Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Mike Penning and Lord Walney

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is an honour to follow the considered speech of the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry). He was brave and absolutely right to add to the calls to extend the 12-month period. I sincerely hope that the Government will agree to do that on Report.

The public put a huge amount of trust in the integrity and professionalism of the police, and rightly so, but nobody is infallible. When the police mess up, the public want to know that they will be held properly to account. Public confidence is vital for effective policing, and police accountability has come a long way in a relatively short space of time. It is easy to forget that it was only in 2002 that the last Labour Government set up the IPCC in response to the Stephen Lawrence case. That was a huge step forward, but compared with other public services the police remain under-scrutinised. Too many investigations are carried out behind closed doors. Too many reports are supressed. Too many officers take retirement rather than taking the rap for their mistakes.

Some clauses in the Bill will make real progress on a lot of those issues, and that is welcome. The widening of the definition of a complaint in clause 11 is sensible, and will, I hope, allow greater scrutiny. It is good to see that officers will no longer be able to dismiss complaints as fanciful without recording them. Most welcome is the beefed-up role of the IPCC in investigating complaints. The fact that it had to wait for a referral before acting was always perverse, and I am glad that it will now be able to act with greater freedom when it thinks that wrongdoing has occurred. The move from managed to directed investigations with more IPCC oversight is also a step in the right direction for transparency and accountability. It is right that the IPCC will now be required to investigate all cases that involve chief officers.

The House will be aware of the tragic case of Poppi Worthington in my constituency. I have raised it a number of times on the Floor of the House, and I know that the Ministers on the Front Bench are well aware of it. The failings of the police in Cumbria in the aftermath of Poppi’s death are deeply troubling. Not only has the case raised questions about the conduct of my local force, but it prompts wider questions about the overall system and structure by which the police are held to account. I am concerned that for all the positive steps they contain, the proposals represent a missed opportunity to deal with those issues.

I want to raise three specific issues: first, the information that is available to police and crime commissioners to allow them to perform their roles effectively; secondly, the disciplinary processes and the role of the IPCC; and, thirdly, new rules for officers who leave the force. In Cumbria, we have just welcomed back Jerry Graham as our chief constable following a leave of absence for ill health. In his absence, the deputy chief constable, Michelle Skeer, acted up in his position. That is normal procedure, and it meant that Ms Skeer was at the helm in recent months, during the revelations about Poppi’s death. The problem is that she was also one of the officers criticised by the IPCC in its report into police failures in the Poppi case. That report has still not been published, and I maintain that it should be made public immediately.

Not only was Ms Skeer criticised, but the police and crime commissioner was not made aware of the IPCC’s findings when he confirmed her appointment as the acting chief constable. I understand that it is often a formality for the deputy to act up when the chief constable is laid low, and in the vast majority of cases that will make sense, but it requires oversight and confirmation by the police and crime commissioner. Otherwise, what are they there for? Surely the Government must agree that in that case, it was inappropriate for Ms Skeer to act up without the commissioner being apprised of the findings of the case against her. It must be possible to address that problem in the Bill. That has not happened yet, but there is a clear opportunity to do so on Report if the Government have the will to act.

For an officer to head a force, and to have oversight of all disciplinary matters, when she has been heavily criticised by the IPCC is highly problematic. It looks wrong to the public, and it damages trust. That situation should never be allowed to occur again, but I see nothing in the Bill to correct that flaw in the original procedures. Should not police and crime commissioners be provided, as a matter of routine, with draft IPCC reports, even when the reports cannot be published for legal reasons? When the decision is made to appoint a chief constable or a deputy, or to allow people to act up in those roles, the IPCC ought to give the police and crime commissioner all the relevant information about as yet unpublished investigations into that individual, even if that information is available only in draft form. If commissioners are to be more than simply window dressing, sustained at considerable expense to the taxpayer, they need to be able to access the information that allows them to do their jobs properly.

On discipline, the Bill is surely an opportunity to improve the current processes.

