Road Safety Bill [HL]

I bow to the technical knowledge of the noble Earl, who has no doubt dealt with more ill-fitting filler caps than I have. Even so, on the more general issues, we are talking about vehicles that are in a dangerous condition. That is tremendously important as the issue relates also to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, in Amendment No. 91. Let us remember that we are talking about a second offence. The noble Earl, Lord   Attlee, said that a second offence brings in more condign punishment after the first offence has been committed. Legislation is like that. If the driver does not know that the legislation governing the conditions under which he does his work and how he conducts a truck or lorry on the road has changed, he is not fit to be the driver. It is his professional responsibility. It will not do to say that in some malign or unfair way the Government have now upped the sentences on a poor individual. He is somebody who has committed an offence on two separate occasions and we intend to ensure that trucks are safe on the road. To do that, the driver must take responsibility. In response to the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, it need not be the driver who is charged with the offence. The offences are the use, causing or permitting another person to use a motor vehicle. In other words, it might be the employer who is negligent and the charge might be brought against him. It might even be the filler cap man. It might be that the driver could not possibly have spotted that the filler cap did not fit. The owner of the vehicle might be his employer, and in those circumstances, the prosecuting authorities will deal with the person responsible for the dangerous condition of the vehicle. That is my answer to the noble Baroness, who tugged at my heart strings when she suggested that a new Labour government might wish to victimise a working man in the course of his duty. Of course we would not want to victimise any working man or woman engaged in any form of professional activity. I want to bring it to the attention of the noble Baroness that we would want to identify who was responsible for the offence of bringing a dangerous vehicle on to the road. As the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, expressed much more effectively than I could ever do, such an offence is a danger to the public and we need to deal with the issue.