The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) on securing this debate and look forward to responding to it. I also welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) to his place, and I will also comment on his remarks. I am aware that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak is vice-president of the European secure vehicle alliance, which is dedicated to reducing vehicle-related crime, fraud and disorder. I am pleased to be able to respond on behalf of the Government on the matter, which is clearly an issue to his constituents, to the wider UK public and, of course, to the Government themselves. We are trying to respond on behalf of all motorists.
I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman, particularly to his espousal of the Swedish system. I recognise the merits of that system, but I cannot share his view that the UK’s system is poorly conceived and regulated or that we allow a free-for-all. I will put on the record why I think that.
The register of number plate suppliers scheme was established in 2003 to regulate the supply of number plates in the UK. It has helped to reduce the opportunities for criminals to obtain plates to disguise the identity of stolen vehicles or to use them in criminal activity. As the hon. Gentleman has said, there are almost 40,000 suppliers on the register—38,894, to be absolutely precise. Although I acknowledge, as the hon. Gentleman has said, that other countries operate a different regime with regard to supply and format, including a single supplier system, the register scheme represents a system of regulation.
I accept that, prior to the scheme, it was possible to buy number plates in the UK for any vehicle from any supplier without valid checks or controls. That is why it was essential to put the scheme in place. It makes it more difficult for criminals and penalty evaders to abuse the number plate process, as it requires them to prove entitlement to the plate and to provide personal identification. It has closed off the opportunity for criminals to obtain number plates through legal channels and, contrary to some views, it has the support of the police.
All number plate suppliers now have to register by law. They pay a one-off fee to join the scheme, the object of which is to ensure that number plates are sold only to a purchaser who can provide entitlement to them and verification of personal details by producing the necessary documents, such as a vehicle registration certificate or a photocard driving licence. Number plate suppliers are then required to keep a record of sales and make it available for inspection by the police or local authorities. That is an important source of information for the investigation of vehicle theft and other crime related to motor vehicles.
It is an offence to create and supply number plates that do not comply with the relevant regulations and the British standard. In order to comply with the British standard, each plate must be permanently and legibly marked with the British standard number, the name, trademark or other means of identifying the number plate manufacturer or the component supplier, and the name and address of the supplying outlet.
DVLA enforcement officers, in conjunction with trading standards officers and the police, carry out a number of intelligence-led targeted enforcements against registered number plate suppliers and unregistered suppliers such as market traders. Again, that gives a slightly different impression from that given by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak; it goes against his argument. He made a number of valid points, but it would have been helpful if he had acknowledged at the outset that the registration scheme and the action that the DVLA takes were important in maintaining the integrity of the British number plate system.
Steve McCabe
I recognise that there has been a modest attempt at regulation, but I am trying to persuade the Minister to go further. Can he give me the figures for successful prosecutions resulting from the activities of the DVLA enforcement officers in the past few years?
Stephen Hammond
I shall try to answer that question later in my speech. If I cannot do so, I will of course write to the hon. Gentleman with the information.
The hon. Gentleman was right to highlight the concerns expressed a few years ago when a single manufacturer, Hills, developed a system of printing that had the unforeseen side-effect of making the number plate text unreadable by automatic number plate recognition—ANPR—technology. He was also right to point out that concerns still exist. Hills was the only manufacturer using that system, and the manufacture of those plates has now been stopped, but there is still an unknown number of those so-called transparent plates in circulation. The Department for Transport estimates that, in the worst-case scenario, up to 5% of all cars could be unreadable. However, we have reasonable evidence that the actual numbers are somewhat smaller. None the less, that development needed to be stopped immediately, and it has been. Most of the transparent plates were fitted to fleet vehicles, which are eventually sold into individual ownership, at which point the plates are routinely swapped for regular, opaque ones. That is one reason that the number might be lower. There were no concrete rules to stop companies employing that process, but that has now been remedied.