[Mike Penning]

I thought it might be useful to say at this point that the Under-Secretary of State and I, having listened to the hon. Gentleman’s speech and the other contributions, will look carefully to see whether we can address in Committee or on Report the concerns that he has sensibly raised around that issue. One way or another, we will try as best we possibly can to address the matter in the Bill.

[John Woodcock]

I thank the Minister for intervening now, rather than waiting until his summation. What he has said is really welcome.

If I can find my place, I will continue what I was saying about discipline. One reason that I have been given for the continued suppression of the report in the Poppi case is that disciplinary action is still ongoing against two officers. However, the draft report was available to Cumbria constabulary exactly a year ago. The IPCC has said that it is “extremely surprised” at the delay, but it appears to have no ability to compel the force to get on with the process. We are left with a situation in which a force is in control of the disciplinary process, but by delaying that process it can hold up the publication of a report that is critical of that force. I am not saying necessarily that Cumbria constabulary is deliberately doing so, but that is clearly the effect. That cannot be right. Surely, the IPCC could appropriately be given more power to compel a force to complete disciplinary action in good time, rather than ending up with a situation such as we have in Cumbria.

Finally, I want to address what happens when officers retire or resign from the force when they are facing disciplinary action, as several hon. Members have mentioned. There has rightly been focus on the length of time for which a former officer can still face disciplinary proceedings after leaving, and whether 12 months is sufficient. The shadow Home Secretary has compellingly set out why it is not, and he has already been joined in expressing that view by one Conservative Member. I also want to focus on the suggested sanctions. Someone will correct me if I am wrong, but I have raised the matter with the shadow Home Secretary.

My clear reading of the legislation is that where an officer retires before disciplinary proceedings against them can be triggered, within the 12 months or whatever period is set out—they can now, for the first time, be found guilty of misconduct, which is a real step forward and should be welcomed—the only sanction currently proposed is to put them on a list that will prevent them from working in the police force again. However, as they have just retired, which was how they have sought to escape justice in relation to any misconduct, telling them that they cannot come out of retirement is surely no kind of deterrent whatever. I very much hope that can be reconsidered in Committee.

[John Woodcock]

The sanction would not be more extreme because there is no chance of any workplace sanction after that. In the hon. Gentleman’s speech, he can tell me what he thinks the effect on public confidence in the police would be if someone guilty of misconduct—at Hillsborough, Orgreave or in one of the many other cases—was merely put on a list preventing them from serving again, rather than having any other sanction imposed on them. My right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary mentioned the prospect of being able to reduce the pension entitlement of retired officers in certain circumstances, which I hope the Minister will consider carefully.

[Mike Penning]

One of my very sad but important duties is to remove a pension from an officer because they have committed certain types of offence. Sadly, I have to do that weekly. There is already such a sanction, and others, including criminal sanctions, can also be taken. The ability to remove a pension is already in statute.

[John Woodcock]

But what if they have retired?

I am getting into the rather unusual situation of wanting to ask questions of the Minister who has intervened on me. If my understanding is wrong, I hope he will point that out now or in his summation, but I understood that the only sanction available for an officer who had already retired was not to reduce their pension further, but simply to put them on a list to prevent them from going back to the job from which they had retired to escape accountability.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [Lords]

Debate between Mike Penning and Lord Walney

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

I apologise for any confusion, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thought that this debate would come later. I will speak very briefly. I am grateful to you for allocating time for this matter.

I want to impress on the Government that they ought to consider adopting the extra protection in the new clause. The blanket ban is a good step forward for which many of us on both sides of the House have called for some time. However, the potential still exists for a significant gap between the police or a local authority seeing the substances being traded and their being granted a court order. The new clause would allow an interim ban to be put in place while the application for the court order was being heard. If the application turned out to be misplaced, compensation of some kind could be made, but the provision would give communities the extra protection they need and deserve in these circumstances.

[Mike Penning]

I apologise to the House that my comments will have to be short because of the limited time available. In respect of new clause 2, I fully understand where Labour Members are coming from, but judicial oversight is very important. The hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) mentioned the possibility of compensation if we got it wrong, but I do not want to get it wrong. I believe that we can get these matters into the courts very quickly; we do so with other court business and we can get judges to make these decisions.

My hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) spoke to amendments 2 and 3, and I fully understand his argument. The logic behind the specific designation of schools in the Bill goes back to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. I absolutely agree that we should bring our legislation up to date quickly, and I believe that the Sentencing Council is the place for that in a modern democracy. However, under section 125(1) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, courts are under exactly the same obligation to consider aggravating factors when sentencing an offender, whether those factors are in this Bill or in the guidelines issued by the Sentencing Council. So, sadly, although I fully understand both sets of arguments that have been put forward, I believe that we need to go with the Bill as it has been drafted.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mike Penning and Lord Walney

Monday 16th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

A lot of new technology is coming into force, along with different crimes—we have a completely different crime pattern these days from what we have inherited over the years. Body-worn video cameras in particular are transforming frontline policing. They are a wonderful asset. If police and crime commissioners and their chief constables are not looking at them now, I fully expect most of them to do so in the very near future.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am confused. If the Minister’s decision to suspend the imposition of unprecedented cuts on Cumbria’s police force because he wants them to be £5 million greater is not interfering with frontline policing, I am not sure what is. Will he at least reassure my worried constituents and those across the county that he will not go ahead with the £31 million of cuts, which he somehow managed to forget to announce when he said the figure would be £26 million?

[Mike Penning]

I stood at this Dispatch Box last week and announced that we would stick with the existing funding formula for 2016-17. I did not forget anything—I announced it and was questioned very fully. Crime has fallen in Cumbria, which the whole House will welcome.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Mike Penning and Lord Walney

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Mike Penning]

I understand fully the shadow Minister’s concerns, but I hope I can alleviate them.

The Home Office greatly values the work of the ACMD. In my meetings, the chairman has been very helpful. The work has been going on for decades. Although we accept that clause 3 only provides for the ACMD to provide advice when asked, the relationship has always been two-way. The ACMD is not shy, and nor are we. Where the ACMD has had concerns in the past, it has come to us and we have dealt with them, and vice versa. Hon. Members have raised in the House issues to do with constituents, and we have gone to the ACMD. It has an ongoing programme of looking at what is out there and whether we need to move something into a different category. I can assure the Committee that that will not change in any way—far from it.

Recently, drugs that were classified as psychoactive have moved into a completely different regime.

[John Woodcock]

Does the Minister accept that there is a very significant shift in the burden of responsibility? He says the relationship works well at the moment, but the ACMD may now be judging whether something is a food, for example.

[Mike Penning]

I was about to come on to how we have looked at other parts of the world and how such changes occur.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

However, at this stage I am comfortable, unless something comes forward between now and Report.

[John Woodcock]

What if a way of trying to circumvent the ban is similar to what has been practised by some people involved, which is to say, “This is plant food” or “a washing product”? What happens under that scenario?

[Mike Penning]

The Bill is quite specific, in that the seller of a product needs to make sure that the product is being sold legitimately—[Interruption.] Sorry?

[John Woodcock]

I am sorry to chunter from a sedentary position, but those sellers are not the people we are trying to stop. They are nefarious people who will try to get round the rules.

[Mike Penning]

Some of them are. Some of them are genuinely and legitimately people doing business, for example, selling a certain gas that is inappropriately used by other people, such as laughing gas. The Bill is specific in that area to make sure that we protect people. We cannot protect everybody who completely ignores what a label says, but if someone is selling certain products, they will get up to seven years in prison. That is why the harshness is there at that end of the scale, although I fully understand and do not want to penalise people at the other end, who perhaps take the products—in my opinion wrongly, and I am sure that everyone would agree—thinking they are safe. We do not want to criminalise that. I hope that the hon. Lady will not press her amendment. We can look at this carefully again, if necessary, on Report.

Mesothelioma Bill [Lords]

Debate between Mike Penning and Lord Walney

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Woodcock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Insurance companies now have an opportunity to do the right thing and to be seen to be doing the right thing, and I hope they take it.

