(8 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberThat is an excellent idea, and I will give it serious consideration.
5. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of sentencing policy for dangerous driving offences.
The number of road traffic fatalities has fallen dramatically over the past 10 years, but one death is still too many. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, and to the family of James Still in his constituency. I know that they have been campaigning on this issue for a long time. We have toughened up sentencing and we are continuing to look at this area.
I thank the Minister for his answer, and for the real interest that he has shown in this issue. As he knows, we have presented a manifesto for better justice for victims of criminal driving, on behalf of a cross-party group of MPs and other organisations. Could we have a formal, point-by-point response to that from the Department? Will he also meet us again to discuss those points, so that we can get better justice for those people and their families?
We will respond point by point as we develop the review of sentencing in this area, and of course, as the Minister with responsibility for victims, I will meet the hon. Gentleman. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), will perhaps also be available to meet the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and the team, as we respond.
(8 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberCutting reoffending means giving prisoners the skills they will need once they leave prison. Yet a report by the Prisoner Learning Alliance, which meets this Friday in my constituency at Leeds Beckett University, shows that 58% of prisons judged last year by Ofsted require improvement or prove inadequate for learning and skills provision. What is the Department going to do about that?
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise these points. This can be done. Hollesley Bay recently had an outstanding Ofsted report, and where it leads, others can and need to follow. The combined PE, English and maths course taught in the PE department at Swaleside has been highly successful in getting hard-to-reach prisoners to engage in education. We need more initiatives like that. The Secretary of State has mentioned the Timpson academies. I would also mention the Halfords academy, the Clink restaurants, Census Data Group and many others that are doing outstanding work in the areas the hon. Gentleman rightly draws attention to.
(9 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberI welcome my hon. Friend to the House. He is absolutely right: prisoner voting is a question that should be decided by democratically elected Members of this House. Our wider aim with a Bill of Rights is not only to protect our fundamental rights, but to strengthen the role of the British Supreme Court, defend the rule of law and shield the democratic prerogatives of this House.
The family of Richard Davies are devastated by his death on Yeadon high street. A man has been charged with manslaughter and yet has been granted bail, which is very distressing for the family. What guidance is given to judges—
Order. I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman must listen. My advice is that the case is sub judice and, on the basis of a charge having been brought, it is not appropriate to raise the matter in the Chamber at this time. I recognise the assiduity of the hon. Gentleman, who may find other opportunities, but not now.
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. As we all agree, the law has to change in the case of dangerous driving.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, and I agree with everything that he has said so far. Another element is that the CPS, when looking at such cases, sometimes chooses to go for the lesser charge of careless driving. That is what happened in the case of my constituent, James Still, who was killed on new year’s eve 2010, and whose family I am supporting. May I also bring my hon. Friend’s attention to the round-table meeting that I am setting up with MPs and victims’ families? All hon. Members are invited to meet with the families. I will ensure that anyone who has not already had an invitation gets one.
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I was aware of the meeting and will of course attend, as I am sure everyone present will. Despite the grief that Tracey and Hayley have to live with every day, they want justice for John and Kris. They want to ensure that the lives of their loved ones were not lost in vain. They are asking for a change in the law. Despite all the problems that they face as a result of the loss of their fiancés, they have had the courage to put forward an e-petition, which was prepared with the help of a fantastic local campaigner in my constituency, Teresa Colliass, and is now on the Government website. The petition calls for drivers to receive a maximum sentence of 14 years per person who has been killed.
(9 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberI have expressly asked the chief inspector of probation to come to my office and talk to me if, in the course of the work he and his team do, he identifies any part of the reforms that are jeopardising public safety. He has not done so.
The Ministry of Justice’s own figures show that more than half of the parties in family courts are now unrepresented by a solicitor. There are concerns from the legal sector that this means that people are not getting fair hearings, and actually hearings seem to be taking longer. What plans has the Department got to review this?
Before the legal aid reforms, one party did not have legal representation in about two thirds of private law cases. It is common for the courts to deal with people who represent themselves. The Department is very watchful of what is happening, but we have already supported organisations such as Citizens Advice and Advicenow to produce more guides. There is also support for the personal support unit, and there is new material for litigants in person, and new leaflets and online advice and guidance, as well as judicial support and advice. We expect to make further announcements of support to deal with this matter in the very near future.
