Minister for Roads and Buses (): I wish to inform the
House about a technical anomaly that has impacted how some
variable speed cameras interact with signs on a limited number of
A-roads and motorways for a number of years. I would like to
apologise to all who have been affected.
On 10 September 2025, National Highways informed the Department
for Transport of an anomaly on the M5 following a challenge to a
speeding offence. Ministers were informed of the anomaly and that
National Highways was expanding its analysis to additional sites.
On 13 October 2025, Ministers were informed that National
Highways had identified this was a national issue, whereby a
technical anomaly with the way some variable speed cameras
interact with signs was affecting some enforcement on parts of
England's Strategic Road Network.
National Highways identified that on rare occasions, there can be
a slight delay between the 2 systems, meaning drivers had not
been given sufficient time to respond to a change in speed limit
or were detected as speeding when the variable speed limit had
already changed. This issue began when cameras were upgraded
under the previous government.
This issue has led to incorrect enforcement action being taken in
a small number of cases, which I recognise will have been
frustrating for those involved. National Highways confirms that
this technical anomaly has occurred approximately 2,650 times on
the impacted cameras over 4 years since 2021. To place this in
context, during the same period, there were approximately 6
million camera activations in total on the affected cameras,
meaning fewer than 0.1% of activations were impacted. Not all of
the erroneous activations will have resulted in enforcement
action, so the number of those actually impacted will be smaller
still. These cameras are used on only 0.2% of roads in England.
National Highways has provided data to the police to enable them
to begin to contact those impacted and allow the process of
redress for cases affected by this issue to get underway. I
understand that the police will prioritise the most serious
cases. I can confirm that the government will provide financial
redress. Anyone who has been wrongly fined will be refunded and
where points on licences have been incorrectly applied, these
will be removed. Steps will be taken to remedy any incorrect
prosecutions.
A Home Office-approved solution to this issue has now been
agreed. National Highways will be working with the police to
allow them to implement this solution as a priority. Interim
measures, such as increased traffic patrol officers, will be put
in place by National Highways. The police have a range of tactics
to enforce speed limits on the Strategic Road Network, including
mobile camera deployments, road policing patrols and average
speed sites.
I have instructed National Highways to continue their
investigations back to 2019, when the upgrade of cameras began.
This will ensure we can be fully confident that anyone who has
been impacted is identified.
As soon as I was alerted to the issue on 13 October 2025, I
worked to ensure there would be no further incorrect fines,
points, or prosecutions. On 17 October 2025, National Highways'
executive were able to instruct their camera supplier to pause
the transfer of variable speed data to police forces in order to
ensure no further individuals were incorrectly prosecuted.
Independently, the National Police Chiefs' Council took action to
instruct all affected police forces to cancel wider prosecutions
related to infringements in progress, regardless of whether they
were impacted by this issue. As a result, tens of thousands of
people's speed awareness courses are being cancelled, and
thousands of historic fixed penalty notices and criminal justice
prosecutions are being discontinued.
Throughout this process, I have been clear with all partners that
we must ensure our road network remains safe. We therefore took
the decision, following a safety assessment from National
Highways, not to undermine public confidence in enforcement and
risk impacting driver behaviour before we had a solution to this
issue approved and ready to roll out.
We will ensure that there is an independent investigation into
how this technical anomaly came about, to ensure that lessons can
be learnt.
Compliance with the law is being enforced in a variety of ways
across our roads, as has always been the case. If you break the
law, you can expect to be punished.
We have provided further
information online.
I will keep the House updated on this issue where necessary.
