Road Safety Bill [Lords]

Public Bill Committee, 28 March 2006.

Road Safety Bill - Standing Committee A

Road Safety Bill [Lords]

Brian Iddon (Labour, Bolton South East)

On a point of order, Mrs. Anderson. I refer back to an amendment that I moved last Thursday under clause 16 on retro-reflective markings. I withdrew that amendment on the grounds that the Minister said that it might not be permissible to fit such markings on heavy goods vehicles in Britain. He said:

“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.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 23 March 2006; c. 150.]

Since last Thursday’s sitting, I have received notification that the Commission has allowed the Italians to proceed on a legal basis to fit such marker tape to their HGVs. If I provide the Minister with the Italian legislation, which I have to hand, would he reconsider the matter before Report?

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we have already debated clause 16 and amendment No. 77, but I am sure that the Minister will want to make a note of what the hon. Gentleman said and perhaps we can return to the matter on Report.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

Further to that point of order, Mrs. Anderson. The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) is absolutely right: the Italian Government legislated in exactly the same way that we proposed to do through our two amendments. They specified domestic vehicles over 3.5 tonnes, not 7.5 tonnes as we proposed, and to date there has been no objection from the European Commission. As we understand it, such material has been placed on Italian lorries, and the Commission has not said that that is illegal.

During last Thursday’s sitting, the Minister suggested that

“the amendment and the clause are redundant and perhaps illegal.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 23 March 2006; c. 148.]

Would the Minister clarify the status of amendment No. 77, which would have had the effect of allowing this material by 1 January 2007? Are we in a position to debate that amendment at the end of the proceedings, because it comes right at the end of the Bill, or would it be better to refer to the matter on Report? That would give the Minister and his officials time to make a careful study of what has happened in Italy, to establish how the Italians have done it and to find out why there is a difference in legal opinion between the Italian and British Governments.

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

I am advised that we have already debated amendment No. 77, and clause 16 no longer stands part of the Bill. We debated it and the Committee reached a decision, but it will be possible to return to the matter on Report, and I am sure that the Minister will want to take account of the points raised.

Clause 20 - Causing death by careless, or inconsiderate, driving

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 24, line 36, column 4, leave out ‘the statutory maximum’ and insert

‘12 months (in England and Wales) or six months (in Scotland) or the statutory maximum, or both’.

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 63, in page 24, line 39, column 4, leave out

‘5 years or a fine or both’

and insert ‘a fine’

New clause 8—Causing death by reckless driving—

‘(1)In the Road Traffic Act 1988, after section 1 insert—

“Causing death by reckless driving

(1)A person who causes the death of another person by driving a mechanically propelled vehicle on a road or other public place recklessly is guilty of an offence.

(2)For the purposes of subsection (1) a person is to be regarded as driving recklessly if—

(a)the way he drives falls far below what would be expected of a competent driver and this must have been evident to him, or

(b)it must have been evident to him that driving the vehicle he was driving or proposing to drive in its current state was reckless.”.

(2)In the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, after section 24 insert—

“Alternative verdicts (reckless driving)

(1)Where—

(a)a person charged with an offence under a provision of the Road Safety Act 2006(c.) specified in the first column of the Table below (where the general nature of the offences is also indicated) is found not guilty of that offence, but

(b)the allegations in the indictment or information (or in Scotland complaint) amount to or include an allegation of an offence under one or more of the provisions specified in the corresponding entry in the second column,

he may be convicted of that offence or of one or more of those offences.

Offence ChargedAlternative Section (causing death bySection 1 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 (causing death by dangerous driving).”.

(3)In the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, Schedule 2, at end insert—

“Section (causing On indictment14 years imprisonment, disqualification and obligatory endorsement.”.’.

New clause 9—Causing death by dangerous driving—

‘(1)In section 2A(1)(a) of the Road Traffic Act 1988, line 1 leave out “far” and insert “significantly”.

(2)In Part 1 of Schedule 2 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 (prosecution and punishment of offences) in the entry relating to section 2 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 leave out “14” and insert “7”.’.

New clause 24—Dangerous driving after failure to stop—

‘(1)In the Road Traffic Act 1988, after section 2A insert—

“2BDangerous driving after failing to stop a mechanically propelled vehicle or cycle when required by a constable.

A person who drives a mechanically propelled vehicle or cycle dangerously within the meaning of sections 2 and 2A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 after being required to stop by a constable and having failed to do so within the meaning of section 163 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, shall be guilty of an offence.”

(2)In Schedule 1 to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, after the entry relating to section 2 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 insert—

“RTA section 2BDangerous driving after failing to stop a mechanically propelled vehicle or cycle when required by a constableSections 1, 11 and 12(1) of this Act”

(3)In Part 1 of Schedule 2 to the Road Traffic Offenders Act, after the entry relating to section 2 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 insert—

“RTA section 2BDangerous driving after failing to stop a mechanically propelled vehicle or cycle when required by a constable(a)On summary conviction, 2 years imprisonment, a fine on level 5 of the standard scale, obligatory disqualification and endorsement, 3-11

(b)On indictment, 5 years imprisonment, a fine, obligatory disqualification and endorsement, 3-11”.’. New clause 25—Dangerous driving— ‘In Part 1 of Schedule 2 to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 (c. 53) (prosecution and punishment of offences: offences under the Traffic Acts), in the entry relating to section 2 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (c. 52) (dangerous driving), in paragraph (b) in column (4) (punishment on conviction on indictment), for “2 years” substitute “5 years”.’. Ms Keeble: I am grateful to be able to propose this amendment and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for providing the time to do so. The amendment makes good the damage—some might say sabotage—done by their lordships to the causing death by careless driving provisions introduced by the Government in the other place. The Government originally introduced the measures with the provision of a prison sentence of up to a year for conviction in a magistrates court, and up to five years for conviction in Crown court. Their lordships deleted the prison sentence for the magistrates court, and I note that the Opposition propose to delete it for the Crown court. Government amendment No. 1 will restore the option of a prison sentence for a magistrates court and give full effect to Alexine’s law, as it became known in my constituency after a young girl who was killed in a road traffic accident caused by a careless driver. There is also a new clause in my name that would extend the prison sentence that can be imposed for causing serious injury.

New clause 25—Dangerous driving—

‘In Part 1 of Schedule 2 to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 (c. 53) (prosecution and punishment of offences: offences under the Traffic Acts), in the entry relating to section 2 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (c. 52) (dangerous driving), in paragraph (b) in column (4) (punishment on conviction on indictment), for “2 years” substitute “5 years”.’.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I am grateful to be able to propose this amendment and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for providing the time to do so. The amendment makes good the damage—some might say sabotage—done by their lordships to the causing death by careless driving provisions introduced by the Government in the other place. The Government originally introduced the measures with the provision of a prison sentence of up to a year for conviction in a magistrates court, and up to five years for conviction in Crown court. Their lordships deleted the prison sentence for the magistrates court, and I note that the Opposition propose to delete it for the Crown court. Government amendment No. 1 will restore the option of a prison sentence for a magistrates court and give full effect to Alexine’s law, as it became known in my constituency after a young girl who was killed in a road traffic accident caused by a careless driver. There is also a new clause in my name that would extend the prison sentence that can be imposed for causing serious injury.

A lot of discussion in Committee has focused on young people, because they are disproportionately the victims of road traffic accidents. I took up the issue because of young people. When I was given a slot in the private Members’ Bills ballot this year, I held a consultation with sixth-formers, who chose the careless driving provision as the measure that they most wanted to see on the statute book. They came to Parliament with Mr. and Mrs. Melnik, the parents of young Alexine who was killed, and lobbied the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), who has responsibility for the matter in the Home Office. They wanted to put right the current injustice, which allows a driver who is responsible for the death of a person by virtue of their careless driving to escape with just a slap on the wrist. The Melniks saw their daughter’s killer walk out of court with just a fine.

There has been discussion about whether a person should be convicted of an offence because of carelessness; we all know that we are guilty of carelessness at some stage or another. In a sense, that issue should have been resolved, as their lordships did not seek to delete the entire clause, but the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) opposed the offence on such grounds on Second Reading. I do not want to go too far into the background of the issue of death by careless driving, because we might want to deal with the matter during a stand part debate. However, if you are happy for me to do so, Mrs. Anderson, I shall deal with some of that background now, because it relates to the amendment and the importance of having the option of a prison sentence in the magistrates court.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

There is a lot of debate about whether there will be a sentence of imprisonment in the magistrates court, but is my hon. Friend aware that the House of Lords has also inadvertently taken away the magistrates’ power of a community punishment order?

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

Yes, that is right. I was going to argue that the Lords amendment was a wrecking one, which removed the impact of the extra offence because it removed the measures that people most want—not just a new offence but a proportionate punishment for that offence, which is widely considered to be a prison sentence. With that comes the option of a community order.

We all accept that there are degrees of carelessness and at some stage we have all been careless while we are driving. However, there are differences between the levels of carelessness. There is minor carelessness, which occurs when a person’s attention is deflected by something happening on the road, but there is also substantial and gross carelessness, where the level of care taken falls well below what is expected. In such circumstances, there is clearly a different level of culpability. A separate offence of causing death by careless driving is therefore appropriate so that it is perceived that carelessness is not always blameless.

The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell also said that the offence of causing death by careless driving should not be judged by its consequences. He felt that it was unfair that an offence be dictated by the fact that someone died. I would argue that that is the case with other offences, and I shall give an actual example, because hypothetical cases can seem a bit far-fetched. Although it might appear to stray slightly from the mark, it deals with the idea that it might be possible for an offence to be judged by its consequences.

In my constituency a perfectly normal young man—a student—got drunk in a pub during a happy hour promotion. On the way out, he got into a bit of an altercation with a man who happened to be a bouncer. He was not on duty at the time, but he knew how to fight and was quite heavily built. The young man baited the bouncer and he hit the young man, who then fell over and hit his head on the pavement. It was just a short fight so the police were not called. An ambulance was called, but it was sent away and the young man’s friends took him home. Several days later, he died. It transpired that there was a direct link between his hitting his head and his death, although he died several days later.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I am listening very carefully to the hon. Lady, because we disagree fundamentally on the matter. Does she not agree that the person who laid the blow had an intention to hit someone? That was not carelessness; he was not blinded by sunlight turning round a corner. Will she answer this point? The person in question must have had some intent. A person does not hit another carelessly; they intend to hit someone.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

Let me continue. The hon. Gentleman will see why I have used that example.

When the young man died, the bouncer went to the police station in floods of tears and pleaded self-defence, at which point the burden of proof shifted and no charges were brought. The Crown Prosecution Service, which explained the matter at some length to me and the family concerned, said that because the young man had died, manslaughter was the only charge that could be brought. There was no possibility of a lesser offence—assault, grievous bodily harm, actual bodily harm, or whatever it could be—because the young man had died, the bouncer had pleaded self-defence and the burden of proof had shifted.

The charges were entirely dictated by the consequences and the bouncer did not even face court, to the great grief of the family, as hon. Members can understand. Clearly, there was an intention to hit the young man, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, and he was knocked over, but although a man died the bouncer walked away scot-free. It is not true to say that the offence is judged only by what the person does or intends to do; it is also determined by the consequences of what happens, even if, in some instances—as in this case—they were not intended.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

This is a most important point. The hon. Lady would agree that her story shows that there was no carelessness in that case. There was intent to lay a blow, even in self-defence. However, we are talking about drivers who may just be blinded by bright sunlight on a winter’s afternoon while coming round a corner and do not see what is happening; they are blinded in a moment described as careless, but over which they have no control. They have no intention of being careless. In the case that the hon. Lady mentions, the bouncer had a clear intention to defend himself by landing a blow, so there was no carelessness at all, but there was deliberate intent.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman did not listen carefully to the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell, who did not argue about the intent. Nobody would accept that the action of somebody blinded by sunlight was careless; it is an accident. The point is that the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell said that an offence should not be judged by its consequences. It was not that he did not accept that it was death by careless driving; he did not accept that somebody should be judged on the basis of the consequences of what happened. It was the “death” bit that he objected to. That is inaccurate, because for other offences the consequences dictate whether a charge is laid and a decision is made that an offence is committed. The bouncer could not be charged with anything because the consequence of his action was death and the CPS judged that he could be charged only with something involving death.

Of course, the circumstances of each case have to be considered carefully, which is why various penalties are open to the courts. I am saying that there is a different order of magnitude when carelessness results in death, and it is right that there should be. The general public would also perceive that that is an appropriate way to consider a serious accident caused by careless driving, as opposed to a pure chance of fate if, for example, a person is blinded by bright sunlight, or something happens that is clearly outwith somebody’s control.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

That is helpful. However, although the hon. Lady implies that there are degrees of carelessness, the problem is that the clause does not deal with that. There is careless driving when someone is blinded by what can be called an act of God and other cases of carelessness when, as the hon. Lady implies, the person might bear some blame because of intent or incompetence. The problem is that under the clause as drafted, a court will not be able to differentiate between the types of carelessness.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

If someone goes round a corner and is blinded by bright sunlight, it is not carelessness; those are circumstances outwith their control. There must be very careful guidance about levels of carelessness, which my hon. Friend the Minister will come to when it is appropriate.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

The hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) has forgotten that later clauses define what we mean by careless driving.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I thank my hon. Friend. Obviously, therefore, the Crown Prosecution Service must carefully consider the issue of bringing charges. As with any other crime, there will be levels and tests that have to be judged in such a case. First, people understand levels of carelessness and, secondly, the arguments for saying that an offence should not be determined by the consequences do not hold in other areas. I do not accept the criticism made by the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell on Second Reading.

I called their lordships’ amendment a wrecking amendment—

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I am following the hon. Lady’s arguments with great care. She may be right when she says that the consequences should be taken into account, but does not a substantial body of case law state that when determining the sentence in a driving charge it is merely the standard of driving that is taken into consideration and not the consequences? If careless driving results in a collision—if we remove the emotion, the causing death element—a person will be sentenced on the standard of their driving, not the consequences or the damage caused to the other car.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I think that what he is saying is that the decision is made on sentencing and that surely it is then that a range of factors have to be taken into account. We are discussing whether there is an offence in the first place and whether it is a more serious offence because it results in a death. This is not about the sentencing but about the offence, the determination of whether there is an offence and what type of an offence it is. That point was brought up on Second Reading by the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell, and I profoundly disagreed with him having seen how, in other cases, whether an offence has been committed and what offence a person is charged with are determined by the consequences of the action. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) is talking about sentencing, which is further down the line.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

What she has described require express provision in the Bill. As it stands, consequences will not be taken into account.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

This is an offence of causing death by careless driving; that is the nature of the offence and that is what we are arguing about. The Conservative party disagrees with that proposal for a range of reasons, some of which were partly discussed on Second Reading and to which we will return. Conservative Members disagreed, first, with the notion of people being punished for carelessness, when we are all careless sometimes. I have dealt partly with that matter, and the Minister will deal with it at greater length and refer to different types of carelessness. Secondly, they objected to the prison sentence, because they thought it was too serious, and I shall come to that. Thirdly, on Second Reading, the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell also said that he disagreed with the proposal because he did not think an offence should be determined by the consequences of what happened. I disagree with that, too. There were three grounds on which the Conservative party disagreed with the proposal, and I think that it is completely wrong.

What motivated the Melniks and hundreds more like them—my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East has done much more work on this subject than me over a good number of years, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney)—was a profound sense of injustice over the inequity between the crime and the punishment that it receives. Their lordships’ amendment perpetuated that by removing the option of imposing a prison sentence in a magistrates court. That would enable offenders who think that there is a high chance of their being convicted to opt to plead guilty in the magistrates court, knowing that they would leave with a fine and could not even receive, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford said, a community sentence. They would not face a prison sentence, which, in some cases, society would judge to be a reasonable punishment. I would argue that the same applies to the extension of the penalty for causing serious injury.

To give a sense of why people feel such injustice, in Northampton recently a woman who was seven months pregnant was sent to prison for one or two weeks for failing to ensure that one of her sons went to school. Given that it threw a family into chaos, many people might think that that was an unreasonable, even silly, penalty. However, failing to send one’s child to school pales into insignificance when compared with the offence of causing death by grossly careless driving. The public would perceive a credibility gap between sending a pregnant woman to prison for not sending one of her children to school and discharging with a fine someone who has been grossly careless and killed a person through dangerous driving.

In addition, if the option of a prison sentence is not retained for magistrates courts, the credibility gap will not be plugged—there would be no sanctions between that for causing a fatal road traffic accident and that for being guilty of a minor traffic offence. That concept is taken further in Opposition amendment No. 63, to which I am also completely opposed. I am sure that the hon. Member for North Shropshire will correct me if I have misunderstood it. It would remove the option of a prison sentence even in the Crown court. That would lead to a meaningless offence. To have an offence of causing death by careless driving on the statute book, and to say that it ranks no higher than any other minor offence and is worthy only of a fine would be a complete nonsense and would perpetuate the most profound credibility gap in our criminal justice system.

