From Boris Johnson's column today. Whatever you think of the man, he's at least got the official statistics to hand:
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Between 1981 and 1985 there was an average of 18 fatalities per year of children aged eight-11 using roads in the United Kingdom. That had fallen to 12 in the period 1994-98, to 11 in 2002, and in 2004 the total number of fatalities stood at four - an astonishing reflection on the growing safety of cars, when you consider how enormously they have increased in number.
I would resent this law badly enough as an infringement of my liberty to decide how to convey my own children in my own car. But the main reason why I am so angry is that this stupid and impertinent law was not even generated by the British Government. It wasn't some gentleman in Whitehall who decided he knew best about booster seats. It wasn't even the brainchild of the UK health and safety industry. It is, of course, an EU directive, which means that elected British politicians have been given neither the means nor the opportunity to contest it - or even to debate it.
This EU directive, 2003/20/EC, arises because a few years ago some lonely and bored European Commission official was persuaded (no doubt by the booster seat industry) that in some circumstances children under
135cm would be safer with booster seats.So a directive was drawn up. Even if any EU government had dared oppose this "child safety" measure, that government could have been simply outvoted - while looking cavalier about the wellbeing of our little ones. The UK therefore apathetically connived in the exercise, and the directive was sent for "scrutiny" before parliament's European Scrutiny Committee.
Needless to say, there was no discussion or "scrutiny", since the huge volume of EU legislation makes this impractical. As it rubber-stamped the directive (and bear in mind that there is no way Parliament, at that or any other stage, could have said no) the committee did ask two questions. How much would these seats cost the average family, and how many lives would be saved?
Four years later, long after this directive has become irreversible, the Government has replied. They don't know how much it will cost, they say, but the measure "might save" the lives of 1.5 children per year. In the whole country.
OK folks: you do the maths. You think how many millions of car journeys are there involving children every day. You might decide that it is still worth installing booster seats for all under 135cm. But with odds like that it should surely be a matter for individual choice and not international coercion.
What enrages me is that this was not even discussed in one of the Commons' three European Standing Committees, and what enrages me more is that even if it had been discussed, it would have made no difference.
We need proper standing committees with the power to mandate ministers, and to refuse to accept directives even if they are decided at a majority vote. Otherwise we will find that the law of this country - the law affecting the personal lives of millions, and their children - is not made in this country; and that is a perfect and justifiable reason for massive civil disobedience.
Regards,
Simonm.