Policing and Crime Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

We support the amendment from these Benches. I congratulate those who tabled it on their persistence and on taking forward the work of a Select Committee to seek to translate it into legislation. That is an example of how this House can work so effectively.

As others have said on many occasions, we should not have to legislate, but it seems that we do in order to change attitudes. Sometimes we have to make something enforceable before people come to understand that the subject is actually a right. The amendment has been described as anticipatory. Unfortunately one often sees that it is too easy for someone who infringes a rule not to take the sanction seriously. It can be regarded as an operating cost. If you are caught out and have to pay a penalty it is tough, but it is part of the costs of the business.

The value of the amendment is that bringing the issue into the licensing process will concentrate minds at the right point. I slightly take issue with my noble friend Lady Thomas, who talked about teeth. I say that it is about a mindset—so minds rather than teeth —but I think that is the only difference between us.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, it is about mainstreaming the issue, making sure that everyone approaches it with the right objectives in mind. It is very harsh—almost offensive—to expect the objectives of the amendment to be met by individuals who find themselves unable to get into a set of premises, to use that as the example, not having known beforehand that there would be a problem, and to put the burden on them, in retrospect, to take it up—and we know that these rights are difficult to enforce, because individual rights are not easily enforced.

The Minister said in Committee that it would be inappropriate for licensing conditions to refer to specific legislation, because there is already an obligation to comply with that legislation. The new formulation is very neat. The current objective is shorthand, in just the same way as the other four licensing objectives are shorthand—one of them is for protection of children, safety is another. Indeed, the Minister gave examples of that in Committee. There would not be a call for the amendment if guidance worked and if good practice, which is no doubt observed by the good practitioners, was observed by those who have made the amendment necessary. We are very enthusiastic in support of the amendment, although it is sad to have to be enthusiastic for it.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I support the amendment not because I am disabled but because like most of our population I am getting older. Although I can still run for a bus, there is going to be a time when I shall not be able to. So this is not only for disabled people—it is for us all. It is for the whole population, and I think that we have been incredibly flabby as a nation in not putting this into practice before. I was astonished to find that there was this let-out and gap in our legislation and that people can still exclude and discriminate against an important section of society. If we do not all support this amendment today, I think that we are being thoroughly wet and flabby and not living up to the ideals of an enlightened society.

[Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment. I was a member of the ad hoc Select Committee so ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, along with others who have already spoken. It was a great learning experience. In my long lifetime, if not as long as some in this House, I have always been struck by the immense progress that we have made over the years. But when you get into the detail, you are absolutely appalled that the rest of society imposes on our many colleagues with disabilities that they shall not enjoy that which we all take for granted. Imagine if we were not able to go into a restaurant or a pub—I am a teetotaller, but I spent half my life in pubs and bars trying to find Labour Members when I was Labour Chief Whip. It is appalling that we expect disabled people to put up with second best.

The Act put through in 1995 by the noble Lord, Lord Hague, is one of which the Tory Party is rightly very proud. I ask the Government to live up to that Act and agree to the amendment.

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I recognise that there will soon, I hope, be evidence available from the Scottish change in the law. There will be evidence, as we heard outlined previously, about the rural economy, and there will, I hope, be evidence about the reductions in deaths and injuries. We need to be careful about the difference between correlation and causation when we look at that evidence. But there will also be, I hope, the evidence from the criminal courts on how the change in the alcohol limit affects prosecution, particularly that of causing death by careless driving. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to give assurances that the Government will take forward this matter constructively. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

My Lords, I support both Amendments 174 and 175. I rise slightly wearily because I do not know, after the calm, clear and patient explanation from the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, of why this is necessary and it is illogical not to do it, that I can find any more reasons to give to the Government for making this change. However, I will try.

We heard from Mr Grayling in the Daily Mail today—he was Secretary of State for Transport this morning, but I am not sure if he still is—that the Government are,

“not interested in penalising drivers who have had ‘a glass of wine at the pub’.”

Nor are we. Drinking is a perfectly acceptable way to spend your time, but I object when the person who has had a drink gets into a car, which then becomes a dangerous weapon. We hear again and again that any alcohol in your blood can impair your faculties and behaviour. Drinking and driving is just not something that we ought to accept in civilised society.

We heard that the number of deaths has plateaued at 240 a year since 2010. From the available evidence, there are estimates that 25 people die unnecessarily a year, and we could reduce that number still by bringing down the limit of blood alcohol content. Yet it seems to me that we accept 25 deaths a year. Why on earth do we think it is okay for 25 people to die on the roads? That does not even include the people injured from crashes. Some 8,000 people a year are injured from crashes, so if we accept that 25 lives would be saved, we must also accept that quite a lot of injuries would be prevented as well.

Lowering the limit would be a deterrent. We do not need to wait for Scotland. Multiple countries and multiple reviews show that lowering the limit has a deterrent effect. It is in fact the biggest deterrent, and it is cheap and easy to do. It is something we ought to do quickly. Martin Luther King said that,

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.

It is an injustice when we accept that deaths on the road are something we do not want to deal with because we do not want to stop people drinking and getting in their cars afterwards. Personally, I think that is unacceptable.

[Baroness Hollins (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to the evidence. An analysis was done in Switzerland comparing both novice and experienced drivers who had been fatally or seriously injured, and whether they had been drinking alcohol. The analysis compared two time periods, before and after reducing the legal limits, for 2011 to 2013 and 2014-15. In between-time, the limits in Switzerland were reduced to 20 milligrams for novices and 50 milligrams for others. The study found a larger reduction of serious alcohol-related accidents in both groups of drivers than of accidents without alcohol between the two time periods.

Early trends from Scotland with respect to the impact on fatal accidents of reducing the drink-driving blood alcohol levels to the same levels in December 2014 are also very promising. In 2010, the North report published by the Government reviewed drink and drug-driving laws, and modelled that a lower limit of 50 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood would save a significant number of lives. Applying those models to Scotland suggested that between three and 17 fewer deaths per year could be expected. The good news is that there seems to be a trend of that happening. In 2015, the first full year in which the reduced limit was in place, there were 24 fewer fatal accidents, a 13% reduction, and 98 fewer accidents involving serious injury—a 5% reduction.

As the noble Baroness said, it is difficult to attribute causation conclusively. However, is there really any reason why the results found in other countries should not also apply here? I strongly support a reduction in these limits to the same levels that apply in other UK jurisdictions. We must not forget that in May this year, your Lordships’ House also voted to support this reduction, anticipating that this could save as many as 100 lives a year. The measure is supported by a significant majority of the public.