Asked by: Lord Roberts of Llandudno (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what agreement they have reached, if any, with the EU to resolve regulatory differences with regard to overloading of vehicles for truck drivers travelling from mainland Europe to the UK.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Commercial road vehicles in use on UK roads are expected to meet roadworthiness standards, be suitably loaded and have their drivers’ hours controlled to ensure road safety standards are maintained. We will continue to enforce these standards in a non-discriminatory way with regard to UK/non-UK operators and expect that European Union Member States will continue to act in a similar manner. Discussions are continuing towards a future UK/EU free trade agreement, including international commercial road transport.
Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Keen of Elie on 16 June (HL4922), what plans they have to enable the submission of photographic evidence by (1) local authorities, and (2) local action groups, of any abuse of weight restriction orders.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
Cases on Weight Restriction Orders are heard in the Magistrates Courts. Prosecutors are entitled to submit photographic evidence to the court, provided it is relevant and its source can be proved. This is in accordance with existing rules of evidence of long standing. It is a matter for the individual prosecutors (whether police forces or local authorities) whether they choose to call witnesses to present photographic evidence to a court of trial.
Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Vere of Norbiton on 5 May (HL3178), how many offences related to the abuse of weight restriction orders have been enforced by the police through the courts in the last year for which figures are available.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
The Ministry of Justice has published information on prosecutions, convictions and sentencing outcomes, up to December 2019, which is available in the Home Office principle offence code data tool, available here:
Offences specifically relating to vehicle weight restriction offences are not specifically identifiable from within existing offence categories. This information may be held on court record but to be able to identify these cases we would have to access individual court records which would be of disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the reply by Lord Popat on 5 March (HL Deb, col 431) that enforcement of the law relating to HGVs in London involved 4,000 targeted stops resulting in the issuing of 2,000 roadworthiness prohibitions and more than 1,000 fixed penalty notices, detection of 1,500 drivers’ offences and seizure of over 50 vehicles, how many of those offences resulted in court appearances of the drivers or transport managers of the firms concerned; how many were fined; and how many received custodial sentences.
Answered by Baroness Kramer - Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson (Treasury and Economy)
The imposition of a fixed penalty notice is a fixed tariff fine that provides an appropriate forfeit without the need for incurring the cost of a court appearance. So all of the fixed penalty notices represent fines. Likewise the roadworthiness prohibitions imposed all require a fee to be paid to remove them in addition to any cost incurred to address the faults that caused vehicle to be subjected to the embargo.
The Department for Transport has not collected specific figures for court appearances and sentences related to offences detected by the taskforce.
Asked by: Lord Roberts of Llandudno (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many lorries registered overseas have been found to be (1) overloaded, (2) in an unsatisfactory mechanical condition, and (3) driven in breach of driver hours regulations, within the last 12 months.
Answered by Baroness Kramer - Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson (Treasury and Economy)
The information requested is in the table below:
| Overloading | Weighed | 2,308 | Prohibited | 1,415 |
| Mechanical Prohibitions | Inspected | 32,344 | Prohibited | 10,586 |
| Drivers Hours | Examined | 41,732 | Prohibited | 6,708 |
On any given check it is often the case that the same vehicle is checked by a Vehicle Examiner and a Traffic Examiner and will be counted against both disciplines. Some vehicles/operators are targeted by only one discipline, for example: an older vehicle might be targeted for its condition but not to check on the driver.
Asked by: Lord Roberts of Llandudno (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many breaches of the law by foreign-registered heavy goods vehicles in 2013–14 resulted in either a fixed penalty notice or a court summons; and how many of those were successfully enforced.
Answered by Lord Bates
The data requested in not available as it is not centrally collected.
The Home Office collect data on the number of Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) issued by police forces in England and Wales for various motoring offences, as well as the number of these FPNs that are paid and the number in which the fine is registered in court. This data cannot be broken down by type of vehicle or owner of vehicle.
Asked by: David Ruffley (Conservative - Bury St Edmunds)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) convictions and (b) fixed penalty notices there have been in respect of people arrested for speeding offences in Suffolk (i) in total and (ii) on the (A) A143 and (B) A14 in each year since 2005.
Answered by Mike Penning
Driving offences can have very serious and sometimes devastating consequences for victims and their families.
The total number of offenders found guilty at all courts for offences relating to speeding offences, in Suffolk police force area, from 2005 to 2013 (the latest available), can be viewed in table 1. Court proceedings data for 2014 is planned for publication in spring 2015
Data on fixed penalty notices for speed limit offences in Suffolk from 2005 to 2012 (the latest available), provided by the Home Office, can be viewed in the table 2. Data for 2013 is scheduled for publication in spring 2015.
From centrally reported data it is not possible to separately identify fixed penalty notices issued for speeding on specific roads.
| Table 1: offenders found guilty at all courts for offences relating to speeding offences(1), Suffolk police force area, 2005-2013(2)(3) | ||||
| Year | Found guilty | |||
| 2005 | 3,156 | |||
| 2006 | 2,966 | |||
| 2007 | 3,300 | |||
| 2008 | 3,595 | |||
| 2009 | 3,499 | |||
| 2010 | 1,998 | |||
| 2011 | 2,775 | |||
| 2012 | 2,216 | |||
| 2013 | 2,116 | |||
| (1) It include the following offences: | ||||
| Vehicles subject to speed limits on motorways; Speeding offences detected by camera devices - Motor Vehicles (Speed Limits on Motorways) Regulations 1973 | ||||
| Speeding in parks - Parks Regulation (Amendment) Act 1926 | ||||
| Speeding - Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, SS.81, 84, 88 & 89 | ||||
| Speeding offences detected by camera devices - Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, SS.81, 84, 88 and 89 | ||||
| Speeding - Goods, Passenger carrying or other vehicle - Road Traffic Regulation Act Act 1984, S.86 | ||||
| Speeding offences detected by camera devices - Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, S.86 | ||||
| (2) The figures given in the table on court proceedings relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe. | ||||
| (3) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. | ||||
| Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services - Ministry of Justice. | ||||
| Ref: PQ 220273 | ||||