Amendment No. 63 does no justice to some of those who have campaigned on the issue. The former excellent Labour MP for Wellingborough, Paul Stinchcombe, started the campaign with the Melniks, which the present hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) has continued and work hard on. Their lordships’ amendment has ripped the heart out of the offence and left it as a limp tool which confirms that someone is guilty of a gross offence but gives the courts no scope for imposing any penalty that the general public would perceive to have matched the crime.

It worries me that on this and other occasions the Opposition have talked tough on road safety but, once it is time to decide what should be done, have been on the side of some unsafe driving practices. They need to understand that if they talk tough on road safety they must match that, by supporting the creation of new offences backed by appropriate measures and sanctions. I urge the hon. Member for North Shropshire and his party to withdraw amendment No. 63 and not divide the Committee on this important provision, which plugs a credibility gap in our criminal justice system, has been campaigned for on both sides of the House, and responds to a profound sense of injustice among many people.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

Does the hon. Lady accept, in this discussion of justice, that there are circumstances in which it might be equally unjust to take the attitude that because someone has died someone must go to prison?

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. A family member of mine died in a road traffic accident, and I completely understand that it must not be the family’s grief that puts someone in prison. However, the right hon. Gentleman should also accept that there is a big credibility gap between the offence of causing death by dangerous driving, which carries 10 years or—

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

Fourteen years.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

Fourteen years, thank you. There is a big gap between that and the minor traffic offences for which people are just fined. That is the problem; there is nothing in between. People must understand that there is a difference between driving 60 miles on the wrong side of the road—which is dangerous driving—and killing someone, and doing something that is not that bad but that falls short of the expected standards of care, and the duty of care, that a normal driver has towards members of the public. A halfway house, which does not have such a high threshold, will none the less be more than just a slap over the wrist, a little fine, and then “Off you go to do it all over again.”

Henry Bellingham (Conservative, North West Norfolk)

The hon. Lady obviously feels strongly about the subject, but my concern is that unless the careless driving that causes the death is aggravated by some factor such as, for example, the fact that the person concerned was driving a car with bald tyres, or was racing another car, there should not be a custodial sentence. In my constituency fairly recently someone was driving along a road on a motor cycle when a travelling salesman pulled out. The motor cycle was in the blind spot and the motor cyclist was killed. Does the hon. Lady feel that that one-off—and appalling—lack of judgment, which many of us have shown in other circumstances, but without fatal consequences, should lead to that guy being imprisoned?

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I do not want to be judge and jury on an individual case. My hon. Friend the Minister will deal with some points about what constitutes careless driving. As has been pointed out, that is covered later in the Bill. The public perception is clear from the way in which prosecutions go, and the difficulty in getting convictions for dangerous driving, because of the high thresholds; the paltry number of cases in which people have been charged with or convicted of manslaughter because of the way in which they were driving is also relevant.

There is a big difference between those matters and a minor traffic offence, and the provision of an offence in the middle ground would make the point that there is a standard of driving that may not be dangerous but is not to the standard expected of a normal, careful, considerate driver. The courts will have at their disposal a range of appropriate sanctions. That is what the measure before us will do.

I urge Opposition Members not to push amendment No. 63 to a vote, and to support the Government’s amendment, which, as I said, plugs a credibility gap, provides the courts with more options to deal appropriately with the range of driving offences that we see on our roads, and has been talked about for a long time. This is not just a new, or a “back of a fag packet”, proposal—not that anything the Government put forward ever is. The public have campaigned strongly for the proposal, and it meets a profound sense of the need for greater justice in some of our road traffic legislation.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

The hon. Lady referred to the Official Report on Second Reading. I shall begin with a little point: all of us have enormous admiration for the Hansard reporters and the way that they take down words that we—probably—gabble. It is incumbent on us to go up after a debate and check our speeches, but, unfortunately, I had an engagement and did not do so. The hard copy of that debate reads:

“the effect of the effects”,

but actually I said:

“the effect of the offence”.—[Official Report, 8 March 2006; Vol.d¤443, c. 905.]

That has been corrected in the electronic copy. Obviously, I am very grateful to the Hansard reporters for all their hard work—it was a particularly unfortunate word that slipped, which I did not have a chance to correct.

Clause 20, as we have seen from the opening speech by the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble), is the most contentious clause in the Bill. There have been some fraught cases which have been publicised, and, obviously, we are all deeply sympathetic to those involved. I shall not talk about individual cases. I am not a lawyer, and we should be aware that we only read the newspaper reports and do not have access to the detailed papers to which lawyers in the court cases would have had access.

We recognise that this is a fraught area, with which the last Conservative, and the current Labour Government have wrestled. I agree totally with the hon. Lady about a credibility gap. There is a problem with cases in which, tragically, innocent people have been killed in road accidents and it is thought that the criminal justice system has not dealt with the driver appropriately.

The Government’s consultation paper, “Review of Traffic Offences involving Bad Driving”, shows the complexity of the issue. I have read that paper several times. Bad driving is not a problem just in this country—I have looked at evidence from Australia and America. It is a problem in all western societies, where it is being debated.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

On the point about Australia, the hon. Gentleman is wrong—there is a provision in Australia similar to the one before us. It is not quite the same, but it would have the same impact as the death by careless driving provision.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

Yes, I am aware that there have been several debates in Australia and America legislatures on that issue. Various countries have approached the problem in a similar way to us, and I think that when the hon. Lady hears our proposals she will realise that they are similar to what has been set down satisfactorily in other countries.

We all offer our deepest sympathies to the victims’ families, but, as we said on Second Reading, we must frame law that is workable and which will deliver justice—the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight). The current legal framework offers prosecutors a series of options in cases involving road traffic accidents. As the hon. Lady said, we have the offence of manslaughter, which offers life in prison. Currently, we also have causing death by dangerous driving, with a maximum of 14 years; causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs, which also offers 14 years’ imprisonment; dangerous driving, with a maximum of a six-month sentence in a magistrates court and of two years in a Crown court; and careless driving, for which there is no custodial sentence.

Clause 20 proposes to add the offence of causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving, which carries a possible five-year sentence to be imposed in a Crown court. We are opposed to that in principle. It cannot be right to imprison someone for a moment of carelessness, however horrific the consequences. It cannot be right to imprison someone who has shown no criminal intent and who may have been unaware of his carelessness.

The hon. Member for Northampton, North spoke about wrecking amendments and what our colleagues in the House of Lords have done. We believe that it is profoundly wrong that someone should lose his liberty for carelessness when there was absolutely no intent. For dangerous driving, which I shall come to, there is a clear framework of criteria to which the courts can refer, but there is none for this offence. In such circumstances, there will be no grounds for a defence. No one goes out with the intention of being careless, or of being blinded around a corner, which I mentioned earlier. I do not see a defence.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Can I just nip in the bud this business of people being temporarily blinded by sunlight? If one is temporarily blinded by sunlight, whether it is referred to as an act of God, an accident or fate, it is not carelessness. One would not be convicted under such circumstances. However, there is a clear difference between that and someone being blinded by fog but not moderating their speed. They might be driving at the speed limit, but it would be inappropriate in foggy conditions. Does the hon. Gentleman not see the difference between the carelessness in one case and the act of God in the other?

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

That was a genuinely helpful intervention from the Minister, as that is exactly what our amendment and new clauses are framed to address. We want to try to establish criteria. Much of this is subjective, but I totally agree that we must try to tie down the circumstances. The case that the Minister cited of someone being stupid enough to carry on driving too fast in fog would be caught by our new definition of dangerous or reckless. If I can make a little more progress, I might be able to explain that.

We are fundamentally opposed to imprisonment for carelessness. The point was most eloquently and clearly explained by my noble and learned Friend Lord Lyell of Markyate, who has been a Solicitor-General, an Attorney-General and a lawyer. It is well worth reading his speech on Third Reading in the other place on 10 January. He reinforced the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), who is the shadow Attorney-General.

My hon. Friend spoke on this issue in the obscurity of the Standing Committee on the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill on 20 January 2005. I believe that that was one of the first occasions on which the issue arose as a proposal in law. The hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) proposed an amendment that there should be an offence of causing death or serious injury by negligent driving, which would have a 10-year sentence. My hon. Friend spoke clearly and made our point in a way that expresses our opposition in principle. It is worth quoting his comments in full. He stated:

“I understand the upset of those who have lost relatives or loved ones in a road accident. Of course there may be circumstances in which the road accident that occurred was due to what, in the old days, we would have called a person’s ‘recklessness’ or the person driving dangerously, which implies that there was an element of serious culpability in their conduct because they should have been aware that what they were doing was dangerous. In those circumstances, I have always been of the view that the courts should, if necessary, punish people severely for their actions.

However, I was slightly shocked to hear the words of the hon. and learned Lady. She desires not only to criminalise negligence but to criminalise it with sanctions that are potentially extremely severe. She explained that negligence could amount to nothing more than momentary inadvertence. It is for good reason that the law has made no distinction between the penalty that it imposes on a driver for momentary inadvertence if there is no injury to somebody else and the penalty it imposes if there is death or even multiple death. The culpability lies in the behaviour and, as the culpability is a negligent culpability, without any intention, it is wrong—in my view, profoundly wrong—to impose a further sanction to mark public disapproval because of the consequence.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 20d¤January 2005; c. 450.]

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

The hon. Gentleman said at the outset that his opposition was in principle, which is a perfectly proper position to take. However, Parliament crossed the Rubicon when it made careless driving a criminal offence, because carelessness was criminalised. That was the point of principle. The question whether a custodial, non-custodial or financial penalty should be consequent to that carelessness is not a point of principle.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I am not sure that I agree with that.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I can put it much more simply. What is the difference in principle between punishing with a fine and punishing with a custodial sentence?

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

It is simple: loss of liberty. We are not convinced that it is right to lose one’s liberty for a moment of inadvertence. I should like to make a little further progress. We shall come up with a framework of contiguous offences, which would cover a lot of the concerns of the hon. Member for Northampton, North and be a better framework.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

Can we get away from the idea that carelessness must be a momentary lapse? Let us go back to the bouncer. One of the arguments was that, because he knew about fighting and physical control, he exercised a lack of care in the degree of force that he used. Carelessness is not just about a momentary lapse. It is a much more fundamental lack of care.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

We agree with that. We think that that should come under the criteria for dangerous driving. The Minister cited the example of the person who drives fast in fog when it is sensible to slow down. We think that that could come under the criteria. That is not carelessness; that is showing deliberate intent and ignoring road conditions.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

Let me give the hon. Gentleman a further example of people being convicted of failing to fulfil their duty of care. In a group of drug addicts, if one person takes an overdose, the others, who have failed to protect him, might then be convicted as a result of that failure to exercise a duty of care to look after somebody in difficulties. It is a much more fundamental issue.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

Yes, but that gets us back to the question of intent. As the Committee shall see, the Conservatives have a framework—a list of criteria—by which one will be able to judge actions on the road such as driving in fog. We think that it is wrong in principle to go to prison for a moment of carelessness in which there was absolutely no intent.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

On the question of carelessness, is it not the point that Parliament must trust the courts? The custodial sentence set out in the provisions would be an inappropriate sentence for a moment of carelessness, but even if it were imposed, it would almost certainly be overturned.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

We are proposing a custodial sentence for various criteria of dangerous driving, and I shall come to that in a second. I do not agree with the hon. Lady or the hon. Gentleman. We have a profound feeling on the matter. Our amendments are not wrecking amendments; they have been carefully thought through, and very experienced senior lawyers in the other place have gone through them in some depth.

The other point on which I disagree with the hon. Lady is the question of the consequences of the offence. A moment of carelessness could lead to a car striking a human being at 30 or 40 mph. If that human being is a fit, healthy middle-aged man in London, there might be doctors or nurses on the pavement, or someone with knowledge of first aid. A lot of people would be around. There is a chance that someone would use a mobile phone quickly, and in inner-city areas there is a strong chance that an ambulance would arrive quickly. We are looking at a hospital through the window. Accident and emergency is readily available.

The fit young man struck in London has a strong chance of surviving, purely because of the circumstances. In a rural area, a lady in her 80s hit at 35 or 40 mph following exactly the same moment of carelessness and with exactly the same impact—the Minister gave us figures on kinetic energy—might not survive, because not so many people would be around. There might not be a doctor or nurse in the village, or anyone with a mobile phone. In fairness to the ambulance services there, their minimum times are much longer, for obvious reasons, and the A and E department might well be half an hour away. Exactly the same element of carelessness causing exactly the same amount of energy to strike a human being would lead to a death in the rural area. It seems wrong to me that that would trigger clause 20 in the rural area, but not in the city. That is a serious practical problem with the clause and it is a good reason to oppose it.

Our second practical objection is because of the serious opposition in the legal profession. I stress that I am not a lawyer, but those professionals have to live with the laws that we pass and try to make them work. My noble and learned Friend, Lord Lyell, drew attention to a pamphlet put out by Justice and the vigorous opposition of the Council of Circuit Judges. Tellingly, he drew attention to the opinion of the Justices’ Clerks Society, which hears each case. It was unable to cite one case when it considered that a custodial sentence was appropriate.

Our last practical objection to the provision is that we fear that juries simply will not convict under the clause. A leading legal expert at Warwick university, Roger Leng, said:

“Typically when a jury is presented with a motoring offender they will be saying to themselves ‘I am not a perfect driver. I make mistakes.’ I think it will be easy for the defence lawyer to put that to them and invite the jury to be sympathetic.”

Juries might think, “There but for the grace of God go I. It could have been me who turned that corner. I just did not see the bicycle and the man wearing brown clothes against the brown hedge. It could have been me who turned into the street and didn’t see the cyclist behind the lamp post.” It is no good our passing unworkable laws in our ivory tower if juries will not make them stick. We will be in a worse position than we were before.

I have discussed the whole issue in depth with my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell, the shadow Secretary of State for Transport, and my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, the shadow Attorney-General. We recognise fully that there is a problem to be addressed, but amendment No. 63, with new clauses 8 and 9, would present a more just framework of laws. They are all of a piece. The hon. Member for Northampton, North picked out one amendment; it would be helpful if she addressed our three amendments to create a scale coming down from manslaughter.

It is worth considering the current definition of dangerous. According to “Archbold”, a person drives dangerously when the

“way he drives falls far below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver”

and when it

“would be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that way would be dangerous”.

Everyone knows of anecdotal cases. They might know of the horror of relatives. It is well worth considering such cases in the light of legal definitions that might support an allegation of dangerous driving. The hon. Lady cited a couple of cases in Northamptonshire.

Our proposals should be judged on the basis of a list, because they would deal with our new offence of reckless and our changed offence of dangerous. The list sets out racing or competitive driving; speed that is highly inappropriate for the prevailing road or traffic conditions; aggressive driving, such as sudden lane changes, cutting into a line of vehicles or driving much too close to the vehicle in front; disregard of traffic lights and other road signs, which, on an objective analysis, would appear to be deliberate, or disregard of warnings from fellow passengers; overtaking that could not have been carried out safely; driving a vehicle with a load that presents a danger to other road users; driving when suffering from impaired ability, such as having an arm or leg in plaster or impaired eyesight; driving when too tired to stay awake; driving with actual knowledge of a dangerous defect on a vehicle; and using a mobile phone as a telephone or to compose or read text messages.

In light of that framework, our solution in new clause 8 is to create an offence of causing death by reckless driving, and proposed subsection (2) defines that. We propose a maximum 14-year sentence of imprisonment. Our thinking on the term “reckless” is coloured by a judgment in the Scottish courts in 1980, when it was defined as follows:

“Judges and juries will readily understand ... that before they can apply the adverb ’recklessly’ to the driving in question they must find that it fell far below the standard of driving expected of the competent and careful driver and that it occurred either in the face of obvious and material dangers which were or should have been observed, appreciated and guarded against, or in circumstances which showed a complete disregard for any potential dangers which might result from the way in which the vehicle was being driven.”

We then propose, in new clause 9, to amend the current dangerous driving legislation—I have listed the criteria for that. The new clause would delete “far” and insert “significantly”, which would address the problem about which Opposition Members on the Committee are deeply concerned. Anecdotes have been cited; the Minister quoted the case of driving in fog. The words “significantly below” would give courts a better framework against which to judge such cases.

On principle, we do not think it right to provide for imprisonment for careless driving, and amendment No. 63 would therefore delete

“5 years or a fine or both”

and insert “a fine”. If the Committee agreed to the new clauses and our amendment we would have a clear framework: manslaughter, offering life; reckless driving, offering 14 years; death by dangerous driving, using the words “significantly below”, offering seven years; and we would keep the offence of death by careless driving but without a custodial sentence. The offences would be contiguous and provide a scale that would give our courts a better framework within which to judge the contentious cases that cause so much grief.

I shall touch finally on new clause 24. The hon. Member for Northampton, North said that we talk tough but are not acting tough. Cases have been brought to our attention in which police officers have asked drivers to stop, and the drivers have driven away dangerously. New clause 24 would create an offence of dangerous driving after failing to stop, and would give the court the option of two years’ imprisonment on summary conviction or five years on indictment.

Rosemary McKenna (Labour, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)

The fact that so many Members want to contribute to this debate shows how important the clause is. I welcome the Bill; I have followed its passage and I hope that we will get a landmark piece of legislation on road safety.

