Road Safety Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the noble Earl. As I say, if one sits quietly enough, one gets the answers. I was going to venture the obvious point that the vehicle inspection officers are not amateurs; they already make significant judgments. If you are driving your lorry from London to Scotland, and the vehicle inspectors decide at Arbroath that your lorry has to be taken off the road, that is a pretty severe punishment. They already have that power and that right. We are not talking about ill-trained amateurs; we are talking about professionals who are concerned with the roadworthiness of a vehicle, which is a crucial aspect of road safety. I bear in mind entirely what the noble Earl, Lord   Attlee, said, that vehicle defects represent a small percentage of the causes of accidents, and driver error accounts for a much greater percentage. Nevertheless, it is our duty to ensure that vehicles are safe on the roads. We all know the enormous obligations that we all have to maintain vehicles in reasonable states of repair. Apart from the general points that I sought to make with regard to the Bill, there is an obvious anomaly that the clause sets out to correct. At the moment, two agencies—the police and the vehicle inspectorate—are empowered to enforce traffic and roadworthiness regulations, but do not share the same powers to sanction offenders. Currently, only the police can issue fixed penalty notices. The purpose of the clause is to ensure that the accredited vehicle safety inspectors are in the same position. It is on that basis that I defend the clause and hope that the noble Lord will not press for its deletion.