Net Migration

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I note what my noble friend says, but the level of provision of medical training is a matter for the Department of Health and the Department for Education.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not true that one of the great attractions of this country is that people can come in and get employment without any real problem whatsoever, and that the major error that we have had is the abandonment of the policy we had in 2010 to have a form of identity for every individual in the country? This has now been exposed as a major failing of the then Tory and Lib Dem Government, and something needs to be done to address it.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The Government do not agree that the answer is identity cards.

Police: Vetting, Misconduct and Misogyny

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I reassure my noble friend that I did say I would reflect on the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Dear, and I intend to do so.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

The Minister is very well regarded in the House. He is on a difficult one today, but would he express a personal view on what he believes should be done in regard to the question from my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

No.

Violent Crime, Gang Activity and Burglaries

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I express my gratitude to my noble friend Lord Snape for introducing this very important debate. I also welcome the Minister to his new role. I think it is going to be rather a bed of nails for him. My noble friend and I last worked together on the Select Committee on Crossrail, which after long delays is finally with us. The Minister who is now the new Home Secretary supervised a long delay. Let us hope he will not take so long in dealing with many of the issues confronting us today.

We have had a very important debate, covering a wide front—perhaps there is something there for us to reflect on when we come to address some of these fundamental issues. One thing that came through very clearly is the requirement for more money to be spent in this area. It behoves us to see how we can raise the money. Invariably, it will mean that taxes have to be found in one way or another, but I also share the view of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and the noble Lord, Lord Bird, that there ought to be more fundamental work done in shifting from dealing with the problems that arise in crime to looking at the fundamentals that cause crime in the first instance. That takes us back to really basic issues about the family and so on. Yes, poverty is a very big factor in dealing with this, but the other factor is the poverty of spirit that we now have in the country. We really ought to go back to some basics. Even though we were in poverty, people in my youth did not necessarily commit crime. Therefore, it is not solely an issue that stands on its own ground.

I am grateful to the Lords Library for providing us with an excellent, comprehensive briefing. I am also grateful to the Alcohol Health Alliance for the briefing it provided me on crime and alcohol. It will probably not surprise noble Lords that I will say a few words about the link between crime and alcohol. If I had more time, I could spend as much time on drugs as well, because these are two really major factors that cannot be ignored in the context of trying to find solutions.

Some 53% of police time on casework is spent on alcohol-related issues, in the widest possible sense. That is a very big amount of time. Serious violence is often linked in some way to alcohol. In more than a third of homicides, either the victim or the suspect has consumed alcohol prior to the incident. Alcohol-related violence accounts for two-fifths of all violence in England and Wales, and one in 10 people experiences alcohol-related anti-social behaviour every year. Evidence has demonstrated that the most deprived groups in our society bear this burden to the greatest extent.

Alcohol use can also increase the occurrence and severity of domestic violence, with approximately 1 in 3 victims reporting that the perpetrator was under the influence when they were attacked. Again, those in the lowest socioeconomic groups experience up to 14 times as many incidents of alcohol-related domestic violence, compared to the least deprived.

As my noble friend Lord Snape reported, alcohol is often used to exploit children in the context of county lines. He talked about the county lines problem, and you often do find that there is an alcohol factor. Alcohol-use disorders are significantly more numerous within the prison population. Despite this, the number of those in alcohol and drug treatment in prison has steadily dropped in recent years, again because of a shortage of cash. Volunteer organisations are finding that because of shortages of prison staff, it is very difficult indeed to help people with alcohol and drug problems because they cannot gain entry as they used to and so, in turn, the voluntary services they can offer are not being made available on quite the previous scale. That is no fault of the prison officers. There are just not enough of them to provide the facilities required to admit people from outside.

In England, alcohol-related crime is estimated to cost £11.4 billion per year. Cuts and freezes to alcohol duty since 2012 are estimated to have led to more than 111,000 additional crimes in England. There has also been a large loss of revenue because of the Government’s decision to freeze or cut those duties, although in fairness to the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, one good thing he has done is to reverse the previous Chancellor’s decision to freeze duty on alcohol in the mini-Budget, which is a very welcome change.

With the right package, we can reduce alcohol-related harm by limiting the affordability and availability of alcohol. Two measures were recommended by the World Health Organization as two of the most effective and cost-effective interventions to reduce alcohol consumption and tackle alcohol-fuelled crime. The first is reducing affordability, which is directly linked to consumption levels. As with petrol, if you increase the price, less of it is used. Increase the price of alcohol and there is less consumption. There is much evidence to indicate that this works. We have minimum unit pricing in Scotland, and the Welsh Government have adopted it too. It is high time that the Government turned their attention to this.

