Drug Driving (Assessment of Drug Misuse) Bill

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Friday 18th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Graham Evans]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I will speak about some of the technicalities later in my speech.

Using seat belts has become second nature and the attitude of the public towards drinking and driving has been revolutionised. “One for the road” is a phrase that rightly has no place in our more safety-conscious society. Drug use is now openly part of our society, but it is more difficult to address the attitudes of drug-drivers. In a drink-focused environment, we are aware of the designated driver—usually the least cheerful looking person at the party—and culturally we are conscious of that role, aware of their responsibilities and we do not encourage them to drink. We know that drink-driving is against the law and puts the driver, their passengers and other road users at risk.

In an environment where illegal substances are being used, a similar collective understanding is not necessarily present. I therefore welcome the fact that the 2013 Act reinforces in the popular awareness the dangers of the use of banned substances while driving. The Bill will similarly send out a clear message that drug-driving is unacceptable. However, the prosecution of drug-drivers can overlook the need to address their underlying problems. As a former special constable, I have huge respect for the work that the police do and how difficult their job is. I recognise from my personal experience that dangerous patterns of behaviour by individuals result in repeat offences, and I know that intervention at the right point can sometimes turn someone’s life around.

If we can work with the individual on wider psychological, physical or lifestyle problems, as well as their substance misuse, we can help to prevent further offending. Unless they appear in court, however, there is no mechanism to direct drug-drivers towards the necessary health care and support services that can help them to overcome their drug misuse. That contrasts with the existing approach to require assessments for other types of drug-related offending, such as theft or burglary, that has proven links to class A drug use.

At present, a person arrested on suspicion of burglary or theft who tests positive for heroin, cocaine or crack cocaine can be compulsorily referred for a drugs assessment if the arresting officer believes that would be appropriate. In contrast, someone who is suspected of drug-driving cannot be similarly required to attend an assessment of their potentially harmful drug abuse. The Bill would tackle that gap in legislation. It is about helping to break a cycle of behaviour and doing more to ensure that those found driving under the influence of class A drugs receive the appropriate help. By extending class A drug intervention processes to drug-driving, we may be able to intervene at an early stage and perhaps prevent an individual from committing further crimes and potentially endangering other road users as well as themselves.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

One of the main drugs that impairs driving ability is cannabis, but that would not be caught by my hon. Friend’s Bill. Why is that?

[Graham Evans]

That is a very good question. The Bill covers drugs that are usually associated with criminality—the class A drugs. Cannabis is not necessarily associated with criminality in the same way.

The Bill gives the police the power to require a person under investigation for drug-driving offences and who has provided a sample that has tested positive for the specified class A drugs to attend an initial and a follow-up drugs assessment. That will apply to the existing drug-driving offences in the Road Traffic Act 1988, as well as the new offence recently introduced in the 2013 Act. The Bill would not interfere with any other police processes in investigating the offences or the circumstances of a road collision, or in gathering evidence for a possible prosecution of drug-driving.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I would defer to the Minister if he wished to intervene at this stage, Mr Deputy Speaker—I thought he was going to do so—because my speech was going to be about seeking answers to the questions raised by the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), as we do need answers to those questions before we can take this Bill any further. I was a road safety Minister and I have always been very much against the scourge of drug-driving. Indeed, I have introduced—in successive years, I believe—private Members’ Bills seeking to outlaw drug-driving.

[Mr Hanson]

I hope the questions I posed are valid, but I would not wish them to defer the passing of the Bill this afternoon.

[Mr Chope]

I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says, but my frustration about this is that when I introduced a private Member’s Bill to deal with drug-driving, I was told on successive occasions that we could not do anything about it because we did not have the right equipment to enable us to identify the drugs that were in the people who would be stopped by the police. A rearguard action was fought by the Home Office because, I suspect, it was concerned about the costs of all the prosecutions that would result from changing the law to put on to the statute book what is now contained in section 5A of the Road Traffic Act 1988, as introduced by the Crime and Courts Act 2013.

That Act set out a new provision, which had been promoted the previous year by the Prime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) and others, who were very concerned about the scourge of deaths on our roads caused by drug-driving. What had caused me to introduce my private Member’s Bills in the first place was a horrific accident on the A31 in which a lorry driver crossed the central reservation and killed a young student. He had gone to sleep, after being high on amphetamines.

I was very disappointed to see from the explanatory notes to the Bill that we have not yet got the new offence in section 5A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 into force. I looked then at the consultation document on the regulations, and as the right hon. Member for Delyn said, that consultation period expired about a month ago, so we have not had a Government response. When we get that response, we will know which drugs will be the subject of the new regime of drug-driving. I understand that they will include cannabis—certainly that was one of the drugs on which the Government consulted. The right hon. Gentleman is shaking his head, but that is included as an option in the consultation document.

If cannabis is not included it will be a disaster, because cannabis was one of the main issues that was raised in my earlier private Member’s Bills, and we know—these are figures from Brake, the road safety charity—that in the United Kingdom 18% of people killed in road crashes have traces of illegal drugs in their blood, and the main substance found is cannabis. Yet the Bill before us would make no provision at all in relation to cannabis, because it is confined to class A drugs. As the right hon. Gentleman makes clear, the Bill does not introduce the offence that everyone has been crying out to have introduced for years. I want to put more pressure on the Government to tell us exactly when they expect that provision to be on the statute book. Section 5A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 needs to be on the statute book sooner rather than later.

