---

Road Safety Bill [Lords]

The hon. Gentleman puts his finger on a problem. The Government are always asking our local authorities to take on responsibility after responsibility. Those may be desirable responsibilities, but many areas do not receive the funding for them. The decision about whether a local authority should tackle the problem of abandoned vehicles, for example, depends on whether it can afford to divert money from other key services. We completely support the new penalty for causing death when unlicensed, uninsured or disqualified. No hon. Member could disagree with that, although there is an aspect of the measure that could be strengthened. However, the Government could have taken much tougher action against such drivers in other ways. My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) last year highlighted the problem of people who commit multiple offences while driving and who shelter behind false addresses. I am grateful that Ministers are willing to talk about that now. My hon. Friend has campaigned on the issue for months. Police forces around the country have made noises about it for months and have made a little progress. The measure is overdue. The problem essentially is that offenders are registering their vehicles behind false addresses. There are a number of addresses in Essex, for example, at which dozens of vehicles are registered. When a driver commits an offence—whether going past a speed camera at high speed, parking illegally or something else—and the authorities try to track down the users of those vehicles, they find themselves dealing with the front address and have no possible means of finding the owners. That cannot be right and it must be tackled. Officers dealing with those problems on the front line say that they do not have adequate legal backing to impound such vehicles if they find them. They are uncertain about the powers that exist. The Bill is an opportunity to provide them with much greater clarity and, perhaps, with powers to seize vehicles at the roadside if they are stopped and for automatic confiscation. However, I am sure you would agree, Madam Deputy Speaker, that it cannot be right to have vehicles on our road that rack up thousands of pounds in fines with a brazen disregard for the law. I have seen a photograph from Bedfordshire of a couple of young men in an old car driving past a speed camera, both leaning wide out of the windows and sticking two fingers up at the camera as they go by. That is the kind of brazen disregard for the law that we must tackle. Likewise, I want to see clearer measures to tackle the massive problem of untaxed vehicles. Local authorities and local police do not often have the resources or the ability to deal with the problem in the way that they might wish. I want to see tougher action still against unlicensed drivers. There are measures in the Bill, but more could be done. We need much tougher penalties on hit-and-run drivers. We heard one or two examples from Back-Bench Members about the devastating impact of hit-and-run driving. It remains the case that if someone is involved in an accident having drunk too much alcohol, the law provides an incentive to drive away at speed. A person may be less likely to be disqualified as a result of leaving the scene of the accident than if he stays and is breathalysed. We should address that. There is no excuse whatever for motorists driving away from the scene of an accident. We should prosecute those who do with the toughest force of the law, and that should include long disqualifications.