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Motorists convicted of speeding may have to pay compensation for victims, the government has proposed.
The proposal, published on Monday, is one of several changes to the funding of victim support services.

Motorists given a prison term or suspended sentence would pay £30 to a Home Office fund providing victim and witness compensation and support.

Those fined for speeding or driving without insurance would face a levy of £5 or £10.

Money for the fund would come mainly from imposing a surcharge on offenders.

Publishing the consultation paper, Home Secretary David Blunkett said: "The effect of crime on the lives of its victims can be devastating.

"A lump sum of compensation alone does not repair this damage, and the current scheme does not enable us to provide the wide range of support needed."

He said a victims fund will put more money into services such as practical support, information and advice to victims of rape and sexual offences, road traffic accident victims and those who have been bereaved as a result of crime.

Parking fines would be exempt from the new levy.

Other on-the-spot fines, such as being drunk in public or making a hoax 999 call, would also carry the extra charge.

Criminals would also have to pay out, with a suggested £30 surcharge handed to every new prison inmate and everyone ordered to do a community service order, provided the sentencing judge agreed.

The surcharges would raise £28 million a year if they were all collected, but with an expected enforcement rate of 60% they would bring in just under £17 million, the Home Office paper said.

Most of the proposals apply in England and Wales only.

Founder of ex-offenders' charity Unlock and editor of the Prisons Handbook, Mark Leech, said: "It is for the state to provide for victims of crime rather than to impose levies on people who commit speeding offences and so on - these are victimless crimes.

"It simply isn't fair and it isn't right."

He said the scheme would not work in practice.

"Increasing the financial burden on offenders isn't the answer because many of them get into crime in the first place because they have no money."

Anthony Forsyth of Victim Support said that while the charity supported moves to improve services it was "uncomfortable" with the use of income from fines.

"Our position has always been that services for victims should come out of core funding," he said.

"We are uncomfortable with the idea of linking this extra income with these sorts of minor offences.

"We think the Government should pay for that."

Under the plans, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority would also be given greater powers to recover from offenders money it had paid out to victims.

Also under the proposal, the drinks industry could be asked to contribute towards the cost of compensation because of the large number of alcohol-related violent incidents.

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