I said the Minister deserved some credit but I think he has blinked too early in this negotiation. We have all said we recognise the pressures he is under, but there are a lot of Members of this House who know a bit more about negotiations than I do and they will all tell him, just as I am about to do, that people do not tend to go into a negotiation saying, “Well, we’re going to offer this now, but, to be honest, there’s a bit further we could go so just push us a bit more and we’ll be prepared to give you a bit more.” They always say, “This is the last offer and we are not going to go further.”

[Mike Penning]

If that was what happened I would agree with the hon. Gentleman, but that is not what happened. The figure started at 70% and now we are at 75%. I have never blinked early in my life, and nor did Lord Freud.

[John Woodcock]

The Minister is absolutely right; it has gone up from 70% to 75%, but the case has been made powerfully and strongly today that he can go further, to 80% at least.

Mesothelioma Bill [Lords]

Debate between Mike Penning and Lord Walney

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I am very pleased that I gave way to the right hon. Gentleman. The legislative consent process has taken place in Northern Ireland and in Scotland, which is important in ensuring that the Bill can go forward.

If the Bill is passed before the end of the year, the first payments could be made by July 2014, which I think is what we all want. Around 300 people a year could receive an average payment of £115,000, less benefit recovery, which will be around £20,000 on average. Timing is key, because the number of mesothelioma cases is expected to peak in 2015. We must act now and launch the scheme as soon as we can, with the regulations made as soon as possible after Christmas. I expect the regulations to be in place by April 2014.

Let us look quickly at the eligibility criteria. First, an individual has to have been diagnosed with the disease on or after 25 July 2012. Secondly, they were employed at the time of exposure to asbestos, and that exposure was due to negligence or breach of statutory duty on the part of the employer. Thirdly, they have not brought a claim for civil damages against an employer or the employer’s insurer. Fourthly, they are unable to do so—this is not a replacement for civil action. Fifthly, they are not already receiving damages or other payments relating to the disease from another source.

Eligible dependants of diffuse mesothelioma sufferers may apply to the scheme in cases where the person with the disease has died before making an application or while the application was being processed. Eligible dependants will receive exactly the same amount of money as the sufferer would have received.

A sufferer must have been diagnosed on or after 25 July 2012 to be eligible for the scheme. There are always difficulties with cut-off dates, but without one the costs would be unlimited. I know that it is unfortunate, but we have to be pragmatic as we move forward. With a cut-off date, we can proceed with the agreements.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mike Penning]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will make some progress.

The date of 25 July 2012 was when the Government announced that we would be setting up the payments scheme and so created a reasonable expectation that eligible people diagnosed with the disease on or after that date would receive a payment. The Bill does not, and cannot, look to respond to all the people who have been affected by asbestos diseases. The issue of individuals who have developed asbestos-related diseases but cannot trace a third party will have to be addressed outside the Bill. The Bill is not an appropriate instrument—I know that some people think that it is—for taking that forward.

Mesothelioma is a distinctive disease, because it is always fatal and always caused by asbestos. That allows for a straightforward scheme to be put in place as soon as possible. A streamlined scheme, such as the one we have brought forward, could not cover all the other diseases. It would otherwise be very complicated and expensive for the taxpayer.

Cost of Motor Insurance

Debate between Mike Penning and Lord Walney

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) on securing this important and well informed debate, and to the Committee on producing its excellent and timely report?

The eye-watering rises in the cost of motor insurance in the past few years have been one more burden on families already hit by high prices at the pump, food inflation and soaring energy costs. Earlier in the year, annual increases in insurance premiums were running as high as 40%. Although the AA reports that by September the figure had dropped to around 16%, premium increases still far outstrip inflation. The average premium of £921, which my hon. Friend highlighted, means that more than half an average monthly take-home salary is used simply to insure a car.

