Marcus Jones
Main Page: Marcus Jones (Conservative - Nuneaton)Department Debates - View all Marcus Jones's debates with the Department for Transport
(13 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Villiers
My hon. Friend is right to give credit to Heathrow for real improvements over recent years. Although terminal 5 started pretty badly, it is now a high-quality facility, and the airport will be investing in a major redevelopment of other terminals, hopefully to bring them up to the same standards. But more needs to be done, which is why we will modernise the airport regulatory framework to put passengers at the heart of the system, to give the Civil Aviation Authority the power to intervene where airports fail their passengers, and to incentivise the sort of investment in improvement, to baggage handling and terminals, for example, that his constituents clearly want. We are also introducing a new consumer panel at the CAA to improve passengers’ ability to influence the regulation of the airport.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
8. What steps he is taking to tackle uninsured driving.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)
The Government have already introduced the continuous insurance enforcement scheme that will come into force in late June, which says simply that everyone who intends to drive a vehicle on the road must be insured and that a vehicle must have a valid statutory off-road notification if there is no intent to drive.
Mr Jones
Uninsured drivers are the scourge of our roads, adding to the insurance premium of the law-abiding motorist. With a fixed-penalty sanction against uninsured drivers of £200 and an average motor insurance policy premium of £892, rising to £2,431 for young drivers, is it not time to consider increasing the fixed-penalty fine to ensure that it is proportionate to the cost of motor insurance, to incentivise those who think that it is right to drive uninsured?
Mike Penning
It is estimated that 1.5 million people drive without insurance, which is a huge cost burden to those who do insure, and there is strong evidence that those who are uninsured are likely to commit other driving and criminal offences. However, I assure my hon. Friend that we are looking closely at that.