If personal injury is involved, there is already a clear requirement to stop and report an accident. There is also a list of other circumstances in the 1988 Act under which a person is required to stop and report an accident but where only damage has been caused. The problem is not with that list, which requires people to stop and report an accident, and I do not think that anyone whom the hon. Gentleman is trying to reach with the new clause fails to realise that they have committed an offence and that they should stop.

My understanding of what the hon. Gentleman said is that he is trying to catch those people who know perfectly well that they should stop and report an accident, but do not because they think that the consequences of doing so might be worse than those of being caught subsequently, having not stopped. He is  right that we need to ensure that the offences that are available for not having stopped are used sufficiently strongly to deter people from not stopping. However, allied to the offence that the individual has committed, and for which they can still be prosecuted, the additional offence of failing to stop already carries a sufficiently wide range of penalties that, if they are used appropriately by the court, can ensure that there are sufficient incentives for people not to drive away from the scene of an accident.

I offer the hon. Gentleman the assurance that I shall speak to the Home Office about the use of sentencing guidelines to deal with the problem.