Drug Driving (Specified Limits) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2015

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2015 Grand Committee

per litre of blood, should be the limit. That does not actually say what answer was given to the question that was asked of the medical community regarding what amphetamine blood concentration levels would typically result from legitimate medicinal usage. What was the specific answer to that question, on which the Government came to the conclusion that the limit should be 250 micrograms? Was the answer 250 micrograms, or was it a different figure to the one that the Government have now fixed the limit at?

[Viscount Simon (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister gave a very interesting outline to the order and, as usual, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked some very interesting questions. I do not intend to ask any further questions but, purely out of academic interest, it may amuse the Minister to learn that last week I happened to be in the garage of a police traffic centre where they were giving instructions on the use of the drug-screening equipment. I was present for the whole course, and the inspector said that I had passed. He said that each kit cost £16 and therefore that they would not be used very often, because they cost so much. So who knows when they will be used. However, if they are used and they fail, they can still be used under the old legislation.

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, thank you very much. I shall talk through the questions in reverse order, with the latest being freshest in my mind. I can say to the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, that the cost of these screening devices is around £16 or £17—obviously there is some variation in price. He will be glad to know that at this point 35 of the 43 forces have purchased mobile screening devices, with 5,000 purchased in total. He is right that it is more expensive than testing for drink-driving, which costs something around 17p or 18p per device. I think that the normal pattern will be to test for drink-driving but, in those cases where drink-driving is not established as the cause of concern, police forces may well choose—on many fewer occasions—to then do a roadside test for drug-driving, the penalties being identical. They can of course always require the individual to go to the police station for a blood test. Indeed, the blood test is always a necessary step when there is a prosecution. With that kind of gradation, police forces should find this to be an affordable strategy. In fact, the feedback that we have is that they are very pleased to have a tool to help them to deal with drug-driving, which is an issue of very significant concern.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, raised several issues. I think he has heard me speak many times on the issue of precision in forecasts. I do not think that there is any such thing as precision in forecasts, and I sometimes wonder why we do not generally round numbers up, although in this case we did not go to the right of the decimal point. However, a forecast enables people to get in the ballpark, to use an American term, of what we think that the impact will be. That is an important piece of information to include when we do an assessment.

The noble Lord asked why we have not had a third consultation. I am afraid that I cannot tell him the exact date we decided that it would be too frustrating to go ahead with the third consultation. There was a general awareness that, having asked people the same question twice, we were unlikely to get a different answer when we went back for a third time. Informal consultations had been happening on an ongoing basis, making it even more redundant. However, more to the point, as he will know, the offence came into force under Section 5A on 2 March, and going through a round of consultation and then creating a much greater gap before amphetamines came on to the list seemed the greater evil. A third consultation would essentially confirm the information that had already been extensively received. It strikes me that it was a rather logical decision of the kind that government sometimes does not make.