Victims of Road Traffic Offences: Criminal Justice System

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Guy Opperman)]

Thank you very much indeed for your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on securing this very important debate. Sometimes Parliament is knocked or decried for its lack of impact, but nobody could have listened to the debate and not realised that what is being raised is of real importance to individual Members of Parliament, on a cross-party basis, and the families who have been so affected.

Road safety matters to all of us. As we are all aware, the solutions are complex, but that does not mean that we should not try to grasp them or engage with them, or that we do not take debates of this nature very seriously indeed.

We are on a journey. I am a veteran of a 20-year legal career, having prosecuted many of these types of cases and defended some, and there was no victim impact statement when I started out. It just did not exist; the victim was never consulted in any way whatever. I have been a cyclist for the past 40 years, and there were no such thing as cycle lanes in days gone by. The hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) is entirely right that things are getting better, albeit we have a way to go.

Having just been with the fantastic people who work at Active Travel England, which is based in the constituency of the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), and having cycled around the Roman and medieval streets of York with all their complexities, I fully understand that putting cycle infrastructure in such a town is very difficult. Active travel did not exist before, and it clearly has a way to go before it is as good as all Members would like it to be. We are all on this journey, and solutions will not be ticked by this Government or the next one straightaway, but there is an acknowledgement that we are all, on a cross-party basis, trying to improve the situation, and that is something we should get behind.

Before I get into the nuts and bolts of the debate, I put on record that colleagues are entirely right to state the impact that this issue has had on individual families, including that of Harry Webb, represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones); the Saltern family, represented by my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann); the Winterburn family, represented by the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton); and the Chapman family, represented by my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton). There is also the tragic case raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild); the case specifically raised by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones)—I will come to new clause 49 of the Criminal Justice Bill in a second—as well as the case of Sharlotte, raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis); and the Gayle family case, raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Jane Stevenson). Those families all have tragic and terrible stories to tell, and it is right that their representatives make the case for a better system. I take all the points on board. There is much being worked on by various Departments, which I will try to address in the limited time I have.

I represent the Department for Transport and have supported the all-party group; in fact, many years ago, I sat in this room while our colleague Lord Austin led a debate on these issues in this Chamber. This is clearly a cross-departmental matter, and we need to stress that the solution is cross-departmental. I give apologies from the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), and the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who are debating the Criminal Justice Bill as we speak and addressing, for example, new clause 49, tabled by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, on the use of private roads and the impact of particular cases that arise. That is something to be discussed in the House, in the Public Bill Committee.

I should also point out that I bear scars myself. On 23 June 2019, I was the victim of a pretty serious road traffic accident. I broke my ankle and ruptured my knee ligaments when I was knocked off my bicycle by a car on a London street, also not in a designated lane. I still bear the scars, and my running days are definitely over as a result.

We want to foster an environment of safety. Great work is being done to pursue that. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon that the word “accident” should no longer be used; indeed, the Department for Transport no longer uses it. The appropriate terms are “crashes” or “collisions”, and we encourage others to use them. My hon. Friend will understand that “accident” is the correct word in certain pieces of legislation, but the prevailing approach of various Departments is a difference and a change in words. I hope it is of benefit that my brief includes not just roads but road safety and active travel, as we try to bring those things together. I have certainly been fighting to address them.

In the time allowed, I will try to address the particular points raised. I will start with the issue of escalating penalties. Section 65 of the Sentencing Act 2020 provides a statutory aggravating factor, stating that:

“The court must treat as an aggravating factor each relevant previous conviction that it considers can be reasonably be so treated”.

Judges must therefore consider the appropriate level of any sentence uplift justified by that factor as part of considering the full circumstances of the case. I will come to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk, but the point is fairly made that these are relatively young pieces of legislation. The changes that the Government brought in to make sentencing take account of aggravating factors are still being worked through the criminal justice system.

Although I cannot speak specifically for the Lord Chancellor and the MOJ, it is unquestionable that, as cases take place, one can review guidance, take a second look at each situation, and see to what extent and how sufficiently the aggravating factors are being taken into account. That is not something that one can do straight away, but one can step back, take a proper review and look at that in a bit more detail. I will come to the increases in sentencing in a second, but first let me turn to the issue of compulsory retesting. I take the point that has been raised. Clearly, it is a cross-departmental issue, but there is, none the less, a mandatory retesting requirement on causing death by dangerous driving, dangerous driving and causing serious injury by dangerous driving. I accept, however, that the last update in the guidance was 2015, so it is something that the Department for Transport is considering. That is an ongoing process and, as Members will see when I come on to mention particular cases, there are many factors at play, ranging from insurance to consequential impacts on sentencing.