(10 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberFirst, I cannot comment on the nature of the organisations that have submitted bids. We have a good mix of organisations from a wide range of different circumstances across the country, I am pleased with the progress, and we will make further information available in due course. I have been to the prison in Northumberland since the trouble there, and I have no reason to believe that the event was connected to the public or private status of the prison—my understanding from staff is that it was started by a number of prisoners who were upset that their working day had been extended by an hour.
T3. We have seen another celebrity convicted of a string of appalling child sex offences—someone who used and abused their position and their power. Is it not time that we had an overarching inquiry into the culture at that time and those historical sex offences, so that we can bring closure and learn lessons for the future?
Order. Of course, no sentencing has yet taken place—a fact of which I am sure the Minister is well aware, and will frame his response as he thinks fit.
(10 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am aware that a number of decisions of this kind are being taken by local committees. Of course such decisions can also mean civil cases moving into those same court buildings, which brings justice closer to communities in matters such as tribunal cases. I am aware of the issues in Bedfordshire to which my right hon. Friend refers. Where changes of this kind occur I have asked my Department to examine possible uses of technology, for example giving access to courts for witnesses. I know he is discussing this matter with the Minister who has responsibility for courts and will continue to do so.
11. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of the powers of the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office.
The Judicial Conduct Investigations Office is an independent office that supports both me and the Lord Chief Justice with our joint responsibility for judicial discipline. Following public consultation, the JCIO introduced new rules and regulations governing judicial discipline on 1 October 2013. I am satisfied that it has the appropriate powers to carry out its function effectively.
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. The judicial conduct cases the JCIO has examined are there for all to see, but does he share the concern of some of my constituents that where judicial misconduct has been proven there is no direct mechanism to challenge decisions made as a result of it in a court?
Clearly I would have to know about the individual cases in order to give a detailed answer to that question, but where a judge is found to have committed an act of misconduct in relation to a case, I would, of course, expect the person involved to take appropriate legal advice. My experience so far is that we have a good process that deals with these issues promptly and sensitively, and the work of the office is handled pretty well.
I, too, warmly welcome the announcement on increased sentences for disqualified drivers. Will the Secretary of State seriously consider another common-sense move as part of the review: making it a presumption that licences will be taken away as a condition of bail for anyone charged with killing as a result of criminal driving?
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I invite him to take part in the review that we will be carrying out and to talk to my Department about these issues, because I am very sympathetic to what he says.
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe have said to both G4S and Serco—I deplore the actions of those companies in the things that have taken place—that simply repaying money is not sufficient, and that we expect them to go through a process of corporate renewal, which will involve comprehensive changes to both personnel and ways of working internally. I am not in the process of destroying British companies; I am in the business of saying, “You cannot expect to work with Government unless you uphold high standards, take a transparent approach and absolutely do not try to rip off the taxpayer.”
If someone is breathalysed and found to be over the limit, their driving licence can be suspended straight away. However, if someone is found to be over the limit and kills somebody, it can take months. That was the experience of the family of Jamie Still, whose killer drove for eight months after killing him in 2010. Prosecutors do not ask for the suspension of a driving licence in a case of death by criminal driving. What discussions will the Secretary of State have with the Crown Prosecution Service about that?
I am happy to take that matter forward. I was not aware of the situation to which the hon. Gentleman referred. We will take a careful look at it and discuss it with him.
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberIn this Chamber, we often say that it is a pleasure to take part in a debate, but it gives me no pleasure to have to recount the awful experiences of my constituents, just as other hon. and right hon. Members have had to recount the awful experiences of theirs.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), whose work has been a comfort, not only to me in my desire for change but, more importantly, to the families whom I have done my best to represent, as their MP, just as he has done his best to represent the family of Ross and Clare Simons. I met Ross and Clare’s family members when they visited Parliament, and as the hon. Gentleman knows, I have also had Jamie Still’s family come to visit Parliament and No. 10. I have also had to deal with the family of David and Dorothy Metcalf. Going through what we have to go through—listening, experiencing, and sitting through the awful accounts of what the victims and their families have been through—is hard enough; imagining what the families have gone through is just about impossible.