Will my hon. Friend the Minister explain the difference between the custodial sentence recommended for Scotland and that recommended for England and Wales? I am sure that he will do so in his response to the debate.

I disagree profoundly with the hon. Member for North Shropshire. A custodial sentence for careless driving absolutely must be in the legislation, principally but not only because the current situation causes so much grief to bereaved families, who believe that the process adds to their pain. I associate myself with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North and the important point made by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. Careless driving is already an offence. We are discussing the sentencing policy for that offence.

In April 1999, I secured an Adjournment debate in the House on road death charging policy. Since I was elected in 1997, I have been involved in that issue. On 18 September 1998, Steven Dekker, my constituent and near neighbour, celebrated his 24th birthday with his family and Gail, his girlfriend of six years. On Saturday 19 September, Gail and Steven spent the day together in Glasgow, shopping, enjoying being together and planning their future. At 6 pm, on a bright, clear evening, as they drove home to Cumbernauld, a van being driven the wrong way down a single carriageway, hit them head on, killing Steven and injuring Gail.

The collision occurred as Steven came round a bend on a one-way single carriageway, with no chance of taking avoiding action. Of course, the family and the local community were devastated, but the legal process actually added to their pain. The Crown Office decided to prosecute Andrew Wilson, the man who killed Steven Dekker, not with death by dangerous driving, but with the lesser charge of careless driving. The proceedings in court lasted 15 minutes, and Andrew Wilson was fined £750 and banned from driving for one year. Since that day, the family have pursued the case positively, with Mrs. Dekker now playing a major role in road safety organisations.

At that time, the thrust of my argument was that the charge of careless driving was wrong, and about charging policy in general. The police prepared a charge of dangerous driving, but that was downgraded to careless driving by the procurator fiscal’s office. The clause changes that argument, and we heard last week’s discussions on the matter.

Today, I spoke to Margaret Dekker, who was, of course, following the passage of the Bill. She believes that the Government have got it just about right, and that a custodial sentence is crucial. She has welcomed the whole process of the Bill, and asked that we congratulate the Minister, because the process of creating the Bill, including consultation, has been done properly. All of that has made road safety organisations feel that their work over many years particularly in relation to custodial sentencing has been heard. Those points have been made continually by RoadPeace campaigners and not just in relation to one or two high-profile cases.

On behalf of SCID—the Scottish campaign against irresponsible drivers, which supports victims of road crashes, Mrs. Dekker wrote:

“The maximum penalties proposed by the Government are five years for both of these offences. The present lack of such offences and the limited sentencing power of the courts are causing an aggravated grief for bereaved families and a resulting lack of confidence in the criminal justice system they look to for support ... The present maximum penalty available to the courts for ‘Careless driving’ is £2,500 fine, a discretionary disqualification and 3-9 penalty points. While sentencing is always a matter for the judge/sheriff based on the available evidence, we would envisage the proposed maximum penalty of 5 years, proposed in the Bill, would bridge the much needed sentencing gap between “dangerous” and “careless” and would give the judge/sheriff the scope to reflect the gravity of the carelessness.”

The hon. Member for North Shropshire has argued that carelessness should not be punished by a custodial sentence, but problems arise when the charging authorities decide whether to make the charge careless driving or dangerous driving. That is when it is important that both charges carry a custodial sentence.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I am listening carefully to what the hon. Lady is saying. I repeat that it is dangerous to get into individual cases. We are not aware of the circumstances, although I am sure that she knows far more details of the case than I do. Does she not agree with our new offence of dangerous driving, which would be defined as driving that falls significantly below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver, and which would be obviously dangerous to a competent and careful driver? I gave examples of driving that might support an allegation of dangerous driving. I would have thought that this case, which involved inappropriate speed, aggressive driving such as sudden lane changes and disregard of traffic lights and road signs, would be satisfactorily caught by our proposed offence of dangerous driving “significantly below”.

Rosemary McKenna (Labour, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)

The hon. Gentleman may well be right, but all those circumstances applied and the driver could have been charged with dangerous driving at the time. Indeed, the police prepared the charge of dangerous driving, but it was dropped to careless driving by the procurators fiscal.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

That was under the current dangerous driving offence, which is “far below”. We are proposing “significantly below”.

Rosemary McKenna (Labour, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)

We are splitting hairs. What is absolutely important is that there is an opportunity to charge with causing death, whether by careless driving or dangerous driving. I do not subscribe to the idea that a moment’s carelessness should be disregarded, but this case did not involve a moment’s carelessness—it involved significantly bad driving. It is absolutely crucial that the sheriff or magistrate of whichever court is involved has the right to apply any of those options when sentencing.

Brian Iddon (Labour, Bolton South East)

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the problems with what the hon. Member for North Shropshire proposes is that the more words we introduce into the law, the more the defence solicitors and lawyers will use them to get their clients off, and that what we really need is simplicity in the law? The problem with the Opposition’s proposals is that they complicate the law.

Rosemary McKenna (Labour, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. That is exactly what happened in this case. The accused agreed to plea bargain, which is what happens frequently when lawyers are involved. They persuade their client to plea bargain to a reduced charge. At that time, the reduced charge did not have a custodial sentence. Therefore, not only was there no trial to give the family their day in court and to put all the details into the public domain, but the sentence that was available was insignificant and caused a massive amount of pain to the family.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

It is important to get this right. The statement of the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East that we are adding more words is incorrect. [Hon. Members: “Significantly.”] We are changing “far” to “significantly”. I listed the criteria for different types of bad driving. In the case that the hon. Lady cited, the prosecutors and the court would have powers to go to seven years in passing sentence.

Rosemary McKenna (Labour, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)

I believe that the addition of the word would give lawyers the right to drive a coach and horses through the legislation.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Carelessly drive them.

Rosemary McKenna (Labour, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)

Yes—and that is exactly the point that we are trying to make. There must be the right to give a custodial sentence in such cases, and for the courts to be able to apply the appropriate sentence. It is stated in the North report, for example, that

“we find the concept of a road traffic offence in which the sentencing court is obliged to disregard the fact that a death has occurred as wholly anomalous.”

That opinion is repeated regularly throughout all thed¤background information that RoadPeace campaigners have given us.

I shall move on to my last point, which I hope the Minister will deal with when he responds. SCID asked me to raise one other issue with him. It relates to a case that Mrs. Melnik recently attended to support another family, a member of which had been seriously injured in a road traffic accident. Although the person did not die, they suffered serious head injuries, and family members felt that they had lost that person as a result. Will the Minister take that issue into account both now and during later stages in our consideration of the Bill? With that, I congratulate him on the legislation and hope that proceedings on it reach a speedy conclusion.

Lee Scott (Conservative, Ilford North)

I start by referring to the anecdote told by the hon. Member for Northampton, North, because I have read of similar occurrences and experiences and heard of them in my constituency. In those cases, custodial sentences were indeed passed in exactly the circumstances that the hon. Lady mentioned, so there are obviously inadequacies with the prosecutions and sentences.

Let me move on, however, to careless driving and dangerous driving. Earlier, the Opposition were accused of talking tough, but not acting on that. However, there is a difference between talking tough and talking fairly and then acting on that. The provisions tabled by my hon. Friends cover the cases that we are discussing. The list that was read out covered people on mobile phones, knowledge of defects in cars, driving at too high a speed, cars racing each other, aggressive driving, people jumping lights, overtaking, somebody being too tired and cases such as that mentioned by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch, East (Rosemary McKenna) in which, I am amazed to say, the person involved was not prosecuted for dangerous driving, but got off with just a fine. Under our proposals, all those offences would be covered by “reckless”.

Henry Bellingham (Conservative, North West Norfolk)

The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch, East described that case in great detail, and we would all feel huge sympathy for the victims of that appalling piece of driving. However, if the procurator fiscal decided not to go for causing death by dangerous driving in such a case, our new clause on causing death by reckless driving would surely be the obvious choice, and the person involved would have had a custodial sentence.

Lee Scott (Conservative, Ilford North)

My hon. Friend is perfectly right. The new clause proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire would cover that.

Let me return to some of the problems with causing death by careless driving. I want to talk not about examples relating to whether the sun got in somebody’s eyes, but about somebody who might do thousands of miles. Many years ago, I was on the road as a rep and I did thousands of miles. Did I ever drive carelessly? Probably, but I was fortunate never to be involved in a serious accident. However, I could have been involved in an accident and I could have been prosecuted and gone to jail. What would have happened if I could not prove that the sun had shone in my eyes? Where is the division? Where does it come in when we have a prosecution and a custodial sentence? Tragically, one party might be deceased by then; indeed, that is why the case would be brought. If no one was in the other party’s car, we would have only their word. Surely, the reckless driving offence would cover such cases in a much fairer and greater way.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

The hon. Gentleman talks about reckless driving as if it were the same as careless driving. However, the Opposition proposals would change the threshold for causing death by dangerous driving—a crime that the courts understand and use—and introduce a new offence of causing death by reckless driving, with the higher threshold that currently relates to dangerous driving. The case that he mentions does not relate to the lesser offence. If it involves reckless driving, as he says it does, the threshold would be much higher than for causing death by dangerous driving—that is the effect of the Opposition amendments, which is why they are so wrong.

Lee Scott (Conservative, Ilford North)

I am sure that the hon. Lady would not expect me to agree and I do not. The fairest way forward is for any family that has been tragically affected and which wants justice to have justice, and none of my hon. Friends would disagree with that. The vital question, however, is how that justice is obtained.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

My concern is to address the present cliff face in the law between somebody who causes a death and is convicted of dangerous driving, and somebody who causes a death whose driving the court decides is not dangerous, so can convict only for careless driving and simply award a fine. The hon. Member for North Shropshire says that he does not get involved in individual cases, which I understand, but as someone who has taken an interest in road safety for a long time, I know that from time to time bereaved relatives will say that a family member was killed, the driving seemed to them very dangerous, but the court did not convict for dangerous driving and all that was passed was a fine. They ask, “How derisory is that? How can you put a fine of £1,000 on my family member’s death?” That is what I seek to address by putting my name to amendment No.1.

It would be wrong to say that the law does not have regard to the effects of a person’s behaviour. The law on assault lists different kinds of assault, depending on the effect of the person’s guilty behaviour. For example, at one end there is common assault, then actual bodily harm, then grievous bodily harm and then malicious wounding, right up to attempted murder. Therefore, the law clearly already has regard to the consequences of a person’s actions. The official Opposition are saying that in this case they do not like the amount of guilty intent that is needed to make available to a court the option of sending a person to prison.

There is a helpful written answer to a question, tellingly from the hon. Member for Wellingborough, in which the Solicitor-General explains the present law as regards what needs to be proved. For dangerous driving the prosecution must show that

“the driving fell far below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver and it would be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that way was dangerous. To prove careless driving it is necessary for the prosecution to establish that the driving fell below that of a reasonable, prudent and competent driver.—[Official Report, 20 March 2006; c. 74W.]

Therefore, for both offences the driving is below what is expected of normal, competent, careful drivers. It is below the standard for careless driving and far below for dangerous driving.

I agree with the hon. Member for North Shropshire that the Government’s consultation document, a good document that fairly set out the difficulties and complexities of this area of law, considered the alternative option of a new standard in addition to those two. It suggested that there could be “below the normal standard”, “far below the normal standard” and “even further below the normal standard”. The official Opposition’s proposal today does not go down that road, but asks whether we can squeeze in another standard between “below” and “far below”. I believe that that is dangerous, because it would end up merging with what we have already. “Reckless” and “dangerous” would then become the same offence, andd¤courts would apply them in the same way, and someone who cannot be convicted of those offences would still be convicted of careless driving with nothing more available to the court than the sentence of a fine. That is indeed the official Opposition’s intention.

I do not agree that the public would find what I am proposing offensive. The hon. Member for Wellingborough explained in his Second Reading speech the wide consultation that he carried out in his constituency, when he found strong support for the course of action proposed in the amendment, which was also proposed by the Government in the original Bill introduced in the House of Lords. From many years of meeting members of the public and talking about road safety issues, I believe that his experience in Wellingborough is reflected around the country.

To introduce a maximum sentence of imprisonment for causing death by careless driving is not the same as establishing a law that anybody who kills while driving must go to prison. We are not saying that. We are addressing the cliff face of a driver’s behaviour that has fallen below the standard that we expect from a normal driver. How far below has it fallen? How bad has the driving been? If it is not bad enough to be caught by an offence of dangerous driving, is it nevertheless bad enough to deserve a serious sentence if somebody is killed? If the sentence is serious, it could be imprisonment.

Let us not overlook the fact that there is no ability in the Bill as drafted for a magistrates court to say, “This is worse than something that requires a fine, but not as bad as something that requires prison. We’d quite like to make this person do some community work as punishment.” The Bill as drafted does not permit that. We need to change the law to give the magistrates the ability to judge how bad the driving was that caused the death and then to decide whether the right sentence is a fine, community punishment or imprisonment, suspended or otherwise. I am asking the Committee to agree to give the courts that range of sentencing powers.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

On sentencing, the hon. Gentleman is latterly making a point with which I have some sympathy, but is not the problem that the magistrates can consider that community order only as an alternative to imprisonment? If they do not have the power to impose imprisonment, they cannot issue such an order. That is a problem not only in relation to motoring, but across the range of sentencing. If a change is to be made, is there therefore not a case for making it in respect of every offence that is dealt with by the magistrates court?

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

The right hon. Gentleman is quite right. The magistrates have to be able to say, “This is serious enough for prison, but on this occasion we will impose a community punishment instead”. If we wanted to undo that state of law, we would need to address the many Criminal Justice Acts that exist. However, to reassure him that it he is better off supporting our amendment than his party’s amendment, we could bring to our aid the Sentencing Guidelines Council, which was established by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. We could rely on the council to give guidance to magistrates courts on exercising their power, which will range from a fine through to imprisonment. I urge the Committee to agree to that range of penalties.

Henry Bellingham (Conservative, North West Norfolk)

The debate concerns some difficult circumstances and creates quite a lot of emotion, so it is best approached in as bipartisan a way as possible. We all agree that the current law is not satisfactory and there is no question but that the Government are making a brave and honourable attempt to improve it.

My Front-Bench colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire, takes the view that we should not get too immersed in individual cases. However, it is perhaps through such cases that we become most informed and our own lives are touched. I told the Committee last week about a tragedy that my family suffered. My late stepfather, a very good driver who happened to be a racing driver in his younger days and a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists, was killed on the A1 by a lorry that left its tail in the fast lane. He was driving at 65 mph on a section of road that was unlit. The driver of the lorry pleaded guilty to careless driving and received, I think, a fine of £50.

One can imagine the view of my family. We felt very strongly indeed that that lorry driver deserved a tougher sentence, because what he was doing was certainly not careless, but manifestly reckless. He could easily have turned left on the A1 at that junction and gone round a roundabout, which would have taken probably another two minutes of his time. All those dual carriageways have now been made a good deal safer, as the Minister will know, and I applaud the Government for the campaign to improve safety on dual carriageways in this country.

We all know of constituency cases, and I should like to cite one. I mentioned earlier the case of the travelling salesman who knocked someone off their motorcycle. There was a momentary lapse of concentration and the motorcyclist was in a blind spot, although it was right that that travelling salesman did not go to prison. On the other hand, there was another case in my constituency involving a young lad called Adam Wall, who actually lived in the constituency of my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mr. Fraser). Adam’s mother, Bridget Wall, has been an active campaign member of RoadPeace.

In that tragic case, her son was on a motorcycle driving east along the A47, just outside Wisbech, at night and minding his own business, when a van pulled out recklessly—possibly even dangerously—and knocked the young lad off his motorcycle, killing him instantly. The family, naturally enough, were appalled when the van driver was convicted of careless driving and given a minor fine with no lengthy period of disqualification and no community service.

On the other side of the coin, I can cite the example of a constituent who was involved in a fatality. He admits that he had a moment of road rage and raced another car. The car that was crashed into involved a fatality, and both drivers who were racing served a custodial sentence. That must be right; it was an aggravated incident.

There was another example on a road in my constituency recently. A company rep was driving in wet conditions on a new, fast stretch of road around a village called Narborough. A platoon of traffic had bunched up, and he pulled out to overtake a lorry, not knowing that there was a car in front of it which was going too slow for the conditions. The lorry was too close to the car, and the company rep slammed on his brakes and lost control. He was done for careless driving, but I do not believe that he was disqualified. Should he have been? I do not know.

The law is inadequate, and the Government are making an honourable attempt to improve it. When the Bill leaves Committee, having put the argument and pushed it to a vote, we may have to accept defeat. However, my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire, the official Opposition, a large number of MPs and people with a great deal of experience have put a great deal of effort, time and thought into the matter. We have not said to Her Majesty’s Government, “Look, you’ve got this wrong. Sorry, we’re going to vote against it.”