We know that those likely to be earning least are paying most for their insurance. As we have heard, average premiums for young drivers are more than £2,000. Understandably, motorists resent those huge increases. The overwhelming majority of careful, responsible drivers feel that they are subsidising the careless, the reckless and the uninsured. Increasingly, they are aware that their premiums are increasing as a result of fraudulent or frivolous personal injury claims for non-existent or pre-existing conditions.

Although the Government should not get into the business of setting insurance premiums, Ministers have a responsibility to ensure that the market works fairly and in the interests of consumers. The insurance industry has made a strong case that the 75% increase in the number of compensation claims in the past five years is a key factor in driving up premiums. Increased access to legal redress for genuine injury is a good thing, but responsible motorists paying for insurance fraud is clearly not.

For many, the car is and will remain the essential way of getting around. For some—and, as we have heard, particularly young people—the fast-rising cost of insurance could make the difference between taking up a job that requires a car and being a burden on taxpayers by living on benefits. With job vacancies so scarce, transport to access opportunity needs to be affordable—that relates to motor insurance just as it relates to bus and rail fares.

The sky-high cost of motor insurance for young people has been an important part of the Opposition’s policy review. We urge the Government to implement the Committee’s recommendations to improve the education and safety awareness of young drivers and to consider further changes to the driving test.

It is important to stress that all drivers will benefit from having safer younger drivers on the road—that point was well made in the debate. Equally importantly, much has been heard about the potential of the black box and the relative lack of take-up so far. I am sure that the Minister will join me in praising insurance providers that use black boxes, but will he make clear what he is doing to encourage greater take-up of the technology among providers?

There is no excuse for breaking the rules, but as premiums rise we know that related criminal behaviour is at risk of increasing, potentially undermining the progress that the previous Administration made in tackling fraud and driving without insurance. The Association of British Insurers recorded a 9% increase in fraud.

[Mike Penning]

Would the hon. Gentleman be kind enough to tell the House what measures the previous Administration took against uninsured driving? This Government introduced the continuous insurance policy.

[John Woodcock]

The hon. Gentleman knows that the continuous insurance policy was a measure that was set out by the Labour party and which he has taken forward, which we welcome. According to the Motor Insurers Bureau, however, there has been a 25% fall in insurance fraud and uninsured driving over the past five years, which we welcome and want to see continue.

On tackling uninsured drivers, the Minister mentioned the continuous insurance enforcement scheme, but to work effectively that needs the necessary tools to do the enforcing, so will he tell the House, either now or during his speech, what level of resource the DVLA has put aside to pursue and enable the prosecution of transgressors, and how many drivers who ignore official reminders that their insurance has expired have so far been given a fixed penalty notice under the new scheme?

Last week, the House had the opportunity to debate referral fees paid by claims management companies and personal injury lawyers to insurance firms in return for the details of potential claimants. For the past five or six years, these fees have greased the wheels of a perceived compensation culture, encouraging claims that have little realistic chance of success or which are simply fraudulent. The cost of those claims feed directly back into the premiums that all motorists pay, so I, too, pay tribute to the work done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) on this issue. His investigation into the scale of the problem and his private Member’s Bill put pressure on Ministers to add clauses on referral fees, at the last moment, to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill last week. However, as we made clear then, the Government have so far missed the opportunity to crack down adequately.

I shall list what measures the Government have so far rejected: making the soliciting for and payment of fees in road traffic accident cases a criminal offence; outlawing the blight of unsolicited phone calls and text messages; strengthening the rules on data protection and third-party capture; and tightening the rules for whiplash claims. It is unfortunate that as industry practice has been shown to be driving up costs for law-abiding motorist, the Government are ducking their responsibilities on this issue. If the Minister is serious about keeping premiums as low as possible, I hope that, even at this late stage, he will prevail upon Justice Ministers to change the Government’s position.

The Select Committee made the sensible suggestion that the Government examine international experience on restraining claims numbers. It is disappointing that Ministers have refused its idea of a proper study. I hope that they will reconsider. The Committee also rightly pointed to the importance of road safety as another key factor influencing insurance premiums. Despite last week’s horrific tragedy—the Minister visited the scene, at the M5 in Somerset, at the weekend—Britain continues to have the safest roads in Europe and among the safest in the world. However, the first two quarters of this year have seen increases in deaths compared with the same point the previous year. A continuation of that trend would mean 2011 would be the first year since 2003 to see a rising death toll on Britain’s roads.

