Part of Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:00 pm on 21 March 2017.
Richard Burden
Shadow Minister (Transport)
4:00,
21 March 2017
I hope that I can set the Minister’s mind at rest about the collection and holding of data. The data that I am referring to is anonymised; it is not data that will identify individuals. I am grateful for his comments about proposed subsection (6B) and the commissioning of research in conjunction with a number of road safety bodies. That is not new, because his colleague the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Andrew Jones, confirmed in an answer to me that research would be done on the effectiveness of diversionary courses, including reoffending rates.
The nagging question for me is: how do we reach any conclusion on the effectiveness of diversionary courses on reoffending rates unless we collect the data on those rates? I simply do not see how that research can be done to achieve any results unless those data are collected. If the proposal created an administrative burden on police forces, and I do not believe that it would be hugely onerous, it would be in terms of the collection of the data rather than their publication. We need to know how good those courses are at stopping people from reoffending and thereby getting fixed penalty notices. To me, that is a basic requirement of the information required to assess the effectiveness of diversionary courses. That is the purpose of the Amendment. It is a simple request, and for that reason I want to press the amendment to a vote.
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