We have come up with alternative proposals. They represent an imaginative, genuine and inspired attempt to improve the law in such a way that falls short of what the Government have done, but avoids the trap—the law of unintended consequences—into which people who drive many miles, such as the travelling salesman, the company rep, people such as my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Scott) in another incarnation will fall. All of us have at times had a momentary lapse in concentration. No one can put their hand on their heart and say that every day of their lives, they have driven and not made some small indiscretion. Thank the Lord, in 99.9 per cent. of those cases, there has not been a fatality—there has not even been an accident.

In a detailed and well researched speech, my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire put forward to the Government an alternative that shows ingenuity and imagination. The Government have put a lot of work and effort into the legislation, and the law will be improved, but there is a danger that some people will suffer a custodial sentence that Parliament did not intend. The Minister will say that the court will always have discretion and that it will not have to impose a custodial sentence, but I fear that mistakes will be made. The silver lining on that cloud is that we shall end up with a better law than the current law.

Brian Iddon (Labour, Bolton South East)

The problem here is quite simple and I do not want to complicate the issue by taking on board the amendment proposed by the Opposition. We have a threshold definition that is difficult enough for the Crown Prosecution Service and the police to interpret, with dangerous driving at the top end of the scale and careless driving at the bottom.

As I pointed out on Second Reading, it would be hard to find another Member of Parliament who has had more related fatalities in their constituency than myself, in the densely populated urban area that I represent. I read out all of the cases there have been in the past few years, some of which were very serious. They have involved me in a lot of discussions with the police and different branches of the CPS. I have tried to see the situation from the police’s point of view when they make the charge, and that of the CPS when they take it to court. On many occasions the CPS, against the police’s wishes in a majority of cases, change the charge that is prosecuted in court.

The difficulty that the police and the CPS are in is this: if they have a case where there has been a fatality that is close to the threshold, which side of the threshold do they prosecute on? The police and CPS will say that in order to bring justice to the families who have lost loved ones, relatives and friends, they have to prosecute above the threshold and go for death by dangerous driving. They will also say that they lose so many cases by doing that that they are entirely frustrated. Of course, when they lose such cases, the families involved are extremely aggrieved and feel that they have not got justice.

On the other hand, the police and the CPS could play it cautious. After looking at the past cases and precedents, they may feel that they will not achieve a result above the threshold, so they go for a charge of careless driving. And my goodness, that greatly aggrieves the families who have lost loved ones in fatal accidents. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford has pointed out, the problem is that there is a huge gap that has to be dealt with by the families who have suffered from fatalities, and by the Crown Prosecution Service and police. It is extremely difficult to decide whether to prosecute above the threshold or below. They cannot win in many of these cases.

The amendment that has been accepted and the one we are discussing at the moment will give the police and CPS a new charge and penalty to plug this huge chasm between the upper and lower charge, which will bring justice, and it will be seen to be done by the families who have suffered fatalities. Although lawyers are against it because they believe that it will make accidental conduct seriously criminal and worthy of imprisonment, the sort of cases that will be prosecuted under the new charge by this new penalty are not those where people have been blinded by sunlight. They are serious events where we would like a charge of death by dangerous driving, but the evidence is not there. They are not minor offences, but very serious ones.

Although the lawyers do not like it, as I put on record on Second Reading, the CPS has clearly said that

“The new offence will be valuable in bridging the existing gap between causing death by dangerous driving and careless driving. In the most difficult cases that fall very close to the line dividing these two offences, it will enable prosecutors to place both offences on the indictment, thus allowing the jury to make their assessments of the facts.”

That is what we are trying to do, and I do not want to complicate matters by changing the law in the way proposed by Opposition Members because in my experience when there is a substantial—not significant—change in the law, it takes the courts years to bed it down and to learn how to interpret the change through taking cases through the court. The change of law that we have suggested is far simpler and easier to interpret for the Crown Prosecution Service, judges and juries who have to deal with it in the courts than that proposed in the Opposition amendment.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East speaks persuasively and eloquently about the issues and problems associated with the existing law. I agree that the official Opposition’s amendment is extremely complicated. We are not convinced that it would bring about the sort of change that hon. Members on all sides would wish to see. My problem with the Government’s proposal—it was raised on Second Reading and in another place—is with what is meant by careless driving. The official Opposition keep referring to a moment of madness, or a sudden blinding light. I should like to see—either in the explanatory notes or in the Bill—some explanation of the categories that will be covered by careless driving. There is a wealth of difference between the categories mentioned in the amendment that would extend dangerous driving and somebody being blinded by sunlight. If we are to give custodial sentences, we need to be clear about what will be covered by those categories. I shall be grateful if the Minister enlightened us.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

My apologies, Mrs. Anderson, for having been absent for much of the debate. I was here for the earlier speeches and I shall not detain the Committee for long.

The crux of the difficulty with which the Committee grapples is the distinction between carelessness—subsection (3) is worded in such terms—and the dangerous driving covered in subsections (1) and (2). When the hon. Member for North Shropshire introduced his amendments, he gave us the 1980 definition of recklessness from, I think, the Allan case. Of course, 1980 predates the 1988 Act, which we are seeking to amend. At that stage, a definition was needed because the offence was causing death by reckless driving. Parliament, in its wisdom, sought to change that in 1988, so we got dangerous driving and careless or inconsiderate driving. Thereafter—in 1992 or thereabouts—an additional definition was added in a further amendment to the Road Traffic Act 1988.

The time has surely come to consider not just whether it is appropriate to create an offence of causing death by careless driving but whether the operation of the distinction between careless and inconsiderate driving on the one hand and dangerous driving on the other has worked as well as we might think it has done. The fact that we are engaged in this debate suggests to me that it might not have done. It is 18 years since we passed the 1988 Act, so it might be time to undertake a proper and comprehensive examination of the whole body of road traffic legislation rather than doing it in the piecemeal and unsatisfactory way that we seek to do today.

At the conclusion of such an exercise we might well go back to something more akin to recklessness than to dangerousness and carelessness. However, let us not forget that we abandoned reckless driving for a reason—the significant problems attached to getting convictions for recklessness. That was why, in order to get some clarity at the lower end of the scale, carelessness and inconsiderate driving were introduced.

I accept that a vast range of driving can come under the term careless or inconsiderate driving. If one considers that one goes from court to court and from judge to judge, there is always going to be a degree of overlap. What is at the bottom end of dangerous driving might, in another court, be at the top end of careless driving.

The proposals of the hon. Member for North Shropshire are interesting, because he seeks to give a list of all the things that would constitute dangerous driving, with everything else being careless, or reckless—whatever the term may be. The difficulty that I have with that, which is born of my occupational experience of prosecuting and defending in court, is that every time one perfects that list of things that are covered by certain conduct, somebody out in the world finds a new way of committing the same offence in a way that is not already covered by the list. That is why, of necessity, the definitions in an Act such as this will be exceptionally broad.

It is because the Government have chosen to proceed as they have that I retain a number of reservations about the form of the proposals before the House—reservations that have been expressed by my noble Friends in the other place. The crux of those reservations is in trying to read across the wording in section 3—careless and inconsiderate driving—into the new offence of causing death by careless and inconsiderate driving.

I have no difficulty in envisaging a custodial sentence being available to the courts for cases when the conduct is less than dangerous, but is right at the top end of carelessness. The hon. Member for Northampton, North used, I think, the term “grossly careless”. If that is not covered by dangerous driving then, yes, gross carelessness should be something for which a custodial sentence should be available. The difficulty is that the Bill goes wider than that, because it refers to causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving. Everyone accepts that inconsiderate driving is of lesser standard of seriousness than careless driving, and I have a real problem with custodial sentences being available for inconsiderate driving.

So I have a lot of sympathy with what the Government have done, and with the views held by the hon. Member for Northampton, North. Nevertheless, the House needs to do rather more careful work before the provisions go on to the statute book.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I should like to clarify that when I referred to gross carelessness, I was not referring to what is in the Bill. I was talking about our common-sense understanding that there are different types of carelessness, and about how that is translated into legislation.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

The difficulty is that when one speaks of gross carelessness and degrees of carelessness, the lawyers start to get interested. They start to ask whether gross carelessness is something beyond what is required for carelessness—is it dangerous or is it something that, because it is carelessness, is already covered by the clause?

Brian Iddon (Labour, Bolton South East)

I should like to remind the Committee of the case to which my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Kitty Ussher) referred on Second Reading, a case that received widespread publicity in all the national media. The case was that of three-year-old Levi Bleasdale, who was struck by a hit-and-run driver last year. The gentleman was charged with careless driving.

Not only the family of Levi Bleasdale, but the whole country, felt that that driver should have had a custodial sentence. That is exactly what we are trying to introduce, and we should remember families like Levi Bleasdale’s. We are not dealing with cases of blinding by sunlight; we are dealing with cases like Levi Bleasdale’s.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I am grateful for that intervention. A custodial sentence would, of course, be available in that situation, because failing to stop at the scene of an accident and thereafter failing to report it to the police are both species of criminal offence under the Road Traffic Act 1988 for which custodial sentences are already available and frequently applied.

It is important in dealing with such a case not to let the understandable emotion involved blind us to the fact that other provisions in the Road Traffic Act and common law would impose custodial sentences if they were properly imposed and dealt with.

I have a lot of sympathy with what the Government seek to do. However, I am not entirely in accordance with their views on how it should be done. More work is required and I hope that at some stage in the near future we will have a full and proper objective assessment of the law, perhaps by the Law Commission, that will allow a proper reworking of the Act. It is now almost 20 years old; the last Road Traffic Act to be revisited was 26 years old. We are approaching that threshold. As others have said, if we are to make changes it is important that they are workable. What we have at the moment is just short of that.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I apologise for not being in Committee for much of the debate this morning. I was delayed on unavoidable constituency business.

I support the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire. As I understand it, the purpose of the amendment is to seek appropriate punishment for those who cause death on our roads by driving below recognised standards of competence. We support the trickle-down, so that if they are not found guilty of a more serious offence they can be found guilty of a lesser offence.

I have reservations about the clause and whether it is the way to proceed. I am concerned at the attempt to impose a five-year, or indeed any, custodial sentence for the offence of careless driving. I hear what the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East has said, but the representations made to us have shown little support for the clause from the legal profession or the judiciary. The provision has arisen because the CPS has failed to prosecute many drivers for what they should be prosecuted for, namely the offence of dangerous driving, and because of the “there but for the grace of God go I” attitude of a number of juries.

The Levi Bleasdale case, which the hon. Gentleman rightly cited and which horrified many, ought to have been prosecuted for what it was: dangerous driving. The criminal may have been caught by hit and run, but he ought to have been prosecuted for dangerous driving. That has been a real problem and I am not convinced that the Government’s solution will get round it. Our amendment tries to ensure that we have a proper way to deal with drivers who have killed.

The clause is contrary to legal principle. Nowhere in English law is there a provision for a custodial sentence for an offence that does not go beyond carelessness. We provide custodial sentences for intent and civil redress for carelessness. The provision will undoubtedly cause a huge amount of injustice. I heard briefly what the hon. Member for Northampton, North said about the definition of gross carelessness and the graduating scale. The difficulty is the ability to differentiate.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

The hon. Gentleman says that this is a novel principle in English law. He may well be right, but can one not receive a custodial sentence for breaches of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974? A breach of the requirement to maintain a safe system of work could be accidental.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

My understanding is that that requires deliberate neglect rather than carelessness; I am happy to be advised by the hon. Gentleman as a lawyer, which I am not, but I will certainly look into that.

The proper way to deal with drivers who have killed is surely for the CPS to be more careful about its charging level and to use the offences appropriate to the actions of the driver. That is the intention behind our amendments. By reintroducing the recklessness clause, we would set a higher test, specifying more closely and widening the definition of dangerous driving. That should enable the CPS to prosecute more correctly, and to resist the temptation to charge a person with the lowest offence possible in order to secure a conviction, and go for the offence for which they should be prosecuted.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

The hon. Gentleman clearly thinks that to use the definitions “far below” and “below” is wrong, but he proposes to use “far below” and “significantly below”. Surely, there is a much bigger problem with those phrases.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I think not. “Significantly below” clearly gives a much more measurable scope to the offence. We have tried to ensure that the CPS does not continually go for the lowest available option, and that it should prosecute for what it should prosecute, namely dangerous or reckless driving on the roads.

I want briefly to say a few words about new clause 24, which is partly a probing new clause, and which will, I suspect, be lost in much of what is said today. We proposed it in the hope that the Minister would consider bringing it forward at a later stage if we are unable to insert it into the Bill today. We have been asked to address this issue by a number of police officers who have experienced a particular problem in the daily execution of their duty. They ask the driver of a vehicle—be it a mechanically propelled vehicle, cycle or car—to stop, and the driver pretends to slow down but then rushes off dangerously, causing hazard to other road users. We want there to be a specific offence for failing to stop and then driving dangerously in an attempt to get away. This issue is not as significant as others that we are discussing with this group of amendments, but I hope that the Minister will consider the matter and respond.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Confusing stuff; if members of the Committee are confused about this, they should wait until we get to furious driving.

I shall start with the question that is the simplest to resolve, which was put to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch, East, who asked why the penalty will be only six months in Scotland, but 12 months in England and Wales. That is because in England, under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, we have raised the sentencing powers of magistrates’ courts from six months to 12, while in Scotland, sheriff courts can only impose sentences of up to six months. It is for Scottish Parliament to address the penalties available to the Scottish courts.

That brings us to the substantive debate. First, I acknowledge the constructive tone of hon. Members’ comments in disagreeing with the Government’s position, which was set out well by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North. My hon. Friends the Members for Stafford and for Bolton, South-East also made important contributions to the debate. All three of them have campaigned on this matter for a long time. I acknowledge their contributions to the debate.

This is a matter on which reasonable people can have reasonable disagreement. It is not a black and white issue, and I acknowledge the concerns of Opposition Members, and those that were raised in the House of Lords. However, with the greatest respect to the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, who said that he still has concerns about the Government’s position and that he wanted further work to be done, the Transport Committee has reported on the matter, and we have had a consultation called the “Review of Road Traffic Offences involving Bad Driving”. The benefit of being a Liberal Democrat is that they can always ask for more reports and do more work, but however many reviews and Select Committee reports there are, the Government sooner or later have to take a decision and act on it.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

For the first and perhaps the last time, I rise to defend the Liberal Democrat position. Some of what the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland had to say carried merit. Is this not one of those subjects on which we would have benefited from using the Special Standing Committee procedure, as it would have allowed us to call witnesses?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

That might have been true if it was not for the fact that the Transport Select Committee presumably called witnesses, that it investigated the subject and made recommendations. I am a great fan of the Special Standing Committee procedure. Indeed, the hon. Member for North Shropshire and I were members of the first such Committee, which dealt with the Food Standards Agency. It was the first opportunity that I had to work with the hon. Gentleman, and I enjoyed it very much.

I agree that that procedure has a place, but we are now at the end of the process, following a long public review, the work of the Transport Select Committee and campaigns by many organisations. My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch, East mentioned SCID; and many others have been campaigning for a long time. Sooner or later, however, the Government have to take a decision, draw a line in the sand and say, “This is how we are going to change the law.” It has been acknowledged by all sides that there is a problem with the law as it stands. That is not debatable.

We are dealing with what my hon. Friends the Members for Bolton, South-East and for Stafford have called a cliff. That is exactly what it is; a huge cliff between the offences of dangerous and careless driving. The hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) said that not enough people have been prosecuted for dangerous driving. The problem is that it is very difficult to prove that someone is guilty of dangerous driving. If it cannot be proved, the only charge left is careless driving, and people associate that with low penalties.

We have been talking about what constitutes careless driving. The thrust of the Conservative amendments is to try to define more clearly how various offences should be judged, but I do not believe that juries cannot determine what is careless driving. Juries find it very easy to determine what is careless driving; their difficult is having to decide when careless driving becomes dangerous.

The debate is at the top end of the spectrum, not the bottom. I do not believe that anyone would be convicted were it clear that the sunlight had unexpectedly caught their eye and blinded them for a moment. I doubt whether anyone would be charged under such circumstances. Juries are composed of sensible women and men, many of them drivers, who can easily determine what is careless; but they have problems at the upper level, when trying to decide whether driving might be dangerous.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I entirely agree with the Minister. That is exactly why we framed our amendments as we did. Throughout this debate, horrific cases have been cited. I looked again at the cases that the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East mentioned on Second Reading, and I contend that they would now be appropriately addressed by the two new offences that we propose, of reckless or far below at 14 years and dangerous or significantly below at seven years.

Perhaps I am being a little precious, but the Committee has concentrated too much on my suggestion that being blinded could be careless. I totally agree that there is a problem further up the scale, and we have gone into the matter in some depth to try to address exactly that problem.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I do not for a minute question that the hon. Gentleman believes passionately that he has come up with the solution to the problem; I just do not for a second think that it would work. If he wants to intervene on me, perhaps he will give me an example of something “far below” the expected standard but not “significantly below” it. I do not see how that moves us forward.

We have clear guidance on what constitutes carelessness; it may have been the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen)—I cannot remember—who asked what it might consist of. First, of course, it is context-dependent. What would constitute carelessness in someone driving past the school gates at 3.30 pm when all the children come out could be different from what would constitute carelessness on a clear, empty road. That is where juries’ common sense will contribute.

