Hansard

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.