Policing and Crime Bill

Baroness Berridge Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard - part two): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th November 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Berridge]

214C: After Clause 122, insert the following new Clause—
“Prescribed limit of alcohol
(1) In section 11(2) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (interpretation of sections 4 to 10), the definition of “the prescribed limit” is amended as follows.(2) For paragraph (a) substitute—“(a) 22 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath,”.(3) For paragraph (b) substitute—“(b) 50 milligrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood, or”.(4) For paragraph (c) substitute—“(c) “67 milligrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of urine,”.”

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 214C, I shall speak also to Amendment 214CB, both of which relate to drink-driving law. Let us imagine a world where you can pop to your GP and get a prescription for cocaine. If you want to lose weight, you not only have the choice of the 5:2 or the Atkins diet, but amphetamines are also prescribed by your doctor. On television there are advertisements of the health benefits of smoking cigarettes. Welcome to the United Kingdom in 1956, the year in which we set the level of alcohol you can have in your body and still drive legally. The law in England and Wales has remained unchanged since then. I hope these brief examples show how the greater understanding of the effect of drugs in the human body has changed laws in these areas and that we are well overdue a change to the drink-drive law.

I note at the outset that our law applies to all drivers: HGVs, taxis and bus drivers. For everyone, it is 80 milligrams in 100 millilitres of blood. Although for many years deaths and injuries caused by drink-driving have fallen, this is due to strong enforcement and other factors. In 1956, most cars did not even have brake discs, let alone servo-assisted brakes. You did not have to wear a seatbelt and airbags were still the stuff of fantasies. Your Lordships just have to cast your mind back to the series “Heartbeat”, and think of what the emergency services looked like then—the arched top of the ambulance, the canvas stretchers, the siren. There were no air ambulances, no fire crews cutting open the roof of your car, no fluids at the scene, no heart surgery by cracking open the chest at the roadside and there were no breathalysers at the roadside either.

We have much to be thankful for today. The police do a great job of enforcement, but they want the limit changed and it is high time we listened to them. Changing human behaviour, which changes in the law can bring about, is much more effective and cheaper in terms of human lives—most importantly—as well as financially, than relying on enforcing the law.

All other European countries have the lower limit outlined in Amendment 214C of 50 milligrams or below. All other common-law jurisdictions that I can find have done so as well. England and Wales stands alone. Scotland has changed the law to 50 milligrams and, as of 1 January of next year, Northern Ireland will have as well.

I have not owned a car for 10 years. I am an occasional driver and I am thankful that I have no direct personal experience of drink-driving accidents affecting my family. I am looking at this evidence as a lawyer and I am concerned that deaths from drink-driving have been static since 2010. We need something to prompt a further decline.

I note briefly three pieces of evidence that illustrate that these amendments are part of the answer. First, on reviewing all the available evidence, NICE in 2010 concluded:

“There is sufficiently strong evidence to indicate that lowering the BAC limit changes the drink-driving behaviour of all drivers at all BAC levels”.

The arguments here do not only revolve around those drivers who would fall within the new limit—those between 50 milligrams and 80 milligrams. This change is about all drivers and reducing drink-driving at all levels.

I have to stop here to note that only last night two teenagers lost their lives in Aldershot and a serving soldier has been arrested on suspicion of drunk-driving. This is about affecting the behaviour of all drivers in relation to alcohol. On the specific limit that is outlined in the amendment of 50 milligrams, the NICE report quotes a scientific review that states:

“Lowering the BAC level from 0.8 to 0.5 is effective”.

Secondly, on that specific reduction to 50 milligrams, which is something that Switzerland did in 2005, there was then a reduction in the number of those injured in alcohol-related crashes, according to the Swiss Council on Accident Prevention.

Thirdly and finally, 13% of all those who were breathalysed in 2014 in the UK following any road traffic collision were between the 50 milligram limit in the amendment and the current 80 milligram limit. In 40% of fatal accidents, the driver has alcohol in their system below the current legal limit of 80 milligrams. Around 240 families each year lose someone due to drink-driving.

