Road Safety Bill [Lords]

Public Bill Committee, 23 March 2006.

Road Safety Bill [Lords] - Standing Committee A

Road Safety Bill [Lords]

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

On a point of order, Mrs. Anderson. I welcome you to the Chair. We look forward to serving under your chairmanship. In our previous sitting, Sir Nicholas asked the Government to make available to members of the Committee copies of past legislation on this subject, much of which is being amended by the Bill. I have looked into how we might do that.

Unfortunately, the printed version of the legislation is so old that it would be confusing. It has never been reprinted since having been amended over the years by various Acts. Copyright rules do not allow us to print the online version of the legislation that the Government use and make it available to hon. Members. However, the Library has identified an online version that is available to all hon. Members. In the letter to Sir Nicholas, copies of which I have put on the centre table, the Library has provided instructions so that all hon. Members can access the online version and print it out for themselves.

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

Thank you. I am sure that such information is helpful to all members of the Committee.

Clause 8 - Driving record

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I beg to move amendment No. 32, in clause 8, page 5, line 17, leave out paragraph (e).

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 33, in clause 8, page 5, line 19, leave out subsection (3).

No. 34, in clause 8, page 5, line 21, leave out subsection (4).

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

On behalf of my colleagues, I wish to say how much we look forward to serving under your chairmanship, Mrs. Anderson. Clause 8 removes the necessity for the police to inspect the driving licence counterpart or for that counterpart to be presented before, among other things, the issuance of a fixed penalty notice. We have no problem with the intent of the clause, and neither do we think it anything other than reasonable that the police, court officials and the fixed penalty clerks should be able to access an individual’s driving record and the information held on that record. However, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s explanation of the exact difference between the driving record in relation to a person as maintained by the Secretary of State, and the driving licence.

Our worries about the clause are twofold, and amendment No. 32 seeks to address the problem. We accept the necessity for fixed penalty clerks, constables and courts to access the records, but I seek reassurance from the Minister on several matters. Why must

“other persons prescribed in regulations made by the Secretary of State”

have access? Exactly whom do the Government have in mind to be that class of person? When will the Secretary of State make the regulations? Perhaps we can be given examples of the circumstances in which they will be made.

I want to clarify exactly the real issue of the misuse of official information. If the amendment were not accepted or we did not receive from the Minister the reassurance that we want, a huge number of people could easily gain access to driving records and use that information for profit. Let us suppose that the Minister prescribed that access be granted for individuals to run a Government road safety campaign on speeding. If one of those individuals were rather less than scrupulous, he could sell the information to a company that makes speed detection devices or harass people—even members of this Committee—who have several points on their licence.

I have a vision of a multitude of prescribed people trawling through records, mischievously attempting to find information of commercial worth that they could supply either to corporate companies or indeed to the fourth estate for profit. We want reassurance from the Minister about why subsection (2)(e) is needed. Whom is his Department likely to prescribe and what steps does he intend to put in place to ensure that such sensitive information is not misused? I am also slightly intrigued about why the Government wish to take the powers solely for the driver. I await the Minister’s answer. Are the powers that pertain to the vehicle already satisfactory and extensive enough? If they are not, we will happily help him frame a suitable clause if he wishes us to do so.

Amendments Nos. 33 and 34 deal with our worry about the increasing size of secondary legislation, and to some extent are consequential on the acceptance of amendment No. 32. We want to see as much as possible dealt with by the Bill, instead of by statutory instrument.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

My apologies to you, Mrs. Anderson, for the fact that you had difficulty getting here on time today because of the traffic. I understand that it was London traffic, however, and therefore is the responsibility of the Mayor and not me.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) for giving me the opportunity to explain what the clause does and to discuss his amendments. In our last sitting, Sir Nicholas was kind enough to give me a little leeway, because some clauses make sense only if discussed in association with others. Therefore, I shall explain not only what clause 8 does but what clauses 9 and 10 do, because they make sense only as a package.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South (Mr. Harris), who is not quite with us yet, told us that he has six points on his licence. It is fairly well known that once upon a time I had nine points on mine. I hasten to add that I have addressed my offending behaviour and that, as the points are now all four years old, they are expunged.

The legal record of our endorsements is the paper counterpart that the individual holds. Any record of endorsements held by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is held simply for administrative purposes and to ensure that, should one lose one’s licence or should an appropriate person need to check that the licence is genuine, it has a record of the number of points that have been accumulated over the years. However, the legal record is the paper licence. Therefore, if a policeman is to offer someone a fixed penalty of, say, three points and a fine instead of taking them to court, he must first check the legal record to see how many points have previously been accumulated. Clearly if one is in the position that I was in for a period, with nine points on the licence, the next three points mean a court case and disqualification. The policeman must therefore check the legal record before he can issue a three-point standing penalty. Without being able to check the legal record, he does not know whether the offence in question is the first offence, the third offence or the 53rd offence.

The consequence is that a person who does not have a paper counterpart cannot be issued with a fixed penalty notice, and that applies to foreign drivers. People from the rest of the European Union who are driving in this country do not have a counterpart to their licence; they simply show us their national licence. The police cannot, therefore, check their situation and issue them with a fixed penalty. Likewise, somebody who has lost their paper counterpart cannot present it to the police to get a fixed penalty notice.

If we allowed that situation to persist, it would make nonsense of the later clauses in the Bill, under which we take a deposit from people rather than allow them to abscond without paying the fixed penalty notices, and other measures in the Bill would not work either. We must therefore legislate to make the DVLA’s database the legal record. The paper counterpart will then no longer be the legal record. It will simply be a person’s reminder that penalty points have been awarded. When the legal record is the DVLA database, it will be appropriate to say that the police and others, when deciding whether to issue a fixed penalty, must be able to access that database.

First, clauses 8, 9 and 10 therefore change the legal record from the paper counterpart to the DVLA database. Secondly, they provide for foreign drivers who do not have a paper counterpart to be prosecuted from the new legal record—the DVLA database. Clause 10 extends that provision to those who carry a British driving licence. The idea is that, over the next two to three years, we will migrate the way in which we issue penalty notices to ensure that the enforcement can take place from the new legal record. The reason why that needs to be done in stages over two to three years is purely administrative and technical. As a result of the way the computers and databases are constructed, it cannot be done all at once.

I take it that these are probing amendments that are intended to query to whom we will allow access to the database. Clearly, the police will have access to it. There are reasons why we want the Secretary of State to have the opportunity to use secondary legislation in the future to change the access arrangements. First, there might be good reasons why we want to give others access to it in future. The hon. Member for Wimbledon asked for examples of where that would be appropriate. One would relate to Hackney carriage authorities: local authorities deciding on licences for taxi drivers. They need to check whether individuals have a clean driving licence before issuing a taxi licence. We might give the power to that group.

I stress that we have no plans at this stage to do this, but we ought to be debating and considering whether would we want insurance companies to have access to the information. They are another possible group. Many of our colleagues in the House have confessed to me that they did not realise that they were supposed to tell their insurance company when they got speeding points. That convenient lapse of memory on some people’s behalf probably saves them a great deal of money, because as soon as someone starts accumulating speeding points, their premiums go up.

It might be that at some future point we will want insurance companies automatically to be able to check whether someone has speeding points, in order to ensure that people who do are honest about it and pay the appropriate premiums. We have no plans along those lines, but as parliamentarians, we might want to discuss and consider the matter at some point in the future. We might reasonably want to give people access to the database in such areas.

When we proposed the idea originally, only the negative procedure was to be used for the statutory instrument. We were advised by Committees of Parliament that people thought that the matter was so serious that it should be dealt with through the affirmative procedure. The Bill now includes provision for the affirmative procedure, so any secondary legislation that is introduced will need the positive confirmation of both Houses. That is appropriate, given the seriousness of the matter.

The hon. Gentleman briefly touched on access to public information such as the vehicle record. There has been some debate on that issue recently. He will be aware that there is a great deal of controversy about access to the vehicle record that the DVLA holds and about whether the DVLA is giving that information out to the right people. It is required to give it out to people who have a lawful right to have it. People who have a justifiable claim to see the vehicle record have a lawful right to have access to it, but that is not clearly defined in the legislation.

In order to clarify to whom it is appropriate to give vehicle information in future, I have announced a thorough consultation on the matter, after which we will consider whether we should change the rules about accessing the vehicle record. The clause has nothing to do with the vehicle record; it is concerned with the driver record. Currently, the only people who would see the legal driver record—the counterpart—are those to whom the driver willingly shows it or is required to show it to because legislation gives someone the power to see it. Our intention in the first instance, at least, is that the only people who will have access to the new driver record are those exact same groups of people.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

First, I want to be clear from what the Minister just said that he accepts that paragraph (e) would expand the number of people who have a lawful right to that record. Secondly, in respect of the consultation procedure that he is about to put in place, will he reassure us about the penalties that the Government will impose for the misuse of the information?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

The consultation is about access to the vehicle records. At this stage, we do not know whether we will need to change the law. When the consultation has finished and Parliament and the public have formed a view about who should and should not have access to the vehicle records, we will have to decide whether existing law allows us to restrict the information to that group of people or whether we will have to change the law. I cannot be definitive until we have completed that consultation.

However, many people have contacted me to say, “How dare the DVLA give away my personal details just on the basis of somebody having my registration number? You must only ever give them to the police.” When I explain to them that as a consequence, private car park companies could enforce car parking restrictions only by using clampers, rather than taking number plate details and sending a bill later, people suddenly start to think, “Perhaps it is not as simple as we thought; perhaps there is good reason for certain people under certain circumstances to be able to get that information.”

The consultation that we have to go through will be complex, and until it ends I cannot say how the law will be used. However, there are clear penalties for the misuse of such information under data protection, vehicle registration legislation and so on. Once we know the results of the consultation, we will use such penalties rigorously to ensure that the information is restricted.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Secretary of State could extend the groups of people who have access to the counterfeit information. He could, but he has no plans to do so, and would need the approval of both Houses before he did.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

The Minister inadvertently said “counterfeit”; I am sure he meant “counterpart information”.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I did mean “counterpart”. The hon. Gentleman is right, and one of the benefits of the Bill is that it will also seriously reduce the number of people with counterfeit counterparts.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I welcome you to the Chair, Mrs. Anderson. We were kept firmly in line by Sir Nicholas in our previous sitting. You will be pleased to hear that I was the first to be tripped up by him and kept in line. You have struggled through the traffic, and it is good to see you. We look forward to your chairmanship.

Will the Minister clarify a point about the information coming out of the DVLA? He used the word “give” twice, but there are rumours that people have been paying for the information.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Certainly people do pay for the information. Many tabloid newspapers that are worried about this have used the word “sell” to imply that the DVLA is making money from it. However, legislation prevents the DVLA from using public money to subsidise private enterprises, so, when giving out information, the agency has to charge a fee sufficient to cover its costs; that is required by Parliament. However, it cannot make a profit from that. There is a small charge—I think it is £2—for an authorised person with just cause who applies to see the information.

For example, if the hon. Gentleman went to the House of Commons car park tonight, found a dent on the back of his car and managed to get the number of the red Alfa Romeo shooting up the ramp in the opposite direction, he might want to approach the DVLA and say, “This person dinged my car and drove off without telling me. May I have their contact information so that I can make them pay for the damage to my car?” He would find out that it had not been my red Alfa Romeo, because I, of course, would have told him what had happened, although the car might have belonged to the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight).

The point is that that would be a legitimate reason for the hon. Gentleman to access the vehicle records. However, I think it is equally reasonable for the DVLA to charge him a sufficient sum to cover its costs in providing him with that information. That is the situation: the DVLA does not make a profit, but it does charge enough just to cover its costs.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

On that basis, is it correct that any organisation can ring up the DVLA and ask for such information?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

When one contacts the DVLA and asks for such information, there is a code of practice that the DVLA goes through to check why they are asking for it. They have to provide just cause within the terms of the code of practice that the DVLA uses to determine that. If an organisation routinely wants access to the information, it has to go through a procedure with the DVLA to justify its business practices, to agree to accept a code of practice of its own, to agree to use the information only for the purpose for which it is requested, and to provide on each occasion the reason why it is asking for that particular piece of information.

That is the cause of the current furore. Some people are of the view that the organisations that routinely have access to the information in that way have not been properly scrutinised, and that the DVLA might have allowed too wide a group of people to have that routine access. That is why we have agreed to a consultation. If that consultation requires it, we will tighten things up to restrict access to that information.

However, I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees that in the two examples I have given—someone who wants to enforce car parking in a private car park but without using wheel clampers, and a private individual who wants to check who has dinged his car—it might be reasonable for the person concerned to have such information. What we have to do is ensure that, while tightening up in respect of the people to whom it is reasonable to give the information, we exclude those people who may be unfairly and unreasonably using it at present.

Lee Scott (Conservative, Ilford North)

If the wrong information is given out from Swansea and that causes difficulties or embarrassment for the person the information is about, will compensation be available?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

The only circumstances in which I can imagine that the wrong information might be given out are if somebody gave the wrong registration number and therefore the wrong personal details were presented, or if somebody had wrongly registered the vehicle. However, I would have to check on that. My understanding is that if it was DVLA’s fault that somebody had been damaged in some way, it would probably want to provide compensation, but if it was the fault of the individual requesting the information, it would not be responsible for that. However, as I said, I will check up on that and provide the hon. Gentleman with information on it.

The clauses are not about the vehicle record, on which the current consultation is focused. They are about the driver record, and, because the legal record is that piece of paper held by the driver, it is currently only shown to those people who can legally demand it, such as the police, or to somebody to whom the driver wants to show it. It is our intention in the first instance that access to the driver record will be granted to that same group of people—those who have a legal right to check the driver record. However, the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Wimbledon would remove the power we are seeking. We want the Secretary of State to be able to ask Parliament for the power to extend access to the driver record into other areas, such as for the Hackney cab licensing authorities. Also, maybe—I stress “maybe”, because I do not want this to be in the headlines tomorrow—one day we will want to give insurance companies access to the record. That is a subject that, perhaps, we should debate.

I conclude by saying that I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that any claim for compensation would be looked at on its merits, and compensated appropriately.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

On behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen), I also welcome you to the Chair, Mrs. Anderson. Our deliberations so far been good natured and reasonable for the most part.

I did not intend to catch your eye on this amendment, Mrs. Anderson, because the power that the Secretary of State seeks to take to himself in subsection (2)(e) is not exceptional, but the hon. Member for Wimbledon was right to highlight the practice—increasingly common in the drafting of legislation—that when everyone who might be expected to require access to information has been listed, a general power is added to include anyone who might be thought of at a later date. That is a rather sloppy and lazy way of drafting and does not make good law, but it is depressingly common and not exceptional.

The Minister has persuaded me that the subject is a matter of rather greater import than I had realised. He raised the question of access by different people, and although it is not directly germane to the amendments, it is worth considering his example of insurance companies. I am exceptionally reluctant to allow insurance companies to have access to the DVLA database.

