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MP urges mayor to reconsider disbanding HGV inspection unit

Get involved and ask your MP to support Diane Abbott's Early Day Motion...

Hackney North MP Diane Abbott has tabled an Early Day Motion before Parliament calling on London Mayor Boris Johnson to reinstate for the Commercial Vehicle Education Unit following the deaths of ten cyclists on London’s roads this year, eight of them killed in accidents involving heavy goods vehicles.

Ms Abbott’s initiative came just days after the Mayor had announced that he was disbanding the CVEU, which is staffed and run by the Metropolitan Police and is the only such unit on the country, as part of a cost-cutting drive, as reported on road.cc last week.

Early Day Motions are used by MPs as a means of raising awareness of a specific issue on subjects ranging from the trivial to the serious, but they are seldom actually debated in Parliament. Instead, MPs can add their signature to show their support, with the motion remaining open for signature for the remainder of the current parliamentary session.

The motion currently has the backing of 25 other MPs from across the political spectrum, but only seven of those – eight including Abott – represent voters in the capital, which has a total of 74 MPs. Even allowing for the influence of party politics, once the city’s 21 Tory MPs are excluded, that leaves 45 London MPs who are yet to show their support for it.

A list of the MPs who have thus far signed the motion, together with the full text, can be found here. If your MP isn’t on the list, irrespective of whether you live in London or not, you can urge them to do so through following this link and ask them if they could spare five minutes from filling out their expenses forms to sign “EDM 2144 (Cyclist’s safety in London).”

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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