In the absence of MUP, Ipswich pioneered “reducing the strength” schemes, reducing the strength of alcohol in the area. There was a very substantial gain in reducing the incidence of street drinking—a 23% reduction by persuading people to move from high-alcohol to lower-alcohol drinks. Anti-social behaviour went down, crime fell in stores and crime overall fell in the Ipswich area.

The second initiative is to reduce availability of alcohol. Why are we able to purchase alcohol all through the night at petrol stations? That invariably will cause trouble. It is not of benefit to society, so we hope again to look at that wide availability.

If I had the time I could speak at length on drugs. There is a fundamental link between alcohol and drugs and violent crime, burglaries and gang activity. Importantly, we now have the Government’s 10-year drug strategy, which I welcome. It is time that they set up an inquiry to see whether we should have a similar strategy for alcohol, particularly in relation to crime and violence.

Civil Servants: Reduction in Numbers

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I totally agree with my noble friend.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is on a different planet from citizens’ experience in this country of service from both the public and private sectors. Has she tried trying to get through to British Gas or BT? We wait, wait, wait on the telephone. It is time we had a review of the way public and private services are being handled, and not look simply at cuts but at more efficient operations and the need, perhaps, to employ more people.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Lord will not recognise this, but he and I are saying a similar thing: we all need to look at our workforces and make sure that they are fit not just for the present but for the future and the development of new technology and processes.

Knife Crime

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Apprenticeships are a very good way of diverting people away from violence and into meaningful activity, and on to a working life. I have just answered the previous question about what we are doing in terms of education. Moving on from that, our £3.3 million Creating Opportunities Forum is providing meaningful employment-related opportunities to and raising the aspirations of young people at risk of serious violence over the next two years. More widely, we have invested £237 million to provide extra traineeship places between September 2020 and July this year, with further investment through to the end of the 2024-25 academic year. Traineeships are a short and flexible combination of learning and work experience, and they give young people who lack them the knowledge and skills to get an apprenticeship or a job.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister recall the meetings which I have had with her about the use of data and focusing on data to identify the locations in neighbourhoods which need extra resources in trying to prevent crime? In particular, does she recall the conversation she had with Professor Shepherd from the University of Cardiff, and the work he has done there, which has been spread to other parts of the country? Could she update the House on how that is being used?

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Lords Hansard - part two & Report stage
Monday 13th December 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

61: After Clause 77, insert the following new Clause—
“Alcohol limits
(1) In section 11(2) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (interpretation of sections 4 to 10), the definition of “the prescribed limit” is amended as follows.(2) For paragraph (a) substitute—“(a) 22 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath,”.(3) For paragraph (b) substitute—“(b) 50 milligrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood,”.(4) For paragraph (c) substitute—“(c) 67 milligrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of urine,”.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 61, I shall speak also to Amendment 62. It is convenient to take the two together.

Since Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, has kindly written, and I am grateful to him for sending a letter in which he set out statistics relating to the deaths and serious injuries arising from drinking and driving and for those drinking excessive alcohol. The numbers that he quoted are broadly similar to those which I ran in Committee. Reference is also made to the later figures which have come out for 2020, on which I shall not comment because they relate, in part, to four months of the year when we were in lockdown, when traffic levels fell and a whole range of other factors were quite different from normal life. I suppose the one saving grace of that period was that pedal cyclist casualty rates fell by 34%; one can only hope that that might continue in future.

What we have had is a decade of broadly the same number of deaths of people who have been killed by drunk drivers and probably a marginally increasing number of people being seriously injured in recent years. Is this to continue? Is the law right? The Government maintain that they want more evidence before they make changes. In his opening remarks in Committee, the Minister said:

“the Government take road safety very seriously and believe that any form of drink-driving is unacceptable and a serious road safety issue”.—[Official Report, 8/11/2021; col. 1535.]

I was surprised, but pleasantly pleased, to hear him say that.

I assume that the provisions are based on science and evidence. If so, could I ask the Government again, as I did way back in 2016, when I moved a Private Member’s Bill, whether they are prepared to present that science and put it in the public domain? As the Government know, clearly, that has relevance to the law of the land.

