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Road Safety Bill [HL]

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 1. On 15 December 2005, the Secretary of State announced that the current ““netting off”” funding arrangement for safety cameras operating within the national safety camera programme is to cease at the end of March 2007. From April 2007, all fines from speeding offences will go to the Treasury in the same way as any other fine, so there will no longer be a surplus of fine revenue. This means that the provisions in this clause will no longer be appropriate and, as such, the clause will not be needed. Under new funding arrangements, local authorities will receive additional money for road safety through the local transport plan process—some £440 million over four years. The money will be available for funding safety cameras, but equally it will be available for funding any other form of road safety initiative. So, the Government will deliver the level playing field on funding that may be one of the purposes of Clause 2. This new arrangement will mean that safety cameras and other road safety measures will be funded in exactly the same way. Also, it will integrate safety cameras into the wider road safety delivery process and give local authorities and road safety partners greater flexibility to implement whichever locally agreed mix of road safety measures will make the greatest contribution to reducing road casualties in their area. Furthermore, the revised funding arrangements that the Government are introducing from 1 April 2007 have two clear and important advantages as compared with the provisions of Clause 2. First, Clause 2 could give an incentive to local authorities to seek to increase the amount of fine revenue generated by safety cameras, because that would increase the surplus funding which Clause 2 would make available for other local transport purposes—whereas, under the funding arrangements being introduced by the Government, there would be no possibility of such a perverse incentive. Secondly, the arrangements being introduced by the Government will give to local authorities and their local partners much greater stability and certainty about the amount of funding available. If local authorities had to rely on surplus fine income from safety cameras, that could be unstable and uncertain, because the objective of the camera programme, which we all share, is to improve compliance with speed limits, which will reduce the level of fines over time and hence also reduce the level of any surplus—and very possibly lead to a deficit, where the costs of operating cameras are greater than the income from fines generated from camera detections. I must ask the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, whether it is really his intention that local authorities which succeed in improving compliance with speed limits, thereby reducing the income from speed cameras, should be penalised by receiving less money for other transport purposes. Is it his intention that local authorities which succeed in driving up the level of fine income from cameras by whatever means should be rewarded by receiving more funding for other transport purposes? Those would be the effects of Clause 2. In the Government’s view, the clause would create perverse and dangerous incentives. As it is, some motorists suspect that the safety camera scheme is a revenue-generating device. That is a widespread misapprehension among motorists and others. There is currently no justice in that suspicion, but if Clause 2 were enacted, there would be real grounds for it. That would be damaging, because it is important that the Government’s road safety policies should command the respect of the great majority of road users, including motorists. Finally, I must advise the noble Lord that Clause 2 is technically defective in at least three respects. First, it refers to, "““income from the enforcement of offences under subsection (2)””, " which is an inaccurate phrase of uncertain ambit and could well extend to income from offences detected by police officers as well as offences detected by cameras. Secondly, it refers to a ““relevant national authority””, which is a strange and undefined notion; by contrast, Section 38 of the Vehicles (Crime) Act 2001 confers powers on the Secretary of State. Thirdly, there are other undefined terms such as ““safety camera scheme””, ““relevant local transport authority”” and ““local transport facilities””. The noble Lord may think I am nitpicking—he does—but this legislation is at a very late stage and our obligation is to ensure that it is as accurate as possible. The crucial point is that Clause 2 is now no longer necessary. Given the changes which the Government are making as from next April, Clause 2 would also create dangerous and perverse incentives. The clause is seriously defective. I hope the noble Lord, having pursued these issues with his customary assiduity, will on this occasion feel that he can safely withdraw his amendment. Moved, That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 1.—(Lord Davies of Oldham.)