We know that alcohol affects people’s driving. We have to think of how many collisions would be avoided completely if we reduced the limit. There is a roll call of organisations that are supporting the lowering the limit. These include the RAC, the RAC Foundation, the AA, Brake, the Institute of Advanced Motorists, the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, the Police Federation, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, the College of Paramedics, the Fire Brigades Union, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal Society for Public Health, the Alcohol Health Alliance and the Institute of Alcohol Studies. In fact, I not aware of a single similar organisation that is against reducing the drink-driving limit after 60 years.

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[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, I am generally supportive of the amendments put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge. From my recollection of what she said, there was evidence of people involved in accidents who were not above the current legal limit but were above the proposed limit, and therefore there was some evidence that reducing the drink-driving limit would be beneficial. Am I wrong?

[Baroness Berridge]

If I remember correctly from the statistics provided by the Minister at the meeting, 3% of the fatalities are occurring within the 50 to 80 milligram limit. So there will be fewer deaths and correspondingly fewer injuries if we reduce the limit. There is then the added effect—and thus, one hopes, an exponential benefit—of changing everybody’s behaviour in relation to alcohol.

[Lord Paddick]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for that explanation. To some extent, although it does not provide evidence of the Scottish experience, it shows that reducing the limit could have an effect by reducing the number of accidents that cause fatalities.

There are a couple of things that I am concerned about. One is the extent to which a change in the law would have a deterrent effect in the absence of increased enforcement by officers involved in roads policing. We know how much police forces have had to reduce their budgets and reduce the number of officers. My experience is certainly that roads policing is one of the first areas on the list when it comes to reductions. Does the Minister have any information about the deterrent effect of roads policing in relation to drink-driving that we need to consider in addition to the reduction in the drink-driving limit?

The other thing that I am concerned about is the increasing amount of drug-driving—that is, people who drive under the influence of illegal drugs—with a potentially even worse impact on their ability to drive than if they had taken a drink. I wonder whether a lower alcohol limit would cause people to move to taking drugs rather than alcohol for fear of being detected as being above the new alcohol limit, with such a change therefore having a negative impact or an unintended consequence. I would be very grateful if the Minister had any information on whether that has been the effect in Scotland.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, we do not really have any jurisdiction to tell Scotland what to do about getting the statistics. I hope that they will be ready as soon as possible.

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, for putting their names to the amendment—and for noble Lords making the most of the generous rules in Committee for debating this issue. I agree with my noble friend the Minister that changing the law will not change anything if we do not then support it with a campaign to make people aware. Clearly, we now have a cross-border issue anyway. We need to make people aware that there is a difference in the law as they drive over the border from Cumbria or Northumberland into Scotland.

I agree with my noble friend that it is clear from the statistics that risk increases exponentially over the 80 milligram limit. However, that is not to say that under that limit there is not a risk with which we need to deal. To say that we are just targeting the most dangerous individuals does not give any reassurance to an affected family member. We need to look at this again.

My noble friend outlined the figures from coroners about drivers killed on the roads. Because of the complex factors that I outlined on the law, enforcement and the safety of vehicles, 60% of the people who are now injured or killed are not the driver of the vehicle concerned. People should be able to walk or cycle down the street and not be concerned that there are people with an amount of alcohol in their blood that affects their safety. That is why we do not look at the limit over which risk rises exponentially for train drivers and airline pilots. We say that they cannot drink. Why, then, do we have a different attitude on the roads? That is not sustainable.

As a lawyer, I do take into account the argument of my noble friend Lord Attlee who asks whether we can prove beyond reasonable doubt that taking this limit down from 80 to 50 will definitely save lives. I cannot prove this to an absolute certainty, but on at least the balance of probabilities. Reducing the limit from 80 to 50 in Switzerland—and the Swiss are known for being compliant people—produced evidence of a reduction in injuries and deaths. There is evidence out there to say that if we reduced the limit along with maintaining compliance, telling people and promoting messages, we would, with very little effort, stand an incredibly good chance of reducing the number of deaths on our roads.