The Crown Prosecution Service already provides guidance about what types of case it will charge with carelessness. Examples of driving that they believe amount to driving without due care and attention include overtaking on the inside, driving inappropriately close to another vehicle, driving through a red light and emerging from a side road into the path of another vehicle. All sorts of case law and common practice can help us to define carelessness, and no driver needs to fear that a momentary lapse of judgment or something unexpected that they could not possibly predict will have an impact on their driving and that they will subsequently be prosecuted for causing death by careless driving.

I believe that there is much evidence that the offence in question needs to be put on the statute book. We could probably debate it all day and come no nearer to agreeing. I do not believe that the solution put forward by the Conservative Front Bench—although it is, I acknowledge, a laudable effort—would make things easier. I remind the Conservative Front Bench that we withdrew the term “reckless driving”—I think that it was abolished in 1991—because recklessness as a definition did not work in the context of road traffic offences, although it is a term used in other branches of the law. It would be bizarre to conclude now that we should replace it in road traffic law.

It is right that magistrates courts should have the opportunity to give custodial sentences; otherwise some people will plead guilty to offences in the magistrates court so as to face a much less severe, non-custodial sentence than they might in the Crown court. I do not believe that I shall ever convince Opposition Members, or that they will suddenly see the light on the road to Damascus, but we clearly have common ground in seeing a need to fix the current law. The Government have come up with a solution that will offer people fairness if they face a charge, but will also provide justice to people who have lost someone.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

The Minister is being very generous in giving way. Will he address one of our big concerns—that the whole offence is consequent on the consequences of the action, and not the intention?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

The seriousness of the offence will of course have to be judged by the court when sentence is decided on. However, the consequence of the action is already a factor in determining legal proceedings. In my home county of Kent, a recent robbery was variously described in the newspapers as resulting in the taking between £30 million and £50 million. When those people are brought to justice and they stand in front of the court, I doubt that their barrister will argue that the seriousness of their offence should not be taken into consideration and that they should be given the same treatment as a shoplifter because, morally, all they have done is the same thing; they stole, the shoplifter stole.

The simple fact is that the seriousness of the consequences is a factor. [Interruption.] I know what the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) is going to say, so he does not need to say it. The courts will have to balance the seriousness of the act of carelessness, the extent to which the act was culpable, the level to which it fell below the standard that we expect of a driver and the fact that as a consequence of the act, an individual has died. I do not believe that that is wrong; I believe that the public expect it.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

This issue is central to the debate. Will the Minister confirm that the sentence will continue to be imposed according to the standard of driving exhibited and within the range put down by Parliament? As well as the new offence, has he considered whether the ordinary section 3 offence would be consistent with careless and inconsiderate driving and carry a custodial sentence?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

The hon. Gentleman is right. I do not expect somebody who is charged with causing death by careless driving automatically to receive a custodial sentence simply because an individual has died. It will be for the courts to decide how far their carelessness fell below the standard required. I struggle to understand why Opposition Members are so worried about that. It seems clear that judges and juries are in a good position to make those judgments. They do it all the time.

The individual will have to explain the circumstances of their carelessness and what was going through their mind, and the judge will make a determination based on that. The difficulty that juries have is determining not what is careless, nor the level of carelessness, but the difference between carelessness and dangerous driving. That is why it has always been so difficult to prove an offence of causing death by dangerous driving, and why the offence under discussion will almost always be used as an alternative verdict when somebody is charged with causing death by dangerous driving.

I have no doubt that the number of cases will be limited. It will be up to the Crown Prosecution Service to use the offence when it is the primary charge on the indictment, but in my view, it will normally be used in an alternative verdict.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I was listening to the Minister carefully. He reiterated his point that previously, juries had difficulty deciding what was dangerous and what was careless. Why does he think it will be any easier for juries to graduate carelessness? I am not sure that I follow his point.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

It would be a matter for judges to graduate the level of carelessness; the jury would determine that somebody was careless, somebody died and that the individual was therefore guilty. The judge would then use sentencing guidelines—and the untold reservoirs of wisdom that we are told all judges have—to determine the seriousness of the offence and the sentence to impose. I do not see that that is any different from the judgments that we expect judges to make when they sentence under any other area of law.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I freely admit that I would probably know the answer to this question if I had read the Bill more carefully. As things stand, automatic alternatives are implied in the Road Traffic Act. For section 2, there is an automatic alternative available to the court to convict under section 3. Is it envisaged and, in fact, provided for, that there should be an automatic alternative open to the court if a charge is made under section 1?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I believe that that is the case, but I will correct that answer later if it is not. Indeed, we deal in other parts of the Bill with the possibility of manslaughter being an alternative verdict for more serious cases under other charges.

Rosemary McKenna (Labour, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)

Will my hon. Friend comment on my question about the charge of causing serious injury by dangerous and careless, or careless driving?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I apologise for forgetting that my hon. Friend asked that question. I am not sure that I have a terribly convincing answer for her. This is an imperfect world, and we have to draw lines somewhere. One of the reasons why we rejected the Opposition’s amendment on recklessness is because it has been recognised that we need to make the criteria available to the courts as objective as possible. The old crime of reckless driving involved a subjective decision that we needed to get out of the legal system. Likewise, when we come to whether there should be another offence of causing serious injury by careless driving, we come to subjective decisions about what constitutes serious injury, whereas, of course, there is no doubt whatsoever about the difference between death and lesser injuries.

I have to confess that, last but not least, there is the issue of resources—it comes down to good old-fashioned money. If we were to allow custodial sentences for serious injury, many more people would be sent to prison. That would require many more prison places, which would require us to build more prisons or to let out some people who are already in prison. Unfortunately, we have to make some dirty compromises. That is why I say that the explanation will not perfectly satisfy her.

The offence of causing death by careless driving is clear and objective, and it closes at least one existing loophole. I imagine that she and other hon. Friends will continue to campaign for a further change to the law, and I look forward to those debates.

I have probably said enough. I hope that I have answered Members’ questions. I doubt that I have convinced Opposition Members, but I have no doubt whatever that my hon. Friends were convinced even before I started to speak and will support Government amendment No. 1, resist the Opposition amendments and support the clause standing part.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

Would it be correct for us to take amendment No. 63 and all our new clauses together, Sir Nicholas?

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

I am advised that the hon. Gentleman could move for a vote on amendment No. 63. Is that his wish?

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

Yes.

Clause 21 - Causing death by driving: unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured drivers

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I beg to move amendment No. 90, in clause 21, page 25, leave out lines 22 and 23.

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 91, in clause 21, page 25, line 28, column 2, leave out ‘unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured’ and insert ‘unlicensed or disqualified’.

No. 93, in clause 21, page 25, line 33, column 3, leave out ‘summarily’.

No. 94, in clause 21, page 25, column 4, leave out lines 33 to 39.

No. 92, in clause 21, page 25, line 35, column 2, leave out ‘unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured’ and insert ‘unlicensed or disqualified’.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

Before I came to the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire and I visited the Minister, who was generous with his time. He gave us a preliminary briefing on the Bill and some explanations to our questions.

We were uncertain about the exact intention behind clause 21, and, if I understood correctly, the Minister gave us the following explanation: if a person is in, or driving, a car that is uninsured, unlicensed or while disqualified, and that car is in an accident that results in the death of another, whether or not any causal behaviour was attached to the car or driver, that person would be charged with causing death. The Bill effectively says that the death would not have occurred had that vehicle not been on the road, and that therefore the driver or passenger has caused death simply by being in the car.

My hon. Friends and I were slightly perplexed by that explanation, as too were those from whom we took legal advice. Our amendments are part probing and part principled. At the end of the debate, should we have been reassured by the Minister that either some of our misgivings are misconceived or ill understood, or that on reflection he will come some way to compromise with us, I should be happy to withdraw the amendment.

Perhaps I might explain my misgivings with two examples. First, let us take the case of a hard-working Member of Parliament who represents, say, a Scottish constituency, and who, on a Monday, drives to either the train station of the airport, parks his car, travels to London by train or by air and has a hard-working week in London—as I am sure we all do working for the benefit of constituents. On the Thursday, the MP flies home and notices that his insurance expired the day before, resolves in his own mind to renew the insurance in the morning and drives home. On the way home, a group of youths leaving a local pub overtake another car, collide with the MP’s car, hit a wall and spin out of control, causing the death of one of the passengers. Under the Bill, the MP would be charged with causing that death, even thought he did not cause the death, he did not drive carelessly or even dangerously, and there was no intent. If anything he was the victim of the accident, yet he would be charged if the Bill is not amended.

At the moment, it is common practice—as I am sure that the Minister will concede—for the police, in such circumstances, and insurance companies, to allow at least a fortnight, but in some cases, up to a month, for insurance renewal. Equally, it is similar practice to do so for car licences.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I am not sure if my question will help or hinder the hon. Gentleman, but I will ask it anyway. In the circumstances that he has outlined—I dare say that in those circumstances I should declare an interest—in what way could that MP be said to have caused the death of the passenger? Surely, someone else caused the death?

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

That question might be best addressed to the Minister. The answer is that he caused the death simply by being in the car when it was uninsured, even though it had been uninsured for just two days and he had intended to renew the insurance. As I understand the Minister’s explanation, under clause 21, that person would be charged.

Let us take a second example involving the same MP—poor chap. On Thursday night, he arrives home to similar circumstances and resolves to renew his insurance in the morning. However, he has to drive home via a busy A road or motorway on which there has been an accident. Cars are forced to stop, but someone driving too close to him shunts him from behind, the MP shunts the next vehicle, which shunts the next one, and then the one in front of that goes across the carriageway and the driver is killed. As I understand it, only one person in that chain of events is likely to be charged—the MP, for being in his car without insurance.

As we have said all the way through deliberations on the Bill, our intention is to pursue and catch the hardened few who abuse the motoring laws of our country and to make the roads safe for the other 34 million mainly law-abiding drivers. It is the Government’s intention also to catch the hardcore of drivers who disregard our laws, drive untaxed, unlicensed and uninsured, and while disqualified. However, it is a question of long periods, with no end. The trouble with the clause is that no account can be taken, when someone is charged with an offence—particularly as to insurance—of whether their insurance ran out the previous day or they never had any. I am sure that the Government intend to catch those people who have never had insurance, or who have not renewed it after what, under the old common practice, was a fortnight’s leave of grace. A significant step change is happening in the law.

There are currently no custodial sentences for driving unlicensed or uninsured—only non-custodial fines or penalty points. We support the Government with respect to drivers who are persistently unlicensed or uninsured, but there appears to be no leeway or discretion. Whereas we highlighted in our discussion on the previous clause the fact that all too often the CPS fails to prosecute people who should be charged with manslaughter or dangerous driving because of uncertainty about the charge and the conviction rate, under clause 21 conviction would be a certainty.

We entirely agree with the Government that continual offenders should be caught and harshly dealt with. It is clear to us, for instance, that far too many young men drive around and fail to insure their cars, because the premium is higher than the fine that they might receive. That is an anomaly that might easily be remedied by increasing the fine and providing for a second offence of driving uninsured to attract a custodial sentence.

Royal Bank of Scotland insurance has rightly stated in a briefing that I am sure all members of the Committee have received that reducing the number of uninsured drivers will reap significant road safety benefits. It has some ideas on reducing the cost of insurance for young drivers. I want some reassurance from the Minister this morning, particularly on the point about insurance—and I am sure that he can see the anomaly that I am driving at, of the lack of leeway in the law. We perhaps should have framed our amendments more tightly, including a time scale within which to renew, but many people suffer a slip of the mind on insurance.

We discussed last week whether people try to kid insurance companies or suffer genuine slips of the mind. However, the clause will make criminals of many people who drive their car when they have not renewed within the common period of grace of about a fortnight accepted by the police. I hope that the Minister will accept that we strongly support what we believe to be the intention behind the clause; we support the prevention, detection and punishment of persistent offending. However, the clause will have a by-product that I am not sure the Government intend. If they do intend it, that will, potentially, make criminals of many law-abiding citizens.

Brian Iddon (Labour, Bolton South East)

How can a driver who is already insured have a slip of the mind, when all responsible insurance companies notify drivers well in advance of the need to renew their insurance? Surely a person who does not do so is negligent. [Interruption.]

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

From a sedentary position my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk said that that person might be a busy MP. Indeed, people do get prior warning—of when their MOT is due, and when they are due to renew all sorts of things. However, not everyone necessarily remembers. The question is whether that is negligent or just careless. The issue that I am concerned about is that the police accept a common period of grace of about a fortnight after the renewal date, which gives time to renew the insurance.

Brian Iddon (Labour, Bolton South East)

Does the hon. Gentleman know of any case in which a person has killed someone during that period of grace and the insurance company has bailed the driver out?

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

No, I do not, but I am not sure that that is the point. The clause is not about that. It creates an offence. It is not a question of the insurance company bailing a driver out. Under the clause, simply by getting in the car, that driver will, if involved in an accident where there is a death, be the person charged with causing death.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I rise to add my voice to that of my hon. Friend, in pursuing the probing nature of the amendment. The Minister owes the Committee an explanation as to why he thinks the clause is necessary. The purpose may be to bring home to all drivers the seriousness of driving either without a licence or insurance, or while disqualified. On the face of it, that seems a reasonable position, but my question for the Minister is whether in certain circumstances the clause could operate in a too heavy-handed manner. I think that that was the essence of what my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon was seeking to argue.

Proposed new section 3ZB of the Road Traffic Act 1988 states:

“A person is guilty of an offence under this section if he causes the death of another person by driving a motor vehicle on a road and, at the time when he is driving, the circumstances are such that he is committing an offence”

by driving without a licence, while disqualified or without insurance. However, does not the phrase “if he causes the death” mean that a death happens? If two vehicles collide in the centre of the road and it is one driver’s fault, but the driver who is not at fault is without insurance, is he or she not at risk of being charged, because a death has occurred? That is my first question.

Secondly, if the Minister convinces the Committee that we need the clause, there is a case for allowing some statutory mitigation to prevent a person from being charged. There is a world of difference between a yob who has never had insurance for his motor vehicle and who drives round knowing that he does not have insurance and—never mind the Member of Parliament—the little old lady who puts her insurance renewal document behind the clock and forgets. She has had insurance, but it has lapsed.

What about those situations where the insurance company says, “Well, there was a valid certificate of insurance in force, but this motorist didn’t tell us that there was change in their circumstances, so we are avoiding the policy.”? For my policy, I have to say every year whether the vehicle will be kept garaged during the evening and whether I have had any endorsements on my licence since I last had insurance with that company. To those who fail to notify the insurance company of any change—perhaps a son or other relative puts their car in the garage and the policy holder’s car is left outside—it will argue that the contract of insurance is not valid, because of the special nature of the contract between the motorist and the company. What happens in those circumstances if, sadly, someone is involved in an accident where a death is caused? Are they to be charged under the clause in addition to any other charges that they may face?

Driving without insurance is a serious offence and the consequences can be devastating, not only for the family of the person who is killed. Someone who kills someone else while driving without insurance, but who has money and assets—a freehold property and perhaps a couple of motor vehicles, for example—can find all that property at risk in a civil action resulting from that death. The Minister is saying in effect that, in addition to perhaps losing all their assets and having to sell their home to pay for civil action, someone who kills someone while driving without insurance could end up losing their job by serving two years in prison.

Is the clause reasonable in those circumstances? Why has the Minister included the offences related to insurance? Why does he not consider it appropriate to allow statutory mitigating circumstances to apply where someone can show that they had insurance that has recently lapsed or where the insurance has been avoided by the company, owing to someone not notifying it of a change of circumstances?

Road Safety Bill [Lords] - Standing Committee A

Clause 21 - Causing death by driving: unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured drivers

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Before I ask the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) to resume his remaining few remarks, may I indicate to the Committee that I have an instinct that we will make extremely rapid progress this afternoon, as we have already discussed some of the most important aspects of the Bill? I like speed.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following amendments:

No. 91, in clause 21, page 25, line 28, column 2, leave out ‘unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured’ and insert ‘unlicensed or disqualified’.

No. 93, in clause 21, page 25, line 33, column 3, leave out ‘summarily’.

No. 94, in clause 21, page 25, column 4, leave out lines 33 to 39.

No. 92, in clause 21, page 25, line 35, column 2, leave out ‘unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured’ and insert ‘unlicensed or disqualified’.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I hope that the Minister will respond positively to this group of amendments, particularly as at present the Opposition are level pegging with the Government in terms of numbers of Members present. If we have to go to a Division, we may have a tied vote.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. As a matter of information, the occupant of the Chair votes to maintain the status quo if there is a tied vote, so it would not, in fact, be a tied vote.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I am grateful, Sir Nicholas, and I notice that Labour Members, who have obviously had a big lunch, have now swelled the ranks on the Government side of the Committee.

Driving without insurance is a serious matter, and, personally, I resent having to pay £30 or £40 a year extra on my insurance premium to cover the cost of yobs and ne’er-do-wells who drive around without insurance. I believe that if someone is convicted of driving a car without insurance, the police ought to have the right to seize the vehicle and to maintain custody of it until the fine is paid, and if someone is guilty of a second or subsequent offence, I would allow the law to see the vehicle forfeited.