My experience of the DVLA is that it is not infallible and that when it makes mistakes it is exceptionally difficult to rectify them. I know from professional experience of dealing with driving offences that they are occasionally recorded wrongly—for example, they are recorded against someone who has never had a conviction, or the penalty or disposal is shown wrongly. In cases that I have dealt with, I have had to trawl through sheriff court records and obtain letters from sheriff clerks stating that there was no record of a disposal in respect of a particular person in a particular court on a particular date.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Were we to want to give access to insurance companies—I stress the words “were we”—it would be allowed only when someone had made an application for an insurance quotation and had told the insurance company that they had a certain number of points, whether nought, nine or whatever. If the insurance company checked the DVLA record and it aligned with what the customer had said, clearly no mistake could have been made. If the DVLA record differed from what the customer had said, clearly there would be a discussion and it would be known that either the individual had told a fib or the DVLA had made a mistake. It would be obvious to everyone that inquiries were needed one way or the other. The suggestion that someone could be damaged without knowing about it because insurance companies had access to the DVLA database is not accurate.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

If only life were so simple. I am afraid that the Minister has greater confidence and faith in insurance companies than I do. My expectation is that insurance would simply be refused and the practice of many insurance companies in such cases is simply not to enter into correspondence about the reasons for refusal. If the person seeking the insurance subsequently applied to another insurance company they would be required, if they were to be truthful, to say that they had applied for insurance with another insurance company and been refused. Suddenly their application would come under a different level of scrutiny, which could have implications for premiums and so on. Does the Minister really want to pursue the matter?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I do not want to get into a long debate about something that is only an idea that we might want to pursue, but I say again that the alternative is for people to continue in their current practice of wholesale lying to their insurance companies. That practice means that drivers like me, who have addressed their offending behaviour and now have a clean licence, are paying more than we ought to for drivers who are kidding the insurance companies.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

The Minister’s contrition is a model to us all. We have probably taken the question of insurance companies as far as it can go, but I am grateful to him for having raised that example. Such powers come with a strong health warning, and he has served the Committee well by giving us an example of how dangerous they can be.

My other point is perhaps a little more positive. Subsection (2) reads:

“The Secretary of State may make arrangements for the following persons to have access, by such means as the Secretary of State may determine, to information held on a person’s driving record”.

Might clerks of court, for example, be allowed direct access from their own computer terminals in the courts? I see the Minister nodding. That is exceptionally helpful. The time lost in court cases waiting for print-outs from the DVLA, whatever their quality when they eventually arrive, has been exceptionally costly. If we can circumvent that, it is certainly to be encouraged.

The point that interests me, however—perhaps the Minister will clarify it—is that the provision says

“by such means as the Secretary of State may determine”.

How is it envisaged that that would be done? Clearly a power is given to the Secretary of State, but it does not seem to be one that would require any further reference to Parliament. That ties in with the possibility under paragraph (e) of extending the list of people. I would have no difficulty with the Secretary of State being able to issue guidance to the DVLA allowing certain people access at their computers, but if the

“other persons prescribed in regulations”

under paragraph (e) were to be more broadly framed, I would certainly want some reference back to Parliament, not just on the list of people who would be allowed access but on the means by which they would be allowed access.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I shall give the hon. Gentleman the information that he seeks. How authorised persons might access the information could be determined routinely by the Secretary of State—he would simply issue an instruction on how it was to happen—but he would have to come back to Parliament to get permission on who would have access. Were he to come back to Parliament for permission for somebody not on the list, one of the questions that Parliament would ask would concern how they were to get that information. Although that would not necessarily be in the statutory instrument, I have no doubt that it would be something to which he would have to give a solid answer when the debate came to Parliament.

Mr. Henry Bellingham (North-West Norfolk) (Con) rose—

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

If the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) can contain himself for a second, I am sure that his remarks will be worth waiting for. I accept the Minister’s assurances and thank him for his assistance.

Henry Bellingham (Conservative, North West Norfolk)

I want to ask the Minister a couple of practical questions, because we have had quite a lot of theory this morning. In my constituency, we have recently seen a large increase in the number of overseas drivers. There is a large Portuguese community in and around Swaffham and Thetford in Norfolk, many of whom work in agriculture-related businesses such as food processing. A lot of growers in the area are using Portuguese labour. They are very welcome because they work extremely hard, and they are of course EU drivers.

Will the Minister elaborate on the Dutch case mentioned in the explanatory notes—the case that went to the European Court on the grounds of discrimination? The previous system operated on the basis that an EU driver stopped by the UK police showed their national licence, and there would be no legal counterpart on which an endorsement or points could be recorded, although there would be a court record of the offence. EU drivers are a great deal easier to track down because of reciprocal arrangements.

However, there is a large number of eastern European workers in Norfolk, who add a lot of value to the local economy. When the Prime Minister said that residents of accession countries would come to this country only in small numbers, he hugely underestimated what would happen. There are very many Latvian, Estonian and Polish workers in Norfolk, who are based mainly in the agricultural sector. They add a lot of value, they are welcome and they have integrated well into the community, and most of them are here only for a short time.

Unfortunately, however, there has been a number of incidents where drivers have been stopped by the police and where accidents have taken place from which the drivers have driven off. There have also been cases where the police have gone to the homes where these workers have been staying to try to track them down. When they co-operate, there is no problem, but I put it to the Minister that when they do not co-operate, the police have many problems.

By definition, we are talking about people in temporary jobs; they are part of a transient community which moves on the whole time, very often from one part of the local economy to another. I am not suggesting for one moment that they have not added a degree of vibrancy to the local economy, but there have been at least 10 cases where driving offences have been committed after which the police have tried to track people down and have failed to do so. Will the Minister tell us which provision in this set of clauses, which he has explained are part of a package, would assist in such cases?

If there is a legal counterpart, presumably it will be held at the DVLA. Let us say a Latvian driver is stopped for speeding. Under the current system, he must produce his licence to the police. He will receive not a fixed penalty notice but a court summons, and he must give his address. That process works only if he co-operates. Under the new system, presumably there will be no legal counterpart issued to him until an offence is committed. Is that correct? A legal counterpart will be issued to a non-EU driver only when an offence has been committed and he has gone to court—in other words, when something needs to be recorded. Perhaps the Minister would elaborate on that.

I know that the Norfolk constabulary is concerned about that problem, because there has been a growing number of cases involving young drivers from non-EU countries, who have been driving recklessly and dangerously and have committed driving offences. The police tell me that if those people refuse to co-operate, they are virtually powerless to do anything about it.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

All will become clear to the hon. Gentleman when we discuss the subsequent amendments, because they concern the power to tackle that problem. However, the subsequent amendments are dependent on these provisions, because without them the police cannot issue fixed penalty notices at all. If they could not issue them because someone did not have a counterpart driving licence, the subsequent amendments, which refer to the ability to take a deposit or immobilise someone’s vehicle if the police do not think the address is real, would not work.

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall answer most of his questions when we come to a later group of amendments, which I assure him will not work if we do not agree to these provisions.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

The Minister’s explanation was absolutely correct, although I suspect he may wish to address some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk under clause 10 as well. I am grateful to the Minister for giving us a useful introduction to this set of clauses. He will understand that I wish to explore clause 9, schedule 2 and clause 10 in a little more depth.

I am afraid I do not share the confidence of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) that we have finished with insurance for the day. I suspect that this afternoon, under clause 21, we shall detain ourselves for rather longer than we have on this clause. A forerunner of that is the Minister’s statement that people knowingly try to kid insurance companies. Indeed, a large number of people do, but a large number of people have genuine slips of the mind as well, and I am sure we will want to explore that point under clause 21. However, I am grateful to the Minister for his helpful and useful clarifications in respect of my amendments. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 9 - Unlicensed and foreign drivers

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I do not want to detain the Committee too long on this part of the Bill. As with clause 8, we support entirely the thrust of the Government’s purpose. However, as I have not had the opportunity before, I wish to explore three items with the Minister.

Throughout subsection (3) there is continual reference to “particulars”. Could the Minister clarify exactly what they are? I assume that they are about the nature of the fine, custodial sentence or courses attended, as the subsection already refers to fixed penalty points. Particulars are something extra, and I would like to hear what the Minister has to say about them.

I understand that the intent of the clause is that non-holders of UK licences can get an endorsement on their record. Is the intent also that UK citizens who are unlicensed and who have driven without a licence should get an endorsement on their record prior to getting a licence, or will the fixed penalty notice be only a fine for such individuals?

Finally, proposed new section 57A refers to a sum being paid to the fixed penalty clerk and the fixed penalty clerk sending notice to the Secretary of State about the endorsement. What happens if an unlicensed individual does not pay? Am I right in thinking that those circumstances will be caught by clause 11, which deals with deposits, or will a separate prosecution be necessary? There is also reference to payments within the suspended enforcement period, but I would like to know what will happen at the end of it. Will there be an increase in the fixed penalty notice and, possibly, punishment? If the Minister clarified those points, I am sure that we could move on swiftly.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I shall do my best to clarify those points. Clause 9 is about unlicensed and foreign drivers. Proposed new section 57A in the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 describes the process for endorsing driving records that might be needed in the future. If the driver has requested a hearing, the driving record cannot be endorsed, but if a payment has been made, the fixed penalty clerk must inform the Secretary of State—in practice, the DVLA—of the details to be endorsed on the driving record, including the particulars of the offence, the date it was committed and the number of penalty points attributed. In cases where payment has not been made by the end of the suspended enforcement period, the fixed penalty clerk will forward the endorsement details to the Secretary of State.

These clauses came about as a result of the situation alluded to by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk. A Dutch citizen committed an offence that, for a British driver, would have been an opportunity for a fixed penalty notice, but she could not be issued with a fixed penalty notice because she did not have a counterpart. She had to go to court, where the potential fine was much greater and, in addition, she had court costs. She argued correctly that she was being discriminated against because, had she been a British citizen, she would not have had to go through that procedure. This group of clauses is intended to rectify that situation and allow people who for good reason do not have a counterpart to their licence to be treated in the same way as British citizens. I hope that that is sufficient explanation for the hon. Gentleman.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

That certainly addresses the point I was trying to reach with my third group of points about proposed new section 57A. I understand that clause 11 will be helpful, as it will enable the taking of the fixed penalty deposit. It will cover that circumstance, and I just wanted to clarify as much.

The Minister has not clarified—I am sure he will do so quickly—the provision in proposed new section 44A, which states:

“endorsement of a person’s driving record with any particulars or penalty points”.

Will he confirm that the particulars are fines, custodial sentences, anything that the magistrate or court might say and any courses attended as reparation for or for making good someone’s driving habit? Is that what particulars means?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Broadly speaking, the hon. Gentleman is right. Particulars refers to the offence code, fixed penalty fine, the date of the offence and any penalty points issued.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I rise to ask the Minister how he envisages the system working for someone who is from overseas and refuses to co-operate with the police, as in the case described by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk. If that person were a multiple or—if I may put it this way—serial fixed penalty receiver, and he received a ticket and continued to commit offences, would there be a mechanism to deal with them? There must come a point when the driving record is such that the police want to consider further action. How does the Minister see the system working in the case of someone who will not co-operate, may not have much use of English, and may give an address which is a caravan moving around Norfolk?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

There are two answers: one answer is in the Bill, and we shall come to it when we discuss under clause 11 the ability to take deposits and to immobilise vehicles if we do not think that somebody has a suitable address. The other answer—this is where my officials might start to panic, because I am going to lapse into areas of legislation and European directives that are not directly part of the Bill—is in the second EU driving licence directive. It puts in place a mechanism whereby EU countries will recognise the penalty points, endorsements and licences of each other’s country.

The right hon. Gentleman will forgive me for speaking from memory, but I think that the directive does not come into force until every member state has ratified it, and currently only three have done so. It provides for bilateral agreements between member states to try to deal with the situation. So far, we have entered into a bilateral arrangement with the Irish Government to recognise each other’s driving licences. If somebody loses their licence in the UK, they will not be able to return to Ireland to get another one; likewise, if somebody loses their licence in Ireland, they need not think that they can come to the UK to get a licence.

The arrangement has been complex, because Ireland’s totting up system is different from ours and much negotiation is required to reach synergy in two different legal systems. It is complicated and it takes a long time. Given that it will take even longer—almost glacial periods—to get EU-wide agreement to all those arrangements, we must do the best that we can in the meantime. This set of clauses and clause 11, which provide powers to take deposits, immobilise vehicles and change our arrangements so that the counterpart licence is not necessary to access our fixed penalty point system, are the best that we can do in the meantime.

I freely acknowledge that a thorough EU-wide system of checking each other’s driving records and licences with synergy of our legal systems would be better, but it will be a long time coming.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

May I ask the Minister for further clarification on two points that I mentioned earlier? First, am I right that the clause does not deal with unlicensed UK citizens, but with only unlicensed foreign citizens? Secondly, at the moment, if one receives a parking fine, it is a fixed penalty fine and not endorsable. If one pays within a certain amount of time, one pays a certain amount, after which the amount is increased. There are continual references in the clause to payments within the suspended period. Is it intended that someone who makes a payment after the suspended period—either because they knowingly decide to, or because it slips their mind—will be covered by the deposit that has already been taken? If not, is there an increase in the amount that would be paid?

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I am grateful for the Minister’s answer to my earlier question. He mentioned the European directive. As recently as last year there was a view in Europe that a new driving licence directive should require all member states to issue short-term licences for, say, five years, with regular eye and health checks when licences came up for renewal. That runs contrary to our system, in which licences are generally issued until the driver reaches retirement age. Will the Minister confirm that the Government’s view is the same as it was18 months ago—that that proposal should be resisted?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I can certainly confirm that we would resist that. The third European driving licence directive will be discussed at the Transport Council in Brussels on Monday, which I shall attend on behalf of the Government. There are no such recommendations in that directive. I suspect that it will be adopted by the Council on Monday, although the Government are resisting parts. Not for the first time, however, we stand alone, and therefore it will be adopted. Nevertheless, I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the third driving licence directive does not include the sort of measure to which he refers. It may be an ambition of some Eurocrat for the fourth or fifth directive, but that is a battle for the far distant future.

On the question raised by the hon. Member for Wimbledon, my understanding is that if the fine is not paid within a specified period it can be recorded as an outstanding debt. One would hope, though—subject to the Committee’s agreement to the clauses following this group—that we will not get into that situation. I hope that, if a policeman is not convinced that an individual is contactable and has a proper address, the vehicle will be clamped at the road-side until such time as that person has been to the cash machine and returned with some money. The situation that the hon. Gentleman mentions might arise if such drivers were caught by a speed camera, and the police were not dealing with the individual at the time. In those circumstances, the debt would be recorded and efforts would be made to recover it later.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

The Minister has been helpful on several issues that we wished to probe.

Schedule 2 - Endorsement: unlicensed and foreign drivers

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I understand that clause 9 will enact schedule 2. There has been much clarification from the Minister, for which I am grateful, but I have just a couple of questions. Paragraph 6 of the schedule relates to people who will be disqualified if they have a fixed penalty notice served on them. Am I right in thinking that in all circumstances they would then be referred to the court and that there is no situation in which they could accept the fixed penalty notice, be disqualified and have their 12-month ban start then? Am I right in thinking that, in all circumstances, if people are served with a fixed penalty notice that takes them to 12 points under the totting up system, they would have to go to court?