Already in this debate—more right hon. and hon. Members wish to speak, and I am pleased that they are here to do so—we have heard of too many incidents of the kind of criminal driving that destroys lives. There is simply a lack of adequate justice for victims and their families. I am pleased to have spoken to the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) on the issue. I am aware that a number of hon. and right hon. Members are very much involved on this issue. They include my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), who has a very recent case in her constituency, and the hon. Members for Gloucester (Richard Graham), for Dudley North (Ian Austin), for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), and for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney); there are also others whose cases I am not aware of. We must all get together and ensure change, because when we do get together, I am sure that we will get change.
My constituent, whose son was killed in a driving incident nearly a year ago, contacted me very early on with her concerns about lenient sentences. Today, the driver of the car was given a 12-month sentence. I have yet to learn all the details, but on the mother’s behalf, I would like to join my hon. Friend and others here in asking the Minister to look really carefully at sentences for driving offences.
I thank my hon. Friend. That is another example of a sentence, given only today, that surely cannot reflect the reality of killing someone through criminal driving. I use the phrase “criminal driving” very deliberately. This debate is entitled “Dangerous Driving”, but we are all aware that what we are actually talking about are various forms of criminal driving—any form of it that has resulted in someone losing their life. One of the weaknesses in the system is the confusion in both the sentencing framework and the sentencing guidelines as to whether particular forms of criminal driving should be regarded as particularly serious. I will come back to that important point.
I wish to relay to the House briefly the awful case of Jamie Still, who was just 16 years old, with everything to live for. He was a schoolboy in Otley, a market town in my constituency. He was out with friends on new year’s eve in 2010. At around 9 o’clock, when crossing a road in the middle of town, he was hit by a car that was travelling at 50 mph in a 30-mph shopping zone. He was flung through the air. He died later, as a result of the injuries that he sustained, in his mother’s arms; his mother managed to get to see him, but his sister did not. As people were celebrating new year’s eve and seeing in the new year, that family lost a beloved son and brother, and the community lost a young man with an awful lot to give.
Part of the awful injustice is that despite the seriousness of the crime—a crime is clearly what it is—the perpetrator was allowed to continue driving, right up to when he was sentenced. He lived only a few miles away, and was seen driving in Otley—the very place where he ended this young man’s life. It is hard to imagine the distress that that must have caused Jamie’s mother, Karen, and his sister, Rebecca. The man responsible was found to have been twice over the drink-drive limit. Eight months later, he was sentenced to four years, but the sentence was reduced to 12 months after he wrote to the judge—not the family—to say how sorry he was. That followed a two-year reduction in his possible sentence after he pleaded guilty, even though, at previous court hearings, he had not done so.
The hon. Gentleman said that the offender was twice over the limit when the incident occurred. Does he agree that the laws on drink-driving and sentencing are completely inadequate? For example, the maximum first sentence for drink-driving is six months. Whether it is someone’s second, third, fourth, eighth, 10th or 15th offence, the maximum they can get is six months. That is completely unacceptable. I introduced a Bill in the House saying that repeat offenders should get stiffer sentences. Does he agree that that deserves serious consideration?
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue. He is quite right. He has exposed to the House yet another area where the law simply does not make sense—it is not common sense.
I have also had to deal with the awful deaths of David and Dorothy Metcalf, who were killed a year after Jamie Still, on new year’s day 2012, on the Stanningley bypass in Leeds. They were an honest, hard-working couple, who had just begun to enjoy retirement. They were hit by a driver—rear-ended—who was speeding at 100 mph. The impact of the crash caused the Metcalfs’ car to be thrown 10 feet in the air before it flipped over. Mr Metcalf died instantly, and Mrs Metcalf some time later in hospital. The driver, Mr Eduard Mereohra, was a Moldovan national in the UK illegally. He had been drinking all night at a party, and even the next morning he had twice the permitted level of alcohol in his system. He had previously been deported for entering the UK illegally, but somehow he had entered the country illegally for a second time. He fled the scene, only to be caught by a heroic bystander, guided by another heroic individual who told the police where the man was fleeing, having witnessed the incident from their house.
When he was caught, Mr Mereohra first tried to deny being the driver. Later he tried to blame David Metcalf for the accident. As if that was not bad enough, to make it even more galling, he had been caught speeding a few weeks beforehand, yet nothing had been flagged up to say that he was here illegally. There was no evidence at all to suggest that he had a valid driving licence, and it could not even be established that he had a national insurance number. I still have not received an answer to that question.
