Justice 1 Committee, 16 Apr 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 16, 2002

Official Report 297KB pdf

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Petitions

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Road Traffic Deaths (PE29)<br />Dangerous Driving Deaths<br />(PE55, PE299, PE331)

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Road Accidents (Police 999 Calls) (PE111)

Item 5 is consideration of several petitions that have come before the committee previously. I refer the committee to paper J1/02/11/4, which is a helpful exposition of the difficulties of road traffic legislation and summarises research carried out by the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions.

I also refer the committee to paper J1/02/11/05, which is from Scotland's Campaign against Irresponsible Drivers. I seek your comments and refer you to the options on pages 9 and 10 of paper J1/02/11/4. I know which options I prefer, but let me hear what the committee has to say. As you know, we deferred consideration of the petitions until the DTLR's report came out.

The matter goes back to before the Justice and Home Affairs Committee was split into the Justice 1 Committee and Justice 2 Committee. I think that only three of us who were on the Justice and Home Affairs Committee at that time are on this committee—you, Maureen and me. We decided to put off considering several petitions to await the outcome of the DTLR's report, which was published in January this year.

I have had a look at some of the papers for this item, in particular the document that SCID has provided. I do not know whether other members have noted that page 10 of that document includes a table on methodology and participation. That table compares, for example, the analysis of fatal accident files for the DTLR research in England and Scotland. One of the things that is most striking about that table is the sheer lack of any Scottish involvement in the research.

Road traffic legislation is a reserved matter. It is very concerning that the research appears to have been completed without Scottish involvement. That does not appear to have been the fault of the researchers. It appears that the Scottish system was unable to answer a number of the questions that the researchers had asked. It also appears that procurators fiscal were somewhat reluctant to be involved in the research and would only do so if the evidence was not attributed to them.

I have real concerns about the research and whether it reflects what happens in Scotland. Given that we have put it off before, the committee has an obligation to proceed with the matter. It is for members to decide how they want to do that. I think that we should ask the minister how the Executive intends to respond to the research and whether it is satisfied with the limited participation of Scottish agencies.

Michael Matheson is right. The recommendations in paragraphs 19.4 to 19.6 on page 7 of our briefing show that there is a lack of statistics. I am attracted to the requirement that convictions for bad driving offences be kept by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in an archive, to allow reoffending to be monitored. It is apparent from the full report on the petitions that some people just offend and offend and offend. We must be able to make such people surrender their vehicles.

There is a strong case for writing to the Minister for Justice. Michael Matheson called for us to do that and paragraph 30 suggests that. We could ask the minister questions about what he considers the position to be, according to the expert evidence of his officials. We could also write to the Lord Advocate to put similar points and the comments in paragraph 31.

When I was the minister with responsibility for road safety, the lead department was the Department of Transport in Whitehall. It formulated the policy, although we had input. The decision on whether to recategorise such crimes was not for the Scottish Office. It would be helpful to find out from the Minister for Justice and the Lord Advocate the extent to which the matters are reserved and to which the Parliament can have input.

If we have feedback from both ministers, we will be in a position to take up the option in paragraph 32 and call the ministers before the committee. Before that, we can appoint a reporter on the matter, as paragraph 33 suggests. Until we know the Administration's view on the available facts in Scotland, it is hard for us to express an informed view.

We have not been presented with this option, but I wonder whether the committee might like to hear from the petitioners again. If we are to hear from the Minister for Justice and the Lord Advocate, perhaps we could see the petitioners too.

The idea is that we will first obtain responses from the Lord Advocate and the Minister for Justice. Copies of those responses should be sent to the petitioners as part of the inquiry, as it were, and analysis. I suggest that the committee then considers whether it wants to have the petitioners back to comment and/or to appoint a reporter. We have much work to finish on our timetable before the session ends in April or May next year. I am not kicking the issue into touch, but we should have the answers before we decide what is required.

We should pursue the issue energetically and I am happy that we should write to the Minister for Justice. We should pursue the issue of information and statistics. Although the matter is mostly reserved, surely having decent Scottish statistics is a Scottish issue. Either we do not have the statistics or the officials involved have failed to provide them. We should pursue the issue of statistics.

Another way of ventilating the subject might be for the committee to initiate a debate on the issue in the chamber. Dangerous driving is a wide-ranging issue.

Would we have to produce a report?

I do not think that we have to produce a report to initiate a debate. Having a report would help, but as I understand the system from our whip, we can say that we think that the issue is a good general one for a parliamentary discussion.

I will have to check the procedure. The norm has been to have a report, but perhaps the committee can lodge a motion. I have no idea, because we have not tried it before, but we can check whether we could lodge a motion for debate in the name of the committee to air all these matters. It would also be useful to ask the minister and the Lord Advocate to respond to all the recommendations highlighted on page 6 of the report, which include a new offence of causing severe injury by dangerous driving. It is worth considering whether those causing severe injury or death by dangerous driving should automatically be remitted to the High Court in the first instance and not on a sheriff's decision later, as that seems to have an impact on sentencing.

I endorse what Donald Gorrie said about statistics. In writing to the minister, we should ask a number of questions about interviews. I see that, in England, 10 magistrates, eight justice clerks, four Crown court judges, two coroners, four barristers and six representatives of the Crown Prosecution Service were interviewed. In Scotland, there were five prosecutors, whose views could not be attributed, and two sheriffs, who could make personal observations only. No further information was given by the Crown Office. Why has there been so little participation from agencies in Scotland? I note that, in England and Wales, police, the CPS, magistrates and judges responded to the question on decisions to prosecute. In Scotland, only the police did so. It would be helpful to put those points to the minister and ask why that was the case.

You are right. I am just looking at the report to check the source of the methodology and I see that it is a Transport Research Laboratory study. I do not think that we should put those points to the minister in order of priority; instead, we should highlight all the points and refer to the table in the report. Although the report deals with a reserved matter, I understand that something could be done right now about statistics and about the jurisdiction of the High Court. We shall draft a letter and e-mail it to all committee members for amendments or comments before producing a final version.

The subject is of the greatest sensitivity and has given rise to immense distress. We have a duty to take it very seriously.

Absolutely. The cases are horrific. I have children and the thought of the young people who have perished as a consequence of careless or dangerous driving is absolutely appalling. Such a tragedy lives with a family for ever. I am pleased that the committee has been able to consider this serious matter, which we will put back on to the agenda next week or perhaps the following week when we have had further thoughts about it. We will investigate how we can raise the issue as a subject for debate in Parliament.