Secondly, under proposed new section 84A, I should like to be reassured that the

“particulars as the Secretary of State may determine”

are exactly those about which we sought reassurance in the stand part debate. Does the Minister anticipate any circumstances where those particulars might differ under this schedule?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I hope that I have understood the hon. Gentleman’s query correctly. The clause allows the police the same powers to check the driving record, when the record is the DVLA database, as they currently have to check the driving record from the counterpart. The schedule will remove all references to “counterpart” in existing legislation, because that will no longer be a legal necessity.

Incidentally, in my experience, when people receive a new driving licence—a plastic card and a counterpart—they almost always say, “Why do we have both things?” The answer in future, once the Bill is enacted, will be, “You don’t need both any more. The only thing that you will ever need to show a policeman is the little plastic card that comes with your driving licence. Anything else that the DVLA chooses to send with your licence will simply be a convenience and will have no legal standing.” That is the purpose of the schedule.

I understand that the officer will check the driving record first, and if a fixed penalty would lead to disqualification, the case will be referred to court. That is the same as the present situation. The hon. Gentleman has not had the experience, as my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Glasgow, South and I have had, of the police writing to us, saying that they caught us on their camera and that we have the opportunity to accept a fixed penalty or go to court and argue the case. If people decide to accept the fixed penalty, they send their licence and counterpart to the police so that the driving record can be checked. If the police see that a person has nine points, they do not issue a fixed penalty, but say that they have to go direct to court. In future, they will not need to do that; when the police write and tell them they have the fine and they reply, saying that they will take the fixed penalty rather than go to court, the police will just check the DVLA record, which will be the real driver’s record, so people will not need to send their licence to the police any more. That is the essential difference. However, people who have totted up sufficient points so that the next points that they receive mean a ban will still have to go to court and answer the case.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

Presumably, this change will not lead to any change in the practice in the courts. At present, once the points on a driver’s licence have expired, he can send it away for no other reason than to have them removed and a clean counterpart issued. Will the Minister confirm that when the courts are dealing with a defendant under the new system, although the clerk of the court will have access to the driving record, he will still be under a duty not to refer to points that are spent?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

That is correct. As I said earlier, although I have addressed my offending behaviour and now have a clean licence, my counterpart still has a record of my endorsements, which are now four years old. Although endorsements last only for three years, a person cannot apply for a clean licence for four years in case they appear in court between the third and fourth years, at which time the court would need to be able to look back to see that they had committed their fourth offence during the three years when they had nine points. After four years, the person can send the counterpart back, and they will be sent a clean piece of paper. That is what I intend to do in the very near future. Under the new arrangements, the convictions will simply be expunged automatically from the computer record when they are four years old, so the courts will have no knowledge of them if they look at the database.

Let us say that the courts looked at the database because a person happened to be in court for a fourth offence. The previous three offences were committed within three years, but the fourth was committed outside those three years. That could not lead to the person being disqualified; clearly, they would not have enough points to be disqualified if the latter offence was committed outside the three years. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman understands what I mean. Basically, the answer to his question is yes, the provision does not change current practice; it just changes how it will be administered.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I understand the Minister perfectly. I am well aware of why points stay on for four years: it is because the totting-up system runs from the date of conviction to the date of offence, and one could then appear in court in the fourth year, but for an offence committed in year three. I understand that. But when the Minister says “expunged”, does he mean expunged? I am thinking back to an earlier debate. If an insurance company had access to the record, it would not be right and proper if it could identify spent convictions that, although not referred to in court, were still on the record.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

The convictions are expunged. I asked that very question of my colleagues in the DVLA yesterday, with all the cynicism of a former computer systems designer who knows how lazy software and database designers are, and who knows their willingness to leave information on the record just in case it might be needed in future. I checked that specific point and was assured that the convictions are deleted. They are not available to anybody after they are spent.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

My apologies, Mrs. Anderson; I had to leave the room briefly, and I am not sure whether the Minister is speaking or being intervened on. I am curious about this business. I can see the force of what the Minister says in relation to fixed penalties that come from outwith the court system, but not all penalty points are imposed in that way. A lot are imposed through courts. Surely they cannot just be removed from the driver record. Having that information available must be relevant to the court’s considerations.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I am equally confused as to whether I am making a statement or being intervened on, but as long as Mrs. Anderson is happy, I am happy.

I will check on the hon. Gentleman’s point. Clearly, if the court has imposed a sentence, it may have a record of it, but my understanding is that, as far as the driver record is concerned, the DVLA deletes any points that may exist on a driving licence. However, I will certainly check that for the hon. Gentleman.

Clause 10 - All drivers

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

The Minister referred to this set of clauses as a whole in his opening remarks on the amendments tackled under clause 8, but I want to pick him up on one or two things that he said then, because I understand that they should rightly be dealt with under clause 10.

The clause introduces the new system of endorsement that we have talked so much about this morning. It is based on the inspection of the driving record rather than the counterpart. As I understand the clause, and as the Minister has made clear, the counterpart is currently a legal document, but will cease to exist as one. In attempting to clarify what will happen for their lordships, the Government spokesman in the other place said:

“in place of the counterpart ... there will be a document containing information useful to a driver”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 June 2005; Vol. 673, c. 62.]

Is the counterpart being replaced, and if so, exactly what is replacing it? Am I right in thinking that whatever replaces it will not be a legal document? Exactly what information will be held on it? We have touched on the way in which it will be updated and changed, but some questions remain open about exactly how the system will work, and I am keen to hear the answers. Will there be a replacement to the counterpart for every driver and how will the driver be notified of the changes? How will the driver be able to correct the information, if it is erroneous, on the record or on the non-legal document that is given to him? Under the present system, all of that is relatively obvious, but it is not clear how it will work under the new system. If there is a document or record for each driver, will there be electronic access to it? From what the Minister said, there clearly will be, so we will need to debate potential misuse.

On Tuesday night we tackled a number of amendments on the clause, and the misgivings that we had then have not receded. In spite of the Minister’s assurances, we remain extremely concerned about the extension of Vehicle and Operator Services Agency examiners’ powers. Is it necessary? There is little evidence that VOSA examiners have had training to the standard of the police laid down in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 on the rules of evidence or the necessary contemporaneous notes. As we said, we believe that VOSA examiners should be able to stop a vehicle and prevent it from driving on the roads, but we are reluctant to accept the Minister’s reasons for changing the status quo.

Let us say that it is a dark night and someone out there in overalls is trying to flag down a vehicle, which has a lady driver. If somebody steps out into the middle of the road and tries to flag her down, she will not recognise them as officialdom or authority and may understandably be cautious about stopping. In those circumstances, I would be too. Under the current system, vehicles are usually flagged down by the police. They are then inspected by VOSA examiners, who do their job and are accredited, as the Minister said, under his regulations. The police then issue, or not, the fixed penalty notice.

I ask the Minister to reconsider what he said about how it would pervert the clause and his purpose if VOSA examiners could not issue fixed penalty points. Opposition Members accept their power to stop a vehicle and prevent it from moving on, but we remain extremely uneasy about extending their powers. I ask the Minister to think again about that, and I should be grateful for any reassurance that he can give on my questions about the replacement document.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I shall deal first with the replacement document. The hon. Gentleman is right: if the Bill is passed, the counterpart will have no legal standing. In theory, therefore, when the DVLA sends an individual a driving licence, it could send simply the piece of plastic in an envelope, with nothing else in it. Clearly it would not be good business practice to send a piece of plastic with no explanation of what it was or how it was to be used. We would need to send people a holder for it, it needs to be held in the envelope and it needs some explanatory material. That explanatory material will have no legal standing. However, we will ensure that, in essence, it is the same information as that currently carried on the counterpart, so the individual will know what categories of vehicle they are entitled to drive, when they reach the age when the licence must be renewed and what endorsements are on the licence.

The endorsements will not be marked on the piece of plastic: they will be held on a computer somewhere else. Therefore, when the police want to check the endorsements, they will have to use the piece of plastic to obtain the information that they need to access the remote database. It is important that people have a piece of paper that says what their endorsements are. Whenever they get new ones and the driving record is changed, we will ensure that we write to tell them that that has happened.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I think I understood the Minister correctly. We were talking about the piece of plastic that we will all have. Is it now the Government’s intention that it will be necessary for someone to have it with them when driving?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

No more than it is currently the practice that we require people to have their driving licence with them when driving. Some people do and some do not. The police will be able to require people to present it to them at some point in the future. However, my personal view is that people would be best advised to keep it with them when driving, because as they will not have to have the counterpart with it, it will be a much more convenient document. It will help to facilitate the police’s work should they ever need to see it. It will also mean that the police do not think that someone is the sort of person who might not have a fixed address. They might be inclined to want a deposit from someone or to immobilise their car if for some reason they suspected that that person was not all that they said they were. It would be helpful for people to have the card with them, but we will not make that compulsory, and have no intention to do so, any more than it is currently compulsory to carry one’s driving licence.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

Will the driver have the right, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or any other Act, to look at his record? He might take the view that the explanatory piece of paper, which has no legal standing, might not be compatible with his record. He might want to verify that the DVLA is keeping an accurate record of what points are recorded against him. Will it be possible for a motorist to request to see the original record held on him?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I might be about to get myself into trouble, because I am unsure whether I have announced this publicly and told Parliament about it in the proper way. The Department for Transport and the DVLA are keen for there to be electronic access to all records.

The right hon. Gentleman will doubtless have renewed his car tax many times—11 times, I think, in his particular case. I hope that some of the vehicles he has to renew the tax on in the future will benefit from the Budget. I suspect most of them will not, but never mind. He can now renew his car tax online for vehicles that are less than three years old. I realise that many of his vehicles are heritage vehicles and therefore he will not be able to do that until they have a valid MOT. By the end of this financial year—this month—every MOT centre will be computerised and the MOTs will also be online. Soon, everyone will be able to renew their car tax online without ever going to a post office or touching a piece of paper.

We intend that people should also be able to amend and deal with their driving records in exactly the same way. I have asked questions of my officials about security arrangements. I need to convince myself that only the individual who holds the driving licence will be able to get electronic access to their driving record. Once I am convinced about that, that is what we intend to do. Everyone will be able to see their driving record and their endorsements online, just as they can see their vehicle details online. I hope that answers the right hon. Gentleman’s question.

Let us move on to VOSA. Before I address the points made by the hon. Member for Wimbledon, may I say something to the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire? On Tuesday, I think he used the expression “swinish followers”. It was entirely jocular and we all took it as good natured. However, there was a spokesman from VOSA in the gallery listening to his comments. The organisation is entirely professional and would not take umbrage to that comment in any way, shape or form. However, if I were him, I would make sure that all my 15 vehicles were thoroughly roadworthy

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I was not seeking to be gratuitously offensive. A person might be an ace vehicle examiner who knows the construction and use regulations backwards, but he may be swinishly ignorant of the rules of evidence. He may not have the expertise of a police officer when dealing with a member of the public. I hope that I never have first-hand experience of knowing whether that is true.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I am sure that most members of the Committee understood what the right hon. Gentleman was getting at. If examiners are now checking the roads of East Yorkshire for heritage Bentleys more assiduously than previously, I am sure that it has nothing to do with his comments.

I say to the right hon. Gentleman and to the hon. Member for Wimbledon that such people are trained in the rules of evidence. They have to collect the evidence and use the same procedures to take something through the legal system—to issue fixed penalties or go through the court—as the police. I have no reason to believe that their training is any one wit less than that given to a police officer. They are excellent vehicle examiners and excellently trained in the procedures necessary to gather evidence and issue penalty notices. They use high-visibility Ford Galaxy vans with automatic number plate reading equipment, light-bars and variable messaging facilities to carry out mobile stopping exercises. They are uniformed, police trained and accredited. Frankly, I do not know what more I can do to give hon. Members the reassurance that they seek, other than to say that I am personally absolutely satisfied that there is no question but that they have received the appropriate training needed to do the job thoroughly and professionally, and with every bit the same level of accuracy as the police.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I thank the Minister for his comments. We shall give the matter further thought. As we said on Tuesday, we may wish to re-examine it on Report.

Clause 11 - Financial penalty deposits

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I beg to move amendment No. 49, in clause 11, page 9, line 26, at end insert—

‘(c)that the motor vehicle is not registered in the United Kingdom, and

(d)that the person is not resident at an address in the United Kingdom or an address in the United Kingdom at which the constable considers it likely that it will be possible to find the person.’.

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 50, in clause 11, page 9, line 33, leave out subsection (4).

No. 51, in clause 11, page 10, line 7, leave out from ‘in’ to ‘and’ and insert

‘cash, bank-backed funds, debit card, credit card or cleared cheque’.

No. 52, in clause 11, page 10, line 11, leave out

‘in an order made by the Secretary of State’

and insert

‘up to a maximum of £2,500’.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

We are fully with the Government on the clause. It is right and goes to the heart of the current problem that my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk described, when occasionally serial offenders or offenders who are stopped in the United Kingdom are either issued with fixed penalty notices or fines and do not pay them, or indeed are from overseas and do not pay them.

The amendments would first place criteria under proposed section 90A(2) to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 that examiners must have reason to believe are true. That would give them more latitude than the Government have done. The provision is aimed not only at those from overseas who do not wish to comply with our laws, but at the group to which my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) referred in his remarks on clause 1—individuals who seek continually to flout the motoring laws of our country, causing much danger to other people on the roads.

There is a small group of persistent and continual offenders. We want to help the Government and to make sure that the Bill attacks those people. Proposed paragraph (c) to section 90A(2) to the 1988 Act states:

“the motor vehicle is not registered in the United Kingdom”.

That would cover not only foreign vehicles that may be flouting the law, but the huge number of people, representing up to 5 per cent. of the vehicles on our roads, who drive cars without a licence. It should be clear that such people can be caught. We think that the amendment would clarify what I think is the intention of paragraph (a).

The amendment would move much of what is in proposed subsection (4) into our new subsection (2)(d) to cover not only overseas offenders, but UK citizens who have been persistently problematic, as they are either not resident at the address they have given or not there when the police call. It would give the police far greater power to attack that group of consistent and persistent offenders. I hope that the Government recognise the intention of the amendment: to give the police greater powers to impose fixed penalty notices on such offenders.

Henry Bellingham (Conservative, North West Norfolk)

My hon. Friend is explaining the amendments extremely well. One of the challenges is that many such foreign drivers live in houses of multiple occupation or hostels. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire pointed out, they sometimes live in caravans. They can be here for a very short period and they will be on the move the whole time. It is difficult to pin them down, which is why it is so important to toughen the clause up.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend; that is exactly the purpose of the amendment.

Amendment No. 50 is merely consequential on amendment No. 49, so I shall turn to our other amendments. We could have a long discussion about the payment of the appropriate amount to the Secretary of State, and the words

“in a manner specified in an order made by him”.

