Road Safety Bill [HL]

I too am grateful that the point of detail has been cleared up to the satisfaction of the Committee. On the more general point, I may be a little disappointing in view of the trenchant points that have been made. My defence for that is that the Committee will have recognised quite a range of viewpoints being expressed in our debate. I hear the criticism about the proposal that the range should extend down to two. Of course, we are aware of those points being made in our consultation. I also note that there is considerable support in some quarters for the range being to six. The reason why I shall be disappointing is quite straightforward. The Bill creates an enabling framework for the secondary legislation through which this issue needs to be resolved. We are presently involved in a consultation. This short debate is a happy contribution to that consultation and reflects fairly accurately the widespread public views on these issues. Yet it is secondary legislation on which we will debate these issues, and that is the appropriate place for the points range to be identified. I am therefore loath to engage in the degree of detail to which I have been seductively invited by everyone contributing to this debate. Even if there had been an absolute, unanimous expression of viewpoints across the Committee on this controversial issue—a concept I can scarcely envisage—and had I been able to guarantee that all of us gathered here represented the totality of the House in that unanimity—I would still have maintained the point that I cannot accept the viewpoints and amendments today. That is because we   are concerned here with primary legislation, which creates the framework in which this debate is subsequently to take place. The consultation goes on: this debate is part of it. The Committee will recognise that the Government would not have indicated their range for this purpose if they were not convinced of one position to which the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, drew attention. We are not convinced of the case for a single penalty point for speeding. In every circumstance that we can envisage, the offence is significant enough for us to think that one penalty point would never be appropriate. Of course, at this stage, I am not prepared to commit the Government to the range of views expressed beyond that.