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The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Dr. Stephen Ladyman): It is good to follow the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson). From his tone and his description of the way in which Conservative Members will handle the Bill, we can all look forward to an enjoyable and constructive Committee stage. I suspect from the comments this afternoon that we will spend more time in Committee discussing the things that are not in the Bill than those that are. However, we must wait and see.
One day, I may write a book on parliamentary strategy. If I do, I shall dedicate a chapter to the tactics that the Opposition have to adopt when they agree with the Government. It is not the Opposition's job to agree with us or give us an easy ride. Broadly, they have three strategies. The first is the missed opportunity strategy, whereby they accuse us of not doing a pile of things that we could have done. The second is the Trojan horse strategy—suggesting that we intend to do something that we have not included in the Bill. The third is the devil-in-the-detail strategy, whereby they say that they will explore the measure with us in Committee. All three were thoroughly deployed this afternoon. The Liberal Democrats have a fourth strategy, which is to say that every argument has two sides and they agree with both.
Before I deal with specific points, let me start with the comments of the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling). He made some sensible points but appeared to try to build a case that the thrust of the Bill was not where it should be—on the hard-core offender. He gave a series of examples of actions that are clearly against the law now. The problem is not to make them against the law because they are already illegal, but enforcing the law. The Government share the hon. Gentleman's interest in enforcing the law as it stands. We work hard and closely with the police on such issues.
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When someone is an outlaw, the answer is not to create more law but to catch the outlaw and enforce existing law.
Dr. Ladyman: Let me make a bit of progress. I judge from the mood of the House that people can smell their dinners and that they do not want to be here all night. I shall make some progress before I give way.
The hon. Gentleman also talked about people failing to stop after an accident, but I did not understand whether he was arguing that no law existed in that regard, or that the penalties were insufficient. I can tell him that failing to stop after an accident can already attract a six-month prison sentence, a £5,000 fine, a mandatory endorsement and a discretionary disqualification. It is already a serious offence, and clearly the law has to be enforced.
The hon. Gentleman and several other hon. Members mentioned railway crossings. Several provisions on that matter were put into the Bill in the House of Lords, and we understand their purpose. However, we are not sure that they have really hit the mark or that they are necessary. There is clearly a case for the existing law on who is responsible for making improvements at level crossings to be clarified, and we intend to table amendments to that effect.
However, most of the debate on that subject today was about the punishment for jumping red lights at level crossings. We shall consider those points carefully and discuss them in Committee to see whether there is an issue there. I saw just such an incident a few weeks ago when I was waiting in a traffic queue at a level crossing in my constituency. It was a level crossing with double barriers, but the diagonal single barriers came down first, and someone drove down the outside of the queue of traffic and gambled on being able to cross the line before the second set of barriers came down. That is clearly the kind of idiotic behaviour that the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) described earlier, and the law on that has to be enforced. At the moment, however, the penalties for that kind of behaviour are the same as those for going across a red light anywhere. If we are going to change that penalty, we need to widen the debate and ask whether the penalty for crossing red lights in general are tough enough, rather than limiting the discussion to level crossings. That is something that we shall consider carefully and bottom out in Committee.
The new offence of causing death by careless driving that we want to create was mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) and for Leicester, South (Sir Peter Soulsby), the hon. Members for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) and for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper), and, in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble), who has campaigned on that issue for many years. The tragic cases outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East explain more eloquently than I possibly could why we need to create the new offence.
The hon. Member for Wellingborough made particular sense when he described the gap between the present offences of careless driving, which attracts a £2,500 fine and a possible ban—not even a mandatory
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one—and of dangerous driving, which attracts a mandatory ban, a substantial custodial sentence and other possible penalties that are available to the courts. That gap is clearly too big, and it needs to be filled. We shall have a debate about exactly how we structure that offence and the penalties that should apply, and I hope that the Conservatives will then withdraw any objection that they might have in principle. I hope that they will be convinced that the new provision can work in practice and that they will support us. We will certainly work hard to bottom that out with them in Committee.
The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) mentioned a number of issues. He was the first to talk about the Red Cross in regard to first aid, although the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) and one or two others also mentioned it. Let me remind the House that the theory test already includes a series of questions on first aid, so anyone who wants to be sure of passing that test needs to have swotted up on first aid. It is certainly the case that one does not automatically get a question on first aid because questions are chosen randomly from a body of questions available for the test. However, the questions are there, and one has to swot that area of expertise to be sure of passing the test.
Tom Brake: I understand that something like 20 out of about 1,000 questions are on first aid. There is potential for the number of question on first aid to be increased, and we could look to see whether there is a case for adding something about first aid to the hazard perception test.
Dr. Ladyman: I am not sure how one would introduce first aid into the hazard perception test, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it would be possible to increase the number of questions in the theory test and therefore increase the chance of getting a question on first aid. I have already put the Driving Standards Agency and the Red Cross together to discuss that possibility. I have also said that if we can find some way of providing training materials, perhaps a DVD on first aid, we will look at ways of distributing it with the theory and hazard test DVDs that we sell through stationers around the country. We charge about £8 for those DVDs, and the theory and hazard tests can be practised on one's computer. I am prepared to look at whether we can distribute some first aid material through that route. However, I am not convinced of the need for a mandatory test.
The hon. Gentleman and others mentioned retro-reflective markings. My officials have given me a note suggesting what to say on that, and, rather injudiciously, they have suggested that on reflective tape I should say that I am reflecting. The clause introduced in the Lords requires the fitting of retro-reflective tape to comply with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe regulation 104 specifications. We have not yet decided what action will we take in respect of the clause, but such regulatory powers already exist so it is not needed. The use of retro-reflective tape on all road vehicles is already permitted under the Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989, as amended in 2005. We will require it on all new vehicles in the United Kingdom as
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soon as the European regulatory process will allow us to do so, so we can make progress on this without legislation.
Tom Brake: Will the Minister tell the House what additional information he will receive and how he and his officials will come to a conclusion about whether the Government want to support this clause?
Dr. Ladyman: My view at the moment is that we do not need this legislation. We can already do this on a satisfactory time scale that will not place additional costs on industry. The hon. Gentleman said that the measure would cost only £100 per rig, but if there are million rigs in the country that is an additional cost to industry of £100 million. At the moment, we are double checking whether we need legislation in order to be able to do this on an appropriate time scale.
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