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Road Safety Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend and to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, for moving this amendment. While I continue to applaud the good intentions behind this amendment, which has changed significantly since it was first introduced by the noble Viscount, the Government remain of the view that any individual exercising a right of audience before a magistrate should be required to demonstrate his competence to do so. The proposed amendment would allow a police authority to designate certain members of that authority to have the same powers as a crown prosecutor, and an automatic right of audience in a number of road traffic cases. Subsection (3) of the amendment does not make it clear as to who would be the designated member of the police authority. I imagine that it is intended that the police authority would only designate police officers but that is not clear. As noble Lords will know, a police authority is an independent body that holds the local police force to account on behalf of the people who live and work in that area. Most police authorities have 17 members made up of nine local councillors, five independent members and three magistrates. I am not convinced that any of these individual members would be best placed to act in the capacity of a prosecutor in road traffic cases. As my noble friend is aware, judges have discretion to allow police officers to appear in court before them. If the road traffic case were straightforward, I expect that the judge would choose to exercise that discretion. We believe that this mechanism is more preferable than the creation of an automatic right that is not subject to any scrutiny or oversight. Such powers, given to those who are not trained or qualified in prosecuting may actually create delay or damage the case, thus potentially undermining confidence in the justice system. If this were to be the case, this amendment does not allow for any mechanism by which to remove those powers and rights from the designated individual, thus exacerbating the difficulties. For these reasons, and while thanking my noble friend for his persistence and for the excellent intentions in this amendment, I hope that he will withdraw it.