The Transport Minister has said that the Scottish Government’s forthcoming road safety strategy could include policies in areas which are reserved to Westminster.

Speaking to Holyrood magazine, Stewart Stevenson said he hoped that the strategy, which is being formulated with the assistance of an expert group on road safety and will be published later this year, would “come up with some radical ideas”.

He added: “Not all of them, we expect, to be in the competences of the Scottish Parliament. We don’t want to restrict ourselves in that respect, but neither do we expect that Westminster would be anything other than willing to work with us, because they share in England and Wales many of the issues we have in Scotland.”

He said that he wants to create a “true partnership” between the governments, and has already met with the Driving Standards Agency. “We’re working with the administration south of the border already,” he said

Asked what issues the strategy may address, Stevenson said that the panel has been looking at “how can we intervene at an earlier stage when a driver has been shown to be a driver who’s not prepared to obey the rules”.

He added: “I think that’s somewhere where we would wish to work with colleagues at Westminster, because the road traffic laws  are basically Westminster laws, and we can see if intervening to require retraining at an earlier stage may head some people off from more serious involvement in road accidents.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Transport said: “We have a long history of working together and will continue to do so to improve road safety in all parts of Great Britain.”