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Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire): First, in response to her welcome to the Opposition, I welcome the hon. Lady back after her party conference. I did indeed enjoy our conference, which was not at all like the one that I read about in the newspapers. Obviously there were, two conferences going on in Blackpool last week.
The new clause clearly undermines, as did the interventions of the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), the whole thrust of the legislation, which is to reverse into Schengen without proper parliamentary scrutiny of the issues. That was exposed on Second Reading, and the new clause adds a further small element to the Bill. It is not that important on its own, but the overall issue is of great importance. We are adopting a large chunk of the Schengen acquis without the House having proper opportunity to debate it.
The Minister described the intent behind amendment No. 33 clearly, and I have some sympathy for her because the muddle on the issue was not of her making. It was the responsibility of the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Mr. Jamieson), who dealt with the issue in Committee. Instead of clarifying the issue, he confused it even more. He kindly wrote to me and other members of the Committee at the end of June to try to clarify the issue, but the letter served only to complicate it further. The Minister has made a better job today, despite it not being her departmental responsibility, than did the Minister in Committee.
Mr. Bercow: What was his effort like, then?
Mr. Paice: I am about to tell my hon. Friend. In Committee, the Minister said:
- "I am advised that disqualification cannot be served in the other country—it can be served only in the state of the offence."
- "I am advised that if a UK resident . . . was disqualified from driving in France, he would be disqualified everywhere because he would have no UK licence."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 17 June 2003; c. 231–2.]
- "The driver loses his entitlement to drive elsewhere as a result of being disqualified in his State of residence"—
- "and his licence being taken away during his period of disqualification—but he is not disqualified as such in all other Member States."
Mrs. Dunwoody: That is disingenuous. If someone is disqualified in this country, it is well known that they can visit another European state, buy the requisite papers and reappear on British roads with—for example—an Italian licence.
Mr. Paice: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention. I actually tried to be helpful to her earlier. Inadvertently, she has been helpful to me, because I seek clarification of the confusion.
If we are to adhere to a mutual recognition of disqualification to drive across all the signatory states, an issue of common justice arises. It would receive huge public support if someone who had been disqualified for causing death by dangerous driving in one part of Europe were not allowed to return to this country and drive. That is a valid intellectual argument. If that is to happen, that is what should appear in the legislation, but it does not. If I understood the Minister correctly today, she said that if a British person was disqualified from driving in Germany—I use examples of countries for simplicity's sake and not with any malice aforethought—and then moved to France, the disqualification would not apply because France was not their normal place of residence. However, if that person moved back to Britain—perhaps years later—they would have to serve out that disqualification. The person could be disqualified in Germany for six months, live in Germany for three months, thus serving out three months of the disqualification, then live in France for five years, and then finally move back to Britain—their normal place of residence as a British citizen—and serve out another three months of disqualification. There does not seem to be any justice in that.
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I gave the example of a disqualified driver moving to France. Disqualification should continue after such a move. Amendment No. 33 contains the phrase "temporarily resided" for that reason. The Minister gave her definition of residence, but she ignored the fact that some disqualifications can last a long time. Some people may choose to move to a country and become normally resident there before they return to the UK and become normally resident here. I think that the Minister said that the required period was 170 days—
Caroline Flint: The period is 185 days.
Mr. Paice: I am grateful to the Minister, but that is still only six months. A person disqualified for three or four years who has stayed only a few weeks in the country of disqualification could fulfil the 185-day requirement in two or three other countries. I do not want to exaggerate, but the Minister seems to be saying that that would not count.
We need to establish mutual recognition of disqualification among all states. The present confusion has not been helped by the contributions of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport. I am sorry that he is not here to try to explain the matter. However, I hope that the Minister understands my point, which is that a disqualified person could cite one of several countries as his country of normal residence during the disqualified period. The amendment would enable the disqualification
to run consecutively in whichever country the disqualified person moved to after the offence, and ensure that different approaches are not adopted in different parts of Europe or the signatory states. Otherwise, no one—not the disqualified person, nor any victims—would know the situation with regard to the disqualified person's licence.Amendment No. 33 is not the lead amendment in this group, and that means that I will not be able to respond to the Minister's reply other than by way of intervention. However, I reserve the right to divide the House on the matter if I am not satisfied with the Minister's response.
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome): The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) was right to say that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Mr. Jamieson), is not on the Treasury Bench this afternoon, and also to say that that Minister's presence would not have elucidated matters much this afternoon, given his performance in Committee. In parenthesis, it is a pity too that no Scottish Office Minister is here this afternoon, given that we shall be dealing with matters of Scots law later.
I have no objection to what is proposed in the new clause, and that is why I have tabled no amendment to it. However, it is a little extraordinary that one of the prime purposes of the Bill should be covered by a provision that has been introduced so late. Secondly, I am worried that the new clause is effectively a free-standing provision in this Bill, and that there is no move to amend legislation covering road traffic, freedom of information or data protection. The degree of cross-reference is therefore limited. That structural problem in the statutes may come back to haunt us.
Thirdly, I am worried that the information referred to in the new clause is not limited. The new clause covers any information held under the Road Traffic Act 1988, irrespective of what that information is. It is possible that that Act could be amended at some date in the future to include spurious information that could not properly be disclosed for the purposes of the Schengen information system.
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East): Is it the hon. Gentleman's understanding of the new clause that only bits of driver information shall be disclosed as and when required, or that an entire database shall be fed into the system, to be dipped into as and when the Governments of other countries in Europe decide that it would be convenient for them to do so?
Mr. Heath : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The latter must clearly be the case. One of the concerns about the Schengen information system is that it grows exponentially; the database is large, with a huge number of points of access, in terms of both input and output, thereby allowing the grave danger that incorrect information may be held, with the individual citizen having only limited access to proper recourse.
Dr. Lewis: I am new to this legislation, so I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that elucidation. The new clause thus seems to be saying that all the details held about us at DVLA in connection with our driving licences will be available, on tap, to any Government who sign up to the system.
Mr. Heath: That is my understanding, but the Minister will be able to confirm the point far better than me.
Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine): My question should perhaps be for the Minister rather than my hon. Friend, but can he tell us whether, if someone feels that the wrong information is held on the Schengen database, there is any way that they can seek redress and clarify the information?
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