The whole House will be shocked by the two cases that the hon. Gentleman has brought to our attention. In respect of the second case concerning a foreign national who has committed a crime in our country, were his convictions in Moldova, or wherever he resided, brought to the attention of the court before his sentence, or was there a problem obtaining that information?
I thank the right hon. Gentleman, who chairs the Select Committee on Home Affairs, for that intervention. The speeding offence occurred in the UK. Clearly there was a catalogue of failures, which warranted a full investigation, which I asked for and got somewhere with. The most galling thing is that, because Eduard Mereohra is a foreign national in the UK illegally, he is likely to serve only half of his nine-year sentence—frankly, his offence should automatically have triggered a 14-year sentence, given the catalogue of offences—before, quite rightly, he is deported. The trouble is that we can impose no parole conditions on him in a foreign country, so it is likely that he will serve considerably less time than if he were a UK national. That is another blow for the family.
Those are two cases with which I have dealt, both of which shattered the new year for two families in my constituency. We need change because of their experience and the experiences described by right hon. and hon. Members. The first thing that needs to change is at the core of the Jamie Still campaign, which was set up by Rebecca Still, the amazing sister of Jamie Still. As part of her grieving for her big brother, she decided to launch a petition—without even speaking to her mother. I was delighted to take that petition, along with the family, to Downing street last year. At that stage, it had amassed 13,000 signatures.
The first aim of the Jamie Still campaign is to impose—and this is supported by the excellent charity, Brake—a bail condition in cases in which someone is charged with death by dangerous or careless driving that automatically suspends their driving licence. That is important. Brake says:
“Brake believes drivers who kill and maim should be taken off the road once they are charged, as a condition of bail. Prosecutions often take many months to come to court, and in many cases the driver charged with causing the crash is able to continue driving, potentially putting other innocent road users in danger, and often in the same community where they caused carnage. This can be incredibly offensive and upsetting to bereaved families and people injured by the driver, but it also means that other people are being put at risk.
If you are a teacher being investigated for misconduct, you are immediately suspended from teaching in school to protect pupils. If you are a doctor suspected of malpractice, you are immediately suspended from practising medicine to ensure no patients are harmed. Yet if you are charged with killing someone because of your bad driving, you are allowed to keep driving until you are sentenced in court”.
I made that point earlier. Not only do I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman that someone should be suspended immediately, but I feel strongly that someone who has killed someone else, whether wilfully or perhaps as a result of drink-driving, should have the stigma of not being allowed to drive legally in our country ever again in their lifetime, as they have taken another life. I think that that is fair.
I thank my hon. Friend, who has raised something, certainly in serious cases, that should be part of the review, to give the sense that those people can never get behind the wheel of a car, which they have turned into a lethal weapon.
The second thing that needs to change—it has already been covered, and I want to add my support—is the failure of sentencing to give real justice to the families. Let me make it clear that this is not an instance of politicians saying, “We want longer sentences per se.” We have a confused and, in some ways, conflicted system for sentencing people. We have too many different offences and a wholly inconsistent approach when it comes to the interpretation of guidelines, and there are weaknesses in those guidelines. After four years and 20 weeks of his sentence, the driver who killed Jamie Still was allowed to move to an open prison, and could drive—potentially in the area where he had committed that crime.
That brings me to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) that it is absurd for driving bans to run concurrently with prison sentences. It is such an obvious, simple and common-sense thing for driving bans to begin on the day on which people can drive again, whether on weekend day release or whether they are out. Certainly, as soon as they have an opportunity to get into a car, those terms must be considered. Far too few people have received the maximum sentence available, even where it is warranted, as in some of the cases that we have mentioned.
Another problem concerns plea bargaining and the fact that far too often the charge for dangerous driving is careless driving. I have great sympathy with Brake’s view that the solution is to get rid of the offence of causing death by careless driving and to have only the offence of dangerous driving. The judge can then sentence on the basis of appropriate guidelines, with a maximum sentence for the worst offences to lower ones for lesser offences.