However, why do the Government continue to permit and give guidance that allows motorists and motorcyclists to drive with quite high levels of alcohol in their blood, especially when other countries now do not? In recent years, many have reduced their levels, but not the UK and Malta. If the Government really believe what I have just quoted from the noble Lord, why do they ignore the science that the more alcohol you drink, the more you risk a collision and possibly maiming or killing people on the scale that continues, as a decade’s data now shows?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I cannot give that assurance but, as I say, the scope of the consultation is still being worked up. As I have also said, once the call for evidence is concluded we would welcome submissions from all interested parties, so I am sure that that can be part of the scope.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all who have participated in the debate and particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for the work that she has done. I first express my sympathy about the experience that she has had. I am grateful to others who have spoken in support. I will not go on at length at this time of night, but I have two Front Benchers who are not happy about what I am seeking—or are certainly not supporting it.

My real concern is that we have been at this for years. I am offered, along with others, a review. But if the Scottish evidence is no different, we are in a Catch-22 situation where the Government will say, “The evidence from Scotland is not satisfactory from our point of view, and therefore we will make no change”. Personally, I am very much in the camp with the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and others who would like to see an even lower limit such as the Swedish one of 20. It cannot be nil, because the body itself generates a degree of alcohol that would always register, so for me personally it would be 20, but I have no evidence—other than going to Sweden and bringing it back—that will persuade the Minister. He is hooked on Scotland and what has happened. Changes need to be made in Scotland to enforce the limit more, given the problems encountered there.

So, I do not see a great deal of hope in withdrawing and waiting for this review, when there is no guarantee that the Government will take a different position—namely, that which I started on: the science is that if you drink, your risk of a collision goes up the more you drink. That is a fact of life and the scientists prove it, yet we go in a different direction and have a lead and guidance from the Government which allows people to drink and drive more than in any country in Europe, bar Malta. I believe it is wrong. I think that many Ministers believe it is wrong, and maybe even our Front Bench think it is wrong. So tonight, although I regret that it is late and I will keep noble Lords longer, I will not withdraw my amendment; I wish to test the mood of the House.

Ten-Year Drugs Strategy

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

I welcome the report and congratulate the Government on being prepared to set out a strategy. I can understand why some people are unhappy about part of it. Alcohol is quoted as the great place to go for a wonderful life with wonderful regulation and without all the consequential problems that you have with an unregulated market. All I can say is that, if we had a strategy on alcohol that set out some of the targets that we have here, I would almost think about joining the Government.

I declare an interest, in that I am the co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Twelve Steps Recovery Programme for Addiction, which covers not just alcohol but gambling and drugs and a whole range of things. We have already had an intervention in the Commons, and we have been offered a ministerial meeting over the recovery part of the report—over whether you are prepared to spend more time trying to get people totally sober, because we feel that the effort to try to get recovery and sobriety in so many areas has been falling so short.

In particular, we have harm reduction with methadone, and the rumour is that we are now spending £1 billion a year on methadone; it is very difficult to get to the real figures, but the story is that it is £1 billion a year. We did not have methadone available at all in 2006, when it first came around. How many people have secured sobriety during that period? How much work has been done to try to get them sober and off the drugs—because it is a drug, and it has its consequences. People die from methadone. That is the kind of research that needs to be done—then we can try to look for adequate resourcing.

I am grateful that the Minister has set out targets. Those of us who want to see recovery will be trying to keep her nose to the grindstone on it, so we deliver on them. I am sorry that we do not have the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, with us today, because much of this problem of course ends in jail. That is where we need more openness in jails, to admit people who are willing to assist people to get recovery. We have found with the 12-step programme—

[Noble Lords]

Question!

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

Sorry, we need a full debate on this. My question is on the 12 steps. Will the Government commit themselves to apply them more fully than they have done in the past, and will they do a proper record of the work that is done and research on that?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I am very pleased to have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, who equates the harms from alcohol with the harms from drugs. Socially, in many cases, the harms from alcohol are worse, because it is so freely available. He is right that quite often these things end in prison—whether it is drugs or alcohol. He talked about the ministerial meeting, and I would be very happy to join him in that if he wishes—and I would also be very happy if he wanted to join the Government. It is not my call, though.

The original impetus for a new strategy came from Dame Carol Black’s review of drugs, which recommended the setting up of this cross-government drugs unit, responsible for co-ordinating and delivering a drugs strategy. Of course, our strategy goes wider than just the health harms—although the noble Lord’s point about alcohol stands just as much. That said, I look forward I hope to joining him, and take on board all the points that he makes.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Wednesday 27th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

My Lords, I too add my support to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. Many points have been covered, and I simply want to say that if the definition of serious violence is not expanded in this way, the concern is that many local areas will not consider it within their strategies.

Join-up on this is absolutely vital. Local strategies to prevent domestic and sexual violence through education, research and specialist violence reduction units are key, including primary prevention, which I have raised before in your Lordships’ House. We must do all that we can to enable work across services and through effective partnership.

