Road Safety Bill [HL]

I am grateful to noble Lords for the clear way in which they spoke to their amendments on training courses. Under our new provision, the decision would be taken in the courts. As the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, explained clearly, it is an opportunity for drivers whose licence has been endorsed with penalty points, not disqualified, to pay by undertaking to participate in a retraining course. I emphasised why I regarded such cases very differently from those of disqualification, on which we differed during the debate on the proposals of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, asked why we do not start earlier, and why we restrict the option to those who have already committed several offences, in the bracket of seven to 11 points. He suggested that we widen the provision so that more can avail of the option to retrain to improve their driving skills and learn a few lessons. I have no doubt, given the way in which the retraining is carried out, that lessons are drawn from past bad practice; examples of bad practice will be shown and they will be clearly recognised by the offender. The reason that we do not offer retraining from the beginning is that we must be able to provide enough courses. We cannot ask the courts to make such a provision without having sufficient places for offenders. I hear what the noble Lord says. I do not dispute the desirability of granting the option to all; nor do I deny that we should work towards potentially offering the option to all appropriate offenders. However, I ask the noble Lord to accept that we must see how the scheme goes. It is a significant administrative commitment and a big exercise. It must be guaranteed because it is about the enforcement of a penalty. Although these courses are different from the points system, they are a penalty because they are imposed. It is a useful concept, to which all noble Lords subscribe, and we want to start by dealing with limited numbers with which we can cope. As the Committee will recognise, the problem is that many people commit one offence and fall into the three-points category. We would be taking an enormous risk if we said that we could set up a strategy