers. The report pointed out the theoretical anomaly that, as a result of the EU Convention on Driver Disqualification, drivers could now be disqualified from driving in the United Kingdom for exceeding the lower limits in force elsewhere in Europe.

The peers on the committee suspect that the Government rushed out its decision in March before the publication of their report in which they emphatically come down in favour of the a reduction in the limit.

The committee draws attention to the fact that the campaign to reduce drink-driving has lost momentum in the past ten years, with the number of casualties in drink-drive crashes beginning to rise again. In addition, the Government's re-stated aim to make significant reductions to the number of those killed and injured on our roads strikes many experts as ironical in the light of its decision on the drink drive limit.

The number of people killed or injured in such crashes in England and Wales rose from 15,590 to 18,030 between 1998 and 2000.

Jean Coussins, director of the Portman Group, said: "There is a risk with the lower limit that people would think 'I'm already over the limit with one drink so I might as well have three'." She did not explain what her evidence is to show the degree of likelihood of this claim and how much it weighs against the evidence indicating that fifty lives a year would be saved by lowering the limit.

Nor did she explain how it is that in other countries reductions in the legal limit have brought about reductions in drunk driving and in the number of associated casualties.

Although a spokesman for the Department for Transport said that "the decision not to lower the drink-drive limit was not made because of any pressure group – the Portman Group or any other", the House of Lords report will confirm the suspicion in the minds of many that the Government allows itself to be influenced by drink industry pressure groups rather than experts in road safety, law enforcement, and alcohol policy.