Your fast track to a driving ban

Motorists with just two speeding offences could be banned from driving under plans being considered by the government.

If the new law was introduced immediately, the 1.1m drivers who have six points or more on their licences could face an immediate ban for just one more offence.

The Department for Transport (DfT) wants higher penalties for excess speeding. The new system would apply to drivers caught at 45mph or over in a 30mph limit. At the moment, they face a £60 fine and three points on their licence. Under the new scheme they would be fined £100 and have six penalty points.

But there is confusion over whether ministers have scrapped plans to introduce a lower penalty – two points and a £40 fine – for drivers who drift just a few miles per hour over the limit.

Jim Fitzpatrick, the road safety minister, told The Times that such a plan would undermine the message that even small breaches of the limit could kill. But on Sky News he was reported as saying that smaller penalties might still be possible: “Just crossing the threshold, I would consider a different offence to someone driving 50mph in a 30mph zone.” Motorists are now given up to four chances before being banned. They can take a speed awareness course to avoid the first penalty and then commit three more offences before the next one leads to a ban once 12 points have been collected. The DfT will publish a consultation document about the new plans before Christmas.

Paul Smith, founder of campaign group Safe Speed, said: “Drivers will rightly be concerned that they will be faced with losing their licences for six months after two perfectly routine cases of driving safely. We all know that exceeding the speed limit isn’t automatically dangerous.” According to Safe Speed, excessive speed is only responsible for 5% of accidents. There are more than 30,000 people killed or seriously injured on British roads each year. Just over 3,000 of these are killed. Three times as many men are killed as women. The figures have been falling steadily over the past 15 years, although progress seems to have slowed in the past year or two.

According to official road safety statistics, four of the six most frequently reported contributory factors in accidents involved driver error.

Cameron sees a dividend in coop schools

David Cameron went right into the heart of Labour territory last week and made a bold attempt to seize the legacy of the cooperative movement. Speaking in Manchester, not far from where the first coop was founded by the so-called Rochdale Pioneers in 1844, the Tory leader announced the creation of a Conservative Cooperative Movement.

He will publish plans early next year to allow coop schools in areas where existing education services are failing. “We know that if parents have a say in how their school is run, if they feel that their view matters and their wishes count, the school is always better,” he said.

“What better way then to give parents direct involvement in their school than to give them ownership of it?”

He said coops have a flexibility and dynamism that was lacking in a system of centralised state control.

But Peter Hunt, general secretary of the Cooperative party, was not impressed by the Tory leader’s conversion. He told The Guardian: “The Cooperative party policies are rooted in labour philosophy. If David Cameron wishes to join us, he will first have to defect to the Labour party.”

Cost of ID cards soars to £5.6bn

The estimated cost of introducing ID cards is now £5.6 billion over the next 10 years, the Home Office has announced. That’s not far off double the projected cost of the £3.1 billion suggested when the scheme was unveiled by Labour in 2004. All foreign nationals must carry biometric ID cards from next year; from 2010 anybody who applies for a UK passport will also get an identity card whether they like it or not.

Initially, the cost of getting an ID card and a biometric passport was estimated at £93. James Hall, chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service, says he cannot yet say what the new cost would be, but reports last week predicted that it would be more than £100.

Ministers say ID cards will help to combat identity fraud, tackle illegal working and illegal immigration and make it more difficult for terrorists and criminals to use false identities.

It will also ensure that nobody gets access to free public services unless they are entitled to use them, which means government departments and other public sector services will need new equipment to read the ID cards. Both the main opposition parties have promised to scrap the scheme, under which all passport holders over the age of 16 will be fingerprinted and entered into a national database.

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, says he’d rather go to prison than carry a card. The Conservatives say they would introduce a border police force instead.

Phil Booth of No2ID, the antiidentity card pressure group, said the Home Office estimates failed to consider the costliest item. “The budget looks only to the rosiest future,” he said. “It fails to acknowledge the biggest black hole of all: compulsory interrogation of the entire adult population.”

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