Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Monday 8th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

With respect to my noble friend, it would very much depend on the road and how the policy was being implemented, which would be an operational consideration, but I take his point.

I am very happy to put the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, and others who have spoken in this short debate in touch with the Road Safety Minister in the Department for Transport so that they can continue to discuss the further important issues raised by these amendments. I can sense the mood of the Committee, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, quoted some very powerful statistics on public attitudes here, so I urge noble Lords to seek that meeting.

Finally, before I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment, I associate myself with my noble friend Lord Wolfson’s remarks about the personal comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter; she has my deepest sympathy. For now, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Before the Minister sits down, would I be right in saying that, five years after my noble friend made his previous speech, which apparently lasted a bit longer, the number of convictions for drink-driving has gone up by 25% and all the Government can offer is that they will study the figures for a bit longer and do nothing else? Am I being unfair?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

With respect, I do not know whether the noble Lord is being unfair, because I do not have the statistics. I will write to him.

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[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, at various points in the Bill, the Government are seeking to increase penalties and create new offences, but it is fairly pointless increasing penalties on paper if you regularly allow people to avoid them through what has effectively become a legalised loophole. People avoid a driving ban under the totting-up procedure by pleading exceptional hardship. The problem is that this excuse is being used far from exceptionally. I recall, when in court as magistrates, that we would expect such a plea from some solicitors as a matter of routine for all their clients. The reality is that the definition of exceptional is very broad and applied unevenly.

To give an example, in 2015 Christopher Gard killed cyclist Lee Martin. It was the ninth time he had been caught using his mobile phone while driving. Magistrates had repeatedly accepted that a ban would cause exceptional hardship. There is a case on record of a man being allowed to continue to drive because of the “exceptional hardship” it would cause him if he could not walk his dog—he had to drive a mile to the local park to do that.

This amendment provides a definition of “exceptional hardship”. It is exceptional

“only if it is significantly greater than the hardship that would arise … if the same disqualification were imposed”

on the great majority of drivers. To assist, it gives examples of what the court can take into account.

For example, where you live: if you live 10 miles from the nearest shops and healthcare facilities, halfway up a mountain with no bus service nearby, the ability to drive is clearly very important to you—although, of course, if you live with other family members, you would not be likely to face exceptional hardship because they could probably drive you there instead. If you have to drive as part of your job and will presumably lose your job if you cannot drive, then that would be exceptional hardship; although one wonders whether any employer would want such a bad driver. At the moment, with the shortage of drivers, they might put up with it but in normal circumstances, not so. Clearly, if you are disabled, or a carer on whom a disabled person relies for being taken to the shops, to healthcare and so on, then you would experience exceptional hardship if you could no longer drive. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and I are not being hard-hearted; we are, instead, seeking to ensure that the “exceptional hardship” proviso is used as it was intended to be used.

Finally, to give this some context, in 2020 in England, 33,196 drivers were disqualified under the totting-up procedure and 8,764 people are currently driving around with more than 12 points on their licence. Noble Lords will immediately see from those figures that the “exceptional hardship” plea is being accepted in such a high proportion of cases that it cannot be regarded as exceptional. I urge the Government to give consideration to the need to tighten up that definition.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support this amendment and I shall add just a few words to the noble Baroness’s excellent introduction. I have a friend in Cornwall who is quite famous and about a year ago he was caught driving at about 80 mph in a 50-mph zone. He already had 12 points on his licence, so he pleaded exceptional hardship because he had to visit his ailing mother every day. He was allowed to keep his licence. Two months later, exactly the same thing happened and he made the same plea. As noble Lords will know, you cannot make the same plea twice for the same offence and the magistrates took away his licence, which made him very angry. But he should not have been angry, because there is an easy solution to this: do not do it in the first place.

The noble Baroness gave many examples of exceptional hardship. I could give a lot more, but I am not going to at this time of night. However, there is a solution to this, which is, do not do it in the first place. Stick to the speed limit, do not go through red traffic lights or whatever else people might think about.

