COMMON AMENDMENT (Hansard, 31 July 1962)

§ LORD CHESHAM
My Lords, I will try to keep this point Simple. This Amendment relates to attempts to overcome a difficulty which exists in regard to holders of driving licences issued in Northern Ireland (these licences, of course, are valid in this country) who are convicted of driving offences involving endorsement of their licence. The procedure is different. When you drive on a Northern Ireland licence the court, if they order it to be endorsed, instead of endorsing it under Section 116 of the Road Traffic Act, have instead to send particulars of the conviction of an endorsable offence to the Minister. That is what the Act says. It follows that people driving on Northern Ireland driving licences in this country will never come in for the provisions of to-day's Bill, by virtue of the fact that they will never get their licences endorsed, and the cumulative disqualification provision in particular can be circumvented by doing that. So I should imagine that, before long, we should all have Northern Ireland driving licences, which I do not think is quite the idea. The Amendment puts this straight—I will not go into the technicality of exactly how it brings them in—so that that loophole is closed. I beg to move.

§ LORD SHEPHERD
My Lords, am I to understand that if you start off with a Northern Ireland driving licence and you become a resident in this country, you can still continue indefinitely to be driving on a Northern Ireland driving licence?

§ Lord CHESHAM
No, my Lords; only during the period of its validity.

Section one hundred and sixteen.	For subsection (3) there shall be substituted the following subsection:—
	(3) If the holder of any such licence is convicted of an offence and the court orders particulars of the conviction to be endorsed in accordance with section five of the Road Traffic Act, 1962, the court shall send those particulars to the Minister'.")