Clause 21 - Causing death by driving: unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured drivers

Road Safety Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee am 4:30 pm ar 28 Mawrth 2006.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Nicholas Winterton Nicholas Winterton Ceidwadwyr, Macclesfield 4:30, 28 Mawrth 2006

Before I ask the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) to resume his remaining few remarks, may I indicate to the Committee that I have an instinct that we will make extremely rapid progress this afternoon, as we have already discussed some of the most important aspects of the Bill? I like speed.

Amendment proposed [this day]: No. 90, in clause 21, page 25, leave out lines 22 and 23.—[Stephen Hammond.]

Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.

Photo of Nicholas Winterton Nicholas Winterton Ceidwadwyr, Macclesfield

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following amendments:

No. 91, in clause 21, page 25, line 28, column 2, leave out ‘unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured’ and insert ‘unlicensed or disqualified’.

No. 93, in clause 21, page 25, line 33, column 3, leave out ‘summarily’.

No. 94, in clause 21, page 25, column 4, leave out lines 33 to 39.

No. 92, in clause 21, page 25, line 35, column 2, leave out ‘unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured’ and insert ‘unlicensed or disqualified’.

Photo of Greg Knight Greg Knight Chair, Procedure Committee

I hope that the Minister will respond positively to this group of amendments, particularly as at present the Opposition are level pegging with the Government in terms of numbers of Members present. If we have to go to a Division, we may have a tied vote.

Photo of Nicholas Winterton Nicholas Winterton Ceidwadwyr, Macclesfield

Order. As a matter of information, the occupant of the Chair votes to maintain the status quo if there is a tied vote, so it would not, in fact, be a tied vote.

Photo of Greg Knight Greg Knight Chair, Procedure Committee

I am grateful, Sir Nicholas, and I notice that Labour Members, who have obviously had a big lunch, have now swelled the ranks on the Government side of the Committee.

Driving without insurance is a serious matter, and, personally, I resent having to pay £30 or £40 a year extra on my insurance premium to cover the cost of yobs and ne’er-do-wells who drive around without insurance. I believe that if someone is convicted of   driving a car without insurance, the police ought to have the right to seize the vehicle and to maintain custody of it until the fine is paid, and if someone is guilty of a second or subsequent offence, I would allow the law to see the vehicle forfeited.

The point of questioning the Minister on the clause is that one can treat driving without insurance as a serious matter, and causing death by dangerous driving is already a serious matter in our law. Why does the Minister believe that he needs this extra power? Some people might say that it is superfluous. Why is the offence necessary if the offence of driving without insurance attracts a harsh punishment? Would not that be a better way of proceeding? Why has the Minister made no provision to ensure that those who can show good mitigating circumstances are not provided with some form of statutory defence to being charged in addition to any other charges under the clause?

Photo of Alistair Carmichael Alistair Carmichael Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson (Transport)

I welcome you back to the Chair for these proceedings, Sir Nicholas. It is a great pity that you were not here this morning, as you would have enjoyed what was an excellent debate on the appropriateness or otherwise of a new offence of causing death by careless driving. We had an excellent debate on which the Government, as one might predict, won the vote.

I mention that because the crux of the debate was the crossover between causing death by dangerous driving and causing death by careless driving. The clause that we are considering now takes that debate and throws it in the dustbin, as it introduces a new offence: causing death by driving, which can be aggravated by driving without a licence, while disqualified or without the benefit of insurance.

I do not know why the Government want this new species of causing death by driving. The clause states:

“A person is guilty of an offence under this section if he causes the death of another person by driving a motor vehicle on a road”.