This is not a question of hardship. It is a question of not doing it in the first place so that you are not taken to court and maybe convicted. The definition that the noble Baroness has put in this amendment is a very good one. If the Minister does not like it, perhaps he can come back with an alternative before we get to Report, but we need to find a solution to the 83,000 drivers who have escaped driving bans in the past 10 years because, unless they learn to behave, driving is going to get more dangerous. I hope that the Minister will agree at least to look at the text and come back with something else before Report.

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[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment simply calls for a review of road traffic offences. It refers back to the debate we had earlier. My amendment is very broad—and deliberately so. Other amendments are much more specific and deal with worthwhile issues, but the haphazard range of amendments laid to the Bill is a result of its broad coverage of topics. The amendments that have been laid are just a snapshot of a wide range of issues that require attention and modernisation. I do not believe that this Bill is the place for any kind of systematic look at road traffic offences; they need their own Bill.

The Government undertook a consultation and review in 2014 with that kind of action in mind, but nothing happened. Of course, that 2014 review is now hopelessly out of date and would have to be undertaken again. I want to run through a few of the issues that are significant today but which were hardly worthy of note in 2014. The first is e-scooters. The Government have dozens of so-called pilot schemes under way, but wherever you live in the UK, e-scooters are visible nowadays. They pose problems and need regulation. The situation has gone way beyond any form of government control. I suggest that the Government will find it difficult to impose regulations now after such a period of a lax approach, but they really have to do something about them. In practice, e-scooters are sold with no attempt to explain to people that they are illegal on public roads and pavements outside the pilot scheme areas.

E-scooters pose a danger. In 2020, 484 casualties were officially recorded as the result of e-scooter accidents. Of those, 384 were the users themselves, one of whom, a 16 year-old boy, was killed. Some 128 of those involved in accidents were seriously injured, including a three year-old girl who received life-changing injuries. Reports this year suggest that at least 11 people have been killed so far, but, of course, that has to be officially recorded.

Another issue that hardly featured in 2014 is smart motorways. I do not want to dwell on the details of those, because last week we had the report from the Transport Select Committee in the other place, but it recommended a halt to smart motorway developments until significant safety improvements had been made and more powers for the ORR to block schemes until safety concerns had been dealt with. Clearly the Highway Code needs amending to deal with smart motorways. Since only 29 miles of smart motorway have been running for five years or more, they clearly did not feature in 2014.

Other issues that need tackling are: autonomous vehicles—road regulations and layouts, driver behaviour and legal responsibility all need tackling as a result of those; the trend towards more 20-mile-an-hour zones, as we discussed earlier today; and the fact that, for environmental reasons, road layouts need to change to encourage more walkers and cyclists. Those are always put together in the same paragraph, but in fact their interests are not identical and can conflict.

Bikes themselves are not what they once were. The welcome increase in the number of people cycling, and more people using bikes to commute, means that cyclists are often in a hurry and there is often a conflict with pedestrians and other road users. Electric bikes, which are certainly a recent innovation, are on occasion ridden much faster than the legal limit of 15.5 miles an hour, because you can tamper with the maximum speed. Cyclists can and do injure and kill, as well of course as very often suffering in accidents themselves. Cyclists who cause accidents can be charged only under the 1861 Act, which I referred to earlier today, with “wanton and furious driving”. The fact that we have to refer to an Act that is more than 150 years old is an indication that there is a need for a proper and comprehensive review of road traffic offences.

For those reasons and a host of others, we need a review, not this Christmas tree of a Bill. This is a probing amendment and I will of course withdraw it in due course. However, my question for the Minister is simple: when can we expect a proper road traffic Bill? When can we look for a proper review to modernise our roads?

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on Amendment 165 in my name and in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool. We are grouped together with Amendment 159 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. I think we are both looking for the same thing, which is a review of road traffic offences, which we discussed a little earlier this evening. It seems that the time has come to put a time limit on this. We suggest two years from the date of the Bill’s enactment.