As I said, we see no reason why some detail on that could not be put into the Bill. The offence is serious, and the Government ought to have the opportunity to take a proper deposit that would cover a number of circumstances. A maximum of £2,500 would do that.

We could clarify the means through which the Government took the money. They could take cash—cash is what it is, unless it is counterfeit; we shall assume that it would not be. They could take bank-backed funds, making it perfectly possible for a visitor from overseas to present a traveller’s cheque or show a bank-accredited deposit note. Equally, it would be possible to use a debit or credit card, which will be relatively instantaneous; the Government could be sure of getting the funds. They could also receive a cleared UK cheque.

The Secretary of State would wish to take the payment of the appropriate amount by those methods, so we see no reason why the Minister should be uncertain about whether they should be in the Bill. I look forward to hearing from him about the other methods through which he would wish the deposit to be taken, and to his argument—or not—on why we should leave the maximum, which we suggest should be £2,500, to be decided by secondary legislation.

Road Safety Bill [Lords] - Standing Committee A

Clause 11 - Financial penalty deposits

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

I remind hon. Members that with this we are discussing the following amendments: No. 50, in clause 11, page 9, line 33, leave out subsection (4).

No. 51, in clause 11, page 10, line 7, leave out from ‘in’ to ‘and’ and insert

‘cash, bank-backed funds, debit card, credit card or cleared cheque’.

No. 52, in clause 11, page 10, line 11, leave out

‘in an order made by the Secretary of State’

and insert

‘up to a maximum of £2,500’.’

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

To conclude my earlier remarks, I ask the Minister again why the deposit figure cannot be included in the Bill. If the amount of deposit we are talking about differs from the figure that I have proposed, will he give us a clear explanation why?

Lee Scott (Conservative, Ilford North)

We were talking about foreign cars in Britain. In my constituency there are many vehicles belonging to builders who come to England with no abode here whatsoever. It would be impossible for the police authorities to find them. A deposit and fine as proposed in the amendment would therefore be beneficial. The owners of such vehicles are not usually citizens of European Union states, so they are difficult to find, and I would be doubtful about the viability of the vehicles on our roads in the first place. I hope that the Minister can answer that.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I shall be brief, because my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) has given us a good introduction to the amendments. I want to chip in to support them.

The Minister kindly gave me a written reply in January that showed a spectacular increase in the number of foreign registered vehicles coming to this country. The number has gone from 671,000 in 1997 up to 1,595,000 in 2004. That highlights some of the problems that my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) mentioned.

We wholeheartedly welcome what the Government are trying to do in the clause, although I believe that our amendments would beef it up. It is worth pointing out that the Freight Transport Association also welcomes the moves to fine foreign lorry drivers. It has sent me a memo saying that

“it is not possible to give foreign drivers an endorseable fixed penalty notice and when they are summonsed or issued with a non-endorseable fixed penalty notice, there is no mechanism to ensure that they do not evade punishment by leaving the country.”

The matter has been brought to my attention several times by hauliers in this country, who feel that there is inequity. They feel particularly strongly about regulation, and I wonder whether the Minister could deal with that point. There is a feeling that our haulage industry is better regulated, and that our vehicles are better maintained and more money is spent on them. It may be anecdotal, but there is a gut feeling among our hauliers that the foreign trucks coming into the country are less well maintained. I hope that what we are trying to do today will give the authorities the ability to stop trucks that may not be as well maintained as our domestic fleet.

Generally we support the clause, although I also support our amendments.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

We also welcome the Government’s proposals. We agree about the seemingly innocuous way in which foreign lorry drivers have so far been able to evade the normal penalties faced by our truck drivers. We have no problem with the amendment, as it seems to tidy up and make more explicit what the Government seek to do. I hope that the Minister will accept it.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Before I speak to the Opposition amendments, I have an offer to make to Opposition Members that I hope will provide them with some of the reassurance that they sought earlier—in particular, for the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight), if he is brave enough to take the offer up. The Vehicle and Operator Services Agency has kindly agreed to take members of the Committee out with it to give them a practical demonstration of how it operates, its training standards and its swinish qualities. [Laughter.] The right hon. Gentleman may have an enjoyable afternoon with the agency if he wishes to take up that offer. I hope that that reassures Opposition Members.

The purpose of the clause is quite clear. Some people who cannot be issued with a penalty notice simply do not answer their summons. Others do not have a proper address. People from abroad sometimes ignore the penalty notice; they go home and do not pay the fine. That must stop, and we are determined to ensure that it does so. That is why we want to take a deposit from people who the police have reasonable grounds to believe do not have a fixed UK address. Under the amendment, that could happen only to people who are driving a registered foreign vehicle, but such provision would not deal with people from abroad who are driving a hired vehicle and who would be just as likely to abscond without paying their fine. That is why we feel that the clause should be passed as it stands.

The hon. Member for Wimbledon also asked for details such as the size of any deposit to be stated in the Bill. The idea is that the deposit would be the same as the fine or the fixed penalty. The intention is not merely to ask for a particular sum and then refund people any surplus. The police officer or whoever is taking the deposit will make a judgment as to what the appropriate penalty notice or fine is and take that amount. Clearly if the person involved decides to challenge the accusation and is subsequently found to be innocent they will get their money back. There is no question about that, but the idea is that the officer would take as a deposit the money that would otherwise be paid as a fine.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

The Minister may be clarifying the point that I wanted to raise. Let us assume that the decision is challenged in the court or that the offender is someone whose offences tot up to 12 points, and the court imposes a higher sum than the fixed penalty notice. In such cases, would not the police officer potentially want to take a larger deposit?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I would hope that ultimately the police will be able to inspect the driver record, which the Committee is happily agreed now will be the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency database. At the point of having the discussion with the motorist, the police will have access to that information and know that the individual has numerous endorsable offences and that the case should automatically go to court.

At present, whatever an individual from abroad has done, he can simply go home and ignore the fine. By introducing a deposit system, we are at least putting in place measures to ensure that people must face the consequences of their actions and pay the fine that is likely to be allocated. Specifying the fine in the Bill would not be appropriate. We are not just talking about speeding tickets. As the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) pointed out, we are also talking about heavy goods vehicles and lorries.

I do not claim that Britain does everything better than everyone else and that foreign vehicles are automatically less well maintained. That is not true. Many foreign vehicles come into this country that are run by perfectly reputable companies and maintained to the highest standards possible. Equally there are some that are not maintained to those high standards, and also some British lorry drivers do not maintain their vehicles to the high standard that we would want.

We have to enforce the rules of roadworthiness with an even hand, irrespective of whose vehicle we are looking at. At the moment we cannot do that, because we know that the only people who will have to pay their fines if they are driving with an unroadworthy vehicle are British hauliers. We are simply creating a system in which people who come from abroad who have not met the standards that we require for our roads will have to pay their fines and deal with the problem.

Henry Bellingham (Conservative, North West Norfolk)

We have dealt with fines and deposits, but what about persistent offenders who get so many points that if they had a UK licence, they would lose it? How do we take some of those persistent offenders off the road? The Minister mentioned that the records will now be with the DVLA, but how will the police know how many previous offences a driver has?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Is the hon. Gentleman referring to drivers from abroad?

Henry Bellingham (Conservative, North West Norfolk)

Yes.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

That comes back to the point that I made earlier to the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire: ultimately, the only way to deal with that problem is for countries to recognise each other’s legal systems and driving licences. Incidentally, I understand that although the thrust of my explanation on that subject earlier was accurate, I may have misled the Committee about which directive was involved. I intend to write to the Committee to clarify that, but the point that I was making is valid.

We need to move to a system in which every country in the EU can access information about drivers in another country, and we need to recognise one another’s driving licences. We need to bring into play a system in which totting-up arrangements and the legal systems of each country are understood, so that we can make sure that penalties and endorsements gained in one country are recognised in another. There is no short-term answer to the problem, I am afraid. It is going to take a very long time. We have to deal as best we can with the immediate problem that we in this country face, and the clause helps us to do that, particularly together with the amendments that we shall soon discuss.

Henry Bellingham (Conservative, North West Norfolk)

I am grateful to the Minister. He has answered the point; the Government are trying to make progress, but obviously it will be difficult to deal with those overseas drivers. What happens if a driver from one of the accession countries—say, Poland, Estonia or Slovenia—commits a very serious offence, such as drunken driving, and the court wants to take him off the road? The Minister has discussed the dimension of fines, deposits and even impounding the vehicle—we will come to that later—but if the court actually wants to take the driver off the road, how does it ensure that that happens, and that a Polish driver working in my constituency does not just borrow a car from a friend and go on driving?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I may have to write to the hon. Gentleman to clarify how that would happen. Frankly, under the present arrangements, in which there is no mutual recognition of one another’s driving licences, it would probably be possible for such an individual to continue driving on a driving licence issued in another country. That is certainly a very important factor, and we need to move towards regulating for such situations. That is not what the clause is about, but I give the hon. Gentleman my assurance that I am very worried about the problem. I am keen to push forward on that with EU colleagues.

I now come to the final part of the answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Wimbledon. If a policeman believes that an offence is serious enough to go to court, where a higher fine could be imposed than the deposit, then the deposit that he will ask for will be commensurate with the higher potential fine. So if the individual answers the summons and goes to court and the court imposes a lower fine, clearly we will have to give that individual some of the money back. If the individual does not answer the summons, or if he did and the court imposes a higher fine, we will already have the money in place to be able to deal with the situation.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

Will the Minister say something about amendment No. 51 and how he envisages payment being made? When the system is up and running, will a person who is asked for a deposit and who may be anxious to complete his journey but does not have sufficient cash be able to offer a credit or debit card to pay the deposit? Will the vehicle examiner have one of the mobile machines that are now coming on the market on which they can dial up the credit card company to ascertain that the money is there and that the transfer can be made?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

That is exactly why we want the clause to stand part as it is, without the amendment. We want to be able to prescribe how money can be paid, and we will make that decision according to what is most practical. We may want to start off with cash payments only and, when it becomes possible, move to using mobile credit card collection systems. We may want vehicle inspectors and the police to carry credit card devices with them straight away. We want an opportunity to be able to prescribe by order how the money is paid, and we do not want to be restricted to something that is in the Bill, as suggested by the amendment, which I presume is a probing amendment.

Finally, if a driver from abroad were found to be committing a serious offence such as being drunk in charge of a vehicle and taken to a court in this country, the court would, of course, disqualify him. However, as we do not have mutual recognition of driving licences, he could presumably go home to his own country and carry on driving. The only two EU countries where that will not happen in the future are the United Kingdom and Ireland, which have signed an accord to move towards mutual recognition of disqualification. The sooner we sign similar agreements with the other 23 partner states, the better.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation and for some of his responses on our amendments. I understand why he wishes us not to proceed, and I look forward to learning how he will expand on the methods of payment in particular. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I beg to move amendment No. 3, in clause 11, page 12, line 44, at end insert—

‘(8)Schedule (Prohibition on driving: immobilisation, removal and disposal of vehicles) to the Road Safety Act 2006 makes provision about the immobilisation of vehicles the driving of which has been prohibited under this section and about their removal and disposal.’.

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government amendment No. 4.

Government amendment No. 11.

Government new clause 4—Prohibition on driving: immobilisation, removal and disposal of vehicles.

Government new schedule 1—Prohibition on driving: immobilisation, removal and disposal of vehicles.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

When we originally published the Bill, it included the deposit scheme, as we just discussed, but in consulting on how to move forward, many people asked what we would do if the person refused to pay the deposit. Usually, such a person would be from abroad, possibly driving a foreign vehicle, and they may be on their way out of the country. If they refused to pay the deposit in the knowledge that they would not be coming back here, got back into their vehicle and left the country, how would we make them pay it? It was at that point that we decided we had to go further than we originally proposed, so we introduced these changes to the clause to allow the police and others to immobilise a vehicle if for some reason the individual is unable to pay the deposit or is for some reason resistant to paying it.

The offences where immobilisation is appropriate are those where there would be a prohibition on moving the vehicle, such as with an offence of driving an unroadworthy vehicle. The vehicle should not be moved if a policeman has decided that it is unroadworthy. In such a case, we would clearly want to immobilise it. However, if a vehicle were stopped for any other offence, the police asked for a deposit and it was not paid, immobilisation would also be appropriate.

The amendments are relatively straightforward, and I hope that they will have the support of the whole Committee. We have all agreed that the deposit system is an important step forward in enforcing our road rules; the amendments are essential to make it practical and ensure that it can be enforced.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

The Minister is right; the amendments will enable the practical implementation of what we all agree should happen.

The Minister spoke about a number of cases of immobilisation, and I should like to be clear on one point: is it the intention that every vehicle stopped should be immobilised until the deposit is paid? My wife always complains that I never have any cash in my wallet, so if payment could be made only in cash, would I—or, say, my foreign cousin—have to get out of the car and walk to a cash machine, or would we be allowed to drive there?

Will every car be immobilised until the driver has physically paid the money to the constable, the VOSA examiner or whoever, or are we saying that we think certain people would refuse to pay? Like the Minister this morning, I could be cynical and think that some people would promise to pay, drive off supposedly to get the money, but not pay.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

The deposit arrangements would bite only if the officer believed that he might not be able to enforce a fixed penalty or fine in the normal way. As a reputable character with an address, the hon. Gentleman would not be expected to pay the deposit. However, his foreign cousin, who might not have a UK address or be able to give the reassurances, might have to pay it.

I envisage that the police will have discretion in how they handle such matters. If an individual just wanted to go around the corner and take money from the cash machine, the policeman might sit in the car, rather than immobilise it, until they had done so. Equally, if the vehicle was unroadworthy because of a bald tyre, the policeman might think it appropriate, before the driver was allowed to move on, to escort the vehicle around the corner to Kwik-Fit for the tyre to be replaced. So a little discretion will be needed, but immobilising vehicles for all such offences would be a possibility.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

On new schedule 1, will the Minister explain the circumstances in which he envisages that a disabled person will be exempt? If someone drives an unroadworthy vehicle, it should not matter whether they have a disabled badge; their vehicle should be immobilised until the defect is put right.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

It is also fair to say that in certain circumstances a person who lived here and was driving a UK-registered vehicle might be stopped and required to pay a deposit. I am thinking of an itinerant family towing a caravan in a car that is in a dreadful state and whose road tax is out of date. In such circumstances, those people, although British, should be made to pay a deposit. Otherwise, we all know what would happen—they would disappear into the ether.

I want to ask the Minister a couple of questions about the new schedule. On the point made by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen), I presume that the regulations will refer to a valid disabled person’s badge being used by the person to whom it was issued, not merely to a badge on display that was not valid for that particular person. We are considering disabled people. I can understand circumstances in which the person is so severely disabled that if the vehicle were immobilised, that person would also be immobilised.

My main point concerns the removal and disposal of vehicles. The provision is rather vague. There may be nothing sinister about it, but paragraph 4(4) states:

“The regulations may provide that the person into whose custody the vehicle is delivered may dispose of it, and may in particular make provision as to—

(a) the time at which the vehicle may be disposed of, and

(b) the manner in which it may be disposed of.”

