Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-12-13
Topic: Transportation
Andrew Sharpe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, for again affording us the opportunity to debate the issue of drink-driving. I commend him for his long association with this particular subject; it well predates my time in this House. I know that, since the debate in Committee, he and other noble Lords have discussed this issue and other matters with the road safety Minister. Let me again reassure the noble Lord—I fear I am at risk of repeating what I said in Committee—that the Government take road safety very seriously and believe that any form of drink-driving is unacceptable and a serious road safety issue. We are committed to tackling drink-driving and ensuring that those guilty of this offence are detected and appropriately punished. As I explained in Committee, our approach combines tough penalties and rigorous enforcement with our highly respected and effective THINK! campaigns. This approach reinforces the social unacceptability of drink-driving and reminds people of the serious consequences that drinking and driving can have on themselves and others Turning to Amendment 61, which seeks to change the prescribed limits, we remain to be persuaded that the proposed lowering of the limits would deliver the desired result. We believe that more work needs to be done to assess whether a reduction in the drink-drive limit would deliver the hoped-for benefits in improved road safety and a reduction in deaths and injuries on our roads. I think every noble Lord involved in this short debate has referenced Scotland. The evidence we have, following the change in the law in Scotland in 2014, does not suggest a material improvement in road safety in that jurisdiction, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, just noted Noble Lords will be aware of the findings from the studies by the University of Bath and the University of Glasgow that have also been referenced. The research by the University of Bath established that there has been no change across all types of accidents involving alcohol as a result of the introduction of a stricter drink-drive limit in Scotland. The independent evaluation by the University of Glasgow, published by the Lancet in December 2018, found that lowering the drink-drive limit was not associated with any reduction in total road traffic collision rates or serious and fatal road traffic collision rates, but that the change was associated with a small reduction in per capita alcohol consumption from on-trade alcohol sales I obviously cannot comment on enforcement. I have seen the statistics too, but I think the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, is right: each percent represents lives saved, and we should be aware of that. Of course, the personal tragedies movingly mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, also bring this debate into sharp relief The Government believe that our approach to any proposals for changing the law in this or indeed any other area must be evidence based. As things stand, the evidence does not support the case for lowering the drink-drive limit, although we of course keep this matter under review. But until there is a weight of evidence demonstrating that material enhancements to road safety would result from a lowering of the limit, the Government do not believe that the case for Amendment 61 has been made Turning to Amendment 62, which seeks to introduce random breath testing, it is again unclear to the Government if this would deliver the desired result of making the roads safer. As I indicated in response to a similar amendment in Committee, more work needs to be done to see whether there is any benefit resulting from introducing random breath testing. We would also need to examine carefully the equalities and human rights implications of doing so—an issue which I know is of concern to a number of noble Lords. I also take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, made on deterrents, particularly with regard to recent announcements in other topical areas on this subject, and I will take those back Having said all of that, I am going to repeat what my noble friend Lady Williams said earlier. My ministerial colleagues in the Department for Transport are currently working on a call for evidence on parts of the Road Traffic Act. While details are still being worked up as to its scope, I am sure they are paying close attention to the points raised in this debate and others and will welcome suggestions on what issues could be tackled. Once the call for evidence is concluded, we would welcome submissions from all interested parties, including noble Lords and Members of the other place. I obviously cannot give commitments on how long this will take, but I hope, having heard the debate in this House, that it will be speedy In conclusion, we need more evidence to justify the changes to road traffic legislation proposed in these two amendments. To this end, as I mentioned, the department is considering that call for evidence. I would therefore like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, to be patient for a little while longer. In the meantime, I hope he will be content to withdraw his amendment.