---

Chris Bryant: I think the point that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is making—he will correct me if I have misunderstood him—is that if someone is speeding and hits someone else, thereby causing personal injury, it is a grave crime; whereas if someone is speeding and does not hit anyone else, it is nowhere near as grave.

Mr. Heath: That is what the law says.

Chris Bryant: Indeed, but the point is that we have to reduce everyone's speeding. Otherwise, when people are hit, it will cause further damage to individuals.

Mr. Hogg: I think that one has to go back to first principles and ask oneself in respect of people who have committed a criminal offence, what is the nature and level of culpability? That, of course, clearly goes to the nature of the penalty. If we are in the process of doing something different, such as requiring a person judged to be a criminal to compensate someone who has suffered an injury as a result of an alleged crime, there has to be some relationship—not a direct one, but some relationship—between the quality of the act adjudged to be criminal and the quality of the injury in respect of which compensation is to be paid.

We all know that those who drive too fast may do so to only a small extent. The idea that they are somehow obliged to make a contribution to a fund to compensate someone who has been the victim of a serious mugging is, I find, impossible to justify. There is no sort of relationship that applies in those circumstances. It will be perceived to be inequitable and wrong. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) may not agree with me, but at least he knows where I am coming from.

I have a range of other objections, which I shall make fairly briefly; partly because I have been heard on these particular hobby-horses before. Nevertheless, I will get
 
27 Oct 2004 : Column 1504
 
on a number of those hobby-horses again. The first pertains to the negative procedure. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham has characterised the surcharge as a tax. She makes rather a good point, as it is close to a tax; if it is to be levied at all, it will be levied under the negative procedure.

Let us be plain about what the negative procedure means. It means that a tax will be levied, if it is levied, without the House voting on it. This House will not be called on to vote for it. The House will remember the old dictum of no taxation without representation; lo and behold, that is precisely what the clause proposes. If we go down the road of imposing a tax, surely it should be by way of the affirmative procedure. I very much dislike the affirmative procedure because, as the House knows, affirmative orders cannot be amended, but at least they require the consent of both Houses. Here we are talking about an order that will impose a tax but will never be voted on.

We are entitled to ask what tax will be levied. I can find nothing in the Bill that makes it plain what sum will be the subject of the surcharge. The Bill gives the Secretary of State powers, which are not properly constrained, to impose a tax without representation.

A further defect is that the Bill does not oblige the Secretary of State to impose a surcharge, but merely empowers him to do so if he chooses. If the House thinks that a surcharge should be imposed, we should make the duty mandatory and not merely permissive. I see no merit in creating a permissive power in circumstances of this kind.

Mrs. Gillan: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that there is no incentive for the Government to improve their success in collecting fines or fixed penalty notices? If the form of taxation that is the proposed surcharge does not yield the amount of money expected for the victims fund, the Bill contains no brake on the Secretary of State increasing it proportionately. There is no safeguard to ensure that motorists will not find that they have to pay £50 on top of the fine in, say, two years' time.

Mr. Hogg: That may well be right. What is more, as I said earlier, the amount will be raised without parliamentary authority, as there will be no vote on the matter.

The last of my specific points is another of my hobby-horses; I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you will forgive me when I note that the clause applies only to England and Wales and not to Northern Ireland or Scotland. I hasten to say that I do not object to that, but I do object to the fact that the clause could be voted on tonight—as could the negative orders, if they were brought before the House—by hon. Members who do not represent constituencies in England and Wales. A very bizarre proposition follows from that. It is that imposts that, in essence, are taxation will be voted on by Members of Parliament who do not represent the areas subject to that taxation. That strikes me as very offensive, as it amounts to taxation without accountability.

I know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you want me to be brief and that you have heard me speak about these matters many times. I am against the proposals in the
 
27 Oct 2004 : Column 1505
 
Bill, for the reasons that I have advanced. I think that the proposal is wrong in principle, and I do not like the use of the negative procedure. I am very much against imposing taxes without representation, and I think that it is quite wrong for hon. Members who do not represent constituencies in England and Wales to have any part in this business.

Mr. Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) on introducing this amendment, and on highlighting the duplicitous and underhand way in which the Government introduced this measure. It is another stealth tax on motorists, and the timing of its introduction is extraordinary. Last week, a Minister said that a Bill on road safety would appear in the Queen's Speech. That would be the appropriate vehicle for legislation on this matter, if indeed legislation were needed.

As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) said, the proposal purports to raise money for a victims fund, but most speeding offences are, fortunately, victimless. We penalise speeding because of the potential danger that it poses to others, so penalties are imposed for reasons of deterrence. However, fixed penalty notices are imposed only when the excess speeds involved are modest rather than severe. If a motorist is detected driving at very great speeds, he does not have the option of going for the fixed penalty notice, as the prosecuting authorities will require the matter to be referred to the magistrates court. As a result, the Bill surcharges fixed penalty notices even though, by definition, they apply to the lesser offences in any particular category.

Speed cameras are also used to raise revenue, and that is one reason why they have fallen into disrepute. The best way to help victims of speeding drivers is through education. That is why Conservative Members argue that the so-called camera safety partnership funds into which the fixed penalties for speeding offences are paid should be available for use in road safety education, generally, and driver improvement programmes in particular. Surely if the Government are serious about helping the victims of speeding motorists, the first thing that they could do, without having to amend the Bill or introduce such a proposal, is allow the funds to which I refer to be allocated for road safety education and driver improvement programmes.

4.30 pm

Sadly, the more the Government impose stealth taxes on motorists and penalise them to a greater extent than is reasonable for minor infringements, the more the burden of fatalities on the roads increases. In the past five years, the number of fatalities on our roads has increased under the Government. A Government who were more contrite would wonder why and say, "Perhaps we got the psychology of penalising motorists with fixed penalty notices wrong, and this is just compounding the felony."

Paul Goggins: I shall remind hon. Members what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said on Second
 
27 Oct 2004 : Column 1506
 
Reading. I reminded hon. Members of this in Committee, and I do so again today in view of the comments that have been made. He said:

"Following the consultation, we accept that it would be wrong for low-level first-time offences to be subject to a surcharge."—[Official Report, 14 June 2004; Vol. 422, c. 540.]

He listened to the consultation and was quite clear about that. Under the Bill, therefore, any offender who commits a road traffic offence for the first time and receives penalty points on their licence will not have to pay the surcharge.

Mrs. Gillan: The Minister is quite right—I quoted the record in exactly the same way—but that is where the Home Secretary sought to pull the wool over our eyes. In no response to the consultation was it assumed that first-time offenders would be involved. It was always assumed that more than one offence would be needed; it was never assumed that the number would be as few as two. That was how the Home Secretary managed to pull the wool over all our eyes.

---