Road Safety Bill [Lords] |
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Mr. Paterson: I am listening carefully to what the hon. Lady is saying. I repeat that it is dangerous to get into individual cases. We are not aware of the circumstances, although I am sure that she knows far more details of the case than I do. Does she not agree
Rosemary McKenna: The hon. Gentleman may well be right, but all those circumstances applied and the driver could have been charged with dangerous driving at the time. Indeed, the police prepared the charge of dangerous driving, but it was dropped to careless driving by the procurators fiscal. Mr. Paterson: That was under the current dangerous driving offence, which is “far below”. We are proposing “significantly below”. Rosemary McKenna: We are splitting hairs. What is absolutely important is that there is an opportunity to charge with causing death, whether by careless driving or dangerous driving. I do not subscribe to the idea that a moment’s carelessness should be disregarded, but this case did not involve a moment’s carelessness—it involved significantly bad driving. It is absolutely crucial that the sheriff or magistrate of whichever court is involved has the right to apply any of those options when sentencing. Dr. Iddon: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the problems with what the hon. Member for North Shropshire proposes is that the more words we introduce into the law, the more the defence solicitors and lawyers will use them to get their clients off, and that what we really need is simplicity in the law? The problem with the Opposition’s proposals is that they complicate the law. Rosemary McKenna: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. That is exactly what happened in this case. The accused agreed to plea bargain, which is what happens frequently when lawyers are involved. They persuade their client to plea bargain to a reduced charge. At that time, the reduced charge did not have a custodial sentence. Therefore, not only was there no trial to give the family their day in court and to put all the details into the public domain, but the sentence that was available was insignificant and caused a massive amount of pain to the family. Mr. Paterson: It is important to get this right. The statement of the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East that we are adding more words is incorrect. [Hon. Members: “Significantly.”] We are changing “far” to “significantly”. I listed the criteria for different types of bad driving. In the case that the hon. Lady cited, the prosecutors and the court would have powers to go to seven years in passing sentence. Column Number: 171 Rosemary McKenna: I believe that the addition of the word would give lawyers the right to drive a coach and horses through the legislation. Dr. Ladyman: Carelessly drive them. Rosemary McKenna: Yes—and that is exactly the point that we are trying to make. There must be the right to give a custodial sentence in such cases, and for the courts to be able to apply the appropriate sentence. It is stated in the North report, for example, that
That opinion is repeated regularly throughout all thed ¤background information that RoadPeace campaigners have given us. I shall move on to my last point, which I hope the Minister will deal with when he responds. SCID asked me to raise one other issue with him. It relates to a case that Mrs. Melnik recently attended to support another family, a member of which had been seriously injured in a road traffic accident. Although the person did not die, they suffered serious head injuries, and family members felt that they had lost that person as a result. Will the Minister take that issue into account both now and during later stages in our consideration of the Bill? With that, I congratulate him on the legislation and hope that proceedings on it reach a speedy conclusion. Mr. Lee Scott (Ilford, North) (Con): I start by referring to the anecdote told by the hon. Member for Northampton, North, because I have read of similar occurrences and experiences and heard of them in my constituency. In those cases, custodial sentences were indeed passed in exactly the circumstances that the hon. Lady mentioned, so there are obviously inadequacies with the prosecutions and sentences. Let me move on, however, to careless driving and dangerous driving. Earlier, the Opposition were accused of talking tough, but not acting on that. However, there is a difference between talking tough and talking fairly and then acting on that. The provisions tabled by my hon. Friends cover the cases that we are discussing. The list that was read out covered people on mobile phones, knowledge of defects in cars, driving at too high a speed, cars racing each other, aggressive driving, people jumping lights, overtaking, somebody being too tired and cases such as that mentioned by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch, East (Rosemary McKenna) in which, I am amazed to say, the person involved was not prosecuted for dangerous driving, but got off with just a fine. Under our proposals, all those offences would be covered by “reckless”. Mr. Bellingham: The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch, East described that case in great detail, and we would all feel huge sympathy for the victims of that appalling piece of driving. However, if the procurator fiscal decided not to go for causing death by dangerous driving in such a case, our new clause on causing death by
Mr. Scott: My hon. Friend is perfectly right. The new clause proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire would cover that. Let me return to some of the problems with causing death by careless driving. I want to talk not about examples relating to whether the sun got in somebody’s eyes, but about somebody who might do thousands of miles. Many years ago, I was on the road as a rep and I did thousands of miles. Did I ever drive carelessly? Probably, but I was fortunate never to be involved in a serious accident. However, I could have been involved in an accident and I could have been prosecuted and gone to jail. What would have happened if I could not prove that the sun had shone in my eyes? Where is the division? Where does it come in when we have a prosecution and a custodial sentence? Tragically, one party might be deceased by then; indeed, that is why the case would be brought. If no one was in the other party’s car, we would have only their word. Surely, the reckless driving offence would cover such