Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Baroness Finlay of Llandaff and Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville

Thursday 16th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, during the passage of the Licensing Act 2003, in a gesture that was helpful to local authorities as licensing authorities, the Government introduced in Section 9(1) a provision that:

“A licensing committee may establish one or more sub-committees consisting of three members of the committee”,

who would then serve as the licensing panel on an application. I do not know if the Government then foresaw the use that local and licensing authorities might make of this provision. A present consequence of Section 9(1) is that, on a particular interpretation, licensing panels can in practice be reduced from three to two. That has the effect of making the chairman, who has a casting vote, decisive, and thus has the effect of single-person decisions. This is habitual in one London borough licensing authority, which I am led to believe is Camden; and I declare an interest as I was once a member of Camden Borough Council. It is used regularly in others and even occasionally in Westminster, where I was a Member of Parliament.

I realise that my amendment to make it “not less than” three members may not be adequate to correct this situation, although I have taken advice. However, I hope that my noble friend the Minister can at least accept the spirit of my amendment. It is a stand-alone amendment, and the others in this group relate to Clause 125. Indeed, my concerns with Clause 125 standing part will follow smoothly on from Amendment 241C of my noble friends Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Astor. I will therefore defer my remarks on Clause 125 to follow on from that amendment, thus now yielding the Floor to the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay of Llandaff and Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, whose Amendments 241D and 241DA are on a different issue. I beg to move.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 241A in this group and the subsequent amendment, which is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, who is also supporting my amendment. I should make it clear that these two amendments have not been tabled because we disagree on this issue; we agree so totally and fundamentally that these two amendments are almost belt-and-braces measures. I would have liked to add my name to the noble Baroness’s amendment. They are very slightly different but in no way less important.

The Bill constitutes a very important opportunity to address drink-driving and the catalogue of deaths and casualties that occur on the roads because of alcohol consumption. We both would like to bring down the legal blood alcohol level from 80 to 50 milligrams per hundred millilitres of blood; that would bring us in line with many other countries in Europe. However, the best way forward seems to be to see whether all the measures to be implemented under the Bill have an effect on alcohol consumption—hence the concept of their being subject to a review—and for the review to look at legal limits specifically.

What is the size of the problem? It is estimated that nearly 12,000 reported casualties—5 per cent of all road casualties—are the result of someone driving when over the legal limit and that the number of such people who were killed in 2009 was 380 or 17 per cent of all road fatalities. It is important to remember that pedestrians are sometimes knocked over in these incidents and have a much higher risk of being killed than the person who is in the car, who is usually the person who is over the limit. The injuries sustained by pedestrians are more likely to be fatal as they suffer head or facial injuries, which tend to be more severe.

The number of hospital admissions due to road accidents in general is enormous. There were 39,000 admissions following road traffic accidents in 2009. Looking just at the drink-driving statistics, an average of 3,000 people are killed or seriously injured each year in drink-driving collisions, and nearly one in six of all deaths on the road involve these drivers, as I said. However, the biggest problem occurs with youngsters. Drink-driving among young men in the 17 to 29 age group is particularly high. Provisional figures from 2004 show that some 590 people were killed in crashes in which a driver was over the legal limit, 2,350 were seriously injured and 14,000 were slightly injured. The key group comprises the 17 to 24 year-olds, of whom 6.3 per cent who were breath tested after an accident failed the test. That compares with an average for all ages of 4.4 per cent. People in this age group seem particularly liable to drive when they have had too much to drink and to have an accident when over the drink-drive limit. Recent data from police checks in England and Wales show that one in 20 of under 25 year-olds who were stopped were over the legal limit. That translates into 1,746 young drivers because more than 27,000 people were stopped by the police in total.

How do we stop this catalogue of deaths and serious injuries, not only of people who are over the limit but among others? How do we stop the carnage of young lives that are wasted because they have been driving while over the limit? They may not even realise that they are over their limit but their ability to drive safely is seriously impaired. Fatalities often result from stupid little things such as not looking properly, having slightly slower reactions and driving a little too fast on a wet road. That is the background to these amendments. We cannot leave a Bill like this, which is trying to tackle a major social problem, without addressing this alcohol-associated carnage on our roads.