We have heard of cases today from up and down the country of terrifying, wilful, aggressive, reckless criminal driving being deemed not dangerous, but careless. That is simply dishonest, untrue and wrong. That fails people such as the family of Jamie Still. Due to plea bargaining and due to the CPS deciding that it is easier to obtain a prosecution for death by careless driving, people who are clearly guilty of dangerous driving are allowed to opt for a lower sentence. That is why we need the offence of dangerous driving with adequate sentencing guidelines for all who have driven dangerously, as all the people mentioned clearly have done.
It seems to be police practice, at least in some areas, that someone who has failed a breath test, and is therefore deemed to have broken the law, is not automatically drug tested. There are instances where it is strongly believed, or even known, that someone has taken drugs as well as being over the drink-drive limit, but that is not tested for, because a prosecution will be guaranteed anyway. That is another factor that should be taken into consideration when assessing the severity of the offence, its recklessness, and therefore the sentence.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood said, it is utter nonsense that the maximum sentence for causing death by driving illegally while uninsured or disqualified is two years. That is absurd. In the case of David and Dorothy Metcalf, the driver was in this country illegally and therefore was not allowed to drive here, yet that could not be treated with the severity that it should have been. The fact that someone should not be behind the wheel of a car should be treated as a serious factor in increasing the sentence, as it is in other countries.
At the moment, the families of victims of dangerous, careless driving, who are suffering the most unimaginable loss, are not eligible for compensation under the criminal injuries compensation scheme, even though they have lost their loved one as a result of criminal activity. Why should the families of the victims of murder or manslaughter be compensated through this important scheme, while the families of those who have died as a result of a car being driven in a dangerous and reckless way as a weapon are not? That is another example in this litany of cases of how, despite improvements, our system still does not adequately give justice to the families who have lost their loved ones.
The lives of two families in my constituency have been devastated by the appalling criminal, reckless driving of others. In neither case did the perpetrators of those crimes receive the punishment that they deserved, and therefore the families did not receive justice. I am delighted that the review has happened, but the message from the House today is simple. We have a year of this Parliament to try to change the law. We all speak on behalf of our constituents, and I hope that our voices will be heard loud and clear and that we get not just a review but the kind of common-sense change that we are talking about today. We need justice for all the families who have been referred to today. We need justice for the Simons family, the Still family and the Metcalf family. The amazing campaigning efforts of Karen Strong, Jamie’s sister, Rebecca and Peter, Jamie’s grandfather, show that these people want change to stop such things happening to other families. We cannot prevent people from getting behind the wheel of a car and behaving in a reckless and criminal fashion, but we can, as a civilised country, sentence them appropriately. All hon. Members from both sides of the House who have had these experiences must get together. I look again to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench and ask that we please have some simple, common-sense change, so that in future people will at least know that they will get real justice if they are in the awful situation of losing a loved one to such appalling, reckless, criminal behaviour.
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.
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.
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.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) on securing the debate and thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us to discuss this matter. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) has said, it is hard to take pleasure in such a debate, but it is right that we take pride in it. It has been an excellent debate. All hon. Members who have spoken have approached the matter in exactly the right spirit—they have spoken with both passion and a great deal of justified emotion.
As hon. Members have made clear, road traffic offences often have extraordinarily serious consequences—poor driving behaviour can result in injuries and fatalities. In these cases, the effect is felt not simply by the individual, but by their families. We have heard a great number of examples. We have heard about Ross and Clare Simons, Rob Jeffries, William Avery-Wright, Robert Gaunt, Jamie Still, David and Dorothy Metcalf, Andrew Watson, Eleanor McGrath and Paul Stock. Many others have been mentioned, but many have not. Some were old, some were young, and they were from up and down the country. It is important that we recognise that their sacrifices need to be discussed in the context of the criminal justice system and the system beyond it.
Hon. Members will understand that I cannot comment on the specific details of any sentencing case, because specific sentences are decided independently of the Government by the courts. In deciding what sentence to impose, the courts must take account of all the details of the offence and the offender, including both aggravating and mitigating factors, and give consideration to the culpability of the offender and the harm caused. As the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) has made clear, the cases are difficult, and it is not easy to draw rules and regulations from individual examples. He is right. The courts have recourse to sentencing guidelines, which have been mentioned a number of times in the debate. I will come back to them in a moment.
