Dangerous Driving

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Greg Mulholland

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to respond for the Opposition to this debate on a serious and tragic subject. Dangerous driving is a difficult issue that the law has wrestled with for a long time. It has legal, practical and, above all, human consequences, and it is about certain people’s relationship with the motor car, which we do not seem to be able to get right even after more than a century.

Today’s debate has illustrated that Members of all parties can rise to the occasion and meet the challenge. The issue brings together our role as lawmakers, our duty to our constituents and our ability to campaign for change. The nine speeches that we have heard have shown exactly how Members can bring those elements together. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) for securing the debate and the Backbench Business Committee for permitting it. He began with the case of Ross and Clare Simons, which set the tone for the debate about how horrific the consequences of deaths and serious injuries caused by dangerous driving can be.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) spoke about individual cases in his constituency, as all Members did, but he also mentioned cycling, to which I will return in a moment. I know that he has championed in the House not just cycling but the issue of the particular risks faced by cyclists.

The hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) spoke bravely about his 13-year-old constituent William Avery-Wright, and without fear or favour spoke about what he described as the negligence and poor treatment that that young man and his family had received. My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) talked about her constituent Robert Gaunt. Only about two weeks ago, she tabled a private Member’s Bill that would deal with many of the issues that we have discussed today.

We heard a detailed speech by the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland). He was particularly moving when he talked about the case of Jamie Still and others that, with his usual assiduousness, he has made himself the champion of. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) talked about people who have been driving when they should have been disqualified, and who should never have been behind the wheel in the first place. She also talked about how we can deal with driving standards, which I shall come to in a moment, and particularly about the graduated driving licence.

The hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) surprised some of us with his description of the tragic death of Andrew Watson at the hands of a 16-year-old driver who was driving a vehicle that he was clearly unable to cope with, whether or not he should have been permitted to have it. The hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) described a particularly tragic case, which showed how a single incidence of dangerous driving can traumatise not just a family or an individual but an entire community. Finally, the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) described his constituent’s tragic case and then brought us back to the issue of sentencing policy, to which I will now turn.

Each case is unique and creates a lasting wound for the friends, family and community of the victim, but this is not a new issue. We have been dealing with it for decades. The North report, 25 years ago, was a full, clear and serious report that pointed out that the courts were not dealing with serious driving cases with the appropriate severity, particularly when there were aggravating factors such as the driver being under the influence of drink or drugs. In criminal practice at that time—I think the Minister is old enough to remember this, and I certainly am—the issue of consequence was often discussed. The culpability of the driver was not properly balanced with the consequences. We have moved on substantially from that. For example, we now have the offences of dangerous driving, with a maximum two-year sentence, causing serious injury by dangerous driving, with a maximum five-year sentence, and causing death by dangerous driving, with a maximum 14-year sentence. Parliament has given the courts the ability to deal appropriately with the degree of consequence as well as the degree of culpability. Both are relevant factors, but we have moved away from the era in which the primary consideration was simply the quality of the driving.

[Greg Mulholland]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for his helpful comments. On that point, may I bring to his and the House’s attention the problem of the difference between the charges of causing death by dangerous driving and causing death by careless driving? The latter is when the driving fell below the standard expected of a careful and competent driver, and the former is when it fell far below that standard. As we have heard today, there are some cases—I believe that there are many, and I have asked the Minister for a review—in which the driving has clearly fallen below that standard, yet people are charged with causing death by careless driving, not by dangerous driving.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The definitions of careless and dangerous driving are relatively new, having been introduced to try to correct defects in the reckless driving law. I will say a bit more about maximum sentences and sentencing policy, but I was coming first to the point that he has just made.

Many problems arise not necessarily from sentencing policy from Crown Prosecution Service guidelines and charging policy. CPS guidelines have moved on again, because as with every type of case, the CPS has to consider the realistic prospect of conviction as well as the public interest. In the past, it perhaps did not examine driving cases with the same assiduousness as other criminal cases. I believe that that has begun to change. The consequence was that charges were either not brought at all or brought at a lower level, because the CPS did not believe that there was a realistic prospect of success. In part, that may have been due to the influence of public opinion about standards and quality of driving, which has changed a great deal over the years, as it has in relation to driving under the influence.

Health

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Greg Mulholland

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

On 4 July, a committee of primary care trust chief executives made the extraordinary decision to end children’s heart surgery and intensive care at one of the best performing and largest centres in England: Royal Brompton hospital, a specialist heart and lung hospital that treats children and adults from all over the country who have some of the most severe forms of heart and lung disease. It was quite a surprise for the doctors and other staff at Royal Brompton to find out last year that they were earmarked for closure. The national review panel that made the recommendation, in February 2011, had previously specified that for children’s heart surgery centres to be viable they must have four surgeons each doing at least 100 operations every year, and they must offer round-the-clock care.

