It is outrageous that drivers who are safe, who don’t make claims, and who follow the rules are being penalised by insurance companies in Bradford.

Many with perfectly good records have already seen their premiums rocket simply by virtue of living in a particular Bradford postcode.

And now one insurance company, Esure, has gone a stage further, and is point blank refusing to give quotes to new customers in the BD2 and BD3 areas.

Richard Summerscales is a former police traffic officer with a clean driving record who drives an ordinary estate car. He should be an ideal customer, but because he lives in BD2, Esure have refused to even give him a quote.

The number of uninsured drivers and opportunist drivers making claims against Esure customers mean the company says it is paying out twice as much to third parties as it is getting payment from its insured drivers’ premiums in BD2.

So law-abiding citizens like Mr Summerscales are basically paying the price for those who simply don’t bother to follow the rules and drive around uninsured.

If other companies follow this lead, are we going to see a situation where no new business is accepted in these postcodes, effectively meaning anyone who isn’t already insured won’t legally be able to run a car. That is a situation that cannot be allowed to happen.

Rather than penalising the law-abiding drivers, it is time more was done to deal with those who flout the law. That means tracking down the uninsured drivers and coming down hard.

Confiscation powers should be used where available, making it hurt to be caught either driving without insurance or making a fraudulent claim.

Allowing things to carry on as they are would be an absolute scandal.