The point of questioning the Minister on the clause is that one can treat driving without insurance as a serious matter, and causing death by dangerous driving is already a serious matter in our law. Why does the Minister believe that he needs this extra power? Some people might say that it is superfluous. Why is the offence necessary if the offence of driving without insurance attracts a harsh punishment? Would not that be a better way of proceeding? Why has the Minister made no provision to ensure that those who can show good mitigating circumstances are not provided with some form of statutory defence to being charged in addition to any other charges under the clause?

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I welcome you back to the Chair for these proceedings, Sir Nicholas. It is a great pity that you were not here this morning, as you would have enjoyed what was an excellent debate on the appropriateness or otherwise of a new offence of causing death by careless driving. We had an excellent debate on which the Government, as one might predict, won the vote.

I mention that because the crux of the debate was the crossover between causing death by dangerous driving and causing death by careless driving. The clause that we are considering now takes that debate and throws it in the dustbin, as it introduces a new offence: causing death by driving, which can be aggravated by driving without a licence, while disqualified or without the benefit of insurance.

I do not know why the Government want this new species of causing death by driving. The clause states:

“A person is guilty of an offence under this section if he causes the death of another person by driving a motor vehicle on a road”.

There must be an element of fault or culpability for someone to be guilty of causing the death of another person; if that element of fault or culpability exists, they must have caused the death by dangerous, careless or inconsiderate driving. How can the offence ever be of practical use? If there is sufficient evidence of culpability, the indictment will include the charge of causing death by dangerous or careless driving, and if that person is subject to further allegations of driving otherwise than in accordance with a licence, whether disqualified or without insurance, those charges can also appear on the indictment or in the summary complaint. The penalty for that is less than that for causing death by careless or dangerous driving by a significant margin, so the worst that can happen is that someone who has a conviction for causing death by dangerous or careless driving will have that finding recorded and an endorsement or will have a concurrent sentence placed on their driver’s record. What will that achieve?

If I were the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch, East (Rosemary McKenna), I would feel somewhat aggrieved with the Minister and it may be fortunate that she is not here to hear this. This morning the Minister told us that her suggestion that the offence should be causing injury by dangerous driving was one that the Government would not support because, inter alia, there was insufficient space to accommodate people in prison. If there is space to send people to prison under this clause, I suggest that there should be space under the provision that the hon. Lady was keen for us to have.

I cannot see any purpose in this provision and I do not see how it will be used in practical terms, but if the Minister can give us an explanation, I will listen to it carefully.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Welcome back to the Chair, Sir Nicholas. Glutton for punishment is the phrase that springs to mind.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) cannot see the purpose of the clause. I can only say that it is a good job he is not sitting on this side of the Committee Room. There is clearly a need for the provision. If I was unconvinced of that, I became convinced in my surgery last Friday afternoon when the partner of Mr. John Living, who used to live in my constituency, came to see me. Mr. Living was killed while driving his motor bike by an individual who was uninsured and unlicensed. Mr. Living’s partner came to see me in great distress, because she had been at the trial of the individual concerned last week when he was fined the grand sum of £100. She did not believe that that adequately represented the crime that had been committed by someone who should not have been on the road at all and who had taken the life of her boyfriend.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

Does the Minister accept that the clauses that we discussed earlier dealing with careless driving would adequately cover the situation he outlined and that someone who is not insured or is driving without a licence could be dealt with separately?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

No, because the offence will be used when careless or dangerous driving is not appropriate. I return to the points made by Conservative Front Benchers, who asked whether it would be sufficient for someone to be charged under the offence if they were involved in an accident and all they were doing was driving. The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) mentioned a Scottish MP, who had forgotten briefly to renew their insurance and was involved in an accident caused by some yobs driving carelessly after coming out of a pub, thus creating a scenario in which this Scottish MP was involved in an accident in which someone died. The clause clearly says that one must cause the accident. In other words, the scenario suggested by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland would not have applied in this case. The law dealing with causation is well set out and would be applied by the courts in the way that it is already. If an individual was driving along uninsured or unlicensed and a child ran out in front of him and was killed, this law could apply.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

No.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

The hon. Gentleman is shouting no. One minute he is asking me questions, and the next he proposes to know the answers to them. I am telling him that under those circumstances, the law could be used. The law could not be used in a multiple car pile-up on a motorway where an unlicensed or uninsured individual was at the back of the queue and was therefore clearly not a key player in the accident that led to the death.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

The Minister has already made it very clear that there has to be some element of causation. If there is an element of causation, a charge under the offence of causing death by dangerous, careless or even inconsiderate driving would be open and it would be the appropriate charge to bring.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

The whole point of the clause is to catch a person in cases where one could not prove that they had been driving carelessly or dangerously, but whose presence on the road was directly responsible for the accident. In other words, the accident could not possibly have happened without their presence on the road, driving illegally. This will be the instance in a very small number of cases, and I hope that that answers the point raised by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire and the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland about the number of people who might be caught by the provision. I think it was the hon. Gentleman who talked about the huge number of people who will end up being put in prison.

Normally, the offence of causing death by careless driving, or the offence of causing death by dangerous driving, would be used. The offence we are discussing would be used for the very small number of cases where those charges would not be appropriate, but where owing to their presence on the road the individual concerned is directly responsible for the accident and is not an incidental bystander in that accident.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

If the presence of that person on the road is directly responsible, to use the Minister’s words, surely there must be some element of carelessness, inconsideration or danger.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Absolutely not. We dealt with many situations this morning where someone might have been involved in an accident that could not and ought not to be defined as careless, but where that individual was directly responsible for the accident—the accident could not have happened without the presence of that individual on the road. The clause will deal with situations where the direct presence of that individual on the road is such that the accident could not have happened without them. They cannot be just an innocent bystander in an accident that was clearly caused by the carelessness or dangerous driving of someone else.

The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire mentioned little old ladies and the different way that they would need to be treated if they had forgotten to renew their insurance for a day or two, as opposed to the yob he described who is a multiple ignorer of insurance requirements. We do not need to deal with that in the Bill, because it would be treated as a mitigating circumstance by the court. Were we to try, we could not possibly produce a comprehensive list of mitigating circumstances. We would be bound to miss one, so it is much better to leave it to the discretion of the court. I would expect the court to deal very differently with someone who can demonstrate a long history of having insurance but had a momentary lapse of concentration and did not renew it for a day or two.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I am grateful to the Minister. He has gone a long way towards satisfying my concerns about the clause. I can see that, where the only surviving witness to an incident is the defendant, who gives a version of events that is such that it would be difficult to sustain a conviction of causing death by reckless or dangerous driving, but has not bothered to take out a licence or become insured, the state rightly feels that a more serious punishment should be inflicted. I think that the Minister’s explanation is a good one, but he is also right that it will apply in only a small number of cases.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Indeed, a very small number of cases.

I shall conclude with this remark, in the hope that I will finally convince the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. It clearly cannot follow that causation always involves carelessness. If it did, anybody who was prosecuted for careless driving would always be found guilty, because we would always be able to demonstrate that an accident happened. The hon. Gentleman seems to take the view that, because an accident happened, somebody must have been careless. That clearly is not the case.

This is a specific clause to deal with the small number of cases where the individual is involved in such a way that the accident could not possibly have happened—

Mr. Carmichaelrose—

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I am just winding up my comments, but the hon. Gentleman can seek to catch your eye again, Sir Nicholas, if he wishes to.

The clause deals with the small number of cases where the individual is involved in an accident that could not possibly have happened without their presence on the road and where they are driving while uninsured or unlicensed. I believe that it is important, and I am sure that the constituent who came to see me in my surgery on Friday would consider it to be essential, as I suspect many on the Government Benches do.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

As I said this morning, Conservative Members recognised both the purpose and the import of the clause. We were concerned about a number of issues, on which we wanted to probe the Minister, and his explanation was extremely helpful. Clearly we had misunderstood something in the briefing. He has put the issue back into perspective, particularly the point of causation, which we were probing initially.

The other point that we have been probing, as the Minister knows, relates to people with an insurance record that is incomplete for only a short time. I accept his explanation about the courts accepting mitigating circumstances. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Pat McFadden (Labour, Wolverhampton South East)

May I ask the Minister to clarify the clause and to say how it would relate to a case from my constituency. We had a debate earlier today about the distinction between careless and dangerous driving. The case that I want to raise breaches the law in so many respects that it is difficult to know under which clause it might most appropriately be raised.

Perhaps I may take the Minister through the case. It relates to a constituent called Kenneth Taylor, who was recently jailed for five years after a fatal accident, in which the passenger in his car was killed. It transpired during the trial that he had been banned from the roads 10 times previously, he was over the alcohol limit when the crash occurred, he had traces of Ecstasy and cannabis in his system and, perhaps most shockingly of all, he had never taken a driving test.

The clause refers to unlicensed and disqualified drivers, but this case clearly goes far beyond carelessness and raises serious questions about the way in which the current system operates. The questions that I think my constituents would ask are these: how can a driver face court order after court order, which he or she apparently ignores, and how can a jail sentence be imposed only after a fatal accident? I refer the Committee to the words of the judge in the case, who said:

“The tragic consequences of your incompetence are clear for us all to see. If ever there was a case where it could be predicted the disregard of a court order would have tragic results, this is it.”

In what way would the clause and the new measures relating to unlicensed and disqualified drivers deal with a situation where someone defied court order after court order?

I am sure that the Minister will agree that we should not have to wait for a fatal accident before a custodial sentence can be imposed on someone who clearly has no regard for the driving laws and is prepared to breach them time after time, resulting in the tragic death of one passenger and injury to another passenger in the car. I should be grateful if the Minister could outline how the clause will deal with similar situations in the future.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

My hon. Friend raises a tragic and horrible case. Without knowing all the details, I find it difficult to give him a precise answer. From what he has described, at least in relation to the final act which caused the death, the clause would be appropriate and the individual could have been charged under it. However, it sounds as if the courts charged him under other legislation, possibly that of causing death by careless driving while under the influence, which is already a serious offence.

Judges always seem keen to point out the error of people’s ways and are often swift to point out the error of the Government’s way when they think that we have got things wrong, but they are always rather slow to point the finger at their colleagues. If the individual had been disqualified 10 times, there were eight previous occasions after the first time he was disqualified when judges could have given him a custodial sentence or taken other measures against him and seem not to have done so. Why that happened I have no idea, without looking at the facts of the case.

Brian Iddon (Labour, Bolton South East)

On Second Reading I described the cases of Billy Joe Dean and Gareth Willis, in which those causing the deaths were guilty of multiple offences. The sentences that were applied in both cases were very similar: one was even less than the five years that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. McFadden) described in relation to his case. What aggrieves the families most is that the courts are not totting up the multiple offences. Moreover, they do not seem to have realised that the maximum sentence has shifted and that causing death by dangerous driving can now gain a maximum sentence of 14 years rather than 10.

I am very condemnatory of the very lenient sentences given by the courts, and that is the general feeling of my constituents who have been involved in fatalities. However, it is worse than that, as nobody serves the full sentence. If they are on good behaviour in prison, they are released early. They are released early in any case, so 50 per cent. of the sentence is not served. People can be out of prison very quickly after an offence has been committed.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I probably cannot say much more without knowing the facts of all the cases, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right that the penalty for causing death by dangerous driving is now 14 years, and the courts need to be prepared to use it when appropriate. Of course, they must take into account all the facts of the case and mitigating circumstances that may not be obvious to the victim’s family or to the rest of us, so we should not be too quick to judge.

I can undertake to communicate the views and experiences of my hon. Friends the Members for Wolverhampton, South-East and for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) to my colleagues in the Home Office and ask them to think about whether it might be appropriate to review sentencing guidelines and to talk to others in the judicial system about whether the powers that exist are being used as fully as possible.

Clause 22 - Offence of keeping vehicle which does not meet insurance requirements

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I beg to move amendment No. 64, in clause 22, page 27, line 20, at end insert—

‘(d)at the relevant time the vehicle has a Statutory Off Road Notification.’.

I am aware of your stricture, Sir Nicholas, that we should move a little faster this afternoon. After the two important debates on clauses 20 and 21, I am sure that the Committee will be able to proceed with some speed.

Amendment No. 64 is a probing amendment. The offence is keeping a vehicle that does not meet insurance requirements. Keepers will not commit any offence if the vehicle is kept off the road, and rightly so. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire has spoken several times in this Committee about his fleet of cars. I have no doubt that at any one time some of them are off the road.

As I understand it, keepers will have filled out a statutory off-road notice in most cases, but some vehicles may have been off the road since before January 1998 and therefore the owners will not have completed a SORN. The amendment proposes an exemption if someone has a SORN. Although it is the Government’s intention that that exemption should exist, it is not in the Bill. I would be grateful if the Minister clarified that.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is trying to achieve with the amendment, but it is not necessary to put that exemption in the Bill as it will be included in regulations. I give him an absolute assurance that as long as someone has declared their vehicle to be off-road and obtained a SORN for it, they will not be liable for any penalty.

The hon. Gentleman’s other amendment would increase the penalty from £100 to £1,000 and three penalty points—

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. That amendment comes in a moment or two—and I hope that it will be a moment or two.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

With those assurances from the Minister, we shall look forward to ensuring that the exemption is included in the regulations. I accept his assurances and beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I beg to move amendment No. 65, in clause 22, page 28, line 37, leave out ‘£100’ and insert

‘£1,000 and 3 penalty points.’.

The amendment addresses what is potentially quite a serious offence. We are concerned about people who habitually break the law and try to kid the authorities or the insurance companies. They are not slip-of-the-mind offenders or offenders with mitigating circumstances.

Five per cent. of drivers on the roads today do not bother with insurance. Those drivers are 10 times more likely to be convicted of drink driving, six times more likely to be convicted of unsafe driving, and three times more likely to be convicted of driving without due care and attention. I contend that if they are prepared to do those things, they are equally likely to be keepers of vehicles without insurance, so let us catch them before they go on the roads and drive.

Driving without third party insurance attracts a £5,000 fine and six to eight penalty points at the moment. The Bill proposes a fixed penalty of £100 and a fine of £1,000 if prosecuted. That is simply not enough. The people the Minister wants to catch are precisely those we should be catching so that we can improve road safety. They keep their vehicles without insurance and if they can get away with it they drive them without insurance. The fine is too low, not a deterrent and is often less than the insurance payment. Let us make the fine worth something.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Nobody will out-bid me on the need to be tough with uninsured drivers. In my view, uninsured drivers should ultimately see their vehicles going into the crusher and our only debate should be whether the drivers should be in them at the time. However, to reach that position we must catch people and to catch them we must create the new offence that we shall discuss when we come to the stand part debate. You may allow me, Sir Nicholas, to anticipate that debate by saying that we are creating a new offence of keeping an uninsured vehicle that has not been declared to be off the road. By doing that, we will be able to check even more thoroughly from the record than at present. We will know whose cars are registered and whether they are off the road, and we will be able to check the electronic insurance database and to find out whether they are uninsured. We will know in future whether they are taxed. We will be able to do all that without even requiring a policeman to go out and see someone.

The penalty for the offence has been set at a relatively low level because we are not changing the importance of not driving without insurance. The penalty will remain at a £5,000 fine and six to eight points to reflect the seriousness of driving without insurance. We have just had a debate about the serious risks to other road users from driving without insurance.

The consequence of the hon. Gentleman’s amendment to increase the penalty from £100 to £1,000 and three penalty points strikes me as disproportionate. If someone were guilty of a momentary lapse of concentration, as we discussed earlier, and simply forgot to issue the off-road notice but the vehicle was not being driven on a public road and was standing on their path, the hon. Gentleman would fine them £1,000 and impose three points. I am sure that the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire declares all his 15 vehicles off-road if they are, but if he did not he would incur a fine of £15,000 and 45 points. That might be a reason to accept the amendment, but I suspect that most people would judge that to be a bit over the top. I strongly recommend that the hon. Member for Wimbledon stick with our figure of £100.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

During the previous debate, the Minister argued that a slip of the mind would allow mitigating circumstances to be considered. Surely a slip of the mind for a SORN would also allow mitigating circumstances. If he is so keen on people not driving without insurance, this is the preventive measure that would allow him to be that tough. This is the amendment that would say, “You habitually fail to apply for insurance and you keep your vehicle off the road without insurance with the intent of driving.”

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

The penalty of £100 will be a fixed penalty. We hope that it will be sufficient to prod the significant number of habitual non-payers of insurance to think better of it in future. We also hope that it will catch those who are not habitual non-payers of insurance, but are conveniently lax about when they renew and take advantage of the fact that they do not need an insurance certificate until the next time they renew their car tax. The penalty will also target those who take the view that they need insurance only long enough to tax a car, and who cash in the tax and continue to drive without insurance or tax.

