§ Mr. DrewTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions he has had with(a) the police, (b) the Lord Chancellor and (c) the Crown Prosecution Service on raising the tariff for serious road traffic offences. [65023]
§ Hilary Benn[holding answer 27 June 2002]: We are currently reviewing penalties for all road traffic offences. On 19 December 2000 we published a consultation paper. The paper dealt with the court sentencing powers for a wide range of road traffic offending including serious offending. The consultation exercise ended in March 2001. We are currently in the final stages of producing the Government's response to the consultation exercise on road traffic penalties. We hope to publish this shortly.
This was an interdepartmental review involving officials from the Home Office, Lord Chancellor's Department, and the Department for Transport in which the views of the Lord Chancellor, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service were taken into account.