Royal Brompton has four surgeons, each undertaking more than 100 operations every year and it offers round-the-clock care. It also has a safety and outcome record of which any centre would be proud. Rates of patient satisfaction at the hospital are exceptionally high.

The national review of paediatric heart surgery set out to reduce the number of hospitals offering children’s heart surgery, because it was felt that in some areas surgeons did not have enough cases to maintain their skills in the longer term. London has three centres, although two of them, Royal Brompton and Great Ormond Street, are recognised national specialist centres and treat patients from all over the country. The decision was made to close a London centre, and divert its patients to the remaining two, once their facilities are improved and extended, at significant cost to the taxpayer. A proposed solution to develop a network in London that would mean closer collaboration between the three existing centres, but no closures, was ignored.

Time prevents me from going into detail about why Royal Brompton drew the short straw of closure; it came down to a complicated scoring mechanism that eventually ended up in the High Court. I must stress, because it is of utmost importance, that there was never any suggestion that Royal Brompton’s clinical services for children are anything other than first rate. A better insight may be provided by the comments of a civil servant at a meeting of the London specialised commissioning group on 26 April:

“It is likely that the rest of the country will take the view that London should take its share of the pain of closures and will seek to make one closure in the capital in order to make closures elsewhere more palatable.”

Removing children’s surgery and intensive care from Royal Brompton will have devastating consequences, and not just for the young patients who value the hospital’s cardiac care so highly. Losing its children’s intensive care unit will destroy Royal Brompton’s world-class paediatric respiratory service, which specialises in the treatment of children with cystic fibrosis, severe asthma and a number of severe and complex respiratory conditions. Without the back-up of intensive care and on-site anaesthesia, doctors will not be able to undertake the more complex specialist treatments they do now, because they will consider it unsafe to do so.

Royal Brompton’s respiratory teams also undertake groundbreaking research into important areas such as cystic fibrosis, severe asthma, lung disease, inflammation of the airways and neuromuscular conditions. That research can be carried out only at a specialist hospital, where the combination of clinical expertise and the type and number of patients seen provides the necessary conditions. Without an intensive care unit and provision for anaesthesia, research will simply not be possible.

[Greg Mulholland]

The hon. Gentleman makes a passionate case for the Royal Brompton unit. The chief executive of Little Hearts Matter says that, in the Glasgow case, a unit that does 300 operations can be made perfectly safe by other means, without closing units. Does the hon. Gentleman share my frustration at the fact that in the Royal Brompton, Leeds and other places, those involved are not prepared to do that? It does not make sense.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am grateful for that intervention, because, in case my comments are seen as special pleading from the hospital, I was just coming on to mention some independent recommendations and sources that support the argument that, if there is no opportunity for research, and if experts—in Leeds, as well as the Royal Brompton—are prevented from working to the level of their abilities, many are likely to seek work elsewhere, possibly outside the UK.

Dr Neil Gibson, a consultant in paediatric respiratory medicine at Glasgow’s royal hospital for sick children, wrote to the chair of the review as follows:

“The unit at the Royal Brompton Hospital from a paediatric respiratory point of view is truly one of the world’s leading centres with an already impressive track record…There is a significant potential for irreparable damage to be made to the only world class Paediatric Respiratory Research Unit in the United Kingdom.”

Professor J. Stuart Elborn, president of the European Cystic Fibrosis Society, wrote that

“high quality research is a key determinant of the ability of a centre such as the Royal Brompton to retain and recruit the world leading clinical and academic staff on whom its respiratory services depend. Adverse impact upon the ability of the clinical staff to carry out cutting-edge research will undermine the sustainability of the clinical services, to the detriment of its patients.”

Asthma UK, the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, and the Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia Family Support Group wrote a joint letter to the chair of the committee, saying:

“We have explicitly mentioned respiratory research because it is an issue of fundamental importance to each of our charities because of the excellence of the Royal Brompton’s paediatric respiratory research and clinical trials programmes and the importance of that work for improving patient outcomes in the future.”

Patients and staff at Royal Brompton are understandably deeply distressed at the prospect of losing their high-performing children’s heart unit, soon to be followed by their specialist respiratory services. They do not understand how such a decision can be made by bureaucrats who have never visited the hospital and have no specialist knowledge of the care provided there. They have written to their MPs and to the Secretary of State. Indeed, one resourceful mother brought the matter to the attention of the Prime Minister in Downing street last Thursday.

The Secretary of State for Health assures the parents of these seriously poorly children, and the dedicated teams that treat them, that this is a matter not for him, but for the NHS. For the sake of the thousands of children whose care will be damaged by the decision of Sir Neil McKay’s committee, the sake of the research programmes that will be destroyed, and the sake of common sense, I hope that the Minister of State will realise that the time has come for him to meet clinicians from the Royal Brompton and at least hear what they have to say. Perhaps he will be able to persuade them that destroying NHS services and research programmes that are viewed by international peers as among the best in the world is a good idea. I wish him luck in doing so.