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Mr. Flook: While we are talking about breath testing will the Minister make a passing comment as to when we can expect testing for those who are under the influence of cannabis?
Mr. Jamieson: I will not stray too far on to this matter; otherwise I will test your patience, Mr. Pike. We recently gave the police some guidelines for testing
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people who may be under the influence of any sort of drug. Those enable the police to operate a test on people at the side of the road which will indicate whether they are properly in control of their faculties. As for a test for a specific drug, that would be difficult to administer at the roadside, and we are nowhere near having equipment that can test in those circumstances.
Cannabis would be very difficult to detect at the side of the road. Studies have shown that some people who have taken cannabis slow down and are more cautious in their approach to things. The difficulty here is that drugs have different effects on people. Furthermore, many people take not one drug but a package of drugs and alcohol. Somebody just taking cannabis on its own may or may not be a danger to themselves or others. It shows up in the bloodstream for a considerable period after somebody has taken it, but the question is how much it has impaired the person.
This area is fairly new to us. Alcohol is clear and specific. It is one substance which can be checked. We have all the equipment and the experience of dealing with alcohol, but we certainly face challenges with other types of drugs. We do not entirely understand what effect drugs have in impairing people's driving. We have a breathalyser for alcohol, but we do not have a drugalyser that can test for a whole range of drugs.
Returning to what my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford said, we need good targeting of people. Targeting has improved—the number of people who have been stopped have been found to be over the limit. I agree that that could be an indication that more people are driving under the influence, but it could mean that there is better targeting of people, and that the police are using resources to good effect and stopping and breathalysing the people who are committing the offences. My colleagues in the Home Office are aware of the matter.
It is disturbing to see that a minority of people—some of them men aged between 20 and 30 as well as, I am sad to say, a growing number of younger women— seem to think that they can control their car when they have had a considerable amount of alcohol. We have focused some of our recent advertising more specifically on the groups of people involved. The latest television advert, which has had a considerable effect, shows that people become drunk drivers in the pub, not in the car. We will continue with such programmes. We are going to introduce laws and change police procedures, but we will also keep up our efforts in other directions.
Mr. Chope: We have had a good debate on this clause. I very much support what the Minister said about the undesirability of harassing motorists with random drug testing, which is in line with our policy. What the Minister said, in effect, in answer to the point made by the hon. Member for Stafford, was that the wording of the White Paper was empty phrasing because there was no need to change the law at that stage. The Government realised that, but it made a good story for the road safety lobby. I do not ask the Minister to accept that in public, although he may do so in private.
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I want to raise a matter that I hoped that the Minister would deal with when answering the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire. What will happen when the roadside procedure is used, the evidential breath test is positive and the person is charged with an excess alcohol offence? Will that person have to be taken to a police station, or will they be sent home? What will happen to their car? We need to think about those practical matters because streamlining the procedures is the rationale for the clause. The Minister has not explained what will happen if the evidential breath test is positive.
Mr. Jamieson: That is a very good question; I asked it myself, and I am happy to deal with it. If someone who has been pulled to the side of the road fails the evidential test, the police officer will have sufficient evidence to charge that person and take him to court. When the formal procedure of obtaining the evidence comes to an end, the police officer will have to decide what will happen to that person. They may use their mobile phone and arrange for a relative to pick them up, or to pick up the car, and they would then be free to go on their way. One of the advantages of the system is that people who are wobbly on their feet will not be held for a long period in a cell where they are liable to make a mess; someone can take them home.
The officer would have to establish, too, whether the person lived close enough to be able to walk or get public transport home, and he may allow them to do so. He would have to be sure that they could not drive the car, and he would have the power to take the person's car keys to stop them driving the car. If the officer thought that as soon as the police had left the scene the person would use a spare key to drive the car, he would have the power to arrest that person and take them back to the police station, just as he would have done previously. That would be the last port of call, as it were, because there would be no saving of police time and so on. In the end, if an officer thought that the person was going to commit the offence again, he would have to use his powers of arrest.
Mr. Knight: What is police practice in cases where officers stop a driver who is found to be over the limit on a busy road where it would be dangerous to leave the vehicle? If the driver lives only a short distance away, do the police ever offer to drive the vehicle home when the procedures are completed?
Mr. Jamieson: The police use good sense and discretion in such circumstances. If the car was on a busy road and was causing an obstruction, which might cause another incident, the police would move it to a safer place and also prevent the driver from taking it. It would be entirely a matter for the police at the scene. If someone was very close to home, what the right hon. Gentleman suggests might be an option. At present, the police arrest the person and take them back to the police station and do not release them until
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they are sober and able to drive their car. The car may be driven to the station by a police officer if there is no other appropriate place to take it.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 13
Period of endorsement for failure to allow specimen to be tested
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
3.30 pm
Mr. Chope: I shall be grateful if the Minister will explain the impact of the clause and why it is necessary to change the law.
Mr. Jamieson: Yes, it is important that I explain that. It was self-evident for the previous clause. I will go through the legal niceties, because they are important.
Clause 13 corrects a consequential amendment missed in the Police Reform Act 2002, which inserted section 7A, which was headed
''Specimens of blood taken from persons incapable of consenting''.
I will explain that. Once I have put it in legalistic terms, I will try to put it in everyday-speak—just so that I understand it myself.
Once an endorsement on a driving licence ceases to be effective, the licence holder may apply to the DVLA for a new licence that is free from the endorsement. Under subsections (5) and (6) of section 45, ''Effect of endorsement'', of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, endorsement for most driving offences remains effective for a period of four years from the conviction, or four years from the date of the offence if no order for disqualification was made.
Section 45(7) of the 1988 Act provides that the period of effectiveness of an endorsement in respect of specified driving offences connected with drink or drugs, or failing to provide a specimen, is 11 years from the conviction. That is because, when an offender is to be sentenced, account must be taken of any other such offence of which he has been convicted within the previous 10 years. When a person has previously been convicted of any such offence within a period of 10 years, section 34(3) of the 1988 Act, which concerns disqualification for certain offences, provides that the court is obliged to disqualify that person for a minimum period of three years.
Although the offence of failing to allow a specimen of blood to be laboratory tested was added to section 34(3) by section 56 of the 2002 Act, that Act omitted to add it to section 45(7). The clause therefore amends section 45(7) by adding the offence of failing to allow a specimen to be subjected to a laboratory test so that
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when a person is guilty of an offence under section 7A(6), the endorsement will remain effective for a period of 11 years from the conviction.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Christchurch has followed every word of that and understands it in its entirety. To put it in everyday-speak, when a person whom the police suspect is over the alcohol limit has been involved in a road collision and is not in a position to give approval for their blood to be analysed—they may be unconscious or the circumstances may be such that they cannot give that permission—once they are in a position to make a decision about the sample, if they say, ''No, you can't test my sample,'' they are charged with failing to give a specimen. However, as the law stands at the moment, that endorsement will stand on their licence for only four years. We want that offence to be treated in the same way as refusing to give permission at the side of the road. It is a matter of bringing the treatment of a hospital patient who subsequently refuses to allow the specimen to be tested in line with that of somebody at the side of the road who says, ''You're not taking a sample from me.'' Such a person is treated as if they were a drunk driver. It is as simple as that—although I have to say that it did not sound that simple in my initial description.
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