Road Safety (Financial Penalty Deposit) (Appropriate Amount) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2014

Lord Popat Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2014 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Popat]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Road Safety (Financial Penalty Deposit) (Appropriate Amount) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2014.

Relevant document: 3rd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments

[Lord Popat (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble friend Lady Kramer on the Order Paper.

Last year we announced an increase in the financial levels of fixed-penalty notices for most motoring and road transport offences, including making careless driving a fixed penalty notice offence. Those changes have been made under the negative resolution procedure, and both the Fixed Penalty (Amendment) Order and the Fixed Penalty Offences Order were laid before Parliament on 28 June 2013. Today is about a parallel scheme—fixed-penalty deposits—for those alleged offenders without a satisfactory UK address.

The Road Safety (Financial Penalty Deposit) (Appropriate Amount) (Amendment) Order 2013 enabled the levels of fixed-penalty deposits to be increased by the same amount as fixed penalties for motoring and other road transport offences, and included careless driving as a fixed-penalty deposit. This was originally debated on 2 July 2013. Unfortunately, that order increased fixed-penalty deposits for some parking offences, which was not our intention, as they are not road safety related. An amended negative order was laid on 24 July 2013 to make it clear that parking was not included in the fixed penalties, which are used with offenders who have a valid UK address. The order before us today is to correct the issue with the affirmative order which applies to graduated fixed penalties and deposits for individuals not having a valid UK address.

Since the orders were laid we have written to enforcement authorities to notify them of the issue, the policy position and our intention to correct the wording as quickly as possible. We have encouraged enforcement authorities to be aware of our policy intention in this area when dealing with parking offences, and ACPO has been most helpful in disseminating that to the individual forces, for which I am most grateful. As a result, parking offences committed by drivers without a valid UK address have been dealt with by summons to avoid them being issued with a fixed penalty for an incorrect amount. We are not aware of any cases where an incorrect penalty has been issued.

This order does not affect the existing fixed-penalty deposit levels for other offences, which remain as amended through the Road Safety (Financial Penalty Deposit) (Appropriate Amount) (Amendment) Order 2013. That includes offences under Section 22 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, of causing a vehicle to be left so as to involve danger to road users.

Fixed-penalty notices are issued by police and Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency officers. Regardless of whether an alleged offender has a valid UK address or not, they are issued with a fixed-penalty notice. Those alleged offenders without a satisfactory UK address are then required to pay a fixed-penalty deposit. The Road Safety (Financial Penalty Deposit) (Appropriate Amount) Order 2013 prescribes the amount of financial penalty deposit that may be requested by an officer.

To mirror the increases that are being made to most motoring and road transport fixed penalties, deposit levels will be increased by the following amounts: from £30 to £50, £60 to £100, £120 to £200, and £200 to £300. DVSA figures show that in 2012-13 over 10,500 deposit notices were issued with a payment rate of almost 100%.

The changes to fixed penalties follow up key commitments in the Government’s Strategic Framework for Road Safety, published in May 2011, which sets out a package of measures that will continue to reduce deaths and injuries on our roads. The framework recognises the importance of targeted enforcement to tackle those behaviours that represent a risk to road safety. The measures announced last year focus on making the enforcement process more efficient, ensuring that the penalties are set at the right levels to avoid offences being perceived as trivial and inconsequential, and making educational training more widely available for low-level offending. This order supports the framework by ensuring enforcement is relevant and appropriate, and provides clarity to the enforcement authorities. I therefore commend the order to the Committee.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I will not spend much time on this order because us being here is a waste of time. The order is to create waste caused to the police, the Department for Transport and Parliament. The explanation of the error is weak. I had expected, instead of a review of how wonderful government policy is, a more fulsome apology. I would like the Minister to say what the department is doing to make sure it does not happen again. Errors by the Department for Transport are not infrequent. Does it not have sufficient resources or sufficient quality, or is it not properly motivated by its leadership? If the Minister does not feel that he can provide answers to that now, I will be very happy to take a letter.

[Lord Popat]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that we should not be making mistakes of this nature. This was very much a one-off. Although we try to check instruments thoroughly at every stage of the procedure, there are times when errors occur. I can assure the noble Lord that this is a one-off—especially when the instrument is so complex, technical and not easy to follow, as is the case with this instrument. As soon as it was recognised that an error had been made, steps were taken to correct it. I hope that I have addressed one question about the error we made in this instrument. I hope that we will not make similar errors in future.

Motion agreed.