Driving ban for ex-Scottish Secretary Lord Forsyth

LORD Forsyth, the former Scottish Secretary, has been banned from driving after being caught speeding for the fourth time in two years.

The Conservative peer was stripped of his driving licence for six months after speeding on the A9 in his £70,000 Range Rover.

The former cabinet minister and Stirling MP was disqualified on Thursday under the totting-up procedure, after mounting up 12 points on his licence.

He appeared personally at Perth’s Justice of the Peace court to be formally banned from the road.

The peer admitted driving his Range Rover Vogue TDV8 at 76 miles per hour on a stretch of single carriageway with a speed limit of 60mph. The powerful 4.4 litre vehicle was clocked by speed camera after 11pm on 
7 June this year as it passed the junction with the B8079 road to Blair Atholl.

Lord Forsyth was speeding at an accident blackspot on the notorious A9 close to the House of Bruar shopping complex in Perthshire. The court was told that he had already been caught speeding twice during 2010 and on a further occasion last year.

The 58-year-old – who is named on his driving licence as Lord Forsyth – appeared as Michael Bruce Forsyth on court papers and no mention was made of his high-profile political career.

Fiscal depute Catherine Fraser told the court: “This was a case where the speeding vehicle was captured by a fixed roadside Gatso speed camera. The time of the offence was 11:18 pm, but because it was a speed camera there is no further detail about the road or weather conditions.”

Solicitor Paul Donnachie, defending, said Lord Forsyth had been driving through Highland Perthshire and had not noticed his speed creeping up beyond the national limit.

He told the court the peer would be able to pay any fine immediately.

Justice of the Peace Christine Grant noted Lord Forsyth had three points imposed for speeding in a 30mph zone on 14 May, 2010; three points for speeding in 50mph zone on 12 July, 2010; and three points for speeding in a 50mph zone on 31 July last year.

She asked Lord Forsyth, of
Aberfoyle, and his solicitor if they wished to argue against disqualification under totting-up on the grounds that it might cause him “exceptional hardship.”

However, the lawyer told the court that there were no grounds for arguing that a 
motoring ban would pose him that level of difficulty. The JP banned the peer from driving for six months and fined him £105.

Michael Forsyth served as Conservative MP for Stirling from 1983 to 1997 and held several ministerial posts before becoming Scottish Secretary under John Major in 1995.

He is a former chairman of both the Scottish Conservative Party and the Tax Reform Commission and was knighted in 1997.

In 1999, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Forsyth of Drumlean.

As well as raising more than £1 million for charity, he has remained a high-profile and outspoken member of the Conservative Party. Last month, he compared Chancellor George Osborne to Dickens’ Mr Micawber because he was “hoping something will turn up” to save the economy. He was unavailable for comment last night.