The consultation on the regulations has finished, but the Government have not come forward with a quick response. When we get that response, draft regulations will be drawn up, and the Government’s own documentation suggests that when they have been drawn up, it will be necessary to get type approval of the testing equipment. At the moment, despite years and years on this—I know, because when I introduced my private Member’s Bill I got evidence from companies in this country that produce that drug assessment equipment and are marketing it in northern Europe and Australasia, where it is being used, and other countries—a game is being played whereby the Home Office is blocking progress, on the basis that it does not have the right equipment, but it is delaying the implementation of the type approval.

I will give way to the Minister if he wishes to intervene; I have no evidence at all as to when exactly the new offence will be on the statute book. Unless and until it gets on the statute book and is implemented, rather than just being a law, it will not make any difference. As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) said, we know that some 8,800 people will potentially be prosecuted as a result of that law as soon as it comes into effect. However, there is no timetable for bringing it into effect, because of the prolonged consultation process.

We are being asked today to approve another high-profile Bill that can be used as an example of how serious the Government are about dealing with the issue. However, it would be wrong for the House to give people who are watching this debate the impression that we have sorted out the problem. Unless and until the Government implement section 5A of the 1988 Act, we will not have an effective law against drug-driving, which is killing hundreds of people on our roads each year.

If section 5A is implemented, it will deter a lot of people from getting behind the wheel when they have taken drugs, but the Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale would come into action only when the police made arrests at the roadside. Even then, as it deals only with class A drugs, it would not apply to cannabis users. Their numbers and the impact of cannabis on their ability to drive make them arguably the biggest menace on the roads.

Even leaving that aside, a police force would be able to use its discretion about whether to require a driver to present himself for an assessment, which could take place over two days. The explanatory notes state that the estimated cost of each of those assessments runs to about £200.

[Graham Evans]

£100.

[Mr Chope]

In that case, my point is even stronger. We would not be able to get much out of a £100 assessment of somebody who had been stopped at the roadside for suspected driving while impaired by drugs. If the police used their discretion to refer the matter to such an assessment, what would happen afterwards? That would be the stage at which something needed to happen. If the assessment said, “This is somebody who has a drug problem, and they need to go and see a therapist and go for more expensive treatment to wean them off”, that would create a fresh lot of costs. The financial memorandum suggests that they are not regarded as costs directly associated with the measures in the Bill.

[Mr Hanson]

None of these points is a reason to deny the Bill a Second Reading. We can debate them in Committee, despite the comments that I made, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will allow us the opportunity to do that.

[Mr Chope]

I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says. We have not yet heard from the Minister, but if the Bill goes to Committee, he will be able to table amendments. My point is that for a long time, there has been too much gesture politics on the subject. Those of us who are genuinely concerned about road safety would like to see section 5A of the 1988 Act, which is already part of the statute law of the country, brought into effect. That means deciding which drugs will be included in that Act and authorising the equipment that will enable analysis to be carried out.

[Mr Hanson]

indicated assent.

[Mr Chope]

The right hon. Gentleman is nodding sagely, but there is something to be said for putting pressure on the Government—more pressure than he has so far—to respond to these points. My understanding is that there has always been a strong conflict between the desires of the Department for Transport, which I had the privilege of serving in as a Minister, and the Home Office, which is resisting taking such measures. If I am wrong about that, and the Minister can give me a target date for full implementation of section 5A, I will happily give way to him—if he is listening.

The fact that he does not wish to intervene to try to ensure reasonable cross-party consensus shows that the Government are again playing games with the House. They talk the talk; they say, “We want to outlaw drug-driving” and they announced, with a fanfare, in the Queen’s Speech before last that they would legislate on the issue. The Prime Minister congratulated my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central and met some of his constituents who had experienced tragedy as a result of death by drug-driving. Today, the Minister has the opportunity to tell us exactly when section 5A will come into effect—legislation that was forecast and supported in 2010 in the North report—but he is choosing not to; I do not know why. Perhaps it is because, as a Home Office Minister who has been a Transport Minister, he has, in a sense, a split personality on the issue. His previous responsibility was to try to push such measures through, but now that he is wearing his new hat as a Home Office Minister, the idea is to give people the impression that something is being done on the issue when we know that not very much is being done.

The Bill is a complete side-show compared with the main issue. If the legislation is brought into effect and people are prosecuted under it, it will not address the largest proportion of offenders: those caught with cannabis in their system. The measures in the Bill should have been included in one of the criminal justice Bills that the Home Office brings forward with such regularity.

When my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans), whom I have the privilege of sitting behind, opened this Second Reading debate—I congratulate him on choosing this Bill—he was not able to say why the Bill was not brought forward at the same time as other legislation.

[Graham Evans]

The Minister might be able to answer that.

[Mr Chope]

The Minister may well be able to answer it, and I am happy to give way to him if he wants to intervene. [Interruption.] I am being heckled by Members on the Bench in front of me who say that the Minister has not yet had the chance to speech. Of course, we know that he did, but he chose not to follow the right hon. Member for Delyn.

This Bill was brought forward by the Government. When my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale spoke to it, he read from a text on top of which was written “restricted”, which shows that it is essentially a Government Bill. The Government have the power to give the Bill more time. I challenge them to provide more time for this debate, so that the Minister can give a full response to the very important points made by the right hon. Member for Delyn. There is nothing to stop the Government providing extra time on the Floor of the House for Second Reading of this Bill, and responding on the issue of these very important road safety challenges. In my constituency, people are absolutely exasperated by the Government’s failure to deliver on this important issue of drug-driving.