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Road Safety Bill [Lords]

It is good to follow the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson). From his tone and his description of the way in which Conservative Members will handle the Bill, we can all look forward to an enjoyable and constructive Committee stage. I suspect from the comments this afternoon that we will spend more time in Committee discussing the things that are not in the Bill than those that are. However, we must wait and see. One day, I may write a book on parliamentary strategy. If I do, I shall dedicate a chapter to the tactics that the Opposition have to adopt when they agree with the Government. It is not the Opposition’s job to agree with us or give us an easy ride. Broadly, they have three strategies. The first is the missed opportunity strategy, whereby they accuse us of not doing a pile of things that we could have done. The second is the Trojan horse strategy—suggesting that we intend to do something that we have not included in the Bill. The third is the devil-in-the-detail strategy, whereby they say that they will explore the measure with us in Committee. All three were thoroughly deployed this afternoon. The Liberal Democrats have a fourth strategy, which is to say that every argument has two sides and they agree with both. Before I deal with specific points, let me start with the comments of the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling). He made some sensible points but appeared to try to build a case that the thrust of the Bill was not where it should be—on the hard-core offender. He gave a series of examples of actions that are clearly against the law now. The problem is not to make them against the law because they are already illegal, but enforcing the law. The Government share the hon. Gentleman’s interest in enforcing the law as it stands. We work hard and closely with the police on such issues. When someone is an outlaw, the answer is not to create more law but to catch the outlaw and enforce existing law.