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Christopher Booker's notebook
By Christopher Booker, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:54pm GMT 25/11/2006
It's against the law for MPs to save lives
Large vans on Britain's roads, we learned last week, are to be fitted with speed limiters, making it impossible for them to drive at more than 90 kilometres per hour (or 56mph), and are to be barred from using the fast lane on motorways. All drivers in the European Union, we also learned, will be issued with an identical EU driving licence, under rules drawn up by the EU.
These latest modest proposals from the European Commission again highlighted the extent of Brussels control over our transport policy. This became apparent earlier in the year during debates on the Government's new Road Safety Act, now in force.
Again and again, in the months of its passage through Parliament, MPs of all parties came up with proposed additions to the Bill that might save lives. And repeatedly the transport minister, Stephen Ladyman, explained that, though he might be sympathetic to their suggestions, Parliament had no power to enact them because this would be in breach of EU law.
For instance, a Labour MP, Dr Brian Iddon, supported by the Tory spokesman, Owen Paterson, put forward a proposal that might save scores of lives each year, by preventing motorists colliding at night with lorries that are inadequately lit. (One of my own friends and neighbours was among those more than 70 people who die each year in this way.)
Figures from Germany and the US show that such accidents can be dramatically reduced by fitting lorries, at a cost of £100, with some clever stuff called retro-reflective tape, which makes them immediately visible. When Dr Iddon proposed that this should be mandatory, Mr Ladyman limply explained that the EU was proposing something similar, though it would not be in force for at least five years – so Britain could not jump the gun.
When it was pointed out that Italy has already introduced such a law, with three other EU countries planning to follow, Mr Ladyman replied "we believe in the rule of law". If we copied them, he claimed, we would not only be flouting EU rules but those of the United Nations. It seems that a body called the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe will not have decided what the law should be on this matter until 2010.
Dr Iddon commented that he also did not like breaking the law, but it was "barmy" we should "have to wait until 2011 to save lives". Although 201 Tory, Lib Dem, and rebel Labour MPs supported the proposal, they were outnumbered by the 286 Labour MPs who meekly trotted into the "No" lobby.
It was the same story when Mr Paterson proposed the compulsory fitting of a £100 alarm system to the tractor units that draw trailers, to prevent drivers leaving their cabs without putting on the brake. This causes, on average, another seven fatalities a year. Mr Ladyman responded that such a measure "cannot be introduced unilaterally by the United Kingdom, it would have to be a matter for European type-approval".
Again the Tories, with cross-party support, proposed that it should be mandatory for left-hand drive trucks visiting the UK to have a right-hand side mirror, enabling drivers to see what was behind them when pulling out on a motorway. Two MPs, Labour and Tory, had personal stories of narrow escapes caused by the lack of such mirrors. A good many other motorists are not so lucky. Again Mr Ladyman had to intone that "in this area the Commission has competence". We must wait for Brussels to take action.
On retro-reflective tape alone, the figures suggest that there are more than 300 people alive in Britain today who, because Parliament could not make its use compulsory, will by 2011 have met with very nasty deaths. Since safety on our roads, like that of aircraft, ships and railways, is fast becoming an exclusive "EU competence", making it illegal for us to pass laws to save lives in our own country, we may ask what is the point of us any longer having a transport minister?
EU addiction is a very costly habit
There was a huge sigh of relief at the Treasury when the European Court of Justice on Thursday overruled the advice of its Advocate General and judged that it is still illegal for EU citizens to order their booze and fags from EU countries where taxes on such products are lowest. (For example, 200 cigarettes cost £50 in the UK but £7.20 in Latvia.) With alcohol and tobacco taxes yielding £16 billion a year, it is estimated that if the ECJ had legalised such imports, our budget could have been left short of £5 billion or more.
The UK's plight was bad enough already, with the latest Office of National Statistics Pink Book showing that in 2005 our "payments to EU institutions" soared to £15 billion, their highest ever, equal to half our defence budget. Next year, under a deal conceded last December by Tony Blair, they will be still higher — so high that the Treasury will not give an estimate.
A Eurosceptic think tank, Global Britain, suggests that between 2007 and 2013 our net payments could average £10 billion a year.
To this, add the £5 billion a year it is estimated that the Treasury loses from VAT scams. Either rogue traders are charging VAT but not paying it to the Treasury, or they are "reclaiming" VAT payments they haven't made.
The uniquely convoluted nature of VAT, required by EU membership, makes such rackets all but inevitable.
The UK, like Germany, which is losing an estimated £17 billion a year to this fraud, would love to set rules to curb it. But we cannot, because setting VAT rules is an "EU competence".
One way and another, our membership of the EU is turning out to be rather an expensive luxury.
A sign of the times
Saving the planet and curbing road deaths at the same time is not easy, as Gloucestershire county council has discovered. There has been much agitation in Painswick because a "slow down" sign warning of an accident blackspot on the A46 has not been working properly for six months. This is one of those ridiculous contraptions, much loved by sentimental planet-savers, powered by a combination of solar panels and a mini-wind turbine.
The latest twist is that both panels and turbine have been stolen. But a council spokesman explained why, even before that, the slow down sign functioned only intermittently.
"When the sun goes in, it doesn't work," he said.
Brightening, he explained that this was "a good thing, because if it worked all the time people wouldn't notice it".
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