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Dr. George Turner: Will the Minister clarify whether the records will contain information about failure of the test? I should have thought that, if a vehicle failed its MOT because it did not have adequate brakes, that
information should be available to the police because it would be a much more significant offence than simply forgetting to get an MOT certificate. Will that information be on the computer?
Ms Jackson: I repeat to my hon. Friend that it is an offence to drive a vehicle on the roads without a valid MOT certificate, for the reasons that I have already given. In many instances, when a car is submitted for an MOT and is deemed to fail in one or two areas, the whole vehicle has to be retested for technical reasons. However, the purpose of the Bill is to ensure that the computerisation process in which the Government are engaged should be capable of detailing, for those who would most need the information, not least the police, whether a vehicle had a valid MOT certificate. That is central and essential to the proposals in the Bill.
Mr. Miller: I understood the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Dr. Turner) more clearly when I was sitting down and not under pressure to respond. He made an important point. Will my hon. Friend the Minister look at the possibility of including in the design of the central MOT record system information relating to vehicles that fail the test? Magistrates courts would quite reasonably take different views of someone who omitted to get his vehicle tested within three years and a day, and someone who had driven a vehicle knowing it to be unroadworthy because it had failed the MOT.
Ms Jackson: I thank my hon. Friend for that question because it helps to clarify the position. There will be, within the proposed database, records of passes and failures of vehicles. That is one of the valuable pieces of information that can be made available in certain circumstances to individuals but, more importantly, to the Vehicle Inspectorate because it would enable it to ensure that the testing centres were efficient and were testing adequately and properly, and to highlight areas where it might be necessary to make improvements.
Mr. Shaw: May I press the Minister on this point? Will the information contained in the records say why a vehicle failed? As my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Dr. Turner) said, if it has failed because of dodgy brakes, the magistrates court would want to take that into account.
Ms Jackson: With respect to my hon. Friend, I think that there is slight confusion about the information required in order to proceed with a prosecution. As I said, the information that I should imagine is required by the police is available to the police. The issue of defining on the database what particular faults caused a vehicle to fail the test is interesting. I hope that it would be possible to include that information within the programming of the computer base, because those issues are important not only to people who buy cars, but to those who manufacture them.
As I said, the police will already have access to all relevant information under the provisions of new section 46(5). In other cases, the Secretary of State could be obliged by law to provide information from the proposed record of MOT results--for example, where a court action was pending and evidence was required to be put before
a court relating to information from the record of MOT results. That situation is already contemplated by clause 4, which makes it possible for an authenticated person, on behalf of the Secretary of State, to give evidence from the records maintained under section 45(6B) in written form.
It is also possible that the Secretary of State may face other requests for information and those would have to be considered on their merits, within the context of the regulation-making powers under new section 45(6) of the Road Traffic Act 1988. I trust that my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston would agree that those powers are already part of the Bill, so the first part of his new clause is not necessary.
Dr. George Turner:
My hon. Friend said that the Bill covered the key people who would want to get at the information. I am not completely clear whether it covers all those who may have a reasonable case to ask for the information, such as insurance companies or people who have also been involved in the incident. Would they be able to request the information, or would it have to come through the police or some official mechanism?
Ms Jackson:
As I said, if a case is being prosecuted in a court, the Bill ensures that the police have automatic access to such information. A requirement is placed on the Secretary of State to furnish such information as the court may require. Our courts are open and public places, so any information that is presented to a court would be open to anyone who is in the court to hear it or who reads the report of the court proceedings.
On the wider question of information available to others under the Bill, the Secretary of State will define in regulations the classes of person for whom information will be available. They would have to prove that they had a justifiable reason for making such inquiries about an individual vehicle.
The second part of my hon. Friend's new clause is concerned with maintaining a record of all road traffic accidents involving death or serious injury in which the vehicle involved did not have a valid test certificate. The proposed database would not show whether the fact that a vehicle did not have a valid test certificate was relevant to the accident. It may or may not be relevant--the database would not provide that answer, and at worst it could lead to misleading assumptions being made on the basis of spurious statistics. That is my overriding concern, rather than, as my hon. Friend averred, the perception of vastly increased costs. The point about misleading assumptions was made, in his own individual way, by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun.
Mr. Miller:
The fact that there is a lot of spurious information is precisely what concerns me. There is no scientifically collected data that help us to understand whether there is a correlation between drivers driving without proper paperwork and the consequences of their actions. Academic research may be undertaken, perhaps supported by the Department, but the new clause would create the database that would supply the information to be analysed.
Ms Jackson:
The Department intends to engage in research. As I have had occasion to say, the Government are concerned to do everything possible to reduce road
My hon. Friend suggested that some vehicle owners take a somewhat casual approach to their responsibilities, and that some drivers are perfectly happy to drive without the valid and necessary paperwork. I think that he was implying that that shows their lack of responsibility for maintaining their vehicle, quite apart from ensuring that it is adequately licensed.
Mr. Browne:
As my hon. Friend the Minister said, the existing road traffic legislation provides for the prosecution of the offence of driving vehicles without MOT certificates. Those who have practised in the courts know what small penalties are imposed for that transgression of the law. Unless the prosecution also includes individual breaches of regulations relating to individual parts of the vehicle, the court often does not know the reason for the failure and the reason why the vehicle does not have an MOT.
Ms Jackson:
I thank my hon. Friend for raising an issue that, as I have said, I shall touch on later. We are discussing a vehicle owner's responsibility to ensure that he is legally entitled to drive on our roads by virtue of the relevant paperwork. Vehicle owners also have a responsibility to themselves and to other road users to ensure that, when they put their vehicle on the road, it is roadworthy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun referred to penalties. However, there is, is there not, a deterrent element in the Bill? The modernisation and computerisation of records on MOT testing would affect the ease and speed with which the police would be able to check, in any incident that was brought to their attention, whether the vehicle involved was adequately, properly and legally licensed and had the relevant MOT certificate. The issue of penalties is outside the remit of the Bill.
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