There must be an element of fault or culpability for someone to be guilty of causing the death of another person; if that element of fault or culpability exists, they must have caused the death by dangerous, careless or inconsiderate driving. How can the offence ever be of practical use? If there is sufficient evidence of culpability, the indictment will include the charge of causing death by dangerous or careless driving, and if that person is subject to further allegations of driving otherwise than in accordance with a licence, whether disqualified or without insurance, those charges can also appear on the indictment or in the summary complaint. The penalty for that is less than that for causing death by careless or dangerous driving by a significant margin, so the worst that can happen is that someone who has a conviction for causing death by dangerous or careless driving will have that finding recorded and an endorsement or will have a concurrent sentence placed on their driver’s record. What will that achieve?

If I were the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch, East (Rosemary McKenna), I would feel somewhat aggrieved with the Minister and it may be fortunate that she is not here   to hear this. This morning the Minister told us that her suggestion that the offence should be causing injury by dangerous driving was one that the Government would not support because, inter alia, there was insufficient space to accommodate people in prison. If there is space to send people to prison under this clause, I suggest that there should be space under the provision that the hon. Lady was keen for us to have.

I cannot see any purpose in this provision and I do not see how it will be used in practical terms, but if the Minister can give us an explanation, I will listen to it carefully.

Photo of Stephen Ladyman Stephen Ladyman Minister of State, Department for Transport

Welcome back to the Chair, Sir Nicholas. Glutton for punishment is the phrase that springs to mind.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) cannot see the purpose of the clause. I can only say that it is a good job he is not sitting on this side of the Committee Room. There is clearly a need for the provision. If I was unconvinced of that, I became convinced in my surgery last Friday afternoon when the partner of Mr. John Living, who used to live in my constituency, came to see me. Mr. Living was killed while driving his motor bike by an individual who was uninsured and unlicensed. Mr. Living’s partner came to see me in great distress, because she had been at the trial of the individual concerned last week when he was fined the grand sum of £100. She did not believe that that adequately represented the crime that had been committed by someone who should not have been on the road at all and who had taken the life of her boyfriend.

Photo of Paul Rowen Paul Rowen Shadow Minister, Transport

Does the Minister accept that the clauses that we discussed earlier dealing with careless driving would adequately cover the situation he outlined and that someone who is not insured or is driving without a licence could be dealt with separately?

Photo of Stephen Ladyman Stephen Ladyman Minister of State, Department for Transport

No, because the offence will be used when careless or dangerous driving is not appropriate. I return to the points made by Conservative Front Benchers, who asked whether it would be sufficient for someone to be charged under the offence if they were involved in an accident and all they were doing was driving. The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) mentioned a Scottish MP, who had forgotten briefly to renew their insurance and was involved in an accident caused by some yobs driving carelessly after coming out of a pub, thus creating a scenario in which this Scottish MP was involved in an accident in which someone died. The clause clearly says that one must cause the accident. In other words, the scenario suggested by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland would not have applied in this case. The law dealing with causation is well set out and would be applied by the courts in the way that it is already. If an individual was driving along uninsured or unlicensed and a child ran out in front of him and was killed, this law could apply.

Photo of Stephen Ladyman Stephen Ladyman Minister of State, Department for Transport

The hon. Gentleman is shouting no. One minute he is asking me questions, and the next he proposes to know the answers to them. I am telling him that under those circumstances, the law could be used. The law could not be used in a multiple car pile-up on a motorway where an unlicensed or uninsured individual was at the back of the queue and was therefore clearly not a key player in the accident that led to the death.

Photo of Alistair Carmichael Alistair Carmichael Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson (Transport)

The Minister has already made it very clear that there has to be some element of causation. If there is an element of causation, a charge under the offence of causing death by dangerous, careless or even inconsiderate driving would be open and it would be the appropriate charge to bring.

Photo of Stephen Ladyman Stephen Ladyman Minister of State, Department for Transport

The whole point of the clause is to catch a person in cases where one could not prove that they had been driving carelessly or dangerously, but whose presence on the road was directly responsible for the accident. In other words, the accident could not possibly have happened without their presence on the road, driving illegally. This will be the instance in a very small number of cases, and I hope that that answers the point raised by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire and the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland about the number of people who might be caught by the provision. I think it was the hon. Gentleman who talked about the huge number of people who will end up being put in prison.

