In Parliament

I spoke today on Alex Cole-Hamilton's member's debate on Antisocial Behaviour and Antisocial Driving. It allowed me to again raise the issue of off-road vehicles. You can read my full speech below.

The campaign has been on-going for some time, including a members’ business debate that I had in September. Other MSPs from across the chamber have said that they have brought similar issues to the Parliament in previous years. There is continuity there, and it is fair to say that there is a cross-party approach to the issue.

Today’s debate clearly links to the debate on the issues of off-road vehicles that I had in September. During that debate, I mentioned David Gow, my now-deceased constituent, who passed away in February last year at the age of 79. He was mown down by a man on a quad bike on Balmoral Road in my constituency. Two quad bikes were involved. I will say no more just now, because the matter is still subject to police proceedings. Councillor Allan Gow, David’s brother, was in the chamber during that debate, as was his son, Craig, and other family members whose lives were devastated by what happened.

That was not the only time that such a thing happened in the areas that I represent. More needs to be done, not just through policing and by the local authority, but at a national, Scottish and UK level. I have met Police Scotland, which is looking for many more tools in the box—there is that old soundbite—to do all that it can to tackle this scourge. I know from Councillor Gow that local authorities would love to have more powers in relation to the issue.

Let us be clear. Some people use quad bikes and they cause a nuisance and they can be a blight, but it can be wholly unintentional—silliness, misadventure and what have you. Let us also be blunt. There is another cohort out there who want to make the noise, who want to disturb, and who want to make people’s lives a misery. They want the status that a shiny quad bike has. They want to pull their hood over their head so that they cannot be identified. They are not risk averse and it is deeply sinister. Something more has to be done than is currently being done.

It is not a uniquely Scottish thing—it is happening right across the UK and, I suspect, further afield. Those individuals have a loose adherence to the law of the land, by which I mean that they care not a hoot for good practice when they are riding those vehicles out and about.

Of course, the vehicles are illegal anyway, because they are not taxed or MOT’d and the drivers do not necessarily have a driving licence. We cannot stop them, because they will speed off and it becomes more risky to pursue them than it does to do anything else. We have to think about the range of offences that are already being committed daily and weekly, the powers that police and local authorities do or do not have, and what more we can do at a Scottish and UK level.

On a UK level, I had mentioned the hope that we could perhaps look at the registration of off-road vehicles. I do not care whether a vehicle goes on footpaths, roads or our public parks, if it does not have an identifiable registration number, let us get it confiscated and make that an offence. Let us have strict liability in relation to that. That would require a change at the UK level as much as the Scottish level. Let us do it and work together. In fact, my colleague Anne McLaughlin, the former MP for Glasgow North East, was looking into that, and I was supportive of that, as was Guy Opperman, the relevant UK minister at the time. Councillor Gow and I have written to the Rt Hon Dame Diana Johnson MP, who is the new Minister of State for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention. She said:

“The Government has no plans to make registration and insurance mandatory for off-road bikes, because we do not believe that this would be the most effective way to tackle dangerous and antisocial use.”

I am not making a party-political issue of that, although I disagree with it. Councillor Gow and I very much hope to meet the relevant minister to make the case again in a constructive, cross-party, non-partisan way. The case is there to be made. At the moment, the UK Government is not there. I am not being remotely tribal or party-political; I just think that the UK Government has to think a wee bit more about the issue, and I want to work constructively with it on a cross-party basis.

At the end of my debate, I asked for a national working group at a Scottish level to look at all of this, and the minister who summed up, Jim Fairlie, agreed that that could be set in motion. I also wrote to the First Minister, John Swinney, after Alex Cole-Hamilton’s excellent question at First Minister’s question time. I am still waiting for a meeting. Councillor Gow is still waiting for a meeting. The bereaved family is still waiting for news. We must do better. I commend Alex Cole-Hamilton for his work on this area