In my view, £100 is the appropriate penalty for what is essentially a paper offence; the more serious offence of taking the car on to the road will attract much higher penalties. The hon. Gentleman will see later that schedule 4 specifies the circumstances under which it will be possible to immobilise or take away people’s vehicles. [Interruption.] I am delighted that the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire has returned to his seat in time to hear his hon. Friend propose that he should be liable for 45 penalty points and £15,000 in fines. He will be able to ally himself with me on this amendment.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

My right hon. Friend will have done the right thing and made his SORN declarations, which I mentioned in my opening remarks.

I hear what the Minister says, although I am surprised at the level at which the Government have set the fine. It is not even as much as the average insurance premium, which might have been a more appropriate level. Should the Government wish to rethink that and come back with an increased fine for the offence, they would have Conservative support. However, I have listened to the Minister and do not wish to delay the Committee any further and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Schedule 4 - New Schedule 2A to the Road Traffic Act 1988

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I should like to ask the Minister some quick questions about paragraph 5, entitled “Disputes”, on page 96.

The Minister will agree that the DVLA database is not 100 per cent. perfect. If mistakes are made, how will the disputes procedure work? Will there be an appeal mechanism? Will compensation be paid at the full book value of the vehicle concerned? Will the Minister take us through how the procedure would work, because the issue is left entirely to regulations. The procedure is opaque; it is not at all clear how the procedure would work.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I shall write to the hon. Gentleman with full details. Clearly, the procedure will have to be set out in the regulations when they are laid. However, I assure him that if an individual’s vehicle is moved or they incur loss through no fault of their own, we will make sure that they are properly compensated. I shall happily write to the hon. Gentleman and the rest of the Committee to explain the procedures that will be used.

Clause 23 - Careless, and inconsiderate, driving

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

We are in favour of the courts having more flexibility. As we understand it, the clause would give a wider range of powers to the courts, so we approve of it.

Clause 24 - Breach of requirements relating to children and seat belts

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I beg to move amendment No. 89, in clause 24, page 31, line 13, at end add

‘insert in column (6) (Endorsement) “discretionary” and in column (7) (penalty points) “3”’.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 22—Breach of requirement relating to seat belts—

‘In part 1 of Schedule 2 to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 in the entry relating to section 14 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act, insert in column (6) (Endorsement) “obligatory” and in column (7) (Penalty points) “3”.’.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I shall deal with the amendment and new clause, which have been tabled to probe the Minister, in fairly short compass.

The effect of new clause 22 would be to add penalty points for a contravention of the law, the imposition of which would be obligatory. I was one of those who were not comfortable with the idea of compulsory seat belts when they were introduced. There may be others present who were of a similar mind. Given what we now tolerate by way of the nanny state, it seems pretty small beer in comparison.

However, where children are concerned, different standards apply and a nanny state or an alternative provision is often a good idea. That is why it would be appropriate to send the message that whatever someone wants to do with their own welfare and safety is a matter for them as an adult, but that the law takes a different view about the treatment and safety of children. For that reason, there is a compelling case to associate penalty points with the failure to secure children properly in the back seat of a car.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

This is one of those issues that reasonable people can dispute reasonably. There is no ethical or philosophical reason why the offence should not be endorseable, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, but it is my view and the Government’s view that the financial penalties are adequate. Faced with those penalties, people will want to obey the rules. The important thing is not so much that we make the offence endorseable, but that we continue to work with the police to encourage them to prosecute people who do not wear seat belts or who allow passengers not to wear them. I am pleased to say that in 2003, the police took action against 145,000 people for such offences, but we must keep up the pressure to achieve that.

Given that the hon. Gentleman is not going to convince me to make the offence endorseable, I hope that he will withdraw his amendment. In any event, it would have made carrying children without a seat belt an endorseable offence in the rear of the car, but not in the front, which I suspect is not what he intended when he drafted his probing amendment.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

My understanding was that carrying children in the front of the car would have been covered by other provisions. The Minister makes a fair point, and as I said, they are probing amendments. He is right: an horrific number of people are caught by the police for the offence every year. I know that because I have prosecuted an horrific number of them over the years. A significant number attend court personally or say by letter that they are prepared to take the financial hit—the financial penalty. For a person to take that view for themselves is a matter for themselves. Children should be treated differently, and the only way in which people are going to take the offence seriously is if they receive points on their licence, rather than a mere financial penalty.

The matter will not go away, and I think that eventually we will have our way. For today, however, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

We on the Conservative Benches believe that it is anomalous that the fine for someone who does not wear their seat belt in the front is different from that for someone in the back. Anyone who has seen safety videos showing a child or person on the back seat being catapulted over the front seat will know that that does not make sense. The Minister has struck the right balance with clause 24 and we support it.

Clause 25 - Using vehicle in dangerous condition etc.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 66, in clause 25, page 31, line 33, at end add—

‘(3)Subsection (1) does not apply to an employee driving a vehicle owned by his employer in connection with his employment where he had no reasonable cause to suspect there was anything wrong with the vehicle.’.

We think that there is a flaw in the clause. We understand entirely what the Minister is seeking to achieve, but, as we said in debate in another place, we have concerns about the impact on employees who might be thoroughly professional and responsible drivers. Somebody let loose with a truck worth £100,000 or £150,000 plus its cargo, and who is a highly trained driver, is by data a responsible person. However, unbeknown to him, there might be something faulty with the vehicle. First, it might just be physically impossible to see the fault—it might be in the engine—and secondly, given the complexity of modern vehicles, he might not be technically competent to detect the fault in the first place.

I am concerned with the wording in line 17: “using vehicle”. Should the Minister not have been thinking about the person who is “responsible” for the vehicle? This is one of those grade II probing amendments, and if the Minister can come up with a good explanation for how the sort of person whom I am talking about will be excluded, I will happily withdraw it.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

If the hon. Gentleman is talking up the seriousness with which he approaches the matter, I am concerned about the use of the word “owned” in the amendment. He will be aware that these days many companies do not own their vehicles—they lease them. To my mind, that is an obvious loophole in the amendment.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I think that the word that I used was “responsible”. I think that the hon. Gentleman gets the drift of where I am coming from. I am concerned about employees being caught by the clause, and before we consider supporting the clause I would like the Minister to give a serious reply.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that he seeks. I agree with him entirely; in the circumstances that he described, it would be inappropriate for the individual to be held responsible. Section 48 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 provides for the following:

“Where a person is convicted of an offence under section 40A of the [1988 c. 52.] Road Traffic Act 1988 ... the court must not—

(a) order him to be disqualified, or

(b) order any particulars or penalty points to be endorsed on the counterpart of any licence held by him,

if he proves that he did not know, and had no reasonable cause to suspect, that the use of the vehicle involved a danger of injury to any person.”

For example, if an employee is ordered to drive a vehicle, so long as he can demonstrate that he did not know, could not reasonably have known and had no grounds for suspecting, that the vehicle was dangerous, clearly, he would have a complete defence against prosecution.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

Following that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 26 - Breach of requirements as to control of vehicle, mobile telephones etc.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 67, in clause 26, page 32, line 5, after ‘device’, insert

‘except in circumstances where a motor vehicle with a manual gearbox is placed in neutral and the handbrake applied, and a motor vehicle with an automatic gearbox is placed in Park’.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 11—Offence of using a mobile phone while cycling—

‘A person who rides a pedal cycle on a public road while using a hand-held mobile telephone or other hand-held interactive communication device, is guilty of an offence under section 28 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (dangerous cycling).’.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

The amendments are probing in nature. They try to address the world as it is rather than as some people might prefer it to be. We contend that in some circumstances, it could be a major safety gain to allow drivers to use a hand-held mobile phone when their vehicles are guaranteed to be stationary. If the car has a manual gearbox, it should be in neutral with the handbrake on, and if it is automatic, the gear lever should be placed firmly in “park”. We are thinking of circumstances such as a young mother caught in a large traffic jam who needs to get a message to her baby-sitter, someone who is collecting a child from school or someone with an elderly relative who needs to warn a carer that they are completely stuck on the M1 and might be stuck for hours. There is a clear case that the mobile phone is a useful safety tool under such circumstances. People have suggested the possibility of pulling into the nearside lane. When stuck on the M1, as I was the other day, it is not really possible to move lanes.

Ours is a reasonable, common-sense amendment. It is supported by an interesting piece of research that I dug out from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. It was published by Graham, Cohen, Park and Lissy at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. I shall not go into too much detail—it is a lengthy report at 100 pages long—but, in brief, the report says that the scientific evidence to date on cellular phone use while driving is weighted toward the risk to the driver and passengers as well as other road users. Incredibly little research has been done into the benefits to the users of mobile phones—benefits not just to households, social networks and businesses but to whole communities. Many of those benefits, including public health and safety benefits, have not yet been recognised or quantified.

One of the main topics of the report is improved knowledge of emergencies. The authors have evidence from emergency personnel that because motorists use cellular phones from their cars to report emergencies, emergency personnel are better able to anticipate the emergency situation and what type of equipment might be needed. Emergency workers report that they receive information from multiple callers with different views of the same scene and are better able to distribute their vehicles and manpower.

The other important element is the golden hour, a concept originally described by Dr. R. Adams Cowley. The golden hour is the one-hour period following severe injuries during which getting a patient to accident and emergency has an enormous impact. The likelihood of getting that golden hour is increased enormously by the use of mobile phones. A survey in Australia sounded out 700 cellular phone users on the issue. The report’s conclusion is simple. Enormous benefits are gained from being able to use cellular phones at the appropriate moment, but they have not yet been assessed. Very little research has been done.

Our amendment would allow mobile phone use under clear circumstances: in a traffic jam with no prospect of getting to a phone, or in emergency circumstances when it would be sensible to be allowed to use a hand-held phone. We totally endorse the Government’s view that hand-held phones should not under any circumstances be used when a vehicle is moving.

I turn to our new clause on bicycles. I might get myself into trouble with people who are frequently seen in the popular press on their bicycles, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson). Even my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has frequently been seen using his bike. I do not like to conjecture whether he uses his phone; perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Henley does. The issue is simple: a bicycle is under better control with two hands on the handlebars, not one hand on the handlebars and the other on a hand-held phone. I do not need to elaborate further.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I rise to support the common-sense approach of my hon. Friend on the two issues. Of course it is important that we send out a message to motorists to discourage them from using a mobile phone or other interactive device while they are driving—in the normal sense of the word. I think it was Lord Reid who in a famous case decided that when a motorist is stationary in a queue of traffic, intending to continue his journey, he is still driving in the legal sense, even though the car is not in motion and no other road user is at risk from his activities at that moment in time. As presently drafted, the law could lead to a police officer walking down a line of cars that are stuck in a traffic jam, giving out tickets to motorists who happen to be on the telephone.

Yesterday, I had the misfortune to be stuck in a traffic jam on the M1 motorway between junctions 29 and 28. Presumably due to the incompetence of two or more motorists, there had been a collision, and the radio reports indicated that two lanes of the motorway were closed. The length of my journey was increased by approximately one hour and 15 minutes. As it happened, however, I did not have to reschedule any meetings.

Henry Bellingham (Conservative, North West Norfolk)

Which car were you in?

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I was in a Mercedes-Benz.

Henry Bellingham (Conservative, North West Norfolk)

Not the Ferrari.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I do not own a Ferrari. It occurs to me that it would be more, not less, likely to increase the road rage of a driver in such a position if he felt that he could not telephone ahead to inform those he was seeking to meet that he had been unavoidably delayed. How much more that would be true of a young mother held in a traffic jam who realises that she will not be there to meet her child at the school gates. Not everyone has the benefit of a hands-free car kit. If she could use the phone, her mind would be put at rest, and the safety of the child would be assured.

There should be a common-sense approach. I well remember that, some 20 years ago, I had attended a concert with a musician friend of mine, and was travelling home with him in the band’s van. He knew a short cut. The road was controlled by some temporary traffic lights because of a trench that was being dug, but the stretch of road was perfectly straight for at least half a mile. I am sure that the temporary traffic lights were necessary during the daytime, but it was 2 am and my friend’s van was the only vehicle travelling in our direction. There were no other vehicles on the road—certainly none coming the other way.

The temporary traffic lights were on red and my friend did something he should not have done. It was 2 am, he could see that there were no other vehicles about, so he went through the red light. Guess what happened, Sir Nicholas. As soon as he was through the red light, two police officers jumped out of a hedge, pulled him over, and gave him a ticket for going through a red light.

There we have police officers in a rural area, hiding in a hedge to catch a motorist going through red lights at 2 am when there were no other vehicles around. I know that, without the amendment, there will be some regulation-ridden, pen-pushing nincompoop of a police officer, who will go down a line of parked cars, giving out tickets to people who are using a telephone. Even though it is quite safe for them to do so, they will be guilty of an offence because technically they will be driving.

I hope, therefore, that the Minister will seriously consider accepting the amendment.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

Having just collected my children, which is why I was delayed, and knowing what a nuisance it is if people use mobile phones, I think that it is reasonable to include the provision. Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree? If people want to phone, they can park and get out of their cars. The much bigger risk, which the provision is designed to prevent, is people driving around when children are crossing the road, stopping and starting and posing a real risk to the safety of those children.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I do not accept the hon. Lady’s conclusion. In the incident in which I was involved on the M1, it would have been highly dangerous to encourage motorists to get out of their cars and wander across to the hard shoulder to use the telephone. The car in front of the car in front and all cars as far as one could see were stationary. Let me put the question back to her: what danger does she see in a motorist using a telephone when he is in a traffic jam with his vehicle in park or with the hand brake on?

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

The problem in a built-up area is that the jam can start to move. Children can run in front of the cars because they think that they are parked. One’s attention can be elsewhere and there can be an accident. One has only to do a regular school run to know that. If one is on the M1, one can pull in to service stations and other places in order to make phone calls.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

The hon. Lady has not answered the question that I put to her. I am talking about being in a traffic jam on the M1, from which one cannot pull over, and being clear that one will be in that position for some time. When I am on a normal A road or in a town centre, temporarily stuck in traffic, I do not put my car in park or have the hand brake on, because I expect to move away fairly shortly.

Tom Harris (Labour, Glasgow South)

The right hon. Gentleman seems more concerned about people being caught breaking the law than he is about whether they are actually breaking it. He mentioned earlier that we should take a common-sense approach. Would it not be common sense, instead of looking for opportunities to relax or even break the law, to encourage people to buy hands-free sets? Those can be bought in most service stations for less than a tenner.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I am anxious to ensure that, as far as possible, people are not able to say in respect of particular legislation that the law is an ass. If one is stationary in a queue and one’s vehicle—if it is automatic—is in park, one’s hand brake is on, and one is using a phone that is not a hands-free device, what danger is one posing to other road users? I venture to suggest that the answer is none. That is why I believe that a common-sense approach should be taken to the provision.

Tom Harris (Labour, Glasgow South)

Surely the danger from a legal perspective is that we are leaving it to the driver to decide what kind of traffic jam he or she is in. Is it one that will be stationary for the next 20 minutes or for one minute? Would not the right hon. Gentleman’s approach open up a new range of work for lawyers: pleading specific circumstances in favour of a particular defendant? It should not be up to individual drivers to decide that they are in a particular type of traffic jam. They are either in charge of a vehicle or they are not, and the law must be clear—for good reasons.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I have a greater confidence in the common sense of a good motorist than the hon. Gentleman does. There are circumstances, such as a long-term traffic jam, in which it is safe to use the telephone. Responsible motorists would not dream of using a telephone if they felt that their delay was of a transitory nature only, and that the queue was about to move. I am not with him on that point.

On new clause 11, I support my hon. Friend. Too often, people who ride on our highways on pedal cycles think that they are exempt from the laws of motoring. Yesterday, after I had managed to survive the hour-and-a-quarter delay on the M1, I went to my house in Pimlico and then drove to this House down Warwick way, a fairly straight road with several sets of traffic lights. In Warwick way, I saw two cyclists, one with no hands on the handle bars—one hand was holding his mobile phone and the other was dangling by his side. His friend, who was cycling alongside him, was alternating between riding on the road and on the pavement. These two characters went through three sets of red traffic lights in Warwick way.

Rosemary McKenna (Labour, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)

The right hon. Gentleman followed them.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I did not follow them, but because it was a straight road I could see them. It was just about lighting-up time but they had no lights on their bikes. Sometimes, one wishes that the police would show the same enthusiasm for stopping pedal cyclists who break the law as they do for stopping motorists when they do the same.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I rise to support the common-sense amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson). The word “driving” in road traffic legislation is extremely wide, and the answer to the question about the traffic jam is that it is a traffic jam in which the person concerned has decided to apply their handbrake or to put their car into “park” so that they are stationary. The amendment makes that clear; the vehicle will be stationary only in those circumstances.

With reference to new clause 11, if people use a mobile phone while cycling they present a hazard to themselves and to other road users. We should be sending a strong message to all road users that, if they use a mobile phone while driving, they will not be paying sufficient care and attention to what is happening to them, and will put themselves and others in danger.