Normally, the offence of causing death by careless driving, or the offence of causing death by dangerous driving, would be used. The offence we are discussing would be used for the very small number of cases where those charges would not be appropriate, but where owing to their presence on the road the individual concerned is directly responsible for the accident and is not an incidental bystander in that accident.

Photo of Alistair Carmichael Alistair Carmichael Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson (Transport)

If the presence of that person on the road is directly responsible, to use the Minister’s words, surely there must be some element of carelessness, inconsideration or danger.

Photo of Stephen Ladyman Stephen Ladyman Minister of State, Department for Transport

Absolutely not. We dealt with many situations this morning where someone might have been involved in an accident that could not and ought not to be defined as careless, but where that individual was directly responsible for the accident—the accident could not have happened without the presence of that individual on the road. The clause will deal with situations where the direct presence of that individual on the road is such that the accident could not have happened without them. They cannot be just an innocent bystander in an accident that was clearly caused by the carelessness or dangerous driving of someone else.

The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire mentioned little old ladies and the different way that they would need to be treated if they had forgotten to renew their insurance for a day or two, as opposed to the yob he described who is a multiple ignorer of insurance requirements. We do not need to deal with   that in the Bill, because it would be treated as a mitigating circumstance by the court. Were we to try, we could not possibly produce a comprehensive list of mitigating circumstances. We would be bound to miss one, so it is much better to leave it to the discretion of the court. I would expect the court to deal very differently with someone who can demonstrate a long history of having insurance but had a momentary lapse of concentration and did not renew it for a day or two.

Photo of Greg Knight Greg Knight Chair, Procedure Committee 4:45, 28 Mawrth 2006

I am grateful to the Minister. He has gone a long way towards satisfying my concerns about the clause. I can see that, where the only surviving witness to an incident is the defendant, who gives a version of events that is such that it would be difficult to sustain a conviction of causing death by reckless or dangerous driving, but has not bothered to take out a licence or become insured, the state rightly feels that a more serious punishment should be inflicted. I think that the Minister’s explanation is a good one, but he is also right that it will apply in only a small number of cases.

Photo of Stephen Ladyman Stephen Ladyman Minister of State, Department for Transport

Indeed, a very small number of cases.

I shall conclude with this remark, in the hope that I will finally convince the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. It clearly cannot follow that causation always involves carelessness. If it did, anybody who was prosecuted for careless driving would always be found guilty, because we would always be able to demonstrate that an accident happened. The hon. Gentleman seems to take the view that, because an accident happened, somebody must have been careless. That clearly is not the case.

This is a specific clause to deal with the small number of cases where the individual is involved in such a way that the accident could not possibly have happened—

Mr. Carmichaelrose—

Photo of Stephen Ladyman Stephen Ladyman Minister of State, Department for Transport

I am just winding up my comments, but the hon. Gentleman can seek to catch your eye again, Sir Nicholas, if he wishes to.

The clause deals with the small number of cases where the individual is involved in an accident that could not possibly have happened without their presence on the road and where they are driving while uninsured or unlicensed. I believe that it is important, and I am sure that the constituent who came to see me in my surgery on Friday would consider it to be essential, as I suspect many on the Government Benches do.

Photo of Stephen Hammond Stephen Hammond Shadow Minister (Transport)

As I said this morning, Conservative Members recognised both the purpose and the import of the clause. We were concerned about a number of issues, on which we wanted to probe the Minister, and his explanation was extremely helpful. Clearly we had misunderstood something in the   briefing. He has put the issue back into perspective, particularly the point of causation, which we were probing initially.

The other point that we have been probing, as the Minister knows, relates to people with an insurance record that is incomplete for only a short time. I accept his explanation about the courts accepting mitigating circumstances. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Photo of Pat McFadden Pat McFadden Llafur, Wolverhampton South East

May I ask the Minister to clarify the clause and to say how it would relate to a case from my constituency. We had a debate earlier today about the distinction between careless and dangerous driving. The case that I want to raise breaches the law in so many respects that it is difficult to know under which clause it might most appropriately be raised.