Road traffic offences are particularly difficult because the harm caused often outweighs the offender’s culpability. However, the law seeks to punish those who cause death or injury on our roads proportionately to the blameworthiness of the driver. A variety of different agencies and organisations must play their part in such cases. We expect them to do so properly and with sensitivity. Those agencies are both within and without the criminal justice system, including, of course, schools, in some cases. My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) spoke movingly of deaths occurring on or near school premises. Knowing him as I do, I know that he will almost certainly have raised those matters with colleagues at the Department for Education, but just in case, I will ensure that those colleagues are fully aware of the points he has made.
Similarly, there are matters of licensing to consider. The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), is in the Chamber. I know he will take close account of what has been said on a variety of licensing issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) made serious points on the vehicles that people of different ages are permitted to drive, which I know will be considered further. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) made points on the need for a compulsory probationary period for drivers, which will be considered very carefully.
The Crown Prosecution Service and its involvement in bringing the right charges were mentioned. The charges considered by courts are dependent on the charges that the CPS chooses to bring. That will be based on its assessment of the quality of a defendant’s driving both preceding and at the time of impact. The CPS must give careful consideration when making charging decisions in cases involving driving that has led to a death. In deciding whether to charge death by dangerous driving or death by careless driving, it is the standard of driving to which prosecutors must have careful regard. As other hon. Members have explained, to amount to dangerous driving, the driving in question must be deemed to be far below what would have been obvious to a competent and careful driver. For careless driving, the driving needs to have fallen below the standards of a competent and prudent driver. Of course, each case should be looked at individually and decided on its own facts. Many things will play a part in those considerations.
The hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) mentioned cycling. He was right to do so; cyclists are particularly vulnerable. I will look carefully, as he urges me to do, at British Cycling’s recommendations on the matter, as will colleagues in the Department for Transport.
It is right that we consider what happens after a charge has been brought but before a case comes to trial. A number of right hon. and hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), made points on the need for interim driving bans between conviction and sentence, and for bail conditions to be considered. Hon. Members will know that the courts have those options. I would hope that they are carefully considered in all appropriate cases.
A great deal of debate was concentrated on sentencing. Successive Parliaments—indeed, successive Governments, as the hon. Member for Hammersmith said—have worked to ensure that we have a substantial framework of driving offences and penalties on the statute book. This Government, too, are committed to ensuring that the framework continues to provide the courts with the range of offences and penalties that they need to deal with the whole range of unacceptable driving behaviour on our roads.
At the most serious end of the framework, fatalities hold a special place in criminal law, as they should, and robust penalties are available where a death is caused by bad driving. The most culpable offenders—those who have caused death by dangerous driving, or by careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs—face penalties of up to 14 years in prison. They are also disqualified from driving for a minimum of two years—often for much longer—and have to sit an extended retest before regaining a licence.
A number of hon. Members—my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer), the hon. Member for Dudley North and my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West—made points relating to the length of driving bans, and in particular what happens when a defendant serves a custodial sentence. It is the case that the courts should consider and take into account the length of any custodial sentence when fixing the appropriate length of driving ban. That is for precisely the reason mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West and others: it clearly would not be right, in appropriate cases, for all of the ban to be served in custody.
Where death is caused and there is sufficient evidence of gross negligence, drivers can be charged with the offence of manslaughter, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Following the 2005 review of road traffic offences, two new offences, to which the hon. Member for Hammersmith rightly referred, were created. Since 2008, they have been available to prosecutors to deal with drivers who cause death by careless driving, or who cause death by driving while unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured. The maximum penalties for these offences are, respectively, five years’ and two years’ imprisonment, and they have a minimum disqualification period of a year. Again, the court has the discretion to order a retest.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West urges us to abolish the offence of causing death by careless driving. I understand his argument, but he will appreciate that there are, of course, risks. The offence was created because in many cases the choices available to a prosecutor were either to bring a charge of causing death by dangerous driving, or a simple charge of careless driving where a death had resulted. If prosecutors felt unable to prove dangerous driving under the definitions we have discussed, they were left with what many would consider the inadequate remedy of a simple charge of careless driving. That was the reason why the offence was brought in, and we have to think through very carefully the consequences of removing it from the statute book.