cases in a much fairer and greater way. Ms Keeble: The hon. Gentleman talks about reckless driving as if it were the same as careless driving. However, the Opposition proposals would change the threshold for causing death by dangerous driving—a crime that the courts understand and use—and introduce a new offence of causing death by reckless driving, with the higher threshold that currently relates to dangerous driving. The case that he mentions does not relate to the lesser offence. If it involves reckless driving, as he says it does, the threshold would be much higher than for causing death by dangerous driving—that is the effect of the Opposition amendments, which is why they are so wrong. Mr. Scott: I am sure that the hon. Lady would not expect me to agree and I do not. The fairest way forward is for any family that has been tragically affected and which wants justice to have justice, and none of my hon. Friends would disagree with that. The vital question, however, is how that justice is obtained. Mr. Kidney: My concern is to address the present cliff face in the law between somebody who causes a death and is convicted of dangerous driving, and somebody who causes a death whose driving the court decides is not dangerous, so can convict only for careless driving and simply award a fine. The hon. Member for North Shropshire says that he does not get involved in individual cases, which I understand, but as someone who has taken an interest in road safety for a long time, I know that from time to time bereaved relatives will say that a family member was killed, the driving seemed to them very dangerous, but the court did not convict for dangerous driving and all that was passed was a fine. They ask, “How derisory is that? How can you put a fine of £1,000 on my family member’s death?” That is what I seek to address by putting my name to amendment No.1. Column Number: 173 It would be wrong to say that the law does not have regard to the effects of a person’s behaviour. The law on assault lists different kinds of assault, depending on the effect of the person’s guilty behaviour. For example, at one end there is common assault, then actual bodily harm, then grievous bodily harm and then malicious wounding, right up to attempted murder. Therefore, the law clearly already has regard to the consequences of a person’s actions. The official Opposition are saying that in this case they do not like the amount of guilty intent that is needed to make available to a court the option of sending a person to prison. There is a helpful written answer to a question, tellingly from the hon. Member for Wellingborough, in which the Solicitor-General explains the present law as regards what needs to be proved. For dangerous driving the prosecution must show that
Therefore, for both offences the driving is below what is expected of normal, competent, careful drivers. It is below the standard for careless driving and far below for dangerous driving. I agree with the hon. Member for North Shropshire that the Government’s consultation document, a good document that fairly set out the difficulties and complexities of this area of law, considered the alternative option of a new standard in addition to those two. It suggested that there could be “below the normal standard”, “far below the normal standard” and “even further below the normal standard”. The official Opposition’s proposal today does not go down that road, but asks whether we can squeeze in another standard between “below” and “far below”. I believe that that is dangerous, because it would end up merging with what we have already. “Reckless” and “dangerous” would then become the same offence, andd ¤courts would apply them in the same way, and someone who cannot be convicted of those offences would still be convicted of careless driving with nothing more available to the court than the sentence of a fine. That is indeed the official Opposition’s intention. I do not agree that the public would find what I am proposing offensive. The hon. Member for Wellingborough explained in his Second Reading speech the wide consultation that he carried out in his constituency, when he found strong support for the course of action proposed in the amendment, which was also proposed by the Government in the original Bill introduced in the House of Lords. From many years of meeting members of the public and talking about road safety issues, I believe that his experience in Wellingborough is reflected around the country. To introduce a maximum sentence of imprisonment for causing death by careless driving is not the same as establishing a law that anybody who kills while driving
11.45 amLet us not overlook the fact that there is no ability in the Bill as drafted for a magistrates court to say, “This is worse than something that requires a fine, but not as bad as something that requires prison. We’d quite like to make this person do some community work as punishment.” The Bill as drafted does not permit that. We need to change the law to give the magistrates the ability to judge how bad the driving was that caused the death and then to decide whether the right sentence is a fine, community punishment or imprisonment, suspended or otherwise. I am asking the Committee to agree to give the courts that range of sentencing powers. Mr. Knight: On sentencing, the hon. Gentleman is latterly making a point with which I have some sympathy, but is not the problem that the magistrates can consider that community order only as an alternative to imprisonment? If they do not have the power to impose imprisonment, they cannot issue such an order. That is a problem not only in relation to motoring, but across the range of sentencing. If a change is to be made, is there therefore not a case for making it in respect of every offence that is dealt with by the magistrates court? Mr. Kidney: The right hon. Gentleman is quite right. The magistrates have to be able to say, “This is serious enough for prison, but on this occasion we will impose a community punishment instead”. If we wanted to undo that state of law, we would need to address the many Criminal Justice Acts that exist. However, to reassure him that it he is better off supporting our amendment than his party’s amendment, we could bring to our aid the Sentencing Guidelines Council, which was established by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. We could rely on the council to give guidance to magistrates courts on exercising their power, which will range from a fine through to imprisonment. I urge the Committee to agree to that range of penalties. Mr. Bellingham: The debate concerns some difficult circumstances and creates quite a lot of emotion, so it is best approached in as bipartisan a way as possible. We all agree that the current law is not satisfactory and there is no question but that the Government are making a brave and honourable attempt to improve it. My Front-Bench colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire, takes the view that we should not get too immersed in individual cases. However, it is perhaps through such cases that we become most informed and our own lives are touched. I told the Committee last week about a tragedy that my family suffered. My late stepfather, a very good driver