Perhaps I may take the Minister through the case. It relates to a constituent called Kenneth Taylor, who was recently jailed for five years after a fatal accident, in which the passenger in his car was killed. It transpired during the trial that he had been banned from the roads 10 times previously, he was over the alcohol limit when the crash occurred, he had traces of Ecstasy and cannabis in his system and, perhaps most shockingly of all, he had never taken a driving test.

The clause refers to unlicensed and disqualified drivers, but this case clearly goes far beyond carelessness and raises serious questions about the way in which the current system operates. The questions that I think my constituents would ask are these: how can a driver face court order after court order, which he or she apparently ignores, and how can a jail sentence be imposed only after a fatal accident? I refer the Committee to the words of the judge in the case, who said:

“The tragic consequences of your incompetence are clear for us all to see. If ever there was a case where it could be predicted the disregard of a court order would have tragic results, this is it.”

In what way would the clause and the new measures relating to unlicensed and disqualified drivers deal with a situation where someone defied court order after court order?

I am sure that the Minister will agree that we should not have to wait for a fatal accident before a custodial sentence can be imposed on someone who clearly has no regard for the driving laws and is prepared to breach them time after time, resulting in the tragic death of one passenger and injury to another passenger in the car. I should be grateful if the Minister could outline how the clause will deal with similar situations in the future.

Photo of Stephen Ladyman Stephen Ladyman Minister of State, Department for Transport

My hon. Friend raises a tragic and horrible case. Without knowing all the details, I find it difficult to give him a precise answer. From what he has described, at least in relation to the final act which caused the death, the clause would be appropriate and the individual could have been charged under it.   However, it sounds as if the courts charged him under other legislation, possibly that of causing death by careless driving while under the influence, which is already a serious offence.

Judges always seem keen to point out the error of people’s ways and are often swift to point out the error of the Government’s way when they think that we have got things wrong, but they are always rather slow to point the finger at their colleagues. If the individual had been disqualified 10 times, there were eight previous occasions after the first time he was disqualified when judges could have given him a custodial sentence or taken other measures against him and seem not to have done so. Why that happened I have no idea, without looking at the facts of the case.

Photo of Brian Iddon Brian Iddon Llafur, Bolton South East

On Second Reading I described the cases of Billy Joe Dean and Gareth Willis, in which those causing the deaths were guilty of multiple offences. The sentences that were applied in both cases were very similar: one was even less than the five years that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. McFadden) described in relation to his case. What aggrieves the families most is that the courts are not totting up the multiple offences. Moreover, they do not seem to have realised that the maximum sentence has shifted and that causing death by dangerous driving can now gain a maximum sentence of 14 years rather than 10.

I am very condemnatory of the very lenient sentences given by the courts, and that is the general feeling of my constituents who have been involved in fatalities. However, it is worse than that, as nobody serves the full sentence. If they are on good behaviour in prison, they are released early. They are released early in any case, so 50 per cent. of the sentence is not served. People can be out of prison very quickly after an offence has been committed.

Photo of Stephen Ladyman Stephen Ladyman Minister of State, Department for Transport

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I probably cannot say much more without knowing the facts of all the cases, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right that the penalty for causing death by dangerous driving is now 14 years, and the courts need to be prepared to use it when appropriate. Of course, they must take into account all the facts of the case and mitigating circumstances that may not be obvious to the victim’s family or to the rest of us, so we should not be too quick to judge.

I can undertake to communicate the views and experiences of my hon. Friends the Members for Wolverhampton, South-East and for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) to my colleagues in the Home Office and ask them to think about whether it might be appropriate to review sentencing guidelines and to talk to others in the judicial system about whether the powers that exist are being used as fully as possible.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 21 ordered to stand part of the Bill.