This is an amendment for which the Police Federation are asking. The police are our enforcement. I commend their enforcement as well as the amazing medical care that is all part of this picture. However, we now need to play our role. Therefore, I hope that my noble friend the Minster will go away and reflect. Although the Chamber is not well populated and we have not heard from the often influential Cross-Benchers on this matter, the feeling in this Committee is that this is something that we could do and that at this stage we have enough evidence to change the law. Now is the right time of year.

I thank my noble friend the Minister. I hope that we shall hear of a change of position but at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 214C withdrawn.

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[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

My Lords, Clause 143 provides for lifelong anonymity for all alleged or proven victims of forced marriage in England and Wales, from the point of investigation onwards. At the request of the Minister of Justice in Northern Ireland, Amendments 215, 237 and 241 now extend this protection to cover victims in Northern Ireland.

We know that forced marriage can be hidden, and this measure will help to ensure that victims have the confidence to come forward so that they get the support they need and so that perpetrators are brought to justice. The protection mirrors the anonymity we introduced last year for victims of female genital mutilation. It will mean that the anonymity of victims of forced marriage can be protected from the time an allegation is made and that the publication or broadcast of any information likely to result in their being identified to the public is prohibited. Breach of the prohibition will be an offence punishable by a level 5—that is, £5,000—fine.

I will respond to Amendment 219CA once the Committee has had the opportunity to hear from my noble friend Lady Berridge. For now, I beg to move.

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 219CA. This lengthy amendment, which at the outset I accept will need recrafting on Report, seeks to deal with a simple problem that has cropped up in our law. It has done so accidentally, I think, but if not sorted out it will cause injustice. Although it is late, a short description of the law and the problem is necessary by way of background.

Successive Governments have sought to tackle forced marriage, beginning with the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007 and with further criminalisation in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. To make these remedies effective, the law incorporated—for the first time, I believe—a definition of marriage that included marriages that were not at that time valid under UK law. I quote from the Crown Prosecution Service guidelines on the definition of “marriage”. It states that,

“‘marriage’ means any religious or civil ceremony … recognised by the customs of the parties to it, or the laws of any country in which it is carried out, as constituting a binding agreement, whether or not it would be legally binding according to the law of England and Wales”.

So a relationship that UK law does not currently define as marriage can now, for very good reason, count in our criminal courts and some of our civil courts, for forced marriage purposes, as a marriage. However, this leaves a gap.

A party to a forced marriage that is not valid under UK law cannot use that conviction as evidence of the marriage in the family courts to gain financial remedies. If you have entered into a marriage under duress—a forced marriage that is valid under UK law—that can be the subject of a crime or a civil protection order. You can then, because it is valid under UK law, go to the family courts and say, “I was forced into this marriage under duress”. It is then voidable and it can be annulled. This opens the door to financial relief and the distribution of the matrimonial property.

If under duress in our law you are forced into a religious marriage, it is valid for the purposes of our law in the criminal courts for a criminal offence under the civil protection forced marriage regime, but you are not then entitled to then take that conviction to the Family Court to obtain matrimonial remedy. This is a very different situation from the marriages valid under UK law, as I have outlined, for which you can get an annulment or, of course, a divorce. So if our law has accepted this small number of relationships as marriage for the purpose of the law on forced marriage, why can they not be used for other purposes, such as gaining financial remedy? Not allowing them to be used in this way is a real injustice to those victims of forced marriage who come forward to the Crown Courts but are left with the doors of the Family Courts shut to them in terms of matrimonial property.

I am not seeking for the law to see this small number of relationships as marriages for all purposes or to foist this on a person who, even after there is a conviction for forced marriage, wishes it to be viewed for all other purposes as the religious marriage it was but under duress. Surely, however, that person, in a forced marriage under duress that was a religious marriage, should have a choice—leave it as a religious marriage or take the conviction and be allowed to claim financial remedy under the Matrimonial Courts Act and other such remedies as he or she may on occasion need.