One can imagine the view of my family. We felt very strongly indeed that that lorry driver deserved a tougher sentence, because what he was doing was certainly not careless, but manifestly reckless. He could easily have turned left on the A1 at that junction and gone round a roundabout, which would have taken probably another two minutes of his time. All those dual carriageways have now been made a good deal safer, as the Minister will know, and I applaud the Government for the campaign to improve safety on dual carriageways in this country. We all know of constituency cases, and I should like to cite one. I mentioned earlier the case of the travelling salesman who knocked someone off their motorcycle. There was a momentary lapse of concentration and the motorcyclist was in a blind spot, although it was right that that travelling salesman did not go to prison. On the other hand, there was another case in my constituency involving a young lad called Adam Wall, who actually lived in the constituency of my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mr. Fraser). Adam’s mother, Bridget Wall, has been an active campaign member of RoadPeace. In that tragic case, her son was on a motorcycle driving east along the A47, just outside Wisbech, at night and minding his own business, when a van pulled out recklessly—possibly even dangerously—and knocked the young lad off his motorcycle, killing him instantly. The family, naturally enough, were appalled when the van driver was convicted of careless driving and given a minor fine with no lengthy period of disqualification and no community service. On the other side of the coin, I can cite the example of a constituent who was involved in a fatality. He admits that he had a moment of road rage and raced another car. The car that was crashed into involved a fatality, and both drivers who were racing served a custodial sentence. That must be right; it was an aggravated incident. There was another example on a road in my constituency recently. A company rep was driving in wet conditions on a new, fast stretch of road around a village called Narborough. A platoon of traffic had bunched up, and he pulled out to overtake a lorry, not knowing that there was a car in front of it which was going too slow for the conditions. The lorry was too close to the car, and the company rep slammed on his brakes and lost control. He was done for careless driving, but I do not believe that he was disqualified. Should he have been? I do not know. The law is inadequate, and the Government are making an honourable attempt to improve it. When the Bill leaves Committee, having put the argument and pushed it to a vote, we may have to accept defeat. However, my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire, the official Opposition, a large number of
We have come up with alternative proposals. They represent an imaginative, genuine and inspired attempt to improve the law in such a way that falls short of what the Government have done, but avoids the trap—the law of unintended consequences—into which people who drive many miles, such as the travelling salesman, the company rep, people such as my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Scott) in another incarnation will fall. All of us have at times had a momentary lapse in concentration. No one can put their hand on their heart and say that every day of their lives, they have driven and not made some small indiscretion. Thank the Lord, in 99.9 per cent. of those cases, there has not been a fatality—there has not even been an accident. In a detailed and well researched speech, my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire put forward to the Government an alternative that shows ingenuity and imagination. The Government have put a lot of work and effort into the legislation, and the law will be improved, but there is a danger that some people will suffer a custodial sentence that Parliament did not intend. The Minister will say that the court will always have discretion and that it will not have to impose a custodial sentence, but I fear that mistakes will be made. The silver lining on that cloud is that we shall end up with a better law than the current law. Dr. Iddon: The problem here is quite simple and I do not want to complicate the issue by taking on board the amendment proposed by the Opposition. We have a threshold definition that is difficult enough for the Crown Prosecution Service and the police to interpret, with dangerous driving at the top end of the scale and careless driving at the bottom. As I pointed out on Second Reading, it would be hard to find another Member of Parliament who has had more related fatalities in their constituency than myself, in the densely populated urban area that I represent. I read out all of the cases there have been in the past few years, some of which were very serious. They have involved me in a lot of discussions with the police and different branches of the CPS. I have tried to see the situation from the police’s point of view when they make the charge, and that of the CPS when they take it to court. On many occasions the CPS, against the police’s wishes in a majority of cases, change the charge that is prosecuted in court. The difficulty that the police and the CPS are in is this: if they have a case where there has been a fatality that is close to the threshold, which side of the threshold do they prosecute on? The police and CPS will say that in order to bring justice to the families who have lost loved ones, relatives and friends, they have to prosecute above the threshold and go for death by dangerous driving. They will also say that they lose so many cases by doing that that they are entirely