Can the Minister assure us that when the regulations are formulated, it is his intention that the vehicle will be disposed of at a fair price? What will happen if a real owner thereafter claims his vehicle, but cannot have it back because it has been disposed of? Does the Minister envisage that fair compensation will be paid in such circumstances?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I take the point made by the hon. Member for Rochdale about disabled people. They should have roadworthy vehicles and obey the rules of the road the same as everyone else. We must accept, however, that they are in a different position. The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire put it well when he said that if someone was genuinely disabled and had a blue badge on their car, immobilising the car might well immobilise that person. That may not always happen. The person may be driven by an able-bodied person or it may be possible to make other travel arrangements.However, I would not want to be responsible for a change in the law that meant that an over-zealous officer in the future clamped a disabled person’s vehicle in the middle of nowhere simply because it had a bald tyre, and left the person there. That is not what we are about. We must allow some leeway when dealing with special cases.

I can give the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire the assurance that he seeks about what would happen if a person’s vehicle was disposed of. We would retain the amount that we felt was appropriate to meet the person’s deposit or fine, and he would be entitled to the surplus back. Equally, the person would be entitled to get the property or its value back were it proven that they should not have been stopped in the first place. In any event, that is our intention.

Clause 12 - High risk offenders: medical enquiries following disqualification

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I shall not detain the Committee long. We are in general agreement that it is sensible that the Secretary of State should have power to hold back high-risk offenders while they are being assessed for their medical condition as alcoholics. There are several clauses on alcohol. I should like to hear the Minister’s view on a disturbing trend that I have read about recently in press reports: as a result of longer licensing hours, more drink drivers are being picked up the following day after drinking. Can he elaborate on that? I have received information from West Mercia, where one in every five drink-drivers are now being arrested the following day. Jenny Wynn, director of the Telford Training Consultants group, a rehabilitation group, said that

“we have seen an increase in drivers caught ‘the morning after’ which is most probably due to the increase in licensing hours. With pubs opening later people are now drinking into the early hours and while getting a taxi home at night they are still over the limit when driving to work the next morning.”

A total of 1,495 drink drivers were caught last year, which is in an increase of 37 on the previous year in West Mercia.

I know that that is a general point related to alcohol, but does the Minister have any information on it? On the specifics of clause 12, we think the proposal tightens up the loophole. It is a sensible clause and we support it.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I do not have any information to hand on that particular issue.

To be fair, successive Governments and police forces have made strenuous efforts over the years to remind drivers that they might think that they are sober when they wake up in the morning but if they have had a real skinful the night before often they might still be over the limit, although they might not still be feeling all the effects. I have no information as to whether such situations are occurring increasingly, but I will look into it, to see what I can find out.

The clause simply closes a loophole where certain people who were convicted of drink-driving were able to retain their licences before the Secretary of State had made the determination that they were fit to get their licence back. It was never the intention of the Road Traffic Act 1988 that they should be able to do that. It was simply a loophole created by a drafting error, which the clause fixes.

Clause 13 - Period of endorsement for failure to allow specimen to be tested

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 1—Alcohol—prescribed limits—

‘(1)The Road Traffic Act 1988 (c. 52) is amended as follows—

(2)In section 11(2) the meaning of “the prescribed limit” is amended as follows—

(a)in (a) leave out “35” and insert “22”;

(b)in (b) leave out “80” and insert “50”; and

(c)in (c) leave out “107” and insert “67”.

(3)In section 8(2) leave out “50” and insert “35”.’.

New clause 2—Breath testing—

‘(1)Where a police officer of or above the rank of inspector reasonably believes that incidents involving persons driving on a road or other public place while unfit to drive through drink or drugs may take place, he may give an authorisation that the powers to administer preliminary tests conferred by this section shall be exercisable on that road or place for a period not exceeding 24 hours.

(2)If it appears to an officer of or above the rank of superintendent that it is expedient to do so, having regard to offences which have, or are reasonably suspected to have, been committed in connection with any activity falling within the authorisation, he may direct that the authorisation shall continue in being for a further 24 hours.

(3)If an inspector gives an authorisation under subsection (1) he must, as soon as it is practicable to do so, cause an officer of or above the rank of superintendent to be informed.

(4)This section confers on any constable in uniform power to administer—

(a)a preliminary breath test,

(b)a preliminary impairment test, or

(c)a preliminary drugs testpursuant to the provisions of sections 6A to 6D of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (c. 52).

(5)A constable may, in the exercise of those powers, administer any preliminary tests he thinks fit whether or not he has any grounds for suspecting that alcohol or drugs have been consumed.

(6)A person who without reasonable excuse fails to co-operate with a preliminary test in pursuance of a requirement imposed under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale and four penalty points or discretionary disqualification or both.

(7)Any authorisation under this section shall be in writing signed by the officer giving it and shall specify the grounds on which it is given and the locality in which and the period during which the powers conferred by this section are exercisable and a direction under subsection (2) above shall also be given in writing or, where that is not practicable, recorded in writing as soon as it is practicable to do so.

(8)Where a preliminary test is administered by a constable under this section, the driver shall be entitled to obtain a written statement that the test was administered under the powers conferred by this section if he applies for such a statement not later than the end of the period of twelve months from the day on which the test was administered.

(9)In this section—

“vehicle” includes a caravan as defined in section 29(1) of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 (c. 62)

“preliminary breath test” means a test as specified in section 6A of the Road Traffic Act 1988

“preliminary impairment test” means a test as specified in section 6B of the Road Traffic Act 1988

“preliminary drugs test” means a test as specified in section 6C of the Road Traffic Act 1988.

(10)The powers conferred by this section are not in derogation of any other powers conferred.’.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

Thank you, Mrs. Anderson. It is a pleasure to be serving on a Committee so ably chaired by yourself and Sir Nicholas. I thank you both for selecting new clauses 1 and 2 with this stand part debate in order for such an important subject to be properly and fully debated in Committee.

On drink-driving, it is worth pointing out that other measures in the Bill are welcome: increased use of retraining courses; mandatory retesting of drivers disqualified for 24 months or more; and, as we have just heard, the closure of the loophole regarding high-risk offenders driving again before they have been medically assessed as safe to do so.

It is also worth remembering that in the Road Safety Bill that did not make it on to the statute book last year was a measure that subsequently found a home in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005: the ability for the police to carry out evidential road-side breath testing so that they need not take people back to police stations to ascertain that they are definitely over the limit and committing an offence.

All those things are welcome, but new clauses 1 and 2 suggest that the Bill does not go far enough in tackling drink-driving. It is worth at the outset assessing the scale of the problem. Is there a problem that we, as politicians, should be tackling? I suggest that there is. In 2004, 590 people were killed on our roads because of someone drinking and driving. That figure is almost 20 per cent.—it is exactly 18 per cent.—of all that year’s road fatalities. Some of those people were drink-driving, and they crashed and killed themselves. In that sense, they brought it on themselves, but some took with them their passengers or completely innocent people in other vehicles who did not know that a drink-driver was approaching. Some of the drink-drivers survived their crash and just left other families to pick up the consequences of family bereavements. Any of us who have met the relatives of someone who has been killed on the road knows how deeply distressing it is for grieving families.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify that he is talking about drivers who are already in breach of our law and are therefore committing an existing offence and will lose their licence for at least 12 months?

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

Yes, these are people who are over the present limit. I am happy to make that clarification for the right hon. Gentleman.

As I said, in 2004, 590 people were killed on our roads. If that figure is multiplied by 20, it still does not come to the total who were injured due to people driving while over the legal drink-drive limit: in 2003, 15,000 people were injured; in 2004, 17,000 people were injured. Therefore, although the Government are making good progress to meet the targets in the 2000 road safety strategy, “Tomorrow’s Roads—Safer for Everyone”, which by 2010 are to

“reduce the number of road deaths and serious injuries by 40 per cent.”,

drink-driving fatalities are a stubborn exception to the overall downward trend.

Since 1998, the number of deaths caused by drink-driving has stopped falling. In fact, it is going in the opposite direction. The figure of 590 is a rise from the year before, which was a rise from the year before that. There is evidence, therefore, that the situation is getting worse instead of better, and that is why there is a need for action. What can be done, and what does new clause 1 seek to do?

The present drink-driving limit was set in section 5 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, and the following information can be found on page 19 of House of Commons research paper—

Henry Bellingham (Conservative, North West Norfolk)

Before the hon. Gentleman goes into technical detail and talks about millilitres per whatever, will he consider this more general point? About 20 years ago, many people exerted a great deal of pressure to make it clear to young drivers that drinking and driving is extremely serious and antisocial. In recent years, that peer pressure seems to have become less intense. Do a small minority of drivers believe that they can get away with drinking and driving? Can the hon. Gentleman explain that worrying trend?

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

I agree that over the past couple of decades, this country has achieved dramatic success in making it socially unacceptable to drink and drive. In fact, on any normal day, if we were to test everyone on the roads, we would find that 97 per cent. of drivers would have a blood-alcohol level of either zero or fewer than 50 mg per 100 ml of blood. Our campaigns have been successful, but the hon. Gentleman is right, a worrying trend has developed recently, and some people—often younger people—are driving with more alcohol in their blood. The trend among younger people is perhaps because the pressure to make drink-driving socially unacceptable was not sustained and younger drivers do not understand how unacceptable it is.

There are, however, other pressures. The hon. Member for North Shropshire referred to the Licensing Act 2003, and we must consider also trends in the licensing trade, such as the strength of drinks and the size of glasses.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

The hon. Gentleman has just said that 97 per cent. of people on the roads are found to be driving with no alcohol in their blood—

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

Or fewer than 50 mg per 100 ml.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

That probably exemplifies the problem. The police superintendent with whom I did a tour of duty for one afternoon last year told me that the problem with drink-driving is not the people just under the limit, or even the need to lower the limits. The problem—and the reason why deaths are increasing—is the number of people who are continually, persistently a long way over the limit. I am interested to hear where the hon. Gentleman is going to lead us, but I am not sure that his proposal will attack that problem.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

I will happily deal with that in a moment, because I want to persuade the hon. Gentleman’s Front-Bench team and my own Front Benchers that, although it is important to tackle the 1 per cent. of drivers who are always massively over the limit—the answer to that is of course increased detection and punishment and taking them off the roads, with which new clause 2 would help—I am at the moment concerned with the other 2 per cent. who, as the hon. Gentleman said, are somewhere near the legal limit. Those are the people who are causing some of the 590 deaths a year and whom new clause 1 would tackle.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman’s first point. My party wants to be much tougher on serial drink-driving offenders, and I hope that he will support our later amendments to that effect.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

We will look at that when we get to it.

I was just setting out the present legal limit: 35 mg of alcohol in 100 ml of breath; 80 mg of alcohol in 100 ml of blood; or 107 mg in 100 ml of urine. Obviously, they are all intended to be roughly the same limit, but the one on which I shall concentrate, so that I can consistently refer to the same thing, is the limit of 80 mg of alcohol in 100 ml of blood. The new clause would reduce those limits. For our roads, I say that the limit should be 50 mg instead of 80 mg.

What does that mean to motorists? Some bodies—I may pick out the British Medical Association, alcohol awareness charities such as Alcohol Concern, and the industry-funded Portman Group—point out that modern developments in the licensing trade have undermined some comfortable assumptions that were often made in the past. They were assumptions, of which we were all guilty, about how much it is safe to drink while still being able to get into a car and drive without breaking the law.

I remember that in my youth we all used to think that we were safely under the limit after two pints of bitter. However, stronger alcohol concentrations have developed, not just in beers and wines but in the whole range of drinks. People’s assumptions about how much they have consumed, and how safe it is to drive, have been undermined by larger measures, such as the larger wine glasses in some pubs and wine bars these days, and by subtle developments such as alcopops, which people thought were non-alcoholic, but which in fact contain some alcohol.

Those considerations are important in assessing a safe level of drinking for people getting behind a driving wheel today. I think that I am right in saying that it is still the Minister’s official position that it is best for a vehicle driver not to drink at all. The law says something different in its tolerance of what we can consume. The practical situation in the bar room has changed, however, and drivers ought to be more cautious about how much they drink.

I want to address the safety issue in a different way and consider the effect of alcohol on competence to drive a vehicle. Between 50 mg and 80 mg, the average driver is about two to two and a half times more likely to be involved in a road crash. That is because of the effect of alcohol on their judgment and reactions, and their ability to react to situations in front of them. For young and inexperienced drivers the risk is as much as five times greater. That is why in 1998 the Government said in a consultation paper called “Combating Drink Driving: the Next Steps” that they were minded to lower the alcohol limits for drinking and driving.

In the White Paper on transport in 2000, the Government said that the reduction would be made in the European context, and everybody awaited the pronouncement of the European Union Commission with baited breath. In fact, the Commission’s pronouncement in 2001 was slightly disappointing. It recommended a drink-driving limit across Europe of about 50 mg, but that it would be left to member states to decide their own limit, to which I am sure some Opposition Members would say, “Hurrah—our sovereignty preserved.”

As a result, most states followed the recommendation and adopted a lower limit of 50 mg. Not all of them did. One country among the present 25 EU member states has a higher level than Britain—Cyprus, which has a limit of 90 mg. Two others have stuck with us at 80 mg—Luxembourg and Ireland. A few went past the 50 mg. Sweden, Poland and Estonia have limits of 20 mg. Some have gone the whole hog and have said that the limit should be zero. They include the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Members may be relieved to hear that I do not think that we should set the limit at zero. There are situations in which we naturally produce some alcohol in our blood, perhaps as a result of a medical condition or a treatment that we are undergoing.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I think that it is appropriate to point out that when the Commission reviewed the levels across Europe, it also pointed out that the UK was one of the two best performing countries on blood alcohol and driving, alongside Sweden. Our higher limit is not preventing us from having good performance.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

I think that the number of deaths when the Commission expressed those views, using the figure for 1999, was about 520 a year. I am reminding the Minister and the Committee that in 2004, there were 590 deaths. If we were to go back to the Commission and ask it how it thinks we are performing today, it might gently suggest that we should look again at its recommendation of a lower limit.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

What my hon. Friend says is true, but the number of serious injuries related to drink has gone down in the same period.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

I do not deny that, but the statistics that I gave include serious injuries caused by drinking and driving on British roads. In 2003, there were 17,000 serious injuries, and in 2004 there were 19,000. I do not know whether the Minister is disagreeing with me, but I am saying that an alarm bell is ringing. If we ignore the issue, it will be very sad both for us and for the people who will die on the roads in accidents that, if we had acted, we could have averted.

After having said that they were minded to lower the limit and that they would do so in the European context, the Government walked away from that decision in 2002. They announced that the limit would stay as it was and that they would rely on existing enforcement and penalties to crack down on drink-driving. I hesitate to say that, as the hon. Member for North Shropshire reminded us in our last sitting, since 2002 the number of road traffic police to enforce the drink-driving laws has fallen. I question whether the Government have done the things that they said they would do instead of reducing the limit, which is one good thing that could have been done. To answer the hon. Member for Wimbledon, I am not suggesting that that is the only thing that we should do. I shall come to that in a moment.