I suspect that the Minister will tell us that there is already an offence of being in charge of a cycle while not properly in control of it, and that using a mobile phone while cycling demonstrates that the cyclist is not cycling properly or safely. If cycling while using a mobile phone is an unsafe and undesirable practice, and the Government are aware of it, why should there be a specific offence that applies to motorists, but no such offence for cyclists? The Minister will have to provide an extremely convincing response or accept the amendment.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I hope that I will provide a convincing response. The closest I came to agreeing with the hon. Members for Wimbledon and for North Shropshire was when they said that the police should do a lot more to enforce road traffic legislation in respect of cyclists. The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire mentioned his experience the other day. I suspect that the two individuals he described were committing at least four offences for which they could have been stopped and prosecuted, irrespective of whether a new offence is created. There is indeed already an offence of not being in proper control of one’s cycle, which is quite adequate to deal with the circumstances that the right hon. Gentleman described. What is lacking at present is the unwillingness of the police to enforce that legislation, a matter that I will discuss at my regular meeting with the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Last week, on two occasions, I saw a cyclist riding his bicycle the wrong way round Parliament square in front of at least four police officers standing at the gates of Speaker’s Court. If that person was not even stopped and told to be more sensible, is it any wonder that cyclists largely ignore the highway code? However, there is already legislation to deal with the matter. We do not need the amendment, which would just be another piece of legislation for some of those people to ignore. What we need is to encourage the police to deal with them.

During this debate, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire confessed to two things that surprised me. I always thought he was a car lover who understood motor cars, but I now discover that he has neither a Ferrari nor an Alfa Romeo, which says to me that he has no judgment whatever about Italian machinery. He also tells me that he puts his car “in park”, which means that he is driving an automatic, so in my book he is no lover of driving.

The right hon. Gentleman describes scenarios, such as when one is in a traffic jam on the motorway. The hon. Member for North Shropshire mentioned similar events. In such circumstances, if people are phoning to say that they are stuck, immobile and cannot get on, why cannot we leave it to the police to use common sense about not booking them? That is what I would recommend. If we go down the route suggested by the Conservatives and set some criteria determining when people are not driving their car, what would sort of situation would we end up with? The second a policeman tapped on a person’s window, saying, “Hey, you! You’re using a mobile phone,” the person would whip their car into neutral, put the handbrake on and say, “I can use my mobile phone in these circumstances. I’m not driving my car.”

Having called all Vehicle and Operator Services Agency officials swinish followers of the law the other day, the right hon. Gentleman has now referred to those honourable boys and girls in blue as nincompoops. If I were him, I would keep my 15 vehicles well away from the highway any time in the next few months.

It is reasonable for a policeman to stop people using a mobile phone when he sees them driving up to a traffic light and can stop them without causing any danger or inconvenience to other road users. However, the Conservative amendment would allow people to pull up to the traffic lights, use their handbrake and say, “Sorry, officer, I’m not driving my vehicle so I don’t need to listen to what you say about the use of my mobile phone.”

Tom Harris (Labour, Glasgow South)

My hon. Friend pre-empts my point about the amendment, which would, as it is worded, allow anyone to stop their car and put it in “park”, which many people already do at traffic lights. He has used that form of words because a traffic jam cannot be defined in legislation.

In defence of the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire, and all of us who use automatic cars, using an automatic enhances the driving experience.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

For once, I shall have seriously to disagree with my hon. Friend. I am of that group of motorists who would never give garage room to an automatic vehicle. However, he is right to say that the amendment would be unenforceable. It is difficult enough already to enforce the rules about using a mobile phone while driving, so trying to define what is meant by driving will just make the situation even worse and more impossible.

My strong advice to Conservative Members is not to refer to the police as nincompoops any more, but trust them to use their common sense, encourage them to enforce the new penalty that we will discuss in the clause stand part debate and ensure that people stop using their mobile phone while driving. I remind Opposition Members, before they think that there may be any votes in being soft on the use of mobile phones while people are driving, that in the Christmas poll organised by Radio 4, that was voted the second most annoying offence that people see committed in this country. The public at large expect the police to start getting tough about it and the clause gives the police that power. I am afraid that the Conservative amendments would weaken their ability to enforce it.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I was not wholly convinced by the Minister’s response. I stress immediately that the Conservatives do not endorse the use of hand-held mobile phones when driving. We were addressing circumstances—we have to repeat this—where the vehicle was clearly stationary. There is also a safety angle, which the Minister did not address. I should like him to look at the research in America, which suggests that there are real safety advantages from drivers having mobile phones.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

One of the problems we face with the internet Sir Nicholas, of which I am a great fan—[Interruption.]

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Dr. Stephen Ladyman, did I hear a mobile telephone? A Blackberry? I am very conscious of mobile telephones at this moment.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Sir Nicholas, I am a great fan of the internet, but it has two problems. One is that my constituents in the Friday afternoon surgery are usually better informed about issues than me. The second is that it allows Conservative Members to trawl for research that they would otherwise never find and that tends not to be very well peer reviewed. I can assure the hon. Member for North Shropshire that the research we have done makes it clear that the use of mobile phones is dangerous. Indeed, the use of hands-free phone kits is also very dangerous and we need to do anything we can to clamp down on it.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I think the internet is good if it brings information from as far away as the United States to the Minister’s attention to show the security benefits of mobile phones. This was a 100-page report, which I hope someone in his office may get to read. However, we want to move on.

I am not entirely convinced by the Minister’s response, but we will reflect further and may well come back to the matter on Report. For the moment, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 29 - Breach of duty to give information as to identity of driver etc.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I beg to move amendment No. 68, in clause 29, page 33, line 28, leave out ‘“6”’ and insert ‘“3-6”’.

Clause 29 amends part 1 of schedule 2 of the Road Traffic Offences Act by raising from three to six the number of penalty points that can be imposed for failing to provide information about the identity of a driver. We have a concern that the provision would severely reduce the discretion that the courts had in this area. The Minister spoke long and hard about the discretion and centrality of the courts and police officers. By moving from three to six points, we will give the courts no discretion and no ability to consider the circumstances of the case, which means that injustices will occur.

We have no problem with the maximum end of the points being raised to six, which as I understand it, would correspond with the maximum for speeding. We remain concerned that the flexibility that the courts have is being removed. The Minister was waxing lyrical this morning about the ability of the courts to distinguish the gradients of the offence of carelessness. I therefore assume that he will agree that in these circumstances they will have the ability to be flexible and show discretion.

The amendment does not seek to require a leniency option. It merely gives the courts the discretion to decide, in the circumstances of various cases, whether they should give three or six points. A case which is often cited is where the husband and wife drive cars interchangeably. Who can remember who was driving which car at a particular point? My wife and I drive our cars interchangeably, although we describe my car as the Audi and hers as the Renault. None the less, we drive them interchangeably and there are certainly days where I could not be sure which one of us was necessarily driving which car.

Perhaps more importantly, there is the scenario where there are multiple drivers using one vehicle. That could happen in distribution companies, post offices and a large number of utility companies, where it is quite possible that one vehicle is used by numerous people during the week and possibly even during a single day. An offence could occur. Subsequently, a request for the provision of details of the driver is issued which may be difficult to provide. All the amendment is seeking to do, in line with the Minister’s desire elsewhere in the Bill, is to introduce that element of common sense, which will allow the courts to use their discretion. I trust that the Minister will have no problem with that.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

The hon. Member for Wimbledon may have no problem with the change that the Government have made, but I do. On this occasion, the Government and Conservative Members, especially the Conservatives, are being unduly soft. I should like anything up to and including a period of disqualification for contravention of section 172. In terms of its use by the police for the investigation of road traffic incidents after the event and the operation of cameras, section 172 is crucial. It is a very useful provision for the police. There is a growing prevalence of the use of speed cameras. There have been some well-documented cases of people trying to evade their duties under section 172, and occasionally doing so successfully, so the full range of penalties should be available to the court.

I return to my point that the prospect of losing a licence certainly concentrates the mind. Section 172 is one of the most important sections of the Road Traffic Act 1988 and it is becoming more important. The Government are going in the right direction, but I hope that the Minister considers increasing the number of penalty points. For the worst cases—there are some bad cases—disqualification should be made an option.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I understand why the Government want the provision in the Bill. If a motorist was exceeding the speed limit greatly and was aware that a speed camera had been triggered, he might decide that, if he claimed that he did not know who was driving, it would be worth three points rather than his admitting that he was driving and probably receiving six points for the much more serious offence of greatly exceeding the speed limit. I understand why the Government want to plug the gap, but I cannot understand why they are not willing to adopt the flexible approach suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon to allow the courts to judge the case on its merits.

When the House debated the Bill in the previous Parliament, which fell because of the election, I drew the attention of the Committee to an incident that involved the Conservative candidates for the European Parliament during the previous European elections in my county. They were lent two jeep vehicles by a party supporter to use during their campaigning. The insurance was such that it covered anyone driving for the campaign. The vehicles were chopped and changed between the candidates and campaign managers. Three weeks later, a ticket arrived on the desk of the owner of the vehicles because one of the jeeps had triggered a speed camera. An offence had been committed but, at that stage, no one was sure who had been driving the jeep in question when it triggered the speed camera. I must say that the triggering was minimal; it was three or four miles over the speed limit.

Let us consider the circumstances in which the owner genuinely did not know who was driving the car. Clearly, he owned the vehicle and must shoulder some responsibility, but it seems unfair that the owner must take six points when, if the culprit had come forward, the culprit would have received only three points. The Minister is taking matters too much the other way. He is correcting a loophole in the law but, by making the offence carry more points than a motorist may receive in certain cases, he has gone too far.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire is right; he has put his finger on why we are making the change. If we did not, and someone was due to receive a six-point penalty for driving well over the speed limit, they would do better for themselves by saying that they did not know who was driving, and taking three points.

There is a defence for the circumstances outlined by the right hon. Gentleman, although now that I know it will be used to defend Conservative candidates, I might consider amending it. Section 172(3) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 provides a defence where a person

“did not know and could not with reasonable diligence have ascertained who the driver of the vehicle ... was.”

In such circumstances, the individual will not be penalised at all.

I hope that that is sufficient explanation for the change and that it provides the reassurance that the hon. Member for Wimbledon sought on a defence being available. I have noted that he regards the Audi as his vehicle and the Renault as his wife’s. I can only say that that is very sexist but entirely understandable.

The issue raised by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland is one that reasonable people can have a reasonable disagreement about, but I undertake to reflect on his views before Report.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

If the situation is as the Minister describes, he will have fully answered my concerns. While I am speaking, may I try to regain a little bit of street cred with him by saying that only half my vehicles are automatic? Two of them are Jensens. One is a Jensen Interceptor; the other is a Jensen C-V8. I have to tell him that an automatic gearbox does not lessen the experience of driving those cars.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I look forward to joining the right hon. Gentleman on a drive sometime. I will be in my Alfa and he can be in his Jensen.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

One reason why my wife agrees that the Audi is my car is that it has had slightly more accidents, but that is another story.

If the situation is as the Minister described, the reason why we sought flexibility in clause 29 is covered. I am sure that readers of Hansard will be amused to discover that flexibility is required in one case and absolutes are required in others. None the less, given the Minister’s reassurance on the point that I raised, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 30 - Meaning of driving without due care and attention

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I rise to speak on clause 30 somewhat ruefully. You missed an interesting debate this morning, Sir Nicholas. I will not repeat what was said, but we proposed new clauses that would have set a cascading scale, with reckless driving being driving that fell “far below” what would be expected of a competent driver and dangerous driving being “significantly” below that. We felt that that was in tune with clause 30, which we had not reached at that point. It suggests that a simple definition of “careless, or inconsiderate, driving” be set in statute, which is driving that falls below what would be expected of

“a competent and careful driver”.

We thought that our new clauses would set a wholly logical new framework of law of which the new definition in clause 30 formed an integral part. It is somewhat ruefully, therefore, that we support clause 30 as it stands.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Does the Minister want to reply?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Only to say that I mentioned in this morning’s debate that we had carried out a thorough consultation on the offences that we are discussing. The consultation suggested that although we had an adequate statutory definition of dangerous driving, which is that it falls far below the standard normally accepted, there ought to be a further definition in statute of what careless driving constitutes. That is why we have tabled the clause. Far from being in any way contradictory to the comments that I made in this morning’s debate, it is this clause that makes sense of those comments. It explains why we do not need the more graduated definitions of dangerous, reckless and the other standards of driving proposed by the hon. Member for North Shropshire.

Clause 32 - Alternative verdict on unsuccessful culpable homicide prosecution

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 69, in clause 32, page 34, line 29, at end add—

‘(d)an offence under section 3 of that Act (careless driving).”’.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 70, in clause 33, page 35, line 7, at end add—

‘(e)an offence under section 3 of that Act (careless driving).”’.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

These are probing amendments. Under the framework set up in the clause, if I understand it, if culpable homicide fails a case of dangerous driving could be brought. They are probing amendments to see whether within the rules of double jeopardy it would be possible in the case of dangerous driving also to be caught by the definition of careless driving.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Not being a lawyer, I may fall into dangerous territory. If I mislead the Committee I will, of course, write and correct it. I understand that if one is charged with an offence such as manslaughter, the alternative offences are offered by the judge to the jury if he believes that they cannot reach a decision on the substantive indictment. That will mean that dangerous driving can be an alternative verdict in a case where manslaughter is alleged. We have already made it clear that causing death by careless driving would be an alternative verdict when someone was charged with causing death by dangerous driving. I hope that answers the hon. Gentleman’s question.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

Does that mean that there could be a cascade from manslaughter to causing death by dangerous driving to causing death by careless driving?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

Again, as I am not a lawyer I am slightly hesitant, but my understanding is no.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

Perhaps the Minister would clarify why the Government have not included within the clause an alternative verdict for the clause that creates the offence of causing death by careless driving? As the Minister will be aware, the range of culpability in respect of culpable homicide can cover events that are low down the scale.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

The rationale for that is that if one has started off with either manslaughter or culpable homicide, our feeling is that it is too far a drop to causing death by careless driving. If one cannot make the case for manslaughter in such circumstances, one would expect to be able to make the case for causing death by dangerous driving, rather than having to cascade all the way down to causing death by careless driving.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

That was a helpful explanation. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 34 - Penalty points

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I beg to move amendment No. 71, in clause 34, page 35, line 20, leave out ‘seven’ and insert ‘three’.

The clause enables the courts to offer offenders convicted of certain specified offences the opportunity to undertake a retraining course, which will give them a remission of penalty points. It inserts into the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 offences such as careless and inconsiderate driving, failure to comply with traffic signs and speeding. The opportunity to pay for and undertake retraining courses is offered where the driver is not to be disqualified but his licence is to be endorsed with penalty points. The retraining courses can be offered only when the offender has reached at least seven points and no more than 11. That is obvious; otherwise he would be disqualified.

We see what the Minister is driving at, but amendment No. 71 is designed to elicit from him why he has chosen seven penalty points as the starting point for a driver to apply for one of the retraining courses. We believe that they could be more specifically and successfully aimed at first-time or less serious offenders, so that there is no progression. Indeed, as I understand it, some police forces offer the courses in the place of prosecution, aimed particularly at the lower end of the scale. [Interruption.] They cost between £100 and £135 and should be self-financing.

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

On a point of order, Sir Nicholas. I wonder whether Front Bench spokesmen get three points for using a mobile phone.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that they get six under me.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

That is very good news.

The courses are now being extended to the courts, so we are keen to find out why only serious offenders who already have seven points can apply for them. Surely the progression that we discussed earlier is equally important. We should encourage all individuals to be responsible users and should give them an opportunity to attend a retraining course. Surely someone who has only three points would benefit from such a course as much as someone who has seven. It seems sensible to us to try to nip what is irresponsible, bad driving rather than criminal activity in the bud well before someone gets to a massive seven penalty points.

Therefore, I should be interested to hear why the Minister wants to set the level at seven. Will it be simply a matter of resource?

Stephen Ladyman (Labour, South Thanet)

I think that I can help the hon. Gentleman. The police can already, at their discretion, offer an alternative to three points when they are giving a fixed penalty notice. Typically, they would write to the individual giving them the opportunity to take a training course rather than pay the normal fixed penalty.

We want the courts to have the opportunity to offer courses. The amendment suggests that if the person is about to be given three points—that would indicate that they had not committed any previous offences—they would have the opportunity to take a training course instead of the three points. We thought it more sensible to set the bar a little higher than that so that, by definition, it must be the second offence. The maximum that the person could previously have got is six points, so seven points shows that, at the very least, it is their second offence. In those circumstances clearly a pattern is beginning to set in, which could perhaps be nipped in the bud by sending the individual on a training course, but a pattern had not been established at the first offence. However, the hon. Gentleman should remember that the individual may already have been sent on a course at the police’s discretion, as a result of having previously been offered a fixed penalty.

Again, this is an issue where reasonable people can have a reasonable disagreement. We have simply decided that the bar should be set slightly higher than the three points in the hon. Gentleman’s probing amendment.

Stephen Hammond (Conservative, Wimbledon)

I am sure that this is indeed a case where reasonable people can have a reasonable disagreement, but if two offences have already been committed I suggest that a pattern is involved already and that things are not then being nipped in the bud. I hope that the Government will review this at some stage and that they might be able to reduce the level at which these courses are introduced. However, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.