As I mentioned earlier, this started in 2014. In 2015-16, the Commons Transport Committee reported with an inquiry on road traffic law enforcement, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking reported in 2017, with an inquiry on cycling and the justice system, and in 2018 there was a Westminster Hall debate on road justice and the legal framework, which revealed a cross-party consensus on the need for wide-ranging reforms. Many of the amendments we have discussed tonight demonstrate the need for reform but also the very wide range, scope and potential, and to some extent the differing opinions, which is of course quite normal.

In addition to the groups I have mentioned, there needs to be discussion not just with road safety and road user groups but with representatives of the police, the legal professions and local authorities. It is interesting to reflect that, seven years on from 2014, we could have had that debate by now and we could be passing laws that would save lives by taking the most dangerous drivers off the road.

I hope I can persuade Ministers that there is time for such a review now. I suspect we will be told that there are no current plans. However, the amendments which we and other people have tabled to Part 5 indicate that a review is needed. I suggest that it is time to address the awful additional pain and deaths that so many people have suffered as a result of the failure to review and change the law, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I think we have made the point that there is a huge inconsistency between road traffic offences and other offences causing injury and death. The penalties are simply not similar in any way.

Many years ago, when I first started getting interested in traffic crime, I went out several times with the traffic police and saw a number of investigations and crashes. At the time, I was told about some incidents that had happened and the sentences that the drivers had got, and these were horrific crashes. A police sergeant working there said to me that if he wanted to kill somebody, he would use his car. He would either get off scot free or would get a minimal sentence because, finally, you can always claim that it is an accident.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am sorry, but I am going to speak on this if the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is not going to.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

No.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I feel very strongly about this. It offends my sense of justice that people who do hit and runs never pay for their crime. They are a menace to society, with only six months’ maximum sentence for leaving someone for dead having hit them with a car and, of course, the figures are going up year after year—

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[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment. One of the most telling statistics is that there were 28,000 hit-and-run collisions in 2017, all involving failure to stop and report collisions that involved actual or potential serious or fatal injury. This number had increased by 43% since 2013—in only four years. That is a very significant increase and, as other noble Lords have said, the current maximum penalty for a hit-and-run collision is six months in prison which, as the noble Baroness said, might be all right in some circumstances, but not in others.

The other issue is that, now that most people have mobile phones in their cars, there should be a general duty to report collisions while at the collision scene. Yes, there are a few places in this country where there is not any signal, but very few compared to where there is; and if it is not possible, the driver or rider may subsequently report the collision and produce their insurance certificates, if appropriate, at a police station or to a constable. This should all be done within two hours of the collision, because 24 hours means that, if there were any risk of alcohol or drugs having an effect, that could be lost in that time. This is a really important amendment, and I would be interested if we could find some more up-to-date statistics on what has happened since 2017, because it is a very serious issue.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, my right honourable friend Ben Bradshaw spoke to his amendment, which was along similar lines, in the other place, to increase the sentences for this type of offence from six months to a possible 14 years. I agree with most of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and particularly her opening point: in general terms, I do not like sentence inflation. This is a very large potential inflation in sentences. Nevertheless, I take the point that she and other noble Lords have made, that a maximum of six months in custody for failing to report a serious or fatal injury during a road traffic accident seems like an unduly light sentence for the most extreme cases.

