Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Judge and Baroness Randerson

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

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly. The Road Traffic Act and all its many successors have left us with a law in which a simple textbook, Wilkinson’s Road Traffic Offences, is about as fat as a successful marrow. It is absurd that our law is so complicated on something that everybody, or nearly all of us, does every day. Our children will learn it; the day they get to the age of 17, they will want to drive, and so on and so forth.

I entirely agree that this is a patched-up proposal. Personally, I strongly support the idea that we should get this review conducted and analyse exactly what it is that we want to achieve with a modern law relating to road traffic. That law should address not merely the conduct of a person at the wheel of a car but the conduct of a person on an e-scooter or a person riding a bicycle, some of whom are appalling in the way they ride. It should also include pedestrians who step out into a path and make a driver pull away, causing them to knock somebody else over. We need synchronisation of our laws on these issues, which is why I support the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley.

That said, I want to make a different point and indicate how strongly opposed I am to a proposal that would enable a prison sentence to be imposed on a motorist who was not driving dangerously or taking deliberate risks, and was not under the influence of drink or drugs, but simply made a mistake while at the wheel. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that “road traffic accident” is not the right phrase to use. It is a road traffic incident, which must be examined, as the evidence shows.

You can, perfectly reasonably, accuse someone who drives without due care and attention of being negligent, but criminal culpability is inevitably low because it is negligent. Driving without due care and attention is an offence; it is negligence. However, we do not send people to prison for negligent mistakes causing serious injury in the context of, for example, the medical profession. A mistake is made. It is negligent. There is an action. Various steps are taken in respect of the doctor, the nurse, or whoever it might be. The result to the victim is very serious. So, when we examine whether a doctor or a nurse may be prosecuted, we look not for evidence of negligence, a lack of due care or a mistake, but for something demonstrating that he or she fell far below the standards required by that profession of that individual in that job at that time. We must be careful not to introduce a different standard of approach to motoring offences. We must remember that this offence is also committed by the young mum whose children in the back of the car start howling because there is a wasp in the car, in the way that children do. Is she momentarily distracted? Yes. Should she have stayed rigidly looking to the front? I suppose so. Is it realistic to think that she, or most mums, would stay that way when her child is screaming in the back? No. Let us keep it realistic.

I am also troubled by the way we approach consequences in the whole of this road traffic law. We have situations where identical culpability can lead to completely different sentences because there has been a death. Of course a death is dreadful, but does the offence become more serious because there are two or three deaths? Personally, I think it does, but there is a question that needs to be answered: how far are we addressing the culpability of the driving as against the consequences? Death by dangerous driving is no trouble; after all, you are driving dangerously. Drink driving is no trouble; you choose to have a drink. Driving to take risks and show off to your friends is no trouble; you are driving dangerously. However, we need to be cautious about the introduction of prison sentences for people whose standard of driving amounts to negligence, not gross negligence.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I echo the sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in thanking the coalition of organisations that have briefed us on Part 5, because they are experts in the field. The short debate we have had reveals the crying need for a comprehensive review of driving sentences. The Government’s push is towards increasing penalties—longer prison sentences—and each of these amendments tackles an issue that needs attention that the Bill is really not going to provide.

The four amendments in this group have little in common with each other. I agree with the local and learned Lord, Lord Judge, on the difference between different offences which could have a very similar outcome. There is a world of difference between causing death while drink-driving or drug-driving, which is a conscious decision that you make, and causing injury or maybe death by carelessly opening your car door: that is at the other extreme. By chance, I saw such an incident last week. I saw a motorist drive up carefully and park, then get distracted by their passenger who had left something behind and who leapt back into the car to retrieve it at the last moment. The driver opened the car door in the path of a cyclist who was not showing lights and it was at night. Now, no great injury was caused in that case, but it could have been. I was standing there waiting to cross the road and I have absolutely no doubt that it was nothing other than distraction and carelessness from a driver who was driving carefully. There is a general push in the Bill towards stiffer sentencing, whereas we should be looking at more effective and appropriate sentencing for drivers, the overwhelming majority of whom are not of the criminal classes and do not have a criminal intent when they drive.

We also need to be designing our roads in a way that makes them much safer. The number of amendments tabled to Part 5 relating to road traffic reinforces my view, and that expressed here today, that we need a thorough review of the laws and penalties that govern driving. I shall say more about this later on my own amendment on this issue. Finally, I refer to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, who drew attention to the inconsistency of the current legislation. Add to that the fact that it is wildly out of date and there really is a need for government action.