I thank the Minister for giving way and for his useful round-up of the debate. Does he not accept that the greater ease of getting a potential conviction for death by careless driving is being misused, because there are cases—I would like to discuss some with him—where people’s driving clearly fell far below the standard and was clearly wilful and grossly dangerous? I believe it is being misused. That is why Brake believes it would be more sensible to categorise them all as dangerous driving, and then have appropriate guidelines and appropriate sentencing from less to maximum.
As I said at the outset, it is difficult for me to comment on particular cases, and it is for Crown prosecutors to decide what the appropriate charge should be. We would all expect, however, that where they feel they are able to prove that driving fell far below the required standard, dangerous driving would be the appropriate charge; or, indeed, as others have said, in cases of gross negligence manslaughter would be the appropriate charge. The difficulty is that where prosecutors believe that in their judgment it is not possible to prove that driving fell far below the required standard, were we to remove this offence from the statute book they would simply be left with the charge of careless driving, which, of course, has considerably lower penalties.
There is merit in listening carefully to all that has been said in this excellent and thoughtful debate, and it is right that I consider many of the ideas and thoughts expressed in it, so I hear exactly what my hon. Friend says.
On ensuring that the law is effective, as the hon. Member for Hammersmith said, we have introduced a variety of new offences over the years to fill perceived gaps. We have created a new offence of causing serious injury by dangerous driving, ensuring that dangerous drivers are punished appropriately when their actions have serious consequences short of death. The new offence fills the previous gap by specifically targeting cases in which dangerous driving results in serious injury. In addition, the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which received Royal Assent on 25 April, introduced the new offence of driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of certain controlled drugs in excess of set limits. The new drug-driving offence will improve the law available for tackling the problem of drug-driving, which presents a significant road safety risk. That resulted from the campaigning of my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) and the death of one of his constituents. As the hon. Member for Hammersmith said, many of these changes come from such sources.
The Sentencing Council, which has been mentioned several times, has developed guidelines for the courts when dealing with these offences. It is important to recognise the distinction between the Sentencing Council’s guidelines and maximum sentences, the latter being for the Government and Parliament to set. The Sentencing Council sets guidelines for how courts ought to approach sentencing within those maximums, and has developed guidelines for the courts when dealing with this type of offence. Summary offences, including dangerous driving and careless driving, are dealt with within the magistrates courts sentencing guidelines—most recently updated in 2012—and the sentencing guidelines on causing death by driving were published by the then Sentencing Guidelines Council in 2008. The latter covers the offences of causing death by dangerous or careless driving as well as causing death by dangerous driving while under the influence of drink or drugs and causing death by driving unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured.
Several Members have referred to those sentencing guidelines, so it might be worth my drawing their attention to one or two specifics within them. First, on the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West, it is an additional aggravating factor—in fact, the first in the list—if a person has previous convictions for motoring offences, particularly offences that involve bad driving or the excessive consumption of alcohol or drugs before driving. Causing death by dangerous driving while disqualified, which my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood mentioned, is also on the list. On that list are offences committed at the same time such as driving other than in accordance with the terms of a valid licence, driving while disqualified, driving without insurance, taking a vehicle without consent and driving a stolen vehicle. These matters are in the existing guidelines.
I am grateful to the Minister for his thoroughness and his generosity in giving way, but he has slightly missed my point, which was not about previous convictions, but cases where someone is breathalysed, given a blood test and shown to be over the drink-driving limit and therefore to have broken that law. In such cases, people are not always also drug-tested, even if drugs are suspected, and that is quite wrong. If someone is over the limit and also under the influence of drugs, those two things make the act more reckless and more criminal, and they should have a higher sentence.
Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend, who will recognise that the addition in the statute book of the drug-driving offence makes it more likely that that will be considered. My point about the guidelines is that consideration is also given to other offences committed at the same time as the offence of causing death by dangerous driving.
(10 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberThis is specifically the responsibility of the Department for Work and Pensions, but I can tell the hon. Lady that extensive work has been done. Much more detail is now being provided to the Department for Work and Pensions by the Courts and Tribunals Service, and we will continue to explore ways in which we can ensure that decision makers in Jobcentre Plus understand fully the reason for a decision in a tribunal.
Capita submitted the lowest tender and was awarded the contract for court interpreters, but since then has faced more than 2,000 complaints, comprising 30% of its assignments. What is the Department going to do about that, and has it any plans for re-tendering that service?