In terms of public confidence, now is a good time to make the proposed change because of people’s concern, driven by the introduction of the Licensing Act 2003, about binge drinking and its consequences. The Minister referred to people who drink later at night, wake up the next morning and get in the car when they are still above the legal limit. People are concerned about such issues. Lowering the limit now would be a good antidote to people’s concerns about the 2003 Act.

I know that people will be worried that fewer customers would drive to rural pubs if the limit were lowered. I think that that is wrong. Pubs are widening the range of services that they offer to attract a wider clientele. There are meals, coffees and non-alcoholic drinks instead of alcohol, and there are some very good schemes about nominated drivers that we should all do our utmost to support. We can make a success of lowering the legal limit without harming people’s businesses.

I shall move on to some arguments that the Minister might rehearse when he responds to the debate. If lowering the alcohol limit is not the best way to lower the death toll from drinking and driving, what is? That has not been done through more road policing, because the number of traffic police has fallen. I welcome, as I did on Second Reading, the road policing commitment that the Department for Transport, the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers signed in January 2005. It would be nice to see that commitment backed more firmly across government and by police forces. The problem has certainly not been addressed with more roadside breath tests. I shall come to that point in more detail when we discuss new clause 2, which I think the Government also oppose. We carry out fewer breath tests than most European police services.

We require a balanced package of additional measures, because the number of deaths is going in the wrong direction. Lowering the limit is just one among the package of measures needed. How many lives would that measure alone save? There is regular research that is constantly updated, and in the House of Commons research paper, the most common quoted figures suggest that 50 fatalities, 250 serious injuries and 1,200 slight injuries per year would be avoided.

I want to mention the work of Professor Richard Allsop of University college London, who updated his own calculation last year and came to a slightly higher figure, saying that 65 lives a year could be saved if we lowered the limit. Again, we are talking about people who drive somewhere near—just below or above—the current legal limit of 80 mg. Professor Allsop makes an assumption about how many of those people would adjust their behaviour because the law had changed and obey the new rule. That is how he came to the figure of 65 lives a year saved as a result of this one measure.

The supporters of the proposal are many and wide ranging. I should like to mention PACTS—the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety—and, in doing so, declare an interest. I chaired PACTS for six years, until last year, and this year I remain a member, although I am no longer an officer. PACTS strongly supports this measure, as does the BMA, for an obvious reason. Doctors see the results of drink-driving in their surgeries and accident and emergency departments; they provide the treatment to try to save lives, and they strongly support lowering the limit.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents also supports this measure. In a press release on 11 January, it urged the Government to ditch the current drink-drive limit in favour of a lower one, because too many motorists think that it is safe to try to drink up to what is clearly not a safe limit. That document contains a quote from Kevin Clinton, ROSPA’s head of road safety, in the context of releasing figures for Christmas and new year breath tests by police forces:

“Three hundred people caught drinking and driving each day in December shows far too many think they can get away with drinking and driving. They believe the current legal limit of 80 mg is a safe one and it is not. We want to see the limit reduced to 50 mg, because between 50 mg and 80 mg you are two to two-and-a-half times more likely to be involved in an accident and six times more likely to be in a fatal crash than with no alcohol in your system.”

ROSPA is a strong supporter.

I contacted the Association of Chief Police Officers about today’s debate and asked for its view. Hugh Alford e-mailed me:

“ACPO has long supported the call for a lower drink-drive limit (to bring it in line with other European nations and rationalise enforcement) and this was reiterated again by Mr. Meredydd Hughes, chief constable of south Yorkshire and head of ACPO road policing, in ... evidence he gave the other day at the Transport Select Committee.”

Other supporters include the charity and pressure group, Brake—although it wants a lower limit of 20 mg, so I disappoint it by arguing for 50 mg—the Safer Streets Coalition, a coalition of many organisations with a keen interest in road safety, and AA members.

Having put my arguments why we ought to consider making that reduction, I want to deal new clause 2 and with a question about increasing the ability of the police to test people who are driving for the level of alcohol in their blood. The current law is that a police constable can stop any vehicle at any time for any reason, but not specifically for the purpose of administering a breath test. A landmark case said that if the police officer stopped a vehicle for one reason and, in conversation with the driver, smelled alcohol and suspected that they were breaking the law, that was a good enough reason to administer the test. The usual three grounds on which a police officer can ask for a test are as follows: first, reasonable cause to suspect alcohol in a driver’s body; secondly, the commission of a moving traffic offence; and thirdly, the driver having been involved in a crash.

The current testing levels in the UK are among the lowest in the European Union. Again, the House of Commons research paper sets out the statistics. Apparently, we stop and breath test one in 67 head of population on our roads, compared with one in 30 in Spain, one in 16 in the Netherlands and a curious one in four in Finland, which seems to be extensive testing. A study done in 1998 in Switzerland, which I know is not a member of the EU, found that random breath testing was one of the most cost-effective safety measures that could be introduced to reduce drink-driving fatalities and serious injuries. This new clause does not suggest that there should be random testing, and I do not argue for it. It would be too intrusive and would concentrate too much power in the hands of the police, and there would be too much public opposition.

I suggest an intermediate position between the existing law, which is very restrictive, as I have explained, and random testing, which is too broad. That intermediate position is called targeted testing. The police would be able to test in an area or on a particular road if they had reasonable cause to suspect that it was a place where a lot of drink-driving was going on. I suggest that such reasonable cause would usually arise from intelligence received by the police; for example, it might be known that a local pub was staying open late into the night and that the same people seemed to be there for long periods. That would allow the police to set up a testing place on the road and to test lots of people.

New clause 2 also proposes safeguards. The police would be able to exercise that right only if they had information that proved that they had reasonable cause, and it would last only for a short period. This measure, which could be used to address the rising tide of fatalities from drink-driving, also appeared in a Government document of 1998, “Combating drink-driving—next steps”, and it has been drafted similarly to the police stop-and-search power in the Knives Act 1997.

There are some welcome measures in the Bill, and I wish to add two more to make a balanced approach to tackling what is a serious problem. Some of the measures I propose will hit more on one group than another, but taken as a whole, we should be able to hit on all the groups in this country that are likely to drink and drive. To those who say that some people completely ignore the limit and drink miles more alcohol than is safe and legal and that they are the ones on whom we should concentrate, I say that I listen to Professor Allsop. In a news release last year, he brought his evidence up to date in respect of the 65 lives a year that we could save. In response to a similar point, he said that when he received advice on making his home safe against crime, he was told that he should put window locks on the windows and extra locks on the door, and that he did not ignore the advice about window locks because fewer people could get through the window than through the door. Instead, he thought it was sensible to put both sets of locks on so that nobody got into his house by either means. The situation is the same in respect of new clause 1 and new clause 2. They are both necessary—not just one or the other. That is why I wanted to have this debate.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I have listened with great interest to the hon. Gentleman’s comments. All Committee members want a reduction in the number of people killed on our roads through drink-driving, including both those who bring that upon themselves and, perhaps more importantly, those who take others with them. However, I am not sure that the evidence that he has given us will convince us that that will happen if we enact the proposed measures.

The hon. Gentleman gave us a quantification of limit and risk—two times and five times—and I would be interested to know where that came from and how it was calculated. I am sure he can elucidate that point. I would also like to know whether he has done any work on the evidence from overseas. He spoke about a number of countries that have reduced their limits to 50 mg. Portugal is a country that I know particularly well. It had a history of having almost no drink-driving limit at all, but it has now adopted the 50 mg limit. I am unsure whether there has been any decrease in drink-related deaths on Portuguese roads—and, indeed, whether there has been an improvement in the culture of Portuguese driving—as result. However, the situation might be different in other countries. The Committee would be interested to learn whether there was clear evidence from overseas that the reduction in the limit had had some effect.

I am also concerned about new clause 2. The hon. Gentleman says that the powers of the police are restricted, but I disagree. I was stopped for drink-driving two years ago. The police had set themselves up very effectively in a village in Hertfordshire; they took up positions on three roads so that, whichever way drivers left that village, they would meet one of the police cars. The police officers asked drivers whether they had been out for dinner or to a pub that night. If the answer was yes, they were asked whether they had had an alcoholic drink of any nature. If the answer to that question was also yes, the police officer said that he might have reasonable grounds to believe that they were over the limit. Whether random or targeted, that procedure is clearly available at present. I had had a drink that night and I was pretty certain that I had kept to the limit. Even so, it was the most nervous 30 seconds of my life at that stage.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

In another Committee in another context, I was described last week as a jobbing lawyer, because I was a solicitor before I was elected to Parliament. I hesitate to give a legal opinion without the full facts, as any lawyer would say, but I suggest that if the police set up a roadside test knowing that they would ask everyone about alcohol so that they could carry out a breath test it would be illegal. As I said, however, the police can stop people for other reasons and can then form a reasonable suspicion and conduct a breath test.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I am happy to take the advice of a lawyer, jobbing or otherwise. All I can say is that that is how the police operated the system in the instance that I mentioned. We were asked no other questions. There was no other inspection of my vehicle. The police clearly have found a way of targeting drink-driving, and they particularly wanted to target one village. I guess they thought that as there were three or four pubs, there were many potential drink-drivers.

Tom Harris (Labour, Glasgow South)

I am reluctant to muddy the waters even further by bringing in Scottish law and practice, but I point out that every Christmas and new year, Strathclyde police set up exactly the kind of roadside inspection area that the hon. Gentleman described and randomly test drivers for alcohol intake. That is accepted without objection every year because it is seen as an effective way of clamping down on drink-driving and the resulting deaths and injuries.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

Scottish law is even further outside my legal competence, so I shall not pursue the point, but I am grateful for that intervention and the point that the hon. Gentleman makes.

We are concerned about the unintended consequence of new clause 2, which I am sure the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) did not intend. Under proposed subsection (1), I could have two or three drinks in a House of Commons Bar tonight, walk out of the building to my vehicle and be stopped by a police inspector who may take the view that I might be involved in a drink-driving incident. As the new clause is phrased, people can be stopped before they go anyway near a car and breath tested. On that basis alone, we think that the new clause would not work and is not fit for purpose.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stafford on his well-argued case both for a revision in blood alcohol limits and for introducing some means of codifying when police inspections should take place. Regardless of what other hon. Members have said, he rightly pointed out that the police should reasonably stop someone only when another offence has taken place. At Christmas or where places may be open late under the new licensing laws and there is a suspicion that large numbers of people are drinking and may be over the limit, the new clause would give the police powers to act. In those cases, the issue is very much about sending messages out to people about what is and what is not acceptable.

As the hon. Gentleman said, while we may have led the way in terms of the introduction of drink-drive laws, other countries have adopted more stringent laws and implement them more effectively. He has quoted figures showing a rise in the number of deaths. The Minister may say that some continental countries have a worse problem than we do; perhaps that is why they have tightened the law more than we have.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I would argue that they all do.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

That may be the case. Nevertheless, when it can be shown that by lowering the limit, 65 lives and a couple of thousand injuries a year can be saved, that is not to be sniffed at. We are discussing the Road Safety Bill, and I believe that such a measure is a sensible and effective means of improving road safety. I commend the hon. Member for Stafford for tabling the new clauses.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I read recently of the case of an Estonian priest who was charged with driving while under the influence of drink. When he got to court he claimed that it was an act of God. He said that he had been obliged that day to take communion and, because it was a rule of the Church that wine had to be taken, wine was in his system. The report that I read did not reveal what the judgment of God was, but the court would have none of it, and he was convicted, in my view rightly.

The area is a difficult one, in which what is correct is not necessarily absolute. We must make a judgment as to where we should draw the line in framing a law that the majority of law-abiding people deem to be fair and therefore respect and obey it. On balance, I think that our present law is about right. The police have very wide powers. We have heard from the hon. Member for Stafford the grounds on which the police can stop a vehicle, but in reality that means that they can stop a vehicle for any reason, as is evidenced by the many breath tests that take place at Christmas time, which by all accounts are within the law. I am not convinced, therefore, that we need to take the step urged on us today, and my instinct is to vote to retain the status quo.

If I may, I should like to refer en passant back to clause 11, and say to the Minister that I gladly accept his offer to go out with a vehicle examiner.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I want briefly to pick up on one of the important points raised by the hon. Member for Stafford. I congratulate him on his speech, which I listened to carefully.

We have to live with the world as it is, and that world is one where we have fewer police. I am not making a tiresome political point, but the number has gone down from 9,201 in 1996–97 to 7,103 in 2005. We have a limited number of traffic police. Much as one understands the hon. Gentleman’s argument, surely it is better to get everyone below 80 mg first and to allow the limited number of police to concentrate their efforts on those drinkers before going further. As the figures that he read out show, despite the enormous improvement over the past 20 years, drink-driving is still a problem.

Tom Harris (Labour, Glasgow South)

Surely the number of available traffic officers is irrelevant to the argument, because the existing drink-drive limit is self-enforceable. A lower limit would be similarly self-enforceable, because it is not for the police to enforce the vast majority of judgments where drivers decide to take their car out. We do not obey the law because we will get caught otherwise; we obey it because it is the law. I am perhaps not making myself entirely clear. If the Committee and the Government decide to reduce the level to 50 mg, surely that would be a self-enforceable law that would not depend on the number of police officers on our roads.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

That was a helpful intervention. To some extent I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but the problem is with those on over 80 mg. More accidents, misjudgments and mistakes will occur among those over 80 mg than among those between 50 mg and 80 mg.

My contention is that we have come a long way. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire made an important point: we must do this by consent. That goes back to the point that I made several times on Tuesday: we cannot coerce 34 million drivers. There has been a major change during the past 20 years in public perception. The vast majority of drivers recognise the 80 mg limit and try to stay within it. The problem is with those who are over 80 mg, who are likely to make more dangerous misjudgments. Therefore, they are the people whom the limited number of police should concentrate on. That is the simple point that I want to make.

The other important point is that we have the confidence of the driving public on this matter. There has been a major cultural change, and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire made an important point in that regard. To go lower at this stage might create a barrier between the enforcers and the enforced—the barrier that we want to get away from. We want collaboration. That goes back to Peel’s concept of policing, which I mentioned on Tuesday. The status quo may not be ideal, but it is about right, and the efforts that we make should bear down on those who are over 80 mg.

Tom Harris (Labour, Glasgow South)

I rise again to make a genuine inquiry. Is the hon. Gentleman aware—if he is not, my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford may be—of any opinion poll evidence showing whether there is public support for a change in the legal limit? Once again, the Committee seems to have been relying heavily on anecdotal evidence, but from my own such experience, I know of very few people who would object to a reduction from 80 mg to 50 mg. If the opinion polls say otherwise, I should be happy to accept that. Is the hon. Gentleman aware of any empirical evidence of that kind?

