Clause 3 - Graduated fixed penalty points
Road Safety Bill
3:45 pm
Mr Christopher Chope (Shadow Minister, Environment and Transport; Christchurch, Conservative)
It has indeed been a useful debate, and the Minister has clarified the matter of extending the graduated fixed penalty points beyond the area of speeding, although that has not hitherto been flagged up in any Government document. It was the Home Office review of road traffic penalties that flagged up the need for some higher fixed penalties for those concerned about excessive speeding. There was never any suggestion that we would be considering different degrees of gravity in relation to some of the other offences to which the Minister referred.
I have not got the Official Report detailing what happened on Second Reading, but I sat through the whole debate and I heard with my own ears what the Secretary of State said. I think the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) has a copy of the record of that debate, and I would be surprised if the Secretary of State did not say that what was contained in the proposals on new graduated fixed penalties for speeding was his judgment of the best way forward. However, if the Government are changing their mind on that in response to pressure, we shall no doubt find out more about it in the next debate.
The best way forward would be to see what comes out of the next debate. It may well be that after the next debate we shall get closer to reaching a consensus on what should be contained in such a table. If we do get to that stage, I would support the idea of including it in the Bill on Report, perhaps subject to the ability of the Government to change it later. That is a very different proposition from giving the Government discretion to change everything, and taking their word in good faith without the opportunity to amend the detail of the secondary legislation. In the mean time, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.