We have heard reference to the petition; I understand that it will be debated in the House of Commons later this month. I have a question for the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. I would be interested to know how this would interact with existing sentences. For example, if a person has committed an offence causing serious injury or death by dangerous driving, would the expectation be that they would also be sentenced to a number of years for not reporting the accident? How would the two charges work in combination with each other? I have an open mind on these amendments, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

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Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

169A: After Clause 76, insert the following new Clause—
“Damage to guided transport structures
(1) A driver whose vehicle causes delays to operations of, or damage to, a guided transport structure or its systems is liable, on conviction of careless driving or a more serious offence, to at least 6 penalty points to be endorsed on the driver’s driving licence regardless of circumstances.(2) A haulier which is responsible for commissioning the journey of the driver is liable to—(a) a fine of up to £50,000,(b) the costs of reconstruction and other costs incurred by the owner of the structure, including compensation to its customers, train operator companies and other third parties, for delays and cancellation or damage to guided transport services.(3) In this section, “guided transport structure” means a structure which supports a guided transport system, including a railway structure.”

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving this amendment I shall speak to Amendments 169B and169C tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Atlee.

These amendments came as the result of a truck hitting a railway bridge near Plymouth about a month ago. It affected train services to the south-west quite severely, and I had a discussion with the head of safety at Network Rail to find the cause and what could be done to avoid it happening again. I got some very interesting information, which I will share briefly with the Committee.

As noble Lords probably know, an articulated lorry went under a railway bridge. Interestingly, the road was sloping upwards, so the top of the lorry hit only the far side of the bridge, because the clearance was less than when he went in. When I looked at it further with Network Rail, I was informed that there was an average of seven bridge bashes a day on the network; some are serious and others are not.

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[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am afraid the Minister’s response is a little disappointing. I was hoping he would say a bit more about what use we could make of technology and whether Network Rail would experience any difficulties in putting some of its infrastructure, say, half a mile away from its bridges. Does Network Rail have the power to put infrastructure on the road system, perhaps half a mile away from a bridge, in order to provide a warning for a driver that he is over height —something similar to what is done at the Blackwall tunnel?

The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, talked about training. It occurred to me that we could make it a part of HGV driver training that the driver of a lorry was required to compare his vehicle’s height to that of any infrastructure that he went under. On approaching a railway bridge he could say, “My height is 14 feet and the height of the bridge is 15 feet, so we’re fine.” If every time he went under a bridge he considered orally whether he could get under it, that might be a good starting point and might actually make a difference.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed and to the Minister for his response. I am afraid my view is that, however much he may say there is existing legislation, it is not working. That is clear. It is quite difficult for a driver to find the height of his vehicle. I spent several decades working in the rail freight sector, and trying to get a container on a rail wagon under a road bridge going over a railway was difficult because all these vehicles, be they rail or road, have suspensions so, depending on the load, the wagon or vehicle goes up and down. Still, given the rules that affect the railway sector, what we have in the road sector is frankly pretty weak.

I fully support the idea of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that there should be much greater emphasis on putting the information on to electronic GPSes, which I think most lorries have. One has to assume that the driver can read; that is probably not always the case but it is something to start from. He asked whether Network Rail had the power to build something away from the network. My answer is: in most cases, no. It would have to talk to landowners, seek planning permission and so on, although putting up a post with an electronic beam going across would be all right. On the continent, people do something rather better, and in France it is particularly evident: on a low bridge there is a steel structure, a portal frame, with bells and spikes on. It is clearly marked with its height, but if you see something up ahead with spikes and you are driving a lorry with rather a valuable load, you will probably stop and think before going through it. A few of those on the worst-offending bridges would be quite good.

Lastly, I suppose, I hope that the Minister will encourage Network Rail to take proceedings to reclaim as much of the cost as seems relevant, because some of them behave like a good old-fashioned nationalised industry and say “Well, you know, this is one of those things: let’s try to get a bit back.” They should be quite aggressive about it, while making sure that their own information is on these electronic guides and maps and everything like that.

I will look carefully at what the Minister says, and we may come back with something on which to seek a meeting before Report. I am conscious that the wording in my amendment is rather amateur, and after listening to what he has said it would be good to talk to him and Network Rail again, as well as to other colleagues, to see whether we can come up with a solution that encourages and educates but also takes action against people who do not do as they should. On that basis, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 169B (to Amendment 169A) withdrawn.