Mark Reckless
The manufacturer in question, Hills, was owned by 3M. Is the Minister concerned that there could be a conflict of interest, in that that company, which is well served by the existing registration market, has an executive chairing the relevant British standard that enables the continuation of that market?
Stephen Hammond
My hon. Friend leads me neatly into the next section of my speech, in which I shall address the issue of the British Standards Institution review. My predecessor committed to looking into that, and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak has asked me for an update. I am pleased to be able to tell him that we are seeking to change BSI standard BS AU 145(d), which covers the reflective quality of number plates. Recent advances to ANPR technology mean that the cameras are finding it more difficult to read older number plates. The hon. Gentleman will know, not least because we debated the HGV Road User Levy Bill in the House on Tuesday, that ANPR is now used increasingly for many aspects of managing the road network, including the enforcement of congestion charging and the HGV levy, as well as for detecting and preventing crime.
A committee was set up to improve standards and it was given an 18-month programme of review supported by my Department and by the Home Office. It is rightly using wider industry expertise. I hear clearly the point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak and by my hon. Friend but, had we not used that expertise, one of their colleagues might have challenged me by asking why we had kept the review to civil servants. Once the committee has made its recommendations—they will be published and consulted on in late spring—I hope both hon. Members will respond to them, and point out any outstanding issues. The committee has done some rigorous work, however, and I hope its findings will offer some reassurance. I think that they will help to maintain confidence in the number plate regime, tackle vehicle excise duty evasion and improve safety.
It was suggested that the introduction of a more secure number plate system would support the sale of cherished plates. To meet the widespread interest in attractive personalised and cherished registration marks the DVLA has since 1989 been operating a sale of marks scheme, a special facility allowing motorists to acquire and retain the use of particular registration marks that have not been previously issued. More than 3.8 million registrations have been sold, which has generated over £1.8 billion in revenue. The revenue raised this financial year currently stands at just over £49.5 million, with a total of 166,00 registration marks being sold through the DVLA. The scheme is clearly popular with the motoring public, therefore.
It is recognised that there remains an issue in that some keepers of vehicles will attempt to flout the law by displaying registration marks in an incorrect format. All such formats will have been supplied by an illegal supplier, however, so they would already be on the register. Those suppliers would therefore be acting illegally already.
Steve McCabe
Why is the DVLA allowed to option plates that any normal, rational person would realise are being purchased only because the buyer intends to have them tampered with and altered illegally? They would have no value otherwise.
Stephen Hammond
Not all cherished plates fit into that category; indeed, the vast majority of them do not. Some cherished plates might even have our initials on them—I can envisage “NE 1” being one of the great number plates of our time, Mr Deputy Speaker.
The DVLA and the police take the matter of misrepresented registration marks very seriously. The misrepresentation of registration marks can make vehicles difficult to identify and hamper police efforts. Those who have misrepresented their registration plate have already committed an illegal offence. It is a criminal offence to alter, re-arrange or misrepresent the characters of a vehicle registration mark in a way that makes it difficult to distinguish the registration number. Offenders are liable to a maximum fine of £1,000.
I am surprised and baffled by the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood, because neither I nor my officials recognise the remarks he attributes to us. If he tells me the source of those remarks, I will certainly look into the matter, but while I am prepared to accept that the Department may have made those remarks, we do not at present recognise that.
Mark Reckless
My remarks were a statement of the position of the Department for Transport as characterised by the West Midlands police.
Stephen Hammond
That may have been characterised in all sorts of different ways, of course, but I am happy to discuss the matter with my hon. Friend later.
Over the last century, the number plate has incorporated several security features to reduce the misrepresentation, cloning and fraud that some drivers engage in. My predecessor in the Department instituted the British Standards Institution review. We have some challenging issues to face, but I am aware that the integrity of the number plate regime system is absolutely crucial to road safety, as well as to tackling road crime.
In conclusion, I cannot promise that we will move to a single supplier system, but we will—