I am embarrassed to admit that the more I listened to the debate, the more I felt that the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Bedfordshire had a point. Perhaps inadvertently, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) has one as well. I am not a lawyer, so I have greater difficulty understanding such matters. However, if the summons and notice were served together, the individual would not get any subsequent notice of a trial date. Such notice would be given only at the time that the penalty and warning notices were served.

The hon. Member for Reigate talked about such notices being used in cases of public order problems. I tried to envisage what would have happened during the 1980s miners' strike if such powers had been available. A number of miners were caught up in what were alleged to be public order offences, and were subsequently successful in appealing those cases. In such states of confusion, where the police are being forced to deal with large numbers of people, there is clear disorder and it is reasonable to say that people are frightened, the notices might not be issued properly. That could happen as a result of pure error rather than any deliberate act.

It would also be possible for someone deliberately to fail to issue proper notices. If we were being cynical or pursuing conspiracy theories, clause 4(5)(a) and (b) could appear to mean that people could be told that they were being prosecuted and paying one and a half times the penalty without necessarily knowing that they had received the penalty or warning notice in the first place. I do not think that that is the intention. The idea is to speed up the process with penalty notices and to use the warning notices to prevent the duplication of paperwork when someone requests a trial.

Listening to the debate and re-reading the documents, I notice that the explanatory notes and the clause do not entirely tally. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary might like to reconsider the wording of the clause, so that the law carries out the intention with which most hon. Members agree, and to prevent any misapplication of the legislation that might result from the current wording.