Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Lords Hansard - part two & Report stage
Monday 13th December 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

58: Clause 66, page 65, line 13, at end insert—
“(3A) Section 34 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 (disqualification for certain offences) is amended as follows.(3B) In subsection (3), in the words after paragraph (d)—(a) after “the offence” insert “(“the new offence”)”;(b) for “three years” substitute “the period specified in subsection (3A)”.(3C) After subsection (3) insert—“(3A) The period is—(a) six years, where—(i) an offence of which the person was convicted within the ten years mentioned in subsection (3) falls within paragraph (aa) of that subsection, and(ii) the new offence also falls within that paragraph;(b) in any other case (but subject to subsection (4ZA)), three years.”(3D) In subsection (4)—(a) in the words before paragraph (a), after “(3) above” insert “and subsection (4ZA) below”;(b) in paragraph (a)—(i) omit sub-paragraph (ii) (and the “or” after it);(ii) in sub-paragraph (iia), for “that Act” substitute “the Road Traffic Act 1988”;(iii) omit sub-paragraph (iii) (and the “or” before it, but not the “and” after it).(3E) After subsection (4) insert—“(4ZA) Subsection (1) shall apply as if the reference to twelve months were a reference to five years in relation to a person convicted of—(a) an offence under section 1 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (causing death by dangerous driving), or(b) an offence under section 3A of that Act (causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink or drugs),but this is subject to subsection (3) in cases within paragraph (a) of subsection (3A).””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment increases minimum disqualification periods for offences under sections 1 and 3A of the Road Traffic Act 1988.

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[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, keeping our roads safe is a key priority for the Government. Too many innocent road users are killed or injured by the reckless actions of a minority of selfish and uncaring drivers who simply do not understand or appreciate the responsibility that comes with holding a driving licence. We can and must do more to force home the message that holding a driving licence comes with a serious level of responsibility. If drivers are prepared to ignore their responsibility, we will use the law to ensure that they are removed from the roads.

We listened carefully to the passionate and well-informed opinions voiced by noble Lords during the Committee stage debates on road traffic offences. Against that background, we reflected with great care on what change we might make to the Bill to further the cause of road safety. Our deliberations have resulted in the Government tabling Amendment 58, which I am confident will improve road safety.

The amendment focuses on two of the most serious road traffic offences: causing death by dangerous driving and causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink or drugs. These cause untold grief to many families every year. Both involve a degree of recklessness that is completely unacceptable. Elsewhere in this Bill we are increasing the maximum sentence from 14 years to life for these offences.

This amendment reinforces the seriousness with which the Government regard these two offences by increasing the minimum period of disqualification from driving for anyone convicted of them. In the case of causing death by dangerous driving, the amendment increases the minimum period of disqualification from two years to five years. In the case of causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink or drugs, the amendment also increases the minimum period of disqualification from two years to five years. But it also goes a step further in respect of this offence. The amendment maintains the existing principle of having a longer minimum period of disqualification for a repeat offence of causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink or drugs, raising it from three years to six years.

I recognise that depriving a driver of his or her licence for at least five years is a substantial sanction, but when a driver causes the death of another person by driving dangerously or carelessly because of drink or drugs, I think we are fully justified in saying that those drivers should be taken off the road for a substantial period of time. This amendment should act as a serious deterrent for drivers—a warning that driving so dangerously or carelessly as to cause the death of another person is completely unacceptable and will have serious consequences, not only for personal liberty but for the ability to continue driving.

There will remain within the law an element of discretion for judges. They will be permitted to impose a disqualification that is less than the minimum period of five or six years, or not to impose a disqualification at all where there are special reasons for doing so. This allows judges to deal with the unique circumstances of any case before them, which is an important element of our judicial system.

A number of other road traffic-related amendments in this group put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, raise important issues, but the nub of it is that the sponsors of these amendments want to see a wider review of road traffic legislation. I can advise noble Lords that the Department for Transport is currently scoping a call for evidence on changes to road traffic offences. I will say more when winding up, but, for now, I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to the various amendments in this group. I first thank the Minister for arranging two meetings with her colleagues, one in Transport and one in her department, which were very helpful in sharing our concerns—I am speaking from briefings from a large number of groups that are concerned about road safety generally. As a result, we reached some quite good conclusions about where things are going.

Amendment 58 is a good start, so I do not need to spend too long speaking to some of the other amendments. Although it is a welcome start, I also welcome the much wider review that the Minister mentioned. The issue with that review, which comes under my Amendment 65, is that it could cover an enormous scope of issues. We can all think of things about road safety that should be improved—the legislation and the penalties—and it covers some of the issues which will probably come up later today in considering other amendments. I am pleased that the review is starting in January, but I hope that the Minister will be able to say a little more about it. How long it will take? Who will be involved? Will the Government welcome input from people outside—from your Lordships’ House, from the other place and from other groups? Will a report be published with all the evidence? One hopes so.

