Road Safety (Financial Penalty Deposit) (Appropriate Amount) Order 2009

I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation of the order. The order has been rather long in gestation since the Road Traffic Act was passed, but this is a new departure for the UK, although not for Europe, as explained by the Minister. It is really aimed at foreign lorry drivers, who have been particularly difficult to deal with. The order gives rise to several questions. I fully appreciate that there are several negative orders behind this order, which give all the detail. What if the person who cannot give a reliable UK address has no money or means of paying a deposit and his vehicle has had to be removed, probably as part of a statutory removal process and as a result of an accident? It is no good immobilising his vehicle, because it has already been taken away, and it may be of very limited or even negative value, after the cost of recovery has been taken into consideration. The offence may be relatively minor and may not warrant custody. How will VOSA officials or the police persuade the driver to part with the deposit in those circumstances? Almost by definition, Travellers often cannot provide a satisfactory UK address. I take it that they will be vulnerable to pay any deposit, because otherwise the order would be discriminatory against foreign drivers. What is to stop Travellers being required to pay a deposit several times in one day, once in each county through which they pass, as part of a process of victimisation? Will it be possible to pay the deposit by credit card, or, if the mobile technology for paying by credit card is not available, to be accompanied by an official to an automatic teller machine to draw some cash—the driver may have plenty of money on his credit card but not the required amount of money in cash—or will the vehicle be immediately immobilised if the driver does not have the cash, which is a bit harsh? How will it work in practice? How will a driver demonstrate a satisfactory UK address? Does he need to have something in writing, such as a driving licence or a utility bill, or will it be enough to convince the officials that he has a UK address, perhaps by knowing the registered address of the keeper of the vehicle and when he acquired the vehicle? I note that the maximum cumulative amount of the financial deposit is £900. It is obviously sensible to have some limit, but how does this provision compare with the arrangements in other EU countries? I thought that the on-the-spot fines in the rest of Europe were considerably higher. Touch wood, but I have never had any penalty points on my licence; I have been careful to avoid them. To me, they are a significant deterrent, especially with a totting-up procedure that could lead to the loss of my driving licence. However, my fear is that a foreign driver’s licence will not be endorsable or at risk under these procedures, so it will not be a particularly effective deterrent. The deposits will be seen simply as a cost of operation in the UK. My most serious concern is the apparently very low level of deposits. If I drive in a bus lane in London, apparently I will pick up a penalty of £120 for what might be a momentary error or misjudgment. It certainly would not be a safety issue; it would simply be a bit anti-social to drive in a bus lane. I do not support doing so, but it is a minor matter. Yet it still picks up a £120 fixed penalty. If, for example, a foreign lorry driver uses a vehicle that is in a dangerous condition, contrary to Section 40A of the Road Traffic Act 1988, the deposit required is only £60. However, if a UK lorry driver is convicted of that offence or pays a fixed penalty twice in a given period, he will lose his licence under the Road Safety Act. In short, a UK driver will pick up an endorsement and a fine or fixed penalty, while a foreign driver will have to pay only the deposit, which might be turned into a fixed penalty. If the matter is too serious to be dealt with by fixed penalty and has to go to court, the deposit is set at £300, as the Minister explained. The Explanatory Notes say that that amount has been determined by looking at the average fines imposed by the courts. However, this is seriously flawed. A large proportion of UK road traffic offenders are very young and of limited means. That depresses the level of the average fine imposed. The lorry driver must by law be over 21, and is probably over 25. The operator may be responsible for the offence rather than the driver, but legally the driver must have considerable financial resources to be able to operate the goods vehicle. Will the Minister say what is the average fine levied on a UK goods vehicle operator in respect of his vehicle operations? If he does not know, perhaps he will write to me because this is probably a bit of a surprise question. I suspect that the average fine imposed is considerably more than £300. I welcome the order as a first step to solving a tricky problem, but we need to monitor the effect closely, and I look forward to the post-implementation review mentioned in the Explanatory Notes at paragraph 12.2.