It is worrying that these upward ticks in road deaths have come at a time when spending on road safety campaigns has been cut. If the trend of safer roads were to reverse, the country’s principal concern—everyone’s principal concern—would, of course, be the tragic human cost seen so vividly this week. We know that a knock-on effect of less safe roads would be further upward pressure on insurance premiums. That raises this question: has the Minister estimated what the impact would be on road safety and on premiums of his proposal to scrap the annual MOT—a move that could lead to 800,000 cars that are dangerous to drive being left on the roads for up to a year longer?

Motorists are feeling the squeeze. Many face being priced out of their cars and, by extension, out of their jobs. As the Transport Committee has so effectively set out, those motorists want to know that their Government are doing what they can to enable lower insurance costs. If Ministers wish to prove that they are not out of touch with those concerns, they need to set out how they will go further.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

I completely agree—just as I often agreed with the hon. Gentleman during the many years when we served on the Health Committee together. The actuaries have to be able to look at risk in general; otherwise we will all be put into the same pot, which is unfair to those who are in lower-risk categories. I have concerns that addressing this issue will lead to premiums being increased, not reduced.

Many colleagues, including the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), have said we need to do more about the insurers, and I agree. I certainly do bring the insurers around the table, and I give them a very hard time. After all, they want things from me. They wanted the continuous insurance; they have been calling for that for years, and they have got it. They also want access to DVLA data in order to try to alleviate fraud, both intentional and unintentional.

People ask me, “What do you mean by ‘unintentional fraud’?” Well, I am a dad, and I was asked whether I would put my daughter on the insurance as an additional driver. I had to look very carefully at whether she was an additional driver or the main driver, but most parents would not know the difference, so we need to educate them on that. They think they are helping their young people by naming them as an additional driver in those circumstances, but if their son or daughter is, in fact, not the additional driver, that insurance will be invalid, and the insurer will almost certainly find that out—and if the son or daughter is involved in a crash, they will almost certainly not be covered, and anybody else involved in the accident with them will also be penalised.

Some Members who were present for the debate have moved on to other things, so our proceedings now feel a little like an Adjournment debate, where people have not returned for the concluding speeches. That is a shame, because this is not an Adjournment debate; it is, rather, a proper debate of the House with a motion before it. Perhaps as Members get more used to debates such as this, more of them will return to hear the concluding remarks.

I certainly will work with the devolved Governments in respect of their responsibilities. Responding to the comments of the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie), I have serious concerns about the market as it operates in Northern Ireland. I am not responsible for the market, however; that is a Treasury matter, which is why the Treasury took the recent debate. I also understand that the Northern Ireland regulators are conducting a review, and I can assure the hon. Lady that if there is any evidence of collusion in the market—if any cartels are operating there or here—we will come down on them like a ton of bricks, as would be only right and proper.

As the Transport Committee has concluded, there is not just one simple solution to this problem. I agree, for instance, that there is a postcode lottery. In some ways, that is similar to the gender issue we have just discussed. Some postcodes cover large areas; that is certainly the case in my part of the world. It is fundamentally wrong for people to be penalised because of the road or neighbourhood in which they happen to live. Insurance calculations used to be based on theft and damage rates, but modern cars are very difficult to steal. Joyriders still steal ordinary cars, but most vehicle thefts are of high-value cars that are stolen to order. That is a completely different kind of theft from the thefts that affect premiums.

