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Road Safety Bill [Lords]

We can all support the aims of the Road Safety Bill, because safety should be paramount on our roads at all times, and all classes of road user have a part to play—not only vehicle drivers but pedestrians, cyclists and passengers. Safety on our roads cannot be achieved merely by soaking motorists with fines and penalty points. The most effective approach is a mixture of education, incentive and, when a transgression has occurred, punishment, whether against a motorist for speeding, a cyclist for ignoring a red traffic light or a pedestrian for jaywalking—that is, stepping off the kerb into the highway when it is unsafe to do so. This is an ongoing battle, and it will not be won by the passage of the Bill. However, Members in all parties will have played their part if, during its parliamentary passage, we seek to improve its scope. I turn first to the Bill’s contents, before making one or two observations on matters that are—for the moment, at any rate—outwith its scope. Some of its provisions are non-contentious, and rightly so. The provisions on road safety grants are to be welcomed. It is right and proper that the income from fines should be used for local transport facilities, or to fund road safety improvements. Similarly, I welcome the provisions for graduated fixed penalties, and on graduated fixed penalty points. Those proposals make sense; graduations should certainly apply to points as well as to fines. Indeed, when the breach of the law has been minute, or there are exceptional circumstances, there might be a case for nil points being imposed. I hope that that is something we can examine in detail in Committee. Flexibility is important so that, as far as possible, punishment always fits the crime. I have some concerns about vehicle examiners giving fixed penalty notices. When the Minister responds, I hope that he will address them. The police are trained in road traffic matters and the rules of evidence. Consequently, an honest policeman doing his job has a sense of fairness and justice when dealing with a motorist. If we give the power to issue fixed penalty notices to vehicle examiners, what training will they have? Will they be required to maintain a notebook in which to write down any comments made by a motorist that may be relevant in any plea of mitigation? What guidance will be given about when and where they should operate? Will they still need to be accompanied by an experienced police officer? If not, what powers will they have to stop a vehicle on the highway? I hope that the Minister can answer those questions when he addresses us later. Clause 5 and schedule 1 clearly envisage a system in which fixed penalties are issued when the offences are detected remotely—that is, when video footage is viewed and vehicles that may not have insurance or a valid MOT are identified. Will the Minister consider formulating guidelines so that provision can be made for a camera to photograph and monitor vehicles before they are stopped by vehicle examiners on appropriate occasions? During busy periods, it would make sense for vehicle examiners to have someone viewing a screen showing vehicles some distance away so that vehicles that have insurance and a current MOT can be allowed to pass without being pulled over. Vehicle examiners could then focus on those vehicles that have already been identified as perhaps being shady in some respect or as being on the road unlawfully. Where a law-abiding motorist is going about his business, every effort should be made to prevent him being stopped unnecessarily and thereby having his journey time lengthened. I think that that makes sense, and I hope that the Minister does, too. Will he reassure the House that if these examiners are given the powers envisaged in the Bill, they will not suddenly appear in every constituency setting up road blocks and stopping traffic merely to raise more money for the Government? I hope that they will have a duty to behave reasonably, not oppressively. The provisions in clause 11 relating to financial penalty deposits will be welcomed on both sides of the House. They are clearly aimed at foreign truckers who are competing for work with British truckers. Foreign truckers are, generally speaking, able to put cheaper fuel in their vehicles, and once they get to this country they often flout our laws and ignore fines when they are imposed. I warmly welcome the provisions in clause 11, which are long overdue. Most law-abiding motorists will welcome them too. But will they be used only against heavy goods vehicles, or will they also be used against private vehicles? I shall give the Minister an example. Some years ago, I was introduced to an American gentleman who was over here studying. He revealed that his studies were expected to take three years or so. He had brought over an American vehicle, a Chevrolet Corvette. For those who do not know what that is, it is a powerful sports car. His idea was to use his American car with American plates while pursuing his studies and to sell the car over here when he concluded them and returned to America. I was appalled and alarmed to discover that he had allowed his insurance and the American equivalent of vehicle excise duty to lapse, but had kept the car on American plates. He thought it was a rather good wheeze to have motoring on the cheap while he was in the UK. That sort of behaviour is to be deplored. I know that it does not occur on the same scale as heavy goods vehicle drivers ignoring their fines, but does the Minister intend clause 11 to catch people who are in the UK for the time being and are using a vehicle registered overseas which does not have valid tax and insurance? Those cases ought to be caught by clause 11. I am less sceptical than my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) about alcohol ignition interlocks, but in Committee we should look closely at how the Minister thinks they will work, and at the ways in which some people might seek to get round them. I have heard that if a motorist fills up two or three balloons of the sort that are used at parties while he is sober and when he gets into his car after he has had a drink he connects one of them to the interlock, it will release the ignition so that the car can be started. We need to look at ways in which the unscrupulous, dishonest and drunk motorist could abuse this system if we approve it.