Lowering drink-drive limit 'is a ploy to hide lack of traffic police'

The number of traffic police has fallen by 1,000 since 1999 - while drink-drive deaths have risen by a fifth.

Labour wants to consult on cutting the drink-drive limit to that found in the European Union - where driving after half a pint of normal strength beer or a small glass of wine is illegal.

But the Tories said the most effective measure would be to reverse Labour's over-reliance on speed cameras - and the corresponding drop in traffic patrols.

Their transport spokesman, Owen Paterson, added: "This is a complete U-turn. It's a fig leaf to hide their embarrassment.

"We need to enforce the present limit properly before we even consider going to a lower limit. To do otherwise would be ludicrous."

The policy shift follows years of insistence that the UK's higher limit was adequate because it was policed far more stringently than the lower limit on the Continent.

As recently as October last year, Transport Minister Stephen Ladyman told Parliament: "I remain convinced that it is right for us to enforce the current level of 80mg.

"If we did that with any reasonable degree of success, we would save several hundred lives on our roads."

But on Thursday he said he was "minded" to support a reduction to 50mg. "I think it will happen," he added.

This would allow the average person to consume only one small 175ml glass of standard strength wine or half a pint of beer to stay legally under the limit.

Under the existing limit, drivers can drink roughly one and a half pints of beer or one to two small glasses of wine.

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Dr Ladyman added: "The consultation will include lowering the limit. It depends how quickly we get enforcement at 80mg. If you go to 50mg before you have effective enforcement at 80mg, people will just ignore the 50mg level."

The figures used refer to blood alcohol levels - the current limit is 80 milligrammes of alcohol per 100ml. This equates to 35 microgrammes per 100 millilitres in a breathalyser test.

Mr Paterson said: "Stephen Ladyman was brutal with his backbenchers during the Road Safety Bill in insisting repeatedly that the Government would stick with the current 80mg limit. We supported the Government in this.

"The Government has presided over the axing of 1,000 traffic police. They need to redeploy police to enforce the existing 80g limit and get the really dangerous drivers - who are well over the limit - out of the way."

The Transport Department admitted in the answer to a parliamentary question by Mr Paterson that traffic police numbers had fallen from 7,525 to 6,511 in seven years between 1999 and 2006.

Dr Ladyman and the police have blamed each other for the drop in patrols.

The minister has told police they must put more emphasis on policing the road, but the police say Labour have failed to make this a high enough priority to get the funding they need.

Mr Paterson also said that Labour had signed up to the European Safety Charter, which gave a commitment for all EU countries to adopt a common 50mg limit. He believes ministers are being pressured to honour that to "secure Tony Blair's legacy".

The number of drivers breathtested in Britain has fallen from 765,000 in 1999 to 578,000 in 2004.

But the number of people killed in drink-drive crashes has risen by more than a fifth over roughly the same period - from 460 in 1999 to 560 in 2005.

Paul Smith, of the road safety group SafeSpeed, said lowering the drink-drive limit was a "smokescreen" for failed speed camera and road safety policies.

"The Government's road safety policy has failed," he added. "Speed cameras are at the centre of the policy failure. But ministers would rather blame drivers and the police."