Many of those who have spoken to me on this issue are practising barristers and solicitors. There are many women who, some practitioners believe, do not come forward after years in a forced marriage that is valid only as a religious marriage under our law, as they know that our law leaves them without means to claim matrimonial property. They know they risk the only recourse being welfare benefits, particularly if their children are now adults and they have no claim for maintenance based on caring for the children. Their view is that many of these women would come forward to the Crown Court but are reluctant to do so because they do not want to leave themselves financially vulnerable and unable to access financial remedies. We have an anomaly created by the entry of a different definition of marriage into our law.

Surely it would be just for these people and for the taxpayer to allow someone who is the victim of a forced marriage of this nature to claim, if they wish, the matrimonial property as well. By analogy, we do not retry domestic violence convictions in our Family Courts after the Crown Courts convict a husband or wife. The conviction is accepted as evidence and used by the Family Courts. Why can a forced marriage conviction not also be used in such a simple procedural way to unlock the discretion to redistribute the property and bring justice and consistency in this regard across all our courts—civil, family and criminal?

I hope that my noble friend the Minister might have time to meet with the interested groups that are concerned about this problem in our law. I raised this matter at the time with the anti-social behaviour Bill, and it has come back because there are concerns around the gap we have left for victims of forced marriages that are religious marriages which are not fully accepted under our law. The amendment is a pre-emptive strike to try to avoid this injustice happening and potentially encourage a larger number of women to come forward because they will not risk their property rights, and they will be able to claim the matrimonial property as well as get a conviction in the Crown Court. I beg to move.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm, told the Committee, this clause confers lifelong anonymity on the victims of forced marriage in England and Wales. The first amendment, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, extends that provision to cover Northern Ireland as well. I understand that this is at the request of the Justice Department in Northern Ireland. That is welcome, and we on these Benches support these amendments. Amendment 215 is the main amendment, while Amendments 237 and 241 are consequential and would bring the provision into effect.

Amendment 219CA is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge. She makes a powerful case to right an injustice that leaves the victim unable to seek redress. That is not right, and the Government should come forward to correct this. I will be interested to hear what the Minister will say in her response to this amendment. She made a persuasive argument; I hope that we will get a positive response from the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm, and that the Government can deal with it, either now or on Report.

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[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

That is up to the review and we do not know yet.

[Baroness Berridge]

I am grateful for the support from noble Lords. The first point I want to make is that the disparity has been created by the law. A different definition of marriage was introduced into the civil protection order in order to deal with a real problem. My complaint is not that that should not have happened but that it created the disparity of treatment that my noble friend outlined because it was introduced without all of the consequences being thought through.

The law is about forced marriage—we did not call it “forced cohabitation”. In addition, it does not cover every arrangement that people are forced into: the CPS definition that I outlined says that you have to fall into a religious arrangement that is a binding agreement. By calling the arrangement “forced marriage” we gave those people coming to the criminal courts—at great risk—the expectation that their arrangement would, for that purpose, be treated in our law as a marriage. But we did not go on and fulfil our obligations to ensure that they were safeguarded financially and received the anonymity that they need to come forward. I am grateful that my noble friend has said that we will consider this further and I hope that there will be a meeting with interested parties.

I also want to state that I am very disappointed with this debate. I specifically did not put this into the sharia review, because it is about religious marriages. The law does not say that coercion and force come under that umbrella but suddenly we have entered that realm. This is about religious marriages, and I have come across instances of these issues in all kinds of religious settings. We need to be incredibly careful, on a day like today when British Muslims are upset by the news, about putting something that is about legal rights, technicalities and procedure under that banner. I was so careful to ensure that this could not be badged like this and I am disappointed that that is what has happened and that it has not been considered along with other issues. This is much wider than that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 215 agreed.