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Road Traffic (Northern Ireland)Order 2007

I had not intended to say anything on this order, as I am broadly supportive of it, buta couple of the comments of Members of the Committee have provoked me to rise to my feet. Consequently, I wish to address two issues. I address the first with a little trepidation because what I am about to say could be wrong. If I am wrong, I hope that the noble Baroness will point that out as soonas the appropriate missive has come from those behind her. The noble Baroness referred to enforcement regarding foreign drivers, foreign offences and so on. In 2001 or 2002 we had a meeting on transport—I think it was a meeting of the North/South Ministerial Council—and this issue arose. There was an agreement in principle between us and the appropriate Ministers for the Republic of Ireland that there should be mutual enforceability of road traffic offences between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. If people travelling from Northern Ireland to the Republic commit an offence, it should be taken into account under our procedures. Otherwise people would get a ““free pass”” on the matter. There was a discernibly high incidence of accidents close to the border in both Northern Ireland and southern Ireland, suggesting that drivers who may feel almost immune from penalty become careless. The same principle applies throughout the legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. I have taken advantage of this myself: I have a speeding conviction in England, but it does not have any effect on my Northern Ireland licence. That is crazy and something ought to be done about. On the position of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, it was known at the time that the Republic would haveto significantly change its legislation so that the legislation would operate in parallel. Within the United Kingdom as a whole the legislation is parallel but there is not mutual enforcement. It is an obvious loophole that should have been filled well before now. The second issue is MOTs. I am sorry to disagree with my noble friend Lord Glentoran, but I am not as ambitious as he is—he obviously has one car in the UK and one in Spain. I have a car registered in Northern Ireland and another registered in England. The difference in MoT procedures between Northern Ireland and England is the same as chalk and cheese. There is no problem with MoTs in England as you can easily arrange one and carry it out. It is done in a co-operative context with good-quality service. In Northern Ireland the service is appalling, simply because it is in the state sector, for which there is no good reason. When we were developing the reform and reinvestment initiative in the Northern Ireland Administration, we wanted to get a lot of things out of the state sector that should not have been there—such as the Department of the Environment running car parks in Belfast and other places. What is a government department doing running car parks and vehicle testing centres? Not only is that not necessary, but it is done inefficiently. My noble friend Lord Glentoran is not sufficiently Thatcherite on this issue. He really should be more robust in his comments. A Government who are anxious to see public expenditure savings would see that. Even though the savings would be fairly modest, they would still be significant and these things add up. If those issues are looked at, they will help to reduce the very high level of public expenditure in Northern Ireland compared with other parts of the United Kingdom. It is one of the reasons why public expenditure is higher there. Northern Ireland departments insist on doing things that elsewhere in the UK are no longer government matters.