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Driving Instruction (Suspension and Exemption Powers) Bill

My Lords, this is a modest but potentially very important Bill. Unusually, perhaps, it received extremely thorough scrutiny and examination before and during its progress through the other place, where there has been complete unanimity in support of it across all parties—Front Benches and Back Benches. Its introduction and process through the Commons was led by my honourable friend Willie Rennie, but it had generous and very enthusiastic support from Ministers and shadow Ministers on all Benches. It has also had substantial and thorough preparation, and a complete absence of any opposition. There were only a small number of simple, technical amendments during its Committee stage. It has also had the benefit of very comprehensive and supportive briefings from all the outside interests concerned with the problems with which the Bill deals. Therefore, exactly what are the problems that have been identified—actual as well as potential—with which the Bill is concerned? Although there has for some time been some recognition of a loophole in the law relating to the regulation of driving instructors, the matter only really came to a head in 2005 and, sadly, missed an opportunity in that year to be incorporated in legislation. However, in that year, Ms Lesley Anne Steele, living in the constituency of my honourable friend, suffered the traumatic experience of a serious sexual assault by the instructor who had been teaching her to drive. During the Third Reading debate in the other place, Mr Rennie repeated the account of what happened next, as subsequently given by Ms Steele, who very courageously waived any anonymity. I do not intend to repeat it in detail but I can give a short résumé of what happened. The instructor who made the assault was charged, found guilty and placed on the sex offenders register but continued to teach vulnerable learner drivers, even in the immediate vicinity of Ms Steele’s house. Therefore, her dreadful experience appeared to have had no proper remedy. Members of your Lordships’ House will not be surprised to know that she was amazed, horrified and angry. Having no recourse or hope of remedy under the existing law, she eventually sought the assistance of her constituency Member of Parliament. This Bill closes the alarming loophole which she, and then he, discovered. The background is that paid instruction on how to drive has been a regulated activity for some 40 years. It is now covered by the Road Traffic Act 1988, the RTA, and the Road Safety Act 2006, the RSA. Approved driving instructors, ADIs, are registered by the Driving Standards Agency, the DSA. To gain entry to the register, instructors must pass a series of examinations and, most importantly, they must be demonstrably fit and proper persons. Under the RTA, the registrar has power to remove a person from the register if satisfied that they have ceased to meet those various conditions. However, there is a long, potentially cumbersome process of notification, response, review and even appeal before that actually takes place. I am advised that the minimum delay during that process is 45 days from the date on which the instructor is notified. Obviously in a serious case such as I have described, a delay in deregistration of several months is totally unacceptable and hence this Bill. The Bill's main purpose is to provide that the registrar can suspend an ADI at exactly the same time as notification is given that his or her name can be removed from the register. It does not weaken or undermine the due process of deregistration. However, it means that the registrar can prevent continued instruction where there is a significant threat to the safety of members of the public. To avoid unreasonable bureaucratic procrastination, there is a time limit of 75 days during which a determination must be reached. This specific power to suspend will, therefore, be available only in the most serious cases where an ADI has already been convicted of a serious criminal offence, such as a sexual or a violent attack or when an ADI has repeatedly failed the qualifying test. The structure of this simple and modest Bill is very straightforward. Clause 1 inserts a new section in the RTA to provide the new suspension powers for the registrar. Clause 2 inserts a further new section to provide for a compensation scheme to cover the possibility of a suspension and potential deregistration being overturned on appeal. Clauses 3 to 7 provide for exemptions, transitional arrangements, consequential amendments, the commencement date and so on. Schedule 1 simply completes the necessary arrangements. The co-operation of the Government has been very much of assistance to those promoting the Bill in both Houses. There are some very modest financial implications anticipated by Ministers: perhaps something in the region of £50,000 to £55,000 a year. I think Members of your Lordships’ House will agree that that is a modest total to deal with this important and potentially very damaging loophole. Similarly, there is a very good assessment in the Explanatory Notes—I pay tribute to those who have given me assistance in preparing them—of the implications for the European Convention on Human Rights. Those implications have been examined most carefully. Given that, in a similar case, a nine months' suspension was judged not to be an arbitrary or unjustified process and that the maximum in this Bill is 75 days, there is no obvious problem here. It is obviously a strange and disturbing anomaly that when any other professional or regulated person—for example, a doctor or a dentist—commits a serious offence, there is an immediate procedure to prevent even the remotest possibility of repetition, even a suggestion of a threat to the safety of the public. But that is not so in the case of driving instructors, as we have discovered. The Bill is urgent and necessary, even if its provisions are required very rarely. In recognition of the courage of Lesley Anne Steele, who could have simply put this awful incident behind her, but was determined to ensure that no one else had that experience, I hope very much that your Lordships' House will give the Bill a fair wind and speedy passage. I beg to move.