Speed enforcement on the Strategic Road Network
National Highways is addressing an anomaly in the way some variable speed cameras interact with signs on some A roads and motorways.
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.