Road Safety Bill [HL]

Before the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, addresses those comments, I should say that I do not think that what the Minister said was good enough, although I listened to him very carefully. I believe that motorists need guidance. They have been told that they are not to use a mobile phone while driving and that they will incur penalty points if they do. I hope that motorists will be advised not to use a hands-free mobile phone while driving. However, at the same time you must tell motorists what they can do. It is a matter of what you cannot do and what you can do. I hope that any publicity that is issued tells motorists what is permissible. That has to be done whether it is done in law or in guidance. The noble Lord referred to leaving matters to the court to decide. I am not a lawyer either. However, I am not very keen that every time we discuss a difficult issue, whether it is using mobile phones while driving or dealing with terrorists, we should shuffle it off to the courts to let our learned friends spend huge sums of taxpayers’ money deciding issues that we ought to decide here. I ask the Minister to reflect very carefully on the matter and return at Report with a form of words that will better satisfy noble Lords.