Let us consider why premiums are so high. It is not just to do with uninsured drivers. It is also to do with ambulance chasers. Some 50% of all personal injury claims are made on car insurance. How can that be right when, as we have heard this evening, we have some of the safest roads in the world, and certainly the safest roads in Europe? Our killed and seriously-injured rates are extremely low, although we need to get them even lower. The truth of the matter is that most of these claims, many of which are fraudulent, are not reported to the police. Very often they are reported after the incident; Members have referred to constituents saying people followed up on incidents the following day. The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd) touched on this in his speech. The police would never have been called in such cases; it will never be on the records of the police that that sort of thing has taken place. Some countries in Europe, including Germany, have carefully considered the speed that someone would have had to be travelling to be in an accident before they can claim for whiplash. I was with the relevant German Minister at a conference recently, and we discussed this and other measures, particularly priority. The evidence is that this does not appear to be working in Germany simply because people are increasing the speed that they claim they were travelling at before the accident.

[John Woodcock]

I just want the Minister to set out why he has rejected our calls to restrict whiplash claims, given the seriousness of this problem in forcing up insurance premiums. Will he not reconsider?

[Mike Penning]

I have not rejected that; this was done by a colleague in the Ministry of Justice, as it is a legal matter. However, I completely agree with my colleague, as he is a legal person and I am not. There are legal differences between Germany and this country. Everything is possible, and this Parliament can do whatever it wants to do. [Interruption.] Perhaps that is not the case—I see some of my Eurosceptic friends in the House this evening. There are certain things that I would like to be doing in my Department that Europe prevents me from doing.

As we have heard across the House today, insurers have to take responsibility and say, “No, we’ll take you to court and we will challenge this.” They should not just settle out of court because it happens to be cheaper than the possible consequences of going to court. Immediately we start to do that, the no win, no fee ambulance chasers will look very carefully at their cases, and people who should genuinely get their compensation will get it and those who are swinging a leg, as my grandfather would say, will not. I shall refer back to my time on the Select Committee on Health, because it is not just in this area that we have this problem with insurance. Our hospitals, in particular, tend to settle out of court rather than challenging claims, and that is costing the taxpayer and the NHS an absolute fortune, so this is a culture that we have to turn around.

Hon. Members have touched on other aspects in the report and the evidence to the Select Committee. I have significantly changed the driving test, the practical and the theory, since my appointment, and I intend to change it even more. I have said it before and I will say it again that people are currently taught to pass a test; they are not taught to drive. They are not taught to drive safely for themselves and for others, and we have to make sure that we have qualified driving instructors and that everybody knows they are qualified when they get into that car. One change we are going to make—I hope that the Select Committee will agree with me on this—is that someone who is not a qualified driving instructor will not be able to take someone out on their own to teach them to drive. I am not going to stop parents, grandparents and sisters doing that, but someone who gets into a car marked “driving instructor” should not have to look for a little badge on the windscreen that says that the person is a trainee. These people should be qualified driving instructors. The industry supports me on this and we will do this. There also has to be an ongoing training programme for driving instructors. Some instructors took their qualifications many years ago, and we need to make sure that they are au fait with what we want from the driving test, although we also want them to earn an income.

As we have heard today, there are also things that happen to people suddenly when they pass their driving test. Clearly, some people—young people in particular, but not all of them—appear to have some kind of lobotomy when they get behind the wheel of a car. I am talking about highly intelligent young people who are perfect role models in every other aspect of their life, and then they get behind the wheel of a car. Sadly, as has been discussed, testosterone is one of the leading factors. Drink and drugs are involved, but testosterone is one of the big problems here.

In my constituency, the place where most people pass their test is St Albans. Between my constituency and St Albans is a rather large motorway called the M1, and to get back from the test centre, people have to cross it. That means that someone could be driving for the first time on their own and as they turn left or right to come off the A414 they will be on the M1. I think we need to give people, particularly young people, the opportunity to learn how to drive on the motorway before they pass their test. That is why we will pass regulations to allow qualified driving instructors to take learners on to motorways. Can I make that compulsory? No, I cannot because some counties have no motorways, so it would be discriminatory to do so, but we will give qualified instructors the opportunity to do that.

We need to make sure that the test is not the endgame, but not—in my opinion or that of the Government—to make it compulsory to take post-test qualifications. Pass Plus was a partial success, but was never really rolled out properly.