Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

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

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I too agree that the noble Baroness made a compelling speech, with which a lot of people who live in London will have a lot of sympathy. I also agree with my noble friend Lord Berkeley, who raised the issues of cycles for freight, insurance and how the very rapid development of small electric vehicles and bicycles expanding their remit in London is a wider problem that needs to be addressed. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, also made that point.

As I have said to the Committee before, I sit as a magistrate in London, very often in Westminster. I remember dealing with pedicabs a number of years ago. Those offences were brought to our attention by Westminster City Council. From memory—this is a number of years ago—it was usually to do with pedicabs being parked on pavements, with the police bringing people to court through the council and impounding some vehicles. I have not seen those offences for several years now. I do not quite know what has changed—perhaps Westminster City Council does not feel it has the power to do that anymore, I do not know; it is a moving target. Nevertheless, I think the central point of the noble Baroness’s amendment is powerful.

I do not know whether there are any practical problems with harmonising the regulations with the rest of England and Wales, so I look forward to what the Minister says on that point.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Stowell for comprehensively setting out the case for these amendments, which relate to the regulation of pedicabs. As she pointed out, Clause 66 relates to motor vehicles which are defined as “mechanically propelled”. They are the most dangerous and cause the most harm, so it is logical that they are the focus of this clause.

The noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Ponsonby, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned other types of similar vehicle that might be caught by this, so it is perhaps worth mentioning what the Government are doing on cycling offences. In 2018, we held a consultation to consider cycling offences causing serious injury or death, as well as reviewing existing cycling offences. The Government feel that any new offences applicable to cyclists, with or without a trailer, are best legislated for as a package, rather than piecemeal. Moreover, we believe that there should be a separate framework of cycling offences, as compared with motoring offences, as it may not be proportionate to apply to cyclists offences intended for drivers of motor vehicles and their corresponding penalties. The response to the consultation will be published in due course—I hope before the end of this year, but early next year at the latest.

The wider question of the regulation of pedicabs, including that of noise nuisance caused by sound systems located on pedicabs—which I agree from experience can be ear-splitting—is not a straightforward issue. In England, pedicabs generally fall under the taxi and private hire vehicle licensing regime, as various noble Lords have mentioned, in that they can be regulated as a hackney carriage—a taxi. The exception to this is London, where, as my noble friend Lady Stowell explained, they fall outside the existing taxi legislation. It should also be noted that taxi and private hire vehicle legislation is a devolved matter in Scotland and Wales, although the legislation that applies in Wales is the same as that which applies in England.

The Government are aware of the long-standing concerns that pedicabs contribute to safety and traffic-related issues in central London. The current situation in London means that there are few existing powers to control pedicab operations effectively. This has meant that pedicab operators, drivers and their vehicles are not licensed, there are no requirements for drivers to undergo criminal record or right-to-work checks, as there are in other industries, and there is no fare control. And there may very well be insurance issues, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, mentioned.

The Government agree that it is in the interest of safety and fairness to passengers to fix this legal anomaly and, as my noble friend Lady Stowell noted, a Private Member’s Bill that would enable Transport for London to regulate pedicabs in London is currently being taken forward by Nickie Aiken MP—the Pedicabs (London) Bill. I am pleased to confirm that the Government intend to join the very long list pointed out by my noble friend and support this Bill. I am therefore happy to offer her a meeting with the Minister, my noble friend Lady Vere, to discuss this further, if she would like. I commend my noble friend for raising this issue. We agree that it needs to be addressed, and I hope she is reassured that the Department for Transport is on the case. For now, I hope my noble friend feels free to withdraw her amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I apologise to the Committee: I was not going to say anything, but I could not resist. There is clearly an issue with people receiving endorsements on driving licences and potentially being disqualified from driving not being dealt with in the criminal courts and through the appeal process that they provide. On the issue around lack of enforcement, does the Minister have any information about the potential use of speed cameras in 20 miles per hour zones to increase enforcement and to what extent speed cameras are self-financing, in terms of the money they generate versus the cost of running them?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for taking part in this short but very interesting debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Tope, has explained, Amendment 163 would afford local authorities greater powers in managing speed and traffic light offence enforcement on their roads. I take it that Amendment 156 then seeks to extend the National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme so that it also can be operated by local authorities in respect of decriminalised offences.

The most dangerous traffic offences are punishable by either immediate disqualification from driving—as with drink and drug driving—or endorsement. I am sure that noble Lords agree that, because of their seriousness, none of these offences has been decriminalised and nor should they be—a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, alluded to. The purpose of endorsements is to disqualify from driving people who show repeated dangerous behaviour and pose a threat to other road users, through the process of totting up penalty points, which of course is a key distinguishing feature of parking fines.

I remind noble Lords that speed offences are one of the types of offence referred to as the fatal four, along with mobile phone use while driving, not wearing a seat belt, and drink and drug-driving. Speed offences share a common feature with these other offences: they are prominent in the causation of fatal and serious collisions. We could not accept a situation where there were some speed limits that the police had no power to enforce.

Likewise, contravening a red traffic light can lead to serious and fatal collisions and that should not be decriminalised either. Traffic lights are provided to manage safety concerns at junctions, and offer safer places for people to cross the road. We have a good compliance record with red traffic lights in this country, and decriminalising enforcement would be likely to undermine that. That would impinge on the safety of all road users, but particularly vulnerable road users, including pedestrians and cyclists.

The Government are concerned that enforcement of civil penalties is not subject to the same rigorous scrutiny as criminal enforcement, and this would affect public confidence and their level of support. In particular, it would be likely to set back the growing public acceptance of speed and red light cameras. The public strongly agree that speed cameras save lives and are not there to make money. That is clearly demonstrated in the findings of the Department for Transport’s 2020 National Travel Attitudes Study, which showed that 59% of respondents agreed with the statement that speed cameras saved lives and only 41% agreed with the statement that they were mostly there to make money. Those figures are an improvement on those of 2011, when the equivalent numbers were 51% and 55% respectively. The Government, therefore, have no intention of decriminalising any of these offences: we believe that doing so would wrongly signal to the public that these dangerous behaviours had become less important.

Furthermore, the police are the primary enforcers of criminal offences, and have so far been responsible for delivering speeding courses. The National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme is run by UK Road Offender Education, a subsidiary of the Road Safety Trust, which is owned by the 43 police forces. This provides central governance, standards and consistency. UK Road Offender Education works with leading experts in road user behaviour to develop, review and deliver high-quality behaviour change courses—and I can personally attest that they work.

The scheme works alongside PentiP, the national Home Office fixed penalty processing system that is used by all police forces in England and Wales. This ensures that a repeat offender is not offered a second course within three years but is instead offered a fixed penalty notice and penalty points, otherwise court proceedings follow. We are not aware of a strong need to allow local or traffic authorities to charge for speeding courses, and there is a lack of evidence for the benefits, or indeed consequences, of doing so.

Unfortunately I cannot give the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, the update that he seeks, but I will write to him. I am afraid that also goes for the question from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick: I will write to him too. Given my answer, however, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Tope, will see fit to withdraw his amendment.