As has been said, the Domestic Abuse Act is a very good thing, yet a lot of time was spent during the passage of that Bill in this House trying to highlight overlooked groups and issues. This amendment once again highlights these issues by creating the necessity of more joined-up thinking between key agencies and ensuring that they remain cognisant of the issues. This amendment is vital.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I support everything that has been said so far. I will speak to Amendments 57 and 58, in which I am endeavouring to specify the broad categories of serious violence, ensuring that any violence that is serious enough to result either in injury requiring emergency hospital treatment or harm constituting grievous bodily harm would meet the threshold for serious violence.

I am grateful for the general support I have had, especially from those noble Lords with long policing experience who see merit in what I present today. It might be that, as yet, we have not quite got the wording right. It is a bit like the debate that we have been having so far. There is a case for us coming together if in fact we can convince the Minister that, in principle, there is merit in what we are arguing; we could come together later, perhaps, to get the wording right, if the Government are to be so convinced.

My amendments are not solely about knife crime, but the intention is to ensure that the broad categories of serious violence are specified so that local partnerships must address such violence in their prevention plans and take full account of the information available on serious violence, which comes up in the A&E data. That is particularly important.

When the Home Secretary introduced the assessment of the public health duty—the public health measures—on 15 July 2019, he said that collaboration to reduce serious violence was particularly important. The Government have of course moved to introduce this legislation following that.

The violence that constitutes serious violence is not specified in this Bill. Good legislation depends on such specifications and definitions. It will rightly be for the local partnerships to decide how they will reduce serious violence, but it would be neglectful if this legislation does not state what serious violence includes.

The impact assessment signed by the Home Secretary relies heavily on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the use by local partnerships of data collected in hospital accident and emergency departments for the prevention of serious violence. This approach, known as the Cardiff model for violence prevention, has been found in rigorous evaluations to reduce violence related to hospital admissions and serious violence recorded by the police by as much as 38%.

This approach has four principal advantages in the context of the Bill. First, it specifies a broad category of serious violence: violence serious enough to result in emergency hospital treatment. Secondly, it makes sense from a public health perspective, which is missing in what is, after all, a public health duty. Thirdly, following the implementation of the emergency care data set, the Cardiff model data on violence location, weapons and assailants, for example, can be recorded and shared for violence prevention by every NHS trust with an A&E. Fourthly, these NHS data are valid and reliable measures of serious violence, which would be available for joint inspections. Most importantly, even if just 5% of partnerships achieved the Cardiff-model benefits identified in the impact assessment, total benefits are estimated to be at least £858 million over 10 years and a reduction of around 20 homicides a year.

On Monday, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, referred to the invaluable work of Professor John Shepherd at Cardiff University. Professor Shepherd has helped greatly in the scheme that has been running in Cardiff—he certainly helped me in preparing these amendments and for speaking today. He makes the point that, if the amendments are not adopted, the Bill when enacted is most unlikely to achieve the reductions in serious violence. There is nothing specific around which to achieve that objective. Violence that results in emergency hospital treatment, and which affects all age groups and both genders, in and outside the home, would not be considered serious. The Bill when enacted would not resonate or easily be owned by the NHS and by clinical commissioning groups; they would not be obliged to commission this approach.

We therefore have to make sure that the local authorities get the data, get an outline of what needs to be done, and then get a clear instruction, from within the Bill itself, that there must be action taken and that they must not ignore what has been produced in this very valuable information.

I therefore hope that we can move forward collectively in looking at the range of amendments and see if we can produce something that actually puts specifics in the Bill, that then can be acted on lower down the line.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 58 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, but I think all of the amendments in this group are extremely worthwhile. The noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, gave a thoroughly well-argued pitch for her amendment, to which the Government have to listen. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, also argued very comprehensively for the inclusion of stalking, and I agree with that very strongly.

I wanted to sign every single amendment to this Bill, so I have ended up signing a sort of weird collection, and I apologise for that; I care about it all because I am so distressed about the Bill in general.

On Amendment 58, we need to know exactly what the Government intend with their duty to reduce serious violence. We talked earlier about intrusions, particularly relating to confidentiality, so it is quite important to have a redefined definition of serious violence. Because we have identified those intrusions, without safeguards, we must be sure that Parliament is clear and precise about the situations to which we intend this duty to apply; otherwise, we are left with a vague duty that interferes with people’s right to privacy in arbitrary and unfair ways. I very much hope that the Minister is listening and agreeing.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Monday 25th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for his remarks. It will come as no surprise to the Minister that I have a few things to say about alcohol over the course of our deliberations.

