Road Safety Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 45:"Page 15, line 31, leave out ““17”” and insert ““18””" The noble Earl said: In moving Amendment No. 45, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 46. I remind the House of my interest declared at Second Reading. It is always a pleasure to move the first amendment on a Monday afternoon after Question Time. One of my regrets about the Bill is that it looks increasingly unlikely that we will finish Committee stage before the Summer Recess. Amendment No. 45 would make the ““alcolock”” scheme unavailable to 17 year-old drivers. The scheme is controversial and novel, but it may not be objectionable. Why does the Minister desire to make the scheme available to a young driver only 17 years old, who has made such a poor start to his driving career? Amendment No. 46 is far more important. Subsection (12) of new Section 34D is on page 16 of the Bill. I am concerned that a sober person could release the alcolock in order to allow a person who is not sober to drive the vehicle. I accept that the Bill goes some way to addressing the problem and uses the words,"““with intent to cause it””—" the alcolock—"““not to function or not to function properly””." In the circumstances that I described, the alcolock will have functioned properly, but there will still be a drunk at the wheel. I do not think that any offence will have been committed by the person who has given a clean sample to the alcolock device. I beg to move.