Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
17 NOVEMBER 2004
RT HON
ALISTAIR DARLING
MP AND MR
DAVID ROWLANDS
Q80 Ian Lucas: Why not?
Mr Darling: Because it is not.
In relation to any crime you want, we collectively here exercise
a judgement when we specify what the punishment should be, as
to whether we think it should be X number of years, or a monetary
fine or a combination of both. That is a matter of judgement.
For example, if you take drugs offences and so on, where penalties
are a mixture, sometimes monetary, sometimes custodial sentences,
it is a matter of judgement as to what deters people or not. There
are two separate issues here. One is there is no doubt that the
faster you go, the greater your risk of seriously injuring or
killing people. There is no doubt about that. There is a separate
judgement to be reached as to what the penalty ought to be depending
on how fast you go, just as I say in court cases that judgement
is being exercised every single day of the year. What I want to
do is to have a fairer system, and it is my judgement—and
of course, you are entitled to question my judgement—that
people think it is right to have a punishment that fits the crime.
There are divided views about this. We consulted on it, and it
is perfectly obvious there are divided views. However, that happens
to be my view, for what it is worth.
Q81 Ian Lucas: Can I just be clear? You
are saying that safety is not an objective of the policy?
Mr Darling: The policy objective
of speed cameras is improving safety. The policy objective in
relation to whatever the penalty ought to be is to make sure that
the penalty is fair having regard to all the circumstances.
Q82 Ian Lucas: But should not the penalty
be relevant to the issue of safety? Should not the purpose of
the penalty be to express that safety is desirable and that this
is a serious matter, and that the penalty should be harsher where
individual safety is prejudiced?
Mr Darling: You are right. The
whole point of having a penalty is to indicate society's disapproval
of whatever the behaviour happens to be. What I am saying to you
is that I think it is right that you can differentiate between
somebody who is just over the limit in an area and somebody who
is way over the limit. That is my judgement, and it will be for
the judgement of the House when the thing comes before the House.
Q83 Ian Lucas: Do you not think you are
in danger of sending out mixed messages here?
Mr Darling: No, I do not. I do
not accept that. I am aware of this argument, and I do not accept
that for one moment.
Q84 Ian Lucas: Do you think it is appropriate
for occupational motor cycle riding to be undertaken by riders
with only a provisional licence? I am talking about couriers,
for example.
Mr Darling: I think that is something
I would want to take advice on because I do not have in front
of me sufficient information to make a reasonable judgement on
that.
Q85 Ian Lucas: The figures show that
there is a worrying increase in the number of motorcycle deaths
occurring. What measures are you proposing to try and address
that?
Mr Darling: You are right that
there is an increase. There are more motor cyclists. There are
more older people taking to motor bikes. We are doing a number
of things. We are increasing the amount of advertising reminding
people of safety, and we are generally trying to improve people's
awareness of the potential dangers when you cycle. Motor cycling
is much more dangerous than driving a car. Of course, there are
things you can do in relation to motorcycle safety to the actual
bike itself, but a lot of it is about driver behaviour and getting
across to people that you can get into trouble comparatively easily
on a motor bike.
Q86 Ian Lucas: I know that there are
certain areas where you are introducing trial projects of alcohol
locks to prevent drivers from driving if they are convicted of
driving with alcohol. Are you aware of any schemes to introduce
a similar scheme for speeders to prevent them from driving above
the limit if they have speeding convictions, using technology
to address that problem?
Mr Darling: We are trying out
technology at the moment where you have speed regulators on cars,
set for a 30 mph speed limit, and we are trying this out just
to see what it does to driver behaviour generally. But that is
aimed at drivers in general. I am not aware of any particular
scheme that is directed towards someone who, say, is convicted
of speeding X number of times being required to fit a regulator.
What we would want to do is look at the outcome of the trial that
we are doing at the moment and see what is done to behaviour generally.
Just looking at road safety, what is worrying if you look at where
the problems are occurring, there is the very worrying number
of people where there is no other vehicle involved and the car
leaves the road. Maybe that is speed in some cases or maybe it
is drivers falling asleep. We need to look across the piece at
what is causing this increase before we decide what to do.
Q87 Chairman: We are going to be interrupted
by a vote shortly and I want to bring all my colleagues in because
I know you are very pushed for time, and you have kindly agreed
to come back. Can I ask you now some apparently unrelated but
actually direct questions about the Department just before we
go? Have you strengthened your financial systems since we asked
you about the monitoring of executive agencies, Mr Rowlands?
