Lord Katz (Lab)

Again, I say to the noble Lord that I will make some progress and then he may come back at me again before I finally sit down. The fundamental purpose of the new offences is to appropriately punish offenders and deter dangerous cycling behaviours. There is no carve-out or special provision for delivery riders. To be clear, all road users will face equal treatment before the law under these provisions. I can also assure the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, that, like all new government enactments, the Crime and Policing Act will be subject to post-legislative review three to five years after Royal Assent, so there is the opportunity to review the action. Amendment 416K from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, would allow for food delivery companies to receive an unlimited fine should any of their riders be convicted of any offences under Clause 106. A complicating factor around this, as many noble Lords recognised, is that many such riders operate in the gig economy—the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, set that out particularly well. We are not always talking about the relationship between an employer and an employee, so using what we would consider normal working relationship incentives and rule structures is not always the easiest thing to do. It is worth stating, particularly as the Employment Rights Bill finally finished its passage through Parliament yesterday, that as part of that wider package of employment reforms, there will be a major consultation on employment status which will help to clarify these grey areas. Again, I cite the contribution that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, made. I say in response to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that is probably the best place to have a review of the grey areas around contractors and employers working in the gig economy. A problem has clearly been identified in the delivery driving sector, but there are many other sectors— I remember from my time spent in Committee on the Employment Rights Bill that there are lots of areas where the lack of clarity on employment status is causing all sorts of consequences.