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. 65, in clause 22, page 28, line 37, leave out ‘£100’ and insert
‘£1,000 and 3 penalty points.’.
The amendment addresses what is potentially quite a serious offence. We are concerned about people who habitually break the law and try to kid the authorities or the insurance companies. They are not slip-of-the-mind offenders or offenders with mitigating circumstances.
Five per cent. of drivers on the roads today do not bother with insurance. Those drivers are 10 times more likely to be convicted of drink driving, six times more likely to be convicted of unsafe driving, and three times more likely to be convicted of driving without due care and attention. I contend that if they are prepared to do those things, they are equally likely to be keepers of vehicles without insurance, so let us catch them before they go on the roads and drive.
Driving without third party insurance attracts a £5,000 fine and six to eight penalty points at the moment. The Bill proposes a fixed penalty of £100 and a fine of £1,000 if prosecuted. That is simply not enough. The people the Minister wants to catch are precisely those we should be catching so that we can improve road safety. They keep their vehicles without insurance and if they can get away with it they drive them without insurance. The fine is too low, not a deterrent and is often less than the insurance payment. Let us make the fine worth something.