If that is the case, the next thing, of course, is the legislation needed to implement those. Some of it may require primary legislation; some of it could perhaps be done by secondary legislation. But, again, that needs to be looked at. Perhaps when the Minister responds at the end of this grouping, she could give us a bit more detail about that. This is a good start, but there is still a long way to go.

I will speak very briefly, first on Amendment 63. We discussed “exceptional hardship” at some length in Committee. What worries me—it is worth repeating the statistics—is that 8,632 motorists are still permitted to drive despite having 12 or more points on their licence. I will not go into examples, but that indicates to me that something needs to be done. I do not know whether the Minister has considered it, but in advance of and separately from the review, would it be possible for Ministers to look again and consider revising or amending the sentencing advice to magistrates, so that this was tightened up a bit? I think she will agree that 8,000 such people driving around, having decided that having their car is essential to take their dog for a walk, is probably rather more than one would want to see.

Turning now to Amendment 64, on failure to stop and report, we got into quite a significant debate about that and the relationship between the circumstances and the penalties. What worries me is that, since 2017, the number of people convicted of this offence had gone up by 43% in four years. I do not know why that should be—maybe the Minister has some answers to that—but it indicates that failing to stop and report collisions is quite serious. We discussed in Committee whether that was due to more people having mobile phones or whatever, but this is another of those things I would ask her to look at in advance of the review. If she can, what timescale would that entail?

I think I have probably spoken enough about the review itself. We are grateful for the review. The list of issues I put in the amendment is just a sample, and I am sure many people will have many other things to put in. But if the Minister can give us some information about the scope, as well as the timescale and everything else, that would be extremely good.

I will now speak very briefly to the manuscript amendment I tabled this morning. I apologise for the late delivery of this, but it was due to a changed meeting with Network Rail that many of us thought would be a good idea to have before we tabled the amendment—it turned out that it did not happen. I put it to the Minister that she is aware that this is a serious problem. Network Rail’s figure is that there is an average of seven bridge bashes a day—I repeat, seven a day—across the whole network. Some are not serious, but some could derail a train, and I do not want to go into what might happen there.

I have got as far as coming up with a long list of possible solutions, which I will not spend too much time on, and this is something that needs looking at. One of them is to allow local authorities to prosecute lorries for contravening the height regulations. They can prosecute for contravening weight regulations at the moment, so why could they not do height ones as well? I think it just needs a small change to the regulations. Traffic commissioners could be asked to remove the licences of drivers of vehicles that contravene. Obviously, the drivers and shippers could be prosecuted. The Government could require drivers’ apps—or whatever it is we put on our mobiles—to include the height of bridges; it could even include the height of the lorry, and an alarm could sound if it went wrong. You could erect those barriers we talked about last time, with the little electronic eyes.

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[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest, as I am president of RoSPA. I shall make a few quick points. I took my driving test in 1975, and in 2005 I had a job with a brand new shiny car that went with it, which was lovely. The organisation that I worked for insisted that every member of that organisation who had a car had to spend a whole day a year having a lesson with a driving instructor. It was amazing. I had completely forgotten an awful lot, and I learned even more. It made me very much more aware of all these issues that we are talking about now—and I see several heads nodding, so perhaps there is a certain amount of empathy with that.

On the point of bridges and signage, the other issues that we are not including in this measure is that a majority of cars these days have a GPS system incorporated. Why do they not have the height of bridges programmed into the GPS so that, as they drive towards the bridge, the height comes up, and lorry drivers can see that they are not going to get under it and stop? Those are the small points that occurred to me—although this is completely not my field—as noble Lords were debating these issues.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the support for the government amendment. I know that there is a strong appetite to go even further among noble Lords in reforming road traffic offences. Amendments 63, 64, 65 and 66A are directed to this end. I am pleased that many noble Lords who contributed to this debate were able to discuss these issues with my noble friend Lady Vere, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said.

Amendment 63 seeks to introduce a definition for the term “exceptional hardship”, which applies in the context of a court’s decision on whether to impose a driving ban. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for his good analysis of it, and the implications that it might have. We agree that drivers who display poor driving behaviours and reach 12 points should receive an automatic ban to protect themselves and other road users. However, sentencing decisions are properly a matter for our independent courts, based on the facts of the case before them. They have discretion over the length of a driving disqualification to ensure that it is right for the offence and offender before them and, if they are satisfied, they can accept mitigating circumstances justifying a claim of “exceptional hardship”. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, gave some very good examples of what that might mean to some people.

We do not consider the introduction of a definition of this term to be necessary. The amendment would introduce a narrow definition that would not be able to account for all circumstances presented to the courts, and would remove their freedom to use their experience to reach decisions accordingly.