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I have no opinion poll evidence either way. I believe that the police should concentrate on those over 80 mg. If we looked at 50 mg to 80 mg, that would be a knock to our collaboration with the majority of the public and to their confidence, and it would give the police an enormous number of possible people to chase. I believe that we should concentrate on those on over 80 mg first. Let us get the 80 mg level firmly respected—we will discuss in a minute how that might be done—and then look further.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford argued his case well, and it is not without merit. The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire put his finger on it: this is not a black-and-white issue. It is a matter of judgment in which we have to balance many different factors before reaching our opinion. I shall state my case. I will probably not convince my hon. Friend, so while I am making my comments, my hon. Friend the Government Whip will gently twist his arm up his back. Nevertheless, I will put the case to the best of my ability, and I accept that it is a complex one.

My hon. Friend talked about the number of people whose lives are ended as a result of drink and about the rise in such deaths over recent years. I agree with him entirely: it poses a question, and it is a worrying trend. It is not a simple one, however. It is not simply that the figures have suddenly started to shoot through the roof; the figures are conflicting.

In 1979 there were 1,640 fatalities as a result of people having illegal alcohol levels and 8,300 serious casualties. In 2004 there were 590 fatalities and 2,350 serious casualties. By any measure that is a massive reduction, and clearly a trend that we want to continue. As my hon. Friend suggested, it is true that, over the past few years, the figures have begun to go up. If we concentrate for a moment on fatalities, in 2001 there were 530. The figure went up to 550 in 2002, 580 in 2003 and 590 in 2004. The low point was in 1998–99, when there were 460 fatalities. On the face of it, that is clearly a worrying trend, but it is not necessarily indicative of a change in society’s attitudes. If we consider the number of serious casualties over that same period—we might argue that in many cases the difference between someone dying in a road accident and being seriously injured is more a matter of good fortune than judgment—we see that there were 2,690 in 2001. The figure rose to 2,790 in 2002, but it has steadily been going down since. It was 2,590 in 2003, and 2,350 in 2004.

Exactly the same pattern is mirrored in the figures for slight injuries involving people with illegal blood alcohol levels. In other words, the number of accidents involving alcohol that cause casualties is going down, while the number of fatalities is going up. It is not reasonable to argue that society’s attitude to drink-driving is changing in some malevolent way, and that therefore we need to change the blood alcohol limit to send a different message to society.

The figures for fatalities or serious injuries related to illegal levels of blood alcohol since 1979 appear not to be a gradual progression. I managed to do some thermodynamic calculations for hon. Members on the back of an envelope the other day, but, as my mental acuity does not extend to statistical significance calculations on the back of an envelope, I cannot be definitive about this, but it seems that progress is made by steps. For a few years, the serious casualty figures hovered around 8,000 or 7,900. Suddenly there was a drop to 7,300 between 1980 and 1981. The figure went back to 8,000 but then steadied around 6,800 for a few years. There were step changes to about 5,000 some time in the middle of the 1980s, to 3,000 in the early 1990s and to about 2,500 in the late 1990s, where it has hovered ever since. In other words, it is not a gradual move from high to low and getting better every year. The changes seem to go in steps. We have to ask why that is, what is changing, what creates the steps and why there is the complexity of serious injuries decreasing while deaths are increasing.

Brian Iddon (Labour, Bolton South East)

It is more common today for drivers to drive under the influence of more than one drug. As poly-drug use is on the increase, I suggest to the Minister that those who drive under the influence of alcohol are more likely also to be driving under the influence of another drug, which could account for the fact that deaths are increasing. It seems remarkable that we are arguing today about the limits for one drug but do not discuss the limits of any other drug, whether licit or illicit, that might affect a person’s driving.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I have no doubt that people are using multiple drugs these days. I made the point in the Transport Committee the other day that young people in particular may designate a driver who abstains from alcohol but sits and smokes a joint while everybody is drinking alcohol, and then drives everyone home. Many young people do not realise the effects of illegal substances.

Indeed, the point was made to me that people do not realise the effects of legal substances that they may use. I entirely concur. Prescription drugs carry messages these days such as, “This compound may make you drowsy. Do not drive, if affected.” However, half the time people do not know whether they are affected. One of the things that was found out about alcohol in the early days was that many people did not believe that they were affected by it. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) has helped me to make is that we are not talking about a simple issue. We must examine what has created the step changes over the years. Was it a change in the Government’s policy? Was it a change in police enforcement? Was it a change in advertising? Was it a change in educational efforts made over the years by successive Governments? What is happening at the moment? We have a strange increase in deaths while the number of serious injuries is decreasing.

I concur entirely with my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford that the figures are asking us questions that we need to answer. We must look with great care at what is happening. We might need to undertake further road-side surveys. We might need to carry out more research. We need to look at our advertising and, in particular, the way in which we enforce the existing laws.

A future Government might want to propose a change to the blood alcohol level on the basis of the research, but we are not yet in a position to do so. Some 590 people were killed in accidents involving people who were over the 80 mg level, but it seems that there were only 60 fatalities involving those who had alcohol levels of between 50 mg and 80 mg, so where should we be putting our resources? It is obvious that I should be encouraging the police to enforce the law at 80 mg and above, and to do so more stringently than they are at present before I ask them to disburse resources on people driving with between 50 mg and 80 mg of alcohol.

I said clearly at the Transport Committee, as I did on Second Reading, that I can envisage a situation in which a future Government will want to implement my hon. Friend’s amendments. Friend. We are just not at that point now. The correct thing to do is to enforce measures at the 80 mg level and get that right first.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

I want to correct a slight inaccuracy in what my hon. Friend said about the proportion of the 590 deaths who were near the present level of 80 mg. Professor Allsop said that another 65 lives might be saved if the limit were lowered, but that is because of his conservative estimates of the numbers who would transfer to a lower level, but who were already above. Some deaths occur at possibly twice that level. I do not disagree that the majority of the deaths occur when people are miles over the limit, but the number of those who were near the legal limit is certainly many more than the 65.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I guess that we can argue about the figures. I shall certainly reconsider the research to see whether it influences my opinion. I think that my hon. Friend agrees that the majority of deaths have occurred when people were above the current legal limit. While we are asking ourselves such difficult questions, it is appropriate to ask the police to target their resources on better enforcement measures at that limit. While we are doing that, we must consider the long-term trends and the way in which we go from plateau to plateau, and ask ourselves what causes that.

In particular, I am determined to get to the root of why we might be seeing a steady increase in deaths, while the number of serious injuries is going down. Are we dealing with a hard-core drink-driver who does not care about whether the amount is 50 mg or 80 mg? He has had a skinful and drives anyway; he drives so fast and is so out of control that he is more likely to be killed in the accident. Perhaps that has something to do with it. We need answers to such questions before we take the step of going to a 50 mg limit. As the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire said, we must not break the bond that has been established with the driver. The driver must see the fairness and reasonableness of our action to respect it.

On Tuesday, I said that, if people do not respect the law on speeding, they will not obey it and that that makes it much more difficult to enforce. By trying to build a mutual respect and by getting drivers to respect the fact that we are taking fair and proportionate decisions, we get them to obey the law more. That is a better way forward. Were we to reduce the 80 mg limit to 50 mg without solid evidence and without being able to make the case to the driving public and explain why it would benefit them, we would be in danger of breaking the bond that we are trying to establish.

In encouraging my hon. Friend to withdraw his motion, I repeat that I can see the merit of his argument. I can see a situation in which a future Government may want to implement the provisions of the new clause, but I do not think that it would be right to do so now. I also ask him to withdraw his other new clause, on the powers to test, because we have consulted ACPO and others and they are satisfied with the powers that they have at the moment. They do not see any need for further powers.

Rather than test your patience when we come to clause stand part, Mrs. Anderson, I will say now that clause 13 is a change intended to fix an oversight in the law, and is relatively straightforward. I hope that members of the Committee will support it.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

The good news for my hon. Friend is that this is the stand part debate, and I therefore do not need to withdraw the motions for my new clauses. They can however be discussed again on Report if they are selected by Mr. Speaker. We will see what happens if so.

My hon. Friend was right to predict that I would not agree with him, but I think that he is an excellent Minister. He is doing a really good job and he is quite right to say that this is a complex issue. I hope that he would give me credit for having the bigger picture in mind and for suggesting a balanced range of measures, even though I have focused on new clause 1 in this debate. While I am on my feet and getting all these brownie points, I should say that the poor Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Mr. Roy), should be defended from the Minister’s suggestion that he had my arm twisted behind my back. I have had nothing but the greatest courtesy from him throughout these proceedings.

I shall respond briefly to some of the points made in the debate. The hon. Member for Wimbledon asked me where the calculation of increasing risk comes from. The House of Commons research paper is a wonderful starting point. On page 20 it reminds us that studies have been going on since the 1960s. Today, the seminal calculation that everybody cites is from the Transport Research Laboratory’s research in 1997, written by a man named Maycock. There is also an excellent statement of drink and drugs policy called “Driving for Work: Drink and Drugs” on ROSPA’s website. It takes readers through the risks and dangers of drinking and driving. It is common sense that when we have had alcohol our judgment is impaired and our reactions are slower.

The hon. Member for Wimbledon also said that there was some weakness in the drafting of new clause 2. In a sense, that is irrelevant. If we think it is a good issue, we will get the wording right with all the officials at our disposal. The issue is whether the police need the extra, targeted power laid out in the new clause. Considering the situation that we are in and the resources that we have, as the hon. Member for North Shropshire pointed out, giving the police more power to use their existing resources more effectively would be a better way to get the most out of our policing. That is why I tabled the new clause. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rochdale for his support. I made the same argument in Committee on the previous Road Safety Bill and the Liberal Democrats were equally supportive then.

The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire spoke about the important issue of public acceptance, drawing the line at the right place and being fair. That is why I took so long to talk about the assumption in my youth that two pints of beer was the right amount to remain under the limit, and about how that view has been eroded by developments in the industry. The public’s attitude to the Licensing Act 2003 and increased discussion on binge drinking show that there is an appetite for Government to do something. We could establish a new comfortable assumption that if someone has one drink, they will definitely be under the limit of 50 mg, but if they have more than one, they will be taking a risk. That could be a useful enforcement tool and might keep more people safe.

I was asked whether there was any empirical evidence. The RAC Foundation is not in favour of my new clause, but its opinion polls on the public’s attitude to lowering the limit show that 60 per cent. of motorists support a limit of 50 mg. Therefore, I might make the argument to the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire that there is public appetite for changing the limit. He said that given that the police manage to do a lot of testing at Christmas, why do they need extra powers? I remind him that more than 9,000 of the tests carried out at Christmas 2005 were positive. Let us ask ourselves what is happening on the roads when the police are not carrying out high-profile testing. Mini Christmas campaigns should take place throughout the year, and the extra powers in new clause 2 would enable the police to facilitate that.

What motivates me to continue arguing, even though the Minister has told me to stop and Conservative Front Benchers have told me that they will not support my proposal? I feel an urgency and a determination about all those unnecessary deaths on the roads. Tomorrow it could be somebody I know; it could be a member of my family. I do not want to think that I did not do everything possible to reduce the death toll on our roads. New clause 2 offers a safe way to reduce that toll.

If I cannot persuade the Minister to change the Government’s policy, will he have a word with the Whip to arrange a free vote on Report?

Clause 14 - Alcohol ignition interlocks

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

Perhaps the name of the hon. Member for Stafford was noted in the Whip’s book—he will recover.

We are not convinced by the proposal for alcohol ignition interlocks. A recent report from the European Transport Safety Council notes that alco-locks have been used in rehabilitation programmes for drink-driving offenders in the USA, Australia and Canada. It claims:

“experiences in the USA and Canada have shown that the interlocks can lead to a 40 to 95 per cent. reduction in the rate of drink-driving repeat offences”.

It continues:

“Existing studies clearly indicate however that this reduction in recidivism is limited to the period of alcolock installation in the car, or at best for a limited time thereafter”.

European trials have been limited. In Sweden, 900 drink-driving offenders have been on an alcohol interlock programme, but about a third of them dropped out because the programme was strict. Finland is only just about to introduce an alcohol interlock programme lasting one year for all drink-driving offenders, and France has begun a pilot project, with only 40 participants, in Annecy. The UK is cited in the report as also taking part.

The European Transport Safety Council refers to P. R. Marques, who has written an in-depth report for the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Calveston, Maryland. The report states:

“20 years beyond their initial field trials in several California counties, interlock devices and programs have reached a high level of maturity”.

However,

“Researchers will need to continue to evaluate interlock effectiveness evidence to determine if interlock programs can reduce recidivism systemwide, not just in small programs, and no one has yet documented and overall crash reduction due to interlocks although alcohol-related crashes are almost certainly reduced. Much more needs to be done to enhance the impact of interlock programmes, through integration and other counter-measure programmes, most notably alcohol treatment and rehabilitation ... An interlock programme requires some level of administrative control and monitoring”

and needs to

“make good use of the dual functions of control and monitoring.”

Although it admits that this is a problem in all societies, it thinks that rehabilitation and other measures are more important.

That finding is confirmed by a survey conducted on behalf of the European Union by the Belgian Institute for Road Safety, which had a project running from December 2003 to December 2005 that came up in some cases with no answers. On relevance—how the project objective is linked to the programme objective—the answer is:

“This can however not be assessed yet.”

On effectiveness, and whether the project has reached its objective, it says:

“No project results were available for the evaluation.”

There is a blank, rather than an answer to the question about whether the results support the programme objectives. On utility, the answer to whether the project includes a baseline and a potential impact assessment is a blank, and for sustainability—whether the project results will last after the project has been completed—there is another blank.

These are early days. The system has been extensively used in the States, where the evidence is that these gadgets, or machines, work only as long as they are in place. It would, in some ways, be irresponsible to install them, because they have not reduced the rate of recidivism and offenders seem to go back to their bad ways afterwards.

That is confirmed by the final report that I should like to call in aid—which goes right across the board, on alcohol as a problem with motoring—by Dr. James Nichols of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and H. Lawrence Ross of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism at the university of New Mexico. Their report touches on our earlier debate; they

“feel that swift and sure license actions provide the greatest potential on both counts”

on reducing drink-driving and alcohol-related crashes. Their

“model system would provide for mandatory minimum fines ... and mandatory minimum hard license suspensions of no less than 90 days, followed by a probationary or restricted license period”,

after which, there would be

“alcohol education, assessment, and referral programs.”

They say:

“To make license actions more effective, greater emphasis would be placed on keeping suspended and revoked drivers from driving during their license withdrawal period.”

The conclusion is that taking licences away for longer periods has a more beneficial impact.

It seems to me, having rattled through some research papers, that work on this measure is a bit premature. We are all in favour of and open to new ideas, but I think that this system should be kept at the trial stage in limited numbers and not be written into the Bill as a major part of the Government’s alcohol programme. I particularly do not like the idea of

“a lesser period of disqualification (“the reduced period”)”,

in clause 14(3), which may be given if an offender is prepared to take on one of these gadgets. It appears that the effect lasts only as long as the gadget is in the car and, from the evidence that I have quoted showing that people sadly revert afterwards, taking people’s licences away seems to have a bigger impact. Actually, the biggest shock is a brief period of imprisonment.

All credit must go to the Government for looking at new ideas, but this system is in the very early stages in Europe and we should see how other countries get on. By all means let us have some small trials in this country, but I do not think that it is appropriate to build this initiative into the Bill as it stands.