Mr Rowlands: Yes, we have. The
Highways Agency has since May had a professionally qualified finance
director looking to reorganise his finance team. They now have
monthly management accounts, monthly risk monitoring . . .
Q88 Chairman: They now have monthly management
accounts which you see?
Mr Rowlands: All of the agencies
are giving us, on a monthly basis, their work books and we are
moving over the next couple of years to produce monthly accounts
for the Department, so that we do not just do the accounts once
a year, which is what you see here. It is much tighter. You can
see that in 2003 the accounts I signed off should have been done
in November last year, and I signed them off in January this year.
They were late. This year's accounts had to be done a month earlier
and they were signed off in time, and they are good.
Q89 Chairman: So you can guarantee that
you are keeping your beady eye on the situation in your executive
agencies so that you do not get into the situation that the Highways
Agency got into before?
Mr Rowlands: Precisely, yes.
Q90 Chairman: Do you anticipate, Secretary
of State, the same level of private investment as originally stated
in your Ten Year Plan for Transport?
Mr Darling: Yes.
Q91 Chairman: Where is it going to come
from?
Mr Darling: From the private sector.
Q92 Chairman: Which bits of the private
sector? "The private sector" is a warm, wide phrase.
What does it mean?
Mr Darling: In the railways, it
will continue to come from the train operating companies to some
extent, it will come from the rolling stock companies, and also
of course Network Rail raises a very substantial sum. There is
also money coming through the Channel Tunnel link. In relation
to roads, I anticipate money coming through. The exact number
of PFI schemes probably will change over the next few years, but
I think broadly the amount of money that we anticipated coming
from the private sector over the period will continue. There will
be fluctuations from time to time but I am reasonably optimistic
there.
Q93 Chairman: So if you add public and
private sector investment together, are there going to be more
funds between now and 2010 than anticipated in your ten-year plan?
Mr Darling: Our forecasts are
that the numbers we have published will remain as they are. We
published the latest update in July and nothing has happened since
July to make me depart from what we said then.
Q94 Chairman: An optimistic Secretary
of State.
Mr Darling: It is only three months.
Q95 Chairman: Mr Rowlands, why have the
administration costs of the central department and DVLA risen
by nearly 10%?
Mr Rowlands: Partly it is the
underlying increase that came out of SR02, partly it is because
we have been given an extra £18 million a year by the Treasury
just like any other department to deal with the way that superannuation
payments have been recalculated. The increase, when you begin
to strip all of that out, is pretty modest and going forward,
it is going to be a real-terms cut because the 2006-07 administrative
budget from the central department was cut by £5 million
over 2005-06 and it will be £10 million for the year after.
So it is going down in future, not up.
Q96 Chairman: We did ask you if you could
give a detailed breakdown of any significant increase in administration
costs. It was one of the points that we made last year.
Mr Rowlands: I will be honest;
I do not think there has been a significant increase in administration
costs.
Q97 Chairman: Then why since 2001 has
the pay bill component of administration costs increased by 25%,
while the number of staff has gone down?
Mr Rowlands: If you have a pay
bill that is going up at about 3-4% a year, you accumulate that
for a period of four years or so, and four times four is 16, for
example. I think it is just a reflection of an increase in pay
and prices together with things like superannuation. Also, I am
not sure our numbers have gone down. They have in fact gone up
at DVLA from what was about 5,700 to currently about 6,500.
Chairman: I hope I am wrong. We have
got table A5 in appendix A, which shows your pay bill.
Mr Stringer: That is for the Department,
not for DVLA.
Q98 Chairman: Sorry, the Department.
It has increased from £206 million in 2000-01 to an estimated
out-turn of £257 million in 2003-04.
Mr Rowlands: That is not the Department.
That is only the parts of the Department which are within the
administration cost limit, which is the central department, and
DVLA, because if you look at the first of the green lines, DVLA
drops out and disappears from 2004-05 onwards because of its trading
fund status.
Q99 Chairman: So by a miracle of what
you might call creative accounting, we are shifting a considerable
amount into a trading fund, and it does not mean we have gone
up by 25%?
Mr Rowlands: It has become a trading
fund, just as VOSA is a trading fund and DSA is a trading fund,
as is VCA now as well[1]
1 It should be noted that the VCA is not, in fact a
trading fund, but does however, operate like one. Back
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