Policing and Crime Bill - Committee (4th Day) (Continued)

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 5:00 pm on 9 November 2016.

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Photo of Baroness Berridge Baroness Berridge Conservative 5:00, 9 November 2016

My Lords, in moving Amendment 214C, I shall speak also to Amendment 214CB, both of which relate to drink-driving law. Let us imagine a world where you can pop to your GP and get a prescription for cocaine. If you want to lose weight, you not only have the choice of the 5:2 or the Atkins diet, but amphetamines are also prescribed by your doctor. On television there are advertisements of the health benefits of smoking cigarettes. Welcome to the United Kingdom in 1956, the year in which we set the level of alcohol you can have in your body and still drive legally. The law in England and Wales has remained unchanged since then. I hope these brief examples show how the greater understanding of the effect of drugs in the human body has changed laws in these areas and that we are well overdue a change to the drink-drive law.

I note at the outset that our law applies to all drivers: HGVs, taxis and bus drivers. For everyone, it is 80 milligrams in 100 millilitres of blood. Although for many years deaths and injuries caused by drink-driving have fallen, this is due to strong enforcement and other factors. In 1956, most cars did not even have brake discs, let alone servo-assisted brakes. You did not have to wear a seatbelt and airbags were still the stuff of fantasies. Your Lordships just have to cast your mind back to the series “Heartbeat”, and think of what the emergency services looked like then—the arched top of the ambulance, the canvas stretchers, the siren. There were no air ambulances, no fire crews cutting open the roof of your car, no fluids at the scene, no heart surgery by cracking open the chest at the roadside and there were no breathalysers at the roadside either.

We have much to be thankful for today. The police do a great job of enforcement, but they want the limit changed and it is high time we listened to them. Changing human behaviour, which changes in the law can bring about, is much more effective and cheaper in terms of human lives—most importantly—as well as financially, than relying on enforcing the law.

All other European countries have the lower limit outlined in Amendment 214C of 50 milligrams or below. All other common-law jurisdictions that I can find have done so as well. England and Wales stands alone. Scotland has changed the law to 50 milligrams and, as of 1 January of next year, Northern Ireland will have as well.

I have not owned a car for 10 years. I am an occasional driver and I am thankful that I have no direct personal experience of drink-driving accidents affecting my family. I am looking at this evidence as a lawyer and I am concerned that deaths from drink-driving have been static since 2010. We need something to prompt a further decline.

I note briefly three pieces of evidence that illustrate that these amendments are part of the answer. First, on reviewing all the available evidence, NICE in 2010 concluded:

“There is sufficiently strong evidence to indicate that lowering the BAC limit changes the drink-driving behaviour of all drivers at all BAC levels”.

The arguments here do not only revolve around those drivers who would fall within the new limit—those between 50 milligrams and 80 milligrams. This change is about all drivers and reducing drink-driving at all levels.

I have to stop here to note that only last night two teenagers lost their lives in Aldershot and a serving soldier has been arrested on suspicion of drunk-driving. This is about affecting the behaviour of all drivers in relation to alcohol. On the specific limit that is outlined in the amendment of 50 milligrams, the NICE report quotes a scientific review that states:

“Lowering the BAC level from 0.8 to 0.5 is effective”.

Secondly, on that specific reduction to 50 milligrams, which is something that Switzerland did in 2005, there was then a reduction in the number of those injured in alcohol-related crashes, according to the Swiss Council on Accident Prevention.

Thirdly and finally, 13% of all those who were breathalysed in 2014 in the UK following any road traffic collision were between the 50 milligram limit in the amendment and the current 80 milligram limit. In 40% of fatal accidents, the driver has alcohol in their system below the current legal limit of 80 milligrams. Around 240 families each year lose someone due to drink-driving.

We know that alcohol affects people’s driving. We have to think of how many collisions would be avoided completely if we reduced the limit. There is a roll call of organisations that are supporting the lowering the limit. These include the RAC, the RAC Foundation, the AA, Brake, the Institute of Advanced Motorists, the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, the Police Federation, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, the College of Paramedics, the Fire Brigades Union, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal Society for Public Health, the Alcohol Health Alliance and the Institute of Alcohol Studies. In fact, I not aware of a single similar organisation that is against reducing the drink-driving limit after 60 years.

Amendment 214C mirrors the law in Northern Ireland and would reduce the limit further to 20 milligrams for those who hold a provisional licence, those who have a full licence but have had it for fewer than two years, and, importantly, for those who drive professionally. It accords with the previous change in the law for probationary drivers that the Government have introduced, who can now accumulate only six penalty points, not 12, before losing their licence in the first two years they have a full licence. It has been recognised that there are clearly specific risks during that probationary period of driving such that the lower level of points is permitted. However, we need a lower level of alcohol during that period to embed the best behaviour.

I am grateful that my noble friend the Minister took the time to meet interested Peers, even before today’s Committee stage, and hope that we will receive a favourable response from her today. However, there is one final matter to consider carefully. This issue has come late to the Bill. Organisations such as those I have mentioned stand ready to try to mobilise the Commons, even at this late stage. The key factor in any such approach is those who have had direct experience of this issue—perhaps a relative killed by a driver who had 63 milligrams of alcohol in his or her blood. Some relatives will ignore the calls from these groups to see their MP and speak to the press. Some will feel that they want just to grieve in peace and quiet. Others will feel that coming forward is cathartic and helps them to do something to prevent anyone else suffering as they have. However, some will just want to be left alone and not have the burden of even considering whether they should come forward at the request of these organisations. I am instinctively uncomfortable about this reality of our politics—namely, the necessity of taking action to get things changed when there are reasonable, rational arguments for doing so, when a measure has been on the statute book for 60 years, and when Her Majesty’s Government say no. In the light of a recent American campaign, I ask my noble friend the Minister to reflect on how much better it would be for everyone, particularly victims, if there was a change without such a campaign. Do we really need to conduct our politics like this all the time? I do not think so. I await my noble friend’s reply. I beg to move.