Draft Road Traffic Offenders Act 1998 (Penalty Points) (Amendment) Order 2016

Alan Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2016 General Committees

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. We in the Scottish National party also support these measures. The hon. Member for North West Durham asked a valid question about why it was six points. Work has been done on trying to identify how many people use mobile phones and there have also been consultations, but has there been any work on behavioural analysis and whether the measures will make an impact? The Minister spoke at length about the fact that novice drivers are the younger drivers most likely to use mobile phones and most likely to be at risk of losing their licence, so hopefully the measures will be effective. However, in terms of campaigning, how do we get the message through to those young people? They are generally the ones who are not party to the usual radio campaigns or television and newspaper advertising. If we are going to educate them and try to change their behaviour, we need to find a way to communicate effectively.

Drive-driving was mentioned as a comparator, but I think drink-driving is another elephant in the room, given that England, Wales and Northern Ireland still have the joint highest allowable alcohol levels. Is the UK Government going to look at that? On the previous questions about citizens getting caught up and inadvertently becoming victims, I do not think we should tie ourselves in knots. We should go ahead with the legislation rather than worry about somebody who might get caught. If they are using a mobile phone as a satnav system, they certainly should not be touching it or operating it, in which case they should be caught under the legislation.

[Andrew Jones]

There have been interesting and important questions from the Committee. I will tackle the drink-driving one first, which offers a clue as to how we can make progress on road safety. The first year for which we have detailed information on road fatalities in which alcohol was a factor was 1979, when 1,650 people lost their life. That number went down to 240 in 2014, the last year for which we have full data available. That reduction has been down to a mixture of enforcement and education, but especially peer pressure. It is now socially unacceptable to drink and drive, although there is a hard core of people still engaged in it.

We have seen social change in the world of drink-driving and I want to see such change in the world of handheld mobile phone usage while driving. There is a direct read-across in terms of social peer pressure. We are not seeking to make any changes to the limits because I do not want to criminalise the people who might go out and have a glass of wine with their Sunday lunch. I do not think that that is how we will make more progress on this issue. Other countries may have lower drink-drive limits, but they do not have better road safety records.

[Alan Brown]

I do not want to get bogged down in this, but the Minister’s argument is nonsense. That argument was put forward in the Scottish Parliament. It was said that the police would end up criminalising the wee old lady who goes out and has a gin and tonic and that the police should be doing other things. Drink-driving convictions in Scotland are down by more than 7% since the drink-driving limits were lowered, so the effect has been beneficial.