On the other hand, the police and the CPS could play it cautious. After looking at the past cases and precedents, they may feel that they will not achieve a result above the threshold, so they go for a charge of careless driving. And my goodness, that greatly aggrieves the families who have lost loved ones in fatal accidents. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford has pointed out, the problem is that there is a huge gap that has to be dealt with by the families who have suffered from fatalities, and by the Crown Prosecution Service and police. It is extremely difficult to decide whether to prosecute above the threshold or below. They cannot win in many of these cases. The amendment that has been accepted and the one we are discussing at the moment will give the police and CPS a new charge and penalty to plug this huge chasm between the upper and lower charge, which will bring justice, and it will be seen to be done by the families who have suffered fatalities. Although lawyers are against it because they believe that it will make accidental conduct seriously criminal and worthy of imprisonment, the sort of cases that will be prosecuted under the new charge by this new penalty are not those where people have been blinded by sunlight. They are serious events where we would like a charge of death by dangerous driving, but the evidence is not there. They are not minor offences, but very serious ones. Although the lawyers do not like it, as I put on record on Second Reading, the CPS has clearly said that
That is what we are trying to do, and I do not want to complicate matters by changing the law in the way proposed by Opposition Members because in my experience when there is a substantial—not significant—change in the law, it takes the courts years to bed it down and to learn how to interpret the change through taking cases through the court. The change of law that we have suggested is far simpler and easier to interpret for the Crown Prosecution Service, judges and juries who have to deal with it in the courts than that proposed in the Opposition amendment. 12 noonPaul Rowen (Rochdale) (LD): The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East speaks persuasively and eloquently about the issues and problems associated with the existing law. I agree that the official Opposition’s amendment is extremely complicated. We are not convinced that it would bring about the sort of change that hon. Members on all sides would wish to see. My problem with the Government’s proposal—it was raised on Second Reading and in another place—is with what is meant by careless
Mr. Carmichael: My apologies, Mrs. Anderson, for having been absent for much of the debate. I was here for the earlier speeches and I shall not detain the Committee for long. The crux of the difficulty with which the Committee grapples is the distinction between carelessness—subsection (3) is worded in such terms—and the dangerous driving covered in subsections (1) and (2). When the hon. Member for North Shropshire introduced his amendments, he gave us the 1980 definition of recklessness from, I think, the Allan case. Of course, 1980 predates the 1988 Act, which we are seeking to amend. At that stage, a definition was needed because the offence was causing death by reckless driving. Parliament, in its wisdom, sought to change that in 1988, so we got dangerous driving and careless or inconsiderate driving. Thereafter—in 1992 or thereabouts—an additional definition was added in a further amendment to the Road Traffic Act 1988. The time has surely come to consider not just whether it is appropriate to create an offence of causing death by careless driving but whether the operation of the distinction between careless and inconsiderate driving on the one hand and dangerous driving on the other has worked as well as we might think it has done. The fact that we are engaged in this debate suggests to me that it might not have done. It is 18 years since we passed the 1988 Act, so it might be time to undertake a proper and comprehensive examination of the whole body of road traffic legislation rather than doing it in the piecemeal and unsatisfactory way that we seek to do today. At the conclusion of such an exercise we might well go back to something more akin to recklessness than to dangerousness and carelessness. However, let us not forget that we abandoned reckless driving for a reason—the significant problems attached to getting convictions for recklessness. That was why, in order to get some clarity at the lower end of the scale, carelessness and inconsiderate driving were introduced. I accept that a vast range of driving can come under the term careless or inconsiderate driving. If one considers that one goes from court to court and from judge to judge, there is always going to be a degree of overlap. What is at the bottom end of dangerous driving might, in another court, be at the top end of careless driving. The proposals of the hon. Member for North Shropshire are interesting, because he seeks to give a list of all the things that would constitute dangerous driving, with everything else being careless, or
It is because the Government have chosen to proceed as they have that I retain a number of reservations about the form of the proposals before the House—reservations that have been expressed by my noble Friends in the other place. The crux of those reservations is in trying to read across the wording in section 3—careless and inconsiderate driving—into the new offence of causing death by careless and inconsiderate driving. I have no difficulty in envisaging a custodial sentence being available to the courts for cases when the conduct is less than dangerous, but is right at the top end of carelessness. The hon. Member for Northampton, North used, I think, the term “grossly careless”. If that is not covered by dangerous driving then, yes, gross carelessness should be something for which a custodial sentence should be available. The difficulty is that the Bill goes wider than that, because it refers to causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving. Everyone accepts that inconsiderate driving is of lesser standard of seriousness than careless driving, and I have a real problem with custodial sentences being available for inconsiderate driving. So I have a lot of sympathy with what the Government have done, and with the views held by the hon. Member for Northampton, North. Nevertheless, the House needs to do rather more careful work before the provisions go on to the statute book. |
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