§ Amendments made: No. 46, in page 62, line 28, column 3, leave out '6' and insert '5–9'.
§ No. 47, in page 62, line 29, column 3 [Schedule 7], leave out '4' and insert '4–9 '.—[Mr. Kenneth Clarke.]
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeI beg to move amendment No. 48, in page 62, line 35, column 3, leave out '1' and insert '2'
This amendment has been tabled by the Government in direct response to arguments put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. Waller) in Committee. He pointed out an anomaly in the Bill as drafted, between the one point that we proposed to impose where someone was convicted of refusing to submit to a test of eyesight and the two points imposed for "driving with uncorrected defective eyesight." They both sound unusual offences. They are not common, but arise basically when a driver drives either without wearing his spectacles or when his eyesight is so defective that it is time that he went to an optician to have his eyes tested and acquire spectacles.
As the Bill stood, the provision gave rise to the possibility that someone who was stopped in circumstances that led the police to question his eyesight would realise that he was better off if he refused to take an eyesight test than if he admitted that his eyesight was defective and had a penalty imposed. On the other hand, it is almost certain that anyone who refuses an eyesight test 245 is offending even more seriously than the average case, because he must know almost certainly that he will fail the test if he agrees to take it.
The amendment proposes, therefore, that two points should be imposed for either offence. My hon. Friend has done the House a service by pointing out an inconsistency that certainly needed correcting.
§ Amendment agreed to.