Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)

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It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister and my other hon. Friends for attending this Committee.

It may help if I give a brief outline of the substance of the Bill before delving into a line-by-line examination. The Bill will eliminate any unnecessary administrative burdens on the Courts Service and, pleasingly, on the motorist as well. Until 1998, the UK driving licence was a paper document that also recorded details of any fines and penalties for traffic offences on it. As some hon. Members may know, whether from personal experience or otherwise, since the abolition of the paper counterpart in 2015, no physical documents are endorsed when a person receives penalty points. Instead, the courts and fixed penalty offices electronically update the details on the person’s driving record.

Changes in 2015 removed the reference to the counterparts but did not remove the requirement for licences to be surrendered as part of that process. Today, the only practical need for a licence to be produced is where the driver faces disqualification. The requirement to surrender the driving licence for endorsement costs approximately £2 million per annum. The measures proposed in the Bill remove those costs, which I hope hon. Members agree will deliver a worthwhile saving for the public purse.

Before the paper counterpart to the driving licence was abolished, the counterpart would be physically endorsed with details of an offence and the penalty points. However, since we no longer have that system, when a person receives penalty points they are recorded electronically instead. Clause 1 addresses the requirement for production of a driving licence to the court.

Under section 7 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, when a person is prosecuted for an offence involving disqualification they are required to deliver or post the licence to the court in advance of the hearing or take it with them to the hearing. Clause 1 proposes to remove any need for that to happen. The purpose is to remove the administrative burden on the courts in having to handle the licences. It will also remove unnecessary burdens on the individual.

Clause 2 provides the Secretary of State with powers to require the surrender of a driving licence to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency where a court has ordered disqualification. Failure to do so will be a summary offence. Where an individual is disqualified, the court will notify the DVLA and either forward the licence to it or indicate whether a production order has been made. That will reinforce the procedures to take revoked driving licences out of circulation.

Clause 3 relates to fixed penalties for traffic offences. The fixed penalty procedure requires the production of a driving licence. Clause 3 would remove that requirement and the need for a licence to be surrendered. That can be done because, in practice, police constables and vehicle examiners have access to the driver register to help them to establish an individual’s identity and driving status, and the clause would require an individual to provide information relating to their identity at the point of payment of the fixed penalty. Given that the authorities no longer need to endorse a driving licence to endorse an individual’s record, there is no need for the physical licence to be produced or surrendered, hence clause 3 removes that requirement.

Clause 4 is similar, except that it relates to conditional offers, with which my hon. Friends—perhaps some more than others—may be familiar. They may know from personal experience that conditional offers are frequently used when speeding and traffic light offences are detected by those dreaded automated cameras. Currently, to accept a conditional offer, an individual must deliver their driving licence, along with payment, to the fixed penalty clerk or the Secretary of State. Again, the clause would remove that requirement.

Clause 5 introduces schedule 1, which is substantial because it deals with all sorts of technical amendments to the Road Traffic (New Drivers) Act 1995. That Act came into force too late for me, Sir David, and I suspect also too late for you, but perhaps not too late for all my hon. Friends, some of whom may have been caught by its provision that individuals who passed their driving test after 1 June 1997 are subject to a two-year probationary period. If they receive six points during those two years, they face disqualification. Schedule 1 would make consequential technical amendments to the 1995 Act to deal with that scenario.

Clause 6 introduces schedule 2, which encompasses amendments to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, the Road Traffic Act 1988 and other Acts.

Clause 7 provides for the Bill’s extent, commencement and short title.

I believe that these changes will be welcomed by motorists, as they remove the burden of requiring a driving licence to be produced, and the taxpayer, as they save a good bit of money—£2 million or thereabouts.