Clause 22 - Offence of keeping vehicle which does not meet insurance requirements
Road Safety Bill [Lords]
4:45 pm
Stephen Hammond (Shadow Minister, Transport; Wimbledon, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 64, in clause 22, page 27, line 20, at end insert—
‘(d)at the relevant time the vehicle has a Statutory Off Road Notification.’.
I am aware of your stricture, Sir Nicholas, that we should move a little faster this afternoon. After the two important debates on clauses 20 and 21, I am sure that the Committee will be able to proceed with some speed.
Amendment No. 64 is a probing amendment. The offence is keeping a vehicle that does not meet insurance requirements. Keepers will not commit any offence if the vehicle is kept off the road, and rightly so. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire has spoken several times in this Committee about his fleet of cars. I have no doubt that at any one time some of them are off the road.
As I understand it, keepers will have filled out a statutory off-road notice in most cases, but some vehicles may have been off the road since before January 1998 and therefore the owners will not have completed a SORN. The amendment proposes an exemption if someone has a SORN. Although it is the Government’s intention that that exemption should exist, it is not in the Bill. I would be grateful if the Minister clarified that.