Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Beith Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Monday 8th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

Gross negligence, yes—although it is interesting that the word “gross” is put before it. But these are different offences, and it may be that I should confine my criticism to the road traffic situation and not extend it as a general principle of English law.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, there have been some powerful contributions to this debate. I agree with the comments that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and my noble friends have made.

It is perhaps necessary that we should say in the debate that there are members of the public whose families have been drastically affected by serious injury resulting from careless driving who feel that there should be a stronger penalty, and that the particular circumstances in the accident with which they are familiar justify a stronger penalty. This is the simple point I want to make: the territory that we enter here is of believing that prison is the only way that society can say, “We are not going to put up with this. This is very bad. Drivers should drive better, and people should be aware of the dangers that they engage in if their concentration lapses.” Prison is probably one of the least effective ways of dealing with the individuals that we are talking about.

As my noble friend Lady Randerson pointed out, the effects of these accidents—or rather incidents, following the noble Baroness, Lady Jones—which result in serious injury are devastating for all those involved. However, the Government need to resist the constant temptation to believe that spending a lot of money on sending people to a place that will not improve their driving—or indeed anything—but is likely to lead to despair and reduce their ability to contribute to society in years to come is a sensible course of action. They should recognise that this is a misuse of the expensive, although important, resource of custody.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, can I just ask the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, why he thinks that an offence in the transport sector might be different from the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act? Is it because transport is a middle-class crime and health and safety is not, on the whole, or is there something different?