asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department why, when the maximum penalties for motoring offences were revised recently, the offence of drunken driving and driving with excess alcohol was made punishable with a maximum £400 fine or four months' imprisonment, while the maximum penalty for refusing to give a urine and blood speciment was a £400 fine without the alternative of a custodial sentence.

The Government's policy, reflected in the Road Traffic Act 1974, is to reduce the number of offences imprisonable on a summary conviction. If we are to pursue this policy, which I hope commends itself to my hon. Friend, a line must be drawn somewhere. This particular line was drawn in a backbench amendment supported by the Magistrates Association which the Government accepted at the Committee stage of the Bill.