Road Safety Bill [HL]

That is so and that is an obvious situation. You cannot penalise by penalty points those who never intend to drive. But I can assure the noble Lord that we certainly do not have a situation where a company can present a defence in the courts saying, ““it is impossible for us to reply to the question of who was driving that vehicle because we have not the faintest idea””. Otherwise one would envisage that it would be the case that every business driver in the country would take advantage of the ability of his employers to get him out of this particular problem. That is clearly not the case. Companies act responsibly. They need to for insurance purposes—all sorts of things can happen to the vehicle—they certainly do need to know who is driving. It does not matter how large the company and how many vehicles they have—they know. It is not companies that we are seeking to attack here. The problem is not that we have got thousands of these notices out and companies are tearing them up and throwing them in the bin because the chairman is not likely to incur any particular difficulty because the chauffeur always takes him to his place of work in any case and he does not drive. That is not the issue. We are dealing with a situation where somebody—the owner of the vehicle—has committed the offence themselves and can get a reduced sentence by not supplying the information where they only get three points but will get six if they supply the information. That is clearly something that needs to be remedied. If the noble Lord’s amendment was sustained—whatever the arguments backing it—that is what would continue and I am sure that the House would recognise the folly of that course of action.