The Home Office’s outcome delivery plan, published on 15 July 2021, highlights alcohol use as a principal driver of serious violence and other crimes. However, the plan does not include any measures to reduce alcohol use. Reducing alcohol availability, increasing alcohol price and limiting alcohol marketing are powerful levers already in the hands of the Government for reducing serious violence, but none of these is included anywhere. As drafted, the Bill appears to be blind to the ubiquitous role of alcohol in serious violence both in and outside the home.

In 2019, 176,000 people in England and Wales needed emergency hospital treatment after being injured in violent incidents. Most of this serious violence takes place after 10 pm and is alcohol related. This is just the tip of the iceberg, as the Crime Survey for England and Wales demonstrates so clearly. People living in the most deprived areas are six times more likely to be affected than those in the least deprived areas. Quite apart from triggering violence, intoxication increases vulnerability, including to sexual violence, as physical decision-making capability is eroded. Hate violence increases as inhibition decreases.

One of the solutions is pricing. Even tiny alcohol price increases make a big difference. A 1% increase across the on and off-licence trades is estimated to reduce the number of people injured in serious violence by at least 6,000 in England and Wales. But at the moment, the Government’s action is in the opposite direction: they freeze or even reduce the levies and duties on alcohol. We wait with interest to see what the Chancellor will do this coming Wednesday, because effectively what the Government have done in recent years by reducing the price of alcohol in relative terms is give a licence for people to drink more and commit more violence, particularly after 10 pm. I hope there is some chance that we will start taking a different view of that. The statistics should not be ignored; they have got worse, and we should be taking action.

I bring apologies from my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who is unable to speak today. Had she done so, she would have talked about the related issue of drugs. Drug-related homicides are increasing. There were 311 such homicides in England and Wales in 2018-19 and 337 in 2019-20.

If one takes the consequences of the abuse of alcohol and drug taking, one sees that we have not a diminishing problem but an increasing one. We need to take all the steps we can in any way open to us to try to ensure that we start moving in the opposite direction. The amendment that I bring to the Committee seeks to ensure that the consequences of alcohol, and the need for those consequences to be recognised, are recognised in the strategy that will be drawn up, which I hope will be worth while and worth pursuing.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I have been on many demonstrations in the past and I have caused a lot of trouble in my previous life. There is some of this Bill I dislike—that has been well examined so far today and will be further examined, and I will support that examination—but there are parts of the Bill that I like too. As I get older, I get more and more modest in my aims and I am particularly pleased that the Government, in Part 5, at Clause 65, are addressing the issue of drink-driving. I presented a report from a sub-committee in 2002, urging that we should reduce the limit from 80 milligrams to 50. The rest of the world has moved on and gone down to 50 and below, and Scotland has gone down to 50, but we remain, along with Malta, the only country in Europe that still has this 80-milligram limit. Are we not brave, sticking it out on our own? We were cutting the numbers of deaths on the roads up to about 2010 but we have plateaued since then. Indeed, in the last 12 months the number of deaths on the road has gone up, and it is time we came back to this topic again and reviewed it.

I got a Private Member’s Bill through this House in 2016 to reduce the limit; it never got into the Commons. I am giving notice that I will again bring forward amendments in Committee seeking to put us into line and be sensible, and I hope the Government will be sensible in their response. Clause 65 increases the maximum penalty for causing death by dangerous or careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs from 14 years’ imprisonment to life imprisonment. I support that. However, to help prevent drink-driving injuries and fatalities, the Bill should be amended to bring in a new, lower drink limit in England and Wales, backed by appropriate enforcement and provision of alternative transport choices. England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as I said, have some of the highest limits and we have a big problem starting to arise again, and it is related to drugs as well. Action has been taken and the law has been changed, but further steps need to be taken.

The recent report by the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety noted that drink-driving is one of the biggest causes of road deaths: 13% of the deaths we see on the roads arise from drink and related drugs. What is not frequently mentioned or covered is the high number of very serious injuries that people suffer from being involved in accidents with people who are driving with too much drink or with drugs. That is an equal concern for us and I hope that the Government will address it. In looking to the idea of changing, I hope they will take the statistics into account about those serious injuries.

It is late in the evening and I have not a great deal more to add. The case has been made in Scotland and throughout the whole of Europe. We are well out of step. If we want union with Scotland, let us get in line with Scotland. I hope the Minister will act this time around. I think her colleague the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, dealt with this previously and put up a rather timid defence on behalf of the Government, but none the less obdurately stuck with where they were. I hope she will be prepared, this time around, to look at the evidence and to change, bringing us into line with what happens elsewhere.