Clause 2 - Application of surplus income from safety camera enforcement
Road Safety Bill [Lords]
11:30 am
Alistair Carmichael (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Orkney and Shetland, Liberal Democrat)
I dread that I may one day have to tot up the amount of time I have spent in Committee debating whether the appropriate word to use is “may” or “shall”. I fear that if we did undertake that exercise, we would discover that we have contributed very little to the sum of human happiness. In fact, on this occasion, I beg to differ with the hon. Member for North Shropshire. By using the word “may”, the Government have got it right, because to compel the Government to make a regulation that changing circumstances may render unnecessary would merely lead to yet more unnecessary legislation.