Schedule 2 - Endorsement: unlicensed and foreign drivers
Road Safety Bill [Lords]
9:45 am
Stephen Ladyman (Minister of State, Department for Transport; South Thanet, Labour)
That is correct. As I said earlier, although I have addressed my offending behaviour and now have a clean licence, my counterpart still has a record of my endorsements, which are now four years old. Although endorsements last only for three years, a person cannot apply for a clean licence for four years in case they appear in court between the third and fourth years, at which time the court would need to be able to look back to see that they had committed their fourth offence during the three years when they had nine points. After four years, the person can send the counterpart back, and they will be sent a clean piece of paper. That is what I intend to do in the very near future. Under the new arrangements, the convictions will simply be expunged automatically from the computer record when they are four years old, so the courts will have no knowledge of them if they look at the database.
Let us say that the courts looked at the database because a person happened to be in court for a fourth offence. The previous three offences were committed within three years, but the fourth was committed outside those three years. That could not lead to the person being disqualified; clearly, they would not have enough points to be disqualified if the latter offence was committed outside the three years. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman understands what I mean. Basically, the answer to his question is yes, the provision does not change current practice; it just changes how it will be administered.