HC Deb 11 May 2004 vol 421 cc232-3W
Tim Loughton

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been prosecuted in Sussex for use of mobile telephones while driving since the recent changes to the law were introduced; and what revenues have been collected in penalties from such prosecutions. [169861]

Caroline Flint

The specific offence of driving while using a hand held mobile phone came into effect on 1 December 2003. Use of a hands free mobile phone is not an offence.

Data on police action (written warnings, fixed penalty notices and court proceedings) for the new offence of driving while using a hand held mobile telephone will not be available until the autumn of 2004.

Mr. Amess

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his strategy is for enforcing legislation on the use of mobile phones while driving. [171096]

Caroline Flint

When use of a mobile phone while driving amounts to some other offence, such as failing to exercise proper control, it has always been enforced as that. Such enforcement will continue when appropriate. The specific new offence of using a hand-held mobile phone while driving is designed to provide a simple, objective method of enforcement and prosecution, which does not depend in the same way on judgments of a driver's degree of control of a vehicle or carelessness. The Association of Chief Police Officers have welcomed it as such. How offences are enforced is an operational matter for individual chief officers of police.