Road Safety Bill [HL]

I recognise the strength of that last point, but that would be a different legal proceeding indeed, about a different case. We are seeking to deal with the perverse incentive here, whereby a vehicle is being driven in such a way that it would merit six penalty points. That is the offence that is being committed and that is what the driver of that vehicle will incur. We are seeking to avoid the perverse incentive whereby the person who was driving that vehicle is able to evade the six penalty points by saying, ““I do not know who was driving”” and then the penalty is only three points. I maintain that it is right that in circumstances where, at the present time, that perverse incentive exists, it should be removed. I take on board all the many points about the operation of the law and justice in this country and the question of whether the information has been received and whether the person had a proper chance to respond to it. All that takes place properly before the magistrates in circumstances where the defence is that there has been some problem with understanding what they were meant to comply with. But those are extraneous matters. We are dealing, simply and straightforwardly, with a situation where, at present, there is this incentive for someone to conceal who the driver was because they only incur three points in doing so where in fact they would get six points if they identified who it was. That is something which must be recognised as in breach and the noble Lord’s amendment would reinstate that perverse and totally unacceptable incentive.