Lee Scott (Conservative, Ilford North)

In cultures where this method has been tried, as we have just heard from my hon. Friend, it has been proved not only that there might be issues and problems with it, but that it can be overcome. Various devices have allegedly come into force that can give false readings to allow the car to be started, and enable the person still to drink and drive. I do not think that there is anyone in Committee who is not trying to stop drink-driving, but I believe that the enforcement of the current laws by police, as mentioned by the Minister, and the enforcement of penalties would be a better way forward. Let us have tests, but not as part of a major Bill.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Both hon. Gentlemen will be glad to know that I share their analysis to a large extent; it is just on the conclusions that I differ. They are both right—it is early days for the technology, and I can give them an absolute assurance that there is no way that the Government will allow widespread use of it without proceeding carefully and step by step, with proper experimentation and proper research to build up the evidence that it is worth while. Clause 14 must be examined in conjunction with clause 15, in which we make it clear that we can implement alco-locks experimentally at some point.

I accept the point made by the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Scott) that there may well be devices that can fool the current generation of alco-locks, but there will be improvements, and we will make tests and take cognisance of the results.

I encourage hon. Members to remember the constraints under which the Government operate when they need primary legislation. The Bill went through its stages in the previous Parliament but fell because of the general election. For the second year on the run, there is a major slot in the parliamentary timetable to discuss these issues. It may well be several years hence before there is another slot for primary legislation that focuses on road safety, and if we do not today take the powers that we need in order to do such experiments, then, if the rest of Europe and the world start to make progress, we shall not be in a position to take advantage.

We agree that the technology is in many respects untested and a lot of work is needed, but we shall proceed only step by step as we accumulate evidence that it could work. Nevertheless, it is appropriate to take powers today that allow us to be involved in the work.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

The Minister said that to a large extent he shared the analysis of my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North. Does he share the analysis, therefore, of my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire, that the technology would most properly be used for offenders who have been caught more than once—after their disqualification and as an extra penalty—rather than for first-time offenders, which would let them off their sentence a little bit? Surely we should be reinforcing the message to drink-drivers, and the measure should be an extra, punitive one.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I agree partially. It is not a measure that should be used for first-time offenders. It could be appropriate for repeat offenders—people who clearly have had an alcohol dependency problem and who, in order to get their licence back, would have to demonstrate not only that they have served their disqualification period, but that they have been through a rehabilitation process of some sort and have addressed their drinking. The disqualification period might be slightly reduced if they agreed to take an alco-lock.

I hear from many Members with constituents who have been in such a position, who have had repeat drink-driving offences and who want their licences back. The DVLA says, “The Secretary of State takes the view that we can’t be certain you are not going to reoffend.” They then have to go to their doctor and get a doctor’s note saying that the doctor thinks that they will not drink again, but sadly, we know that alcoholism is not curable. There is always the possibility of people reoffending; even those who have been sober for many years sometimes start to drink again and may be tempted to reoffend. Once someone has been a repeat offender, it is difficult to convince people that they should get their licence back. I see the proposal as a potential tool for somebody who has been through rehabilitation. If there is a feeling that they may deserve to get their licence back and that they are not going to reoffend, maybe voluntarily agreeing to a alco-lock will allow them to convince those in the system that they should be allowed to drive again.

These things need time to bottom out, however, and to be done carefully, in the light of experimentation, research and results gathered from around the world. I assure hon. Members that if they do not work or research starts to indicate that they have no merit, they will not be used. Given the difficulties of getting primary legislation and the need for it even to do such experiments, it is nevertheless appropriate to take the powers now. Given my reassurances, I hope that hon. Members will support clause stand part.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I am not convinced. We have evidence from the United States, which uses the devices extensively. People there are quite clear that the devices work only so long as they are installed. The recent massive survey of drink-driving and alcohol-related crashes firmly concluded that action on licences, withdrawal of the ability to drive and ultimately the withdrawal of freedom have a longer-term impact. I was interested to hear that the programmes are experimental. Experiments are going on, and presumably we can liaise with our colleagues in Sweden, France and Belgium, which are carrying out trials, but I am worried that that would be a major distraction. Getting the programmes up and running will take a lot of time and effort. According to the research that I have seen, a lot of monitoring is involved in them. I feel, especially after hearing the speech made by hon. Member for Stafford, that the problem should be addressed by the withdrawal of licences, better enforcement of the existing laws and, if necessary, imprisonment. Conservative Members will not therefore vote for clause stand part.

Clause 15 - Experimental period for section 14

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

As the Committee has decided to go ahead with the experimental devices, and as the clause limits the time, we will not oppose it.

Clause 16 - Retro-reflective markings

Brian Iddon (Labour, Bolton South East)

I beg to move amendment No. 95, in clause 16, page 21, line 14, leave out ‘may’ and insert ‘shall, by 2007,’.

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

With this it will be convenient to consider amendment No. 77, in clause 62, page 59, line 7, at end insert—

‘()Section 16 shall come into force on 1st January 2007’.

Brian Iddon (Labour, Bolton South East)

I am aware that the clause, which deals with retro-reflective markings for heavy goods vehicles above 7.5 tonne in weight, was inserted as an amendment to the Bill in the other place. I will not detain the Committee by reading out the full description of the vehicles that it covers. I am also aware that my hon. Friend the Minister has tabled an amendment to remove the clause, and I look forward to hearing his reasoning on that.

The issue has been debated for more than two years now and the Government have given various excuses as to why no action can be taken at present, at least by Britain unilaterally. Currently, under both the Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989 and United Nations Economic Commission for Europe regulation 48, which regulates installation of lighting and reflective devices on vehicles, retro-reflective tape can be fitted to HGVs but it is not mandatory. Installation is at the discretion of the manufacturer or user. A technical specification—UNECE regulation 104 for high quality retro-reflective tape—is available for the manufacture of such tape and the tape is commercially available. It can be used to emphasise the contours of large vehicles, especially their length and width.

I use the motorways quite a lot, as I guess many hon. Members do, mainly to travel between my constituency and London. Most HGVs are now extremely well lit— some are over-lit and look like Christmas trees as they approach—but others are extremely poorly lit and are not clearly conspicuous at night and in conditions of poor visibility. They are obviously more conspicuous on lit roads, but on country lanes without lighting they can be very dangerous. The Transport Research Laboratory, whose work I admire, has estimated that 30 to 34 occupants of cars are killed every year in collisions with the tail end of HGVs and that another 40 to 44 people are killed in collisions with the side of HGVs. Those are not insignificant numbers, and we have to remember that serious injuries also result from such collisions.

Large vehicles represent a traffic hazard, especially when they are moving slowly relative to the other vehicles on the road or are stationary. When slowly crossing a stream of traffic at a crossroads, for example, they are especially hazardous if they are not properly lit. Accident data suggest that larger vehicles are over-represented in fatal accidents. In 2003, HGVs represented only 1.7 per cent. of all vehicles on the road, yet they were involved in 15 per cent. of accidents that resulted in a fatality. They travelled six times the average distance travelled by a car per year, so those figures are not surprising.

I feel that my hon. Friend the Minister will tell us that we can make progress on this issue without the need for the clause, but my worry is that he said on Second Reading that

“it may be 2010 before the provision comes in, and that is the issue on which we need to agree.”—[Official Report, 8 March 2006; Vol. 443, c. 912.]

The EU regulations to which I understand he may refer are not expected to come into force until 2011 at the earliest. By then, hundreds more people will have collided with the tail ends and sides of HGVs and been killed or injured, sometimes seriously. The families that will be traumatised will not forgive the Government if we delay implementing this life-saving measure much longer. As my noble Friend Lord Berkeley said—this is a no-brainer—in the debate that inserted the clause into the Bill:

“Apparently, the powers exist. Let us get on and do it.”—[Official Report, House of Lords; 22 November 2005; Vol. 675, c. 1529.]

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Gentleman, with whom I am in total agreement. The intention of our amendment No. 77, to which I would like to speak, is identical to that of amendment No. 95, which he tabled.

We have a unique chance now. The proposals have all-party support, and we have pushed the Government to a tantalising point. I will shut up soon, as I want to hear what the Minister has to say on the matter. The case is overwhelming. The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East made the key point that the preponderance of accidents involving heavy goods vehicles could be avoided if they could be seen better. Some 45 per cent. of all fatalities caused by road accidents occur in darkness, and the university of Darmstadt found that 37 per cent. of all side collisions with trucks at night occurred because the trucks were seen too late. The same study found that adding retro-reflective contour markings reduced accidents involving trucks and passenger cars in poor visibility conditions by 95 per cent. That is an astonishing figure. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the extra number of collisions. At a rate of 385 a year, by my arithmetic—perhaps the Minister is quicker than me—there will be 1,540 more collisions if we do not introduce this measure until 2011.

It seems to me that we have an overwhelming case. On Second Reading, the Minister mentioned the cost. We stress that the proposal would cost about £100 for each new vehicle. Such vehicles cost about £100,000 each. I have a figure of £17,760 million as the total cost to the UK of road accidents in 2001. That includes all the costs of health care, police, emergency services and so on. We would be asking the freight industry to spend £100 on every new heavy goods vehicle, and many of those vehicles will be worth more than £100,000. The measure could result in a saving for the industry, as the average cost of having a 7.5 tonne lorry off the road is £212 per day, according to my figures. The freight industry would be quids in as well.

In 2005, the Government commissioned a report by Loughborough university, which concluded that there is a cost benefit for fitting line or contour markings to newly registered HGVs of more than 7.5 tonne in weight. The Government then launched a consultation, and of the responses, only 71 opposed mandatory retro-reflective markings. The Government spent the money on the report and conducted a consultation, and both were strongly in favour of mandatory markings. We now hope this afternoon that the Minister will act. We have crept from a situation in which his predecessors in this place and Ministers in the other place saying that new powers had to be introduced. His predecessor in March 2004 said that we had to wait for information from the European Commission. The Commission came out strongly in favour of markings. The hon. Member for Staffordshire, Moorlands (Charlotte Atkins), then an Under-Secretary of State for Transport, said that there had to be a review and consultation. Baroness Crawley confirmed that if there was

“a more favourable cost/benefit ratio ... My department will now consider how best ... to take this forward.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 4 July 2005; Vol. 673, c. 439.]

There was consultation, which was overwhelmingly in favour, and the Minister said on Second Reading that we could make progress on the issue without legislation.

However, the Minister then stated that

“it may be 2010 before the provision comes in, and that is the issue on which we need to agree.”—[Official Report, 8 March 2006; Vol. 443, c. 912.]

This issue falls into the second category that I mentioned in discussing the programme motion on Tuesday. We would withdraw our proposal if the Minister gave a guarantee that, if he has the powers, he would get on with it. Markings would offer rapid benefits, as was clearly explained by the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East. I do not understand what is holding the Government back. They have consulted, they have the European information and they have categorical statistical certainty from the university of Darmstadt that the measure will work. If the Minister has the powers, will he tell us this afternoon that he will introduce the requirement by 2007, thereby enabling us to withdraw the amendment?

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

This measure is really why we are here. It is the sort of measure that is inexpensive to introduce. It does not require haulage owners to have a long lead-in time to implement it. When ordering any new trucks this year, they would know that from 1 January next year the trucks would have to bear the markings. That would not be an onerous task for them, and the markings save lives. I cannot understand why the Minister is prevaricating about such a simple life-saving issue and I believe that the Committee should support the proposal.

Henry Bellingham (Conservative, North West Norfolk)

I rise briefly to support the amendments. I declare an interest because, a long time ago, in 1978, my late stepfather was killed when travelling south on a dual carriageway section of the A1. He drove under a lorry that was squatting in the central reservation; it had left its trailer in the fast lane and it was on an unlit section. My stepfather was obviously using dipped headlights, and at the inquest it was proven that his reaction time was so limited that no one travelling at 70 mph could have stopped in time. My point is that a disproportionate number of accidents in which people hit the trailers of articulated lorries, or indeed fixed-chassis lorries, are either fatal or very serious.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East and Opposition Members have made a persuasive case, and were I going to recommend that clause 16 stand part of the Bill I would accept my hon. Friend’s amendment and allow it to come into force from 2007. However, I fear that I am not going to recommend that.

The simple situation is that we already have the powers to permit retro-reflective tape on lorries, so if, as the hon. Member for North Shropshire suggests, there is an economic benefit for the haulage industry in putting it on their new vehicles, the industry can do so now. However, we cannot make it a requirement, because of obligations under United Nations Economic Commission for Europe measures and EU directives, which mean that we are unable to make any unilateral requirement of vehicles in this country. Were we try to change the legislation in the way suggested, our partners in the European Union would certainly object and take infraction proceedings against us. Given that the European Union has indicated that it will bring its own lighting regulations into line with the UNECE measures—as soon as they have been clarified—and that we will then be able to require markings on all vehicles, the amendment and the clause are redundant and perhaps illegal.

Brian Iddon (Labour, Bolton South East)

I would be prepared to withdraw my amendment if my hon. Friend can cite a date earlier than 2011. If he cannot, will he give a pledge to the Committee that we will try to bring that date forward? We cannot wait until 2011.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I cannot give my hon. Friend a precise date, because the EU directive cannot come into force until the UNECE regulations have been drafted. At the moment, we understand that that could be in 2010, but it could be a little later. I can assure him that in so far as I can influence the date, I will do my best to make it as early as possible. Were we to pass clause 16 as it stands, we would certainly be breaking EU law and proceedings would be taken against us.

With the greatest regret, I have to advise the Committee not to accept my hon. Friend’s proposed amendment—although I suppose that the Whip may wish us to accept my hon. Friend’s amendment to give him a brief moment of success in a Committee before I advise the Committee not to allow the clause to stand part of the Bill.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

That was a disappointing statement, because the figures scream at us. Occupants of commercial goods vehicles account for only 8 per cent. of all casualties on trunk roads, yet accidents involving such vehicles account for 26 per cent. of the total. In essence, what the Minister has said is that he is not prepared to fight his case with the European Commission, so the present position will remain until 2011 and there will be 1,540 more collisions. That is unacceptable to the Opposition, so we shall press the amendment to the vote. It would have benefits that are simple to understand. If the material was placed on trucks it would reduce the number of collisions by 385 a year. We think that that is a good idea.

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

There could be an opportunity to vote on amendment No. 77 later. We are now considering amendment No. 95.

Brian Iddon (Labour, Bolton South East)

Reluctantly, I will ask leave to withdraw the amendment. I do not like breaking the law, although I am tempted to break certain European laws because they are barmy. It is a personal opinion, but I think it is barmy that we have to wait until 2011 to save lives. States like Britain should be given the chance to go ahead on these sorts of issues unilaterally without having to wait for the rest of Europe to join us.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I remind my hon. Friend that we have the powers to permit the tape, but not to require it. We do not need new powers in order to permit it.

Brian Iddon (Labour, Bolton South East)

I accept my hon. Friend’s point. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

We are strongly in favour of the clause and think that it should stand part of the Bill.