Mike Penning supports improved safety measures for school buses.

Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con): I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for generously allowing me to intervene in his Adjournment debate. If evidence is required and if evidence is also the basis of the Government’s opposition, why have they not looked at countries where these measures have been in force for years and years, without producing the risks that the Government have adduced as evidence for not supporting a no-overtaking rule? Overtaking a school bus is a very serious offence in America, and there does not seem to have been any of these problems. The traffic stops because it has to; that is how it should be.

Malcolm Bruce: The hon. Gentleman is quite right. The Government take issue with that, but I certainly agree that there is such evidence. I would also say—I am conscious of my time—that Aberdeenshire and Moray councils cannot adopt that because of the law, but they have adopted a whole variety of safety measures. They have run an excellent campaign under the logo “Bus Stop”, they have set up a website, and they have made changes to regulations requiring all buses to have seat belts by 2010 and prohibiting double-decker buses for school transport.

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