My hon. Friend is right. Lovell showed no remorse at his trial, just as he had showed no remorse following the offences that had led to his previous 69 convictions and his being banned for life from driving.
A deterrent is a limited option. It may be unlikely that people who think in that way will ever be deterred from getting into a car, driving at speed, and then killing someone. What we need is the opportunity to give the police and the courts the power to ensure that such people are off the road in the first place, and cannot commit crimes. The tragedy for Ross and Clare Simons was that Nicholas Lovell should never have been in that car to start with. He was not allowed to be in a car, but that did not prevent him from getting into one. Rather than being on the road, he should have been in jail serving time for the previous crimes that he had committed so relentlessly. We need to deal with that problem if we are to prevent further tragedies.
Of the 255 people who went to prison in 2011, 21 were given less than six months in jail, 104 were jailed for under two years, and just 37—one in seven of all those who were convicted of death by dangerous driving—were given prison sentences of more than five years. It is clear that the severity of the sentencing for those who cause death by dangerous driving is a national issue that needs to be addressed.