Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Boyd of Duncansby and Lord Sanderson of Bowden

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boyd of Duncansby]

I am not familiar enough with the borders to say to what extent roads come in and out of Scotland and England. The picture the noble Lord seems to be painting is that every 100 yards it meanders over the border. Of course, I am aware that a river forms at least part of the border. I actually thought that there were more significant difficulties with Northern Ireland and the Republic. I remember reading stories about people having part of their house in the Republic and the other part in Northern Ireland. Of course, you would not drive through a house. Nevertheless, roads probably do meander more over there than they do between Scotland and England. I take the noble Lord’s point; clearly there may be times when there are issues with that. I should think that there will be a common-sense approach between police forces on both sides of the border, as there already is in relation to jurisdictional difficulties, wherever they might arise.

[Lord Sanderson of Bowden]

I may be able to help the noble and learned Lord. The road that I use to go to Berwick—and no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Steel, does the same—goes through a small village in Scotland, in which the speed limit is 40 mph. When you go into England, it is 30 mph. I happened to get caught going at 35 mph in the village of Wark, so there are differences at the moment on these roads.

[Lord Boyd of Duncansby]

I am obliged to the noble Lord for that information.

A number of issues are raised by these amendments as a whole. The first is one of road safety. That has already been raised in the amendment in the name of the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, and the noble Viscount, Lord Younger. It was also raised in the amendments that we have put down. There are two particular issues here. One relates to the Highway Code, the other to the driving test.

Paragraph 95 of the Highway Code says:

“You MUST NOT drive with a breath alcohol level higher than 35 microgrammes/100 millilitres of breath or a blood alcohol level of more than 80 milligrammes/100 millilitres of blood”.

It then tells you why you should not do that; alcohol will give,

“a false sense of confidence … reduce co-ordination and slow down reactions … affect judgement of speed, distance and risk”.

Paragraph 124 and the accompanying table in the Highway Code reflect the speed limits, and say:

“You MUST NOT exceed the maximum speed limits for the road and for your vehicle”.

It is of course clear that if Scottish Ministers exercise their powers under the Bill, and vary the limits in either case, that will have a knock-on consequence for the Highway Code and for the driving test. It is important to ensure that people are sufficiently aware of the differences where they exist. It is important that we do not have some kind of Scottish edition of the Highway Code that reflects only the Scottish position but have instead a code that is still a United Kingdom code but that reflects differences in these limits where they exist. On the speed limit, for example, the accompanying table could be quite simply amended to show these differences where they exist.

The Calman commission obviously missed a trick when we decided not to give the power to the Scottish Parliament to change the side on which the traffic moves. Driving on the left seemed to us to remain important.

The other issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, was HGVs. The Calman commission did not distinguish between different types of motor vehicles. I am unclear why that distinction is there and why it remains, and I certainly look forward to a good explanation, shall we say, from the noble Lord, of why that should be. It really does not make sense to have that kind of distinction. He may say that long-distance truck drivers are used to driving over the border, but that raises the question as to why we are devolving it at all. In fact, these very people are more likely to be aware of the differences where they exist. Therefore, if he were to advance that argument, it would not be an argument that I would accept.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, also raised an important issue about penalties. The Calman commission simply looked at the offences and the limits on the blood alcohol and breath alcohol levels and the speed limit. I do not think that we mentioned penalties. However, there is an important point here. A reduction in the limit is more important when one talks about the alcohol limit. For example, there has been talk of a reduction to zero. If that happens, the penalty would be an automatic 12-month ban. Even someone with a minute level of alcohol would be subject to that automatic 12-month ban unless the Scottish Parliament had the power to vary not just the alcohol level but the penalty.

While this Bill devolves responsibility to the Scottish Ministers to set the blood alcohol level, that devolution might be constrained. Ministers might take the view that, while they are in favour of a reduction in the blood alcohol level, the penalties that would necessarily be imposed because they did not have the power to vary the penalty would mean that the penalty would be disproportionate.

Perhaps there is an issue about the ability to amend primary legislation, but this is a very real issue that the Minister has to take away and look at seriously. Otherwise, we would not properly devolve this matter at all and would be giving only one part of a solution to the Scottish Ministers. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that issue as well as on HGVs, and I look forward to hearing from him.