Let me turn now to increasing the maximum sentence for dangerous driving. As was outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk, the sentence has been increased: the maximum penalty for dangerous driving while under the influence of drink or drugs went from 14 years to life. I accept that that was of little comfort to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North and his constituents, but, at the very least, the Government have listened and taken action. I take on board the criticisms of the sentences. It is a dangerous thing for Ministers to start criticising individual judges for the way in which they reach their decisions, so I will not get into that without being fully party to all the circumstances. None the less, as I think the Ministry of Justice will do, there is a legitimate case for reviewing the sentences and the totality that followed those particular cases and establishing proper guidance. That is what is done with other offences. That is what will be done in this case and I hope the affected families will feel assured to know that that process is in hand.

In respect of the exceptional hardship point, having prosecuted and defended a similar case, I know that it is up to the individual defendant to raise exceptional hardship; the presumption is not that one can bring that forward. The Sentencing Council’s explanatory guidance makes it absolutely clear that it is for the offender to prove that these circumstances exist and that they are, and must be, exceptional. If it is genuinely the case that the argument has been made that the exceptionality is not being implemented in the appropriate way, that is something for us to review. I take the assertions on board, but it is ultimately up to the sentencing court to genuinely take that into account. I stress very strongly that it cannot be that it is an inconvenience; it cannot be anything other than truly exceptional hardship. The loss of one’s driving licence does not constitute exceptional hardship in any way.

Let me turn now to the extraordinarily vexed issue of speeding. Any Welsh MP will know of the issues relating to the 20 mph situation and the complexities that that has brought, but at the same time, as I said in this Chamber barely a month ago, there is, in my respectful view, a consensus that 20 mph zones outside school are utterly accepted. There is no question of any of us going back on that—in fact there is massive encouragement. Frankly, those schools that do not have 20 mph zones need to take a long hard look at that, which might involve local councils and parish councils as well. Exceptional circumstances may apply in relation to the location, but, as a broad presumptive, this House is utterly committed to that in those circumstances. The blanket application of that, in my respectful opinion, is much more difficult to achieve, but, at the same time, just because a policy may be difficult to achieve does not mean that we cannot attempt to address it. The point is fairly made in the report and it needs to be made again here: the impact evaluation of the national speed awareness course, which was published in 2018, found that participation in that course was more effective at preventing speed reoffending than fines and penalty points. That is proper evidential data that we should take on board. I think that there is a widespread and strongly held view across the House that greater use of such courses is the way ahead and a much better approach than the simple approach that has been put forward.

I will briefly touch on new clause 49, proposed by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones). I met him yesterday, having met him previously when he raised his constituent’s case at PMQs.

[Bill Esterson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Guy Opperman]

No, I will not. Sorry, I have only three minutes, and I have loads of points to address.

New clause 49 is a cross-departmental matter. Clearly, it will be debated, but complexities are involved in doing what the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney proposes for private land. Those range from military vehicles and the extent, to issues with insurance and the like, but I very much take on board the point that the hon. Member raised.

I entirely accept that police forces have differing approaches when it comes to the thorough investigation of serious collisions. Effort is being made by the chief constables to change that, and I would urge the Home Office to drive that forward. Without a shadow of a doubt, some police forces are better than others in relation to the issue of recognising crash victims as crime victims. It is clear that the victims code permits and, frankly, encourages victims of road traffic offences to seek the support that they require. The Ministry of Justice, which provides police and crime commissioners with annual grant funding to commission local, practical and therapeutic support for victims of all types, should apply that to individual crime victims who have suffered crashes or collisions.

I respectfully suggest that the Department for Transport is very keen on the expansion and understanding of the highway code. It has spent millions of pounds on that, whether through its Think! campaign, social media campaigns, factual awareness campaigns or other particular ongoing campaigns on radio, digital, video-on-demand and social media. We genuinely wish to push those campaigns.

I totally accept that this is a work in progress, and on a cross-departmental basis. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon and this House that we will meet the three key Departments to try to drive forward an integrated Government policy on all these matters. It is not for one Department to fix this; it should be done on a cross-departmental basis. I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate and all my colleagues for bringing this matter forward.