The government minister Robert Jenrick has been banned from driving for six months and fined more than £1,600 after being caught driving almost 30mph over the speed limit last year.
The Conservative MP for Newark was recorded driving 68mph in a temporary 40mph zone on the M1 in Northamptonshire on 5 August 2022. Jenrick pleaded guilty to the offence in February and said in a letter to the court that he “sincerely apologised” for the incident.
The immigration minister was driving his Land Rover southbound after appearing as a guest on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions?, which was hosted at Wakefield Cathedral in West Yorkshire.
The case was heard in private under the single justice procedure at Northampton magistrates court on Tuesday, meaning members of the press and public were unable to attend.
The procedure, which does not require defendants to attend court, was introduced for minor offences such as speeding and TV licence evasion as part of an effort to clear the backlog in the judicial system.
Jenrick was fined £1,107 and ordered to pay a £442 victim surcharge and £90 in costs, the Courts and Tribunals Service centre said.
In court papers reported by the Telegraph, the minister said he did not see the signs for the lower speed limit around a section of road works.
Responding to the sentence, Jenrick said: “I accept the court’s decision.
“I was driving below the national speed limit on an empty motorway, with no road works in sight. I now understand that a variable speed limit had been applied, which I didn’t see. I wouldn’t knowingly exceed the speed limit.”
A police statement said the alleged speed Jenrick was driving at “exceeded that permitted for the matter to be dealt with by way of conditional offer of fixed penalty and was therefore accepted for prosecution”.
In March last year Jenrick was fined £307 and handed three penalty points for breaking a 40mph speed limit on the A40 in west London in August 2021.
Earlier this year the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, was fined by police for not wearing his seatbelt while travelling in the back of a car, while the security minister, Tom Tugendhat, was banned from driving for six months in November after being caught driving while using his mobile phone.
