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Road Safety Bill [Lords]

My policy is zero tolerance on illegality. At the moment it is not illegal in this country to consume alcohol. It is not illegal yet to smoke, although I see in tonight’s Evening Standard that it is proposed to make it illegal to smoke in the open air in London. That is barking and disproportionate. What I am talking about is what I see as a serious issue of people who are taking illegal substances, thereby committing a criminal offence in itself, and then compounding that by driving motor vehicles when they are likely to be impaired as a result of having taken those drugs, sometimes with alcohol, sometimes without, sometimes with a series of different drugs. Fortunately, the police are taking it increasingly seriously. The effect of cannabis and other drugs on people’s state of mind is an issue on which medical and expert opinion has changed dramatically over recent years as a result of what we have seen in our streets and towns where people have committed major crimes as a result of being drug-crazed.