My Lords, I am grateful for the positive response from noble Lords. As regards the hiccup, I will write to the noble Lord and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, with full details of the impact and how we will cover it.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, talked about careless driving. Of course, careless driving is not necessarily a less serious offence. Some of the offences that we are already capturing under the graduated fixed penalty are less serious than careless driving. The issue is that
we have brought careless driving into the fixed-penalty regime. I understand the noble Lord’s point about dealing with a more serious careless driving offence by means of a fixed penalty when it would be appropriate to take it to court. It is a matter for the police which way they go and I am sure that they will make the judgment correctly. However, I have details here about which would come out as less serious offences, able to be dealt with by means of a fixed penalty. I have no doubt that the more serious offences will continue to be taken to court. For instance, if a driver emerges from a junction incorrectly, he may pick up a fixed penalty but if he causes another motorist to take emergency avoiding action, his chances are that he will find himself in court.
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The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, drew attention to the fact that the successful payment rate for these graduated fixed penalties is about 100%. He is quite right. Most of them are issued by VOSA because the target is the foreign heavy goods vehicle, which is going nowhere until the driver has paid the graduated fixed-penalty deposit against either the fixed-penalty notice or the possible court action. The noble Lord also asked what happens where this scheme is used for private motorists. The answer is basically the same. The vehicle is not going anywhere until the penalty has been paid. It can be immobilised with the so-called Denver boot. Payment is usually made by a credit card but there are provisions in the legislation to deal with the problem of someone mucking about by coming out with a very complicated payment system, such as asking several times for £5 to be taken off several cards. There are limits on how you can pay but the system is fair and I am confident that it works.
The noble Lord asked whether he can be copied in on any correspondence to his colleague in the House of Commons. Whatever we write in terms of the details to the opposition spokesman in the House of Commons will of course be copied to the noble Lord.