Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the Automatic Number Plate Recognition camera system.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
ANPR is a valuable tool to help the police tackle crime and keep the road safe.
We keep the effectiveness of police and law enforcement use of ANPR under regular review, to ensure it remains a robust tool for identifying vehicles of interest to the police and drivers who break the law.
Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of vehicle number plate cloning offences in the last five years.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not hold information on the number of vehicle number plate cloning offences recorded by the police in England and Wales as this is included within the offence sub-code of ‘Fraud and forgery associated with registration and licensing documents’ offences.
The table shows the total number of such offences recorded, from 2019/20 to the year ending September 2024.
Table: the number of ‘Fraud, forgery etc. associated with registration and licensing documents’ offences recorded by the police in England and Wales1, 2019/20 to the year ending September 2024.
Year | Offences |
2019/202 | 447 |
2020/21 | 376 |
2021/22 | 419 |
2022/23 | 362 |
2023/24 | 393 |
|
|
Year ending September 2023 | 373 |
Year ending September 2024 | 471 |
1. Humberside police are excluded from all years, as they have been unable to provide data to the Home Office Data Hub
2. 2019/20 excludes Greater Manchester police, who were unable to provide data to the Home Office Data Hub for this period.
Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many fixed penalty notices were issued for vehicle registration offences in each of the last three years.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects and publishes data on fixed penalty notices and other outcomes for motoring offences as part of its annual ‘Police Powers and Procedures: Roads policing’ statistical release. The latest data is available here Police powers and procedures: Roads policing, to December 2023 - GOV.UK and covers the calendar year ending December 2023.
Data on the number of fixed penalty notices issued for vehicle registration offences for the last three years is covered under offence classification 810, “vehicle registration and excise licence offences”, and is provided in table FPN_03 of the motoring offences data tables, available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67506ce8d12a2dad3bc97ab4/FPN-other-motoring-offences-statistics-police-powers-procedures-year-ending-dec-23.ods
Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what number and proportion of vehicle number plates were unreadable by automatic number plate recognition cameras in each of the last three years.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Data on the readability of ANPR reads is not collected or published.
Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the use of modified number plates designed to evade detection by automatic number plate recognition cameras on levels of crime.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The cloning and defacing of number plates is illegal. We are working with the police, the DVLA and other partners to crack down on these crimes.
We have begun work on a new Road Safety Strategy, the first in over a decade, which aims to reduce road deaths and prevent related crime.
Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to tackle illegal street racing in West Bromwich constituency.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Any form of anti-social, dangerous or inconsiderate behaviour involving any vehicle is a serious issue. Tackling anti-social behaviour is a top priority for the Government, and a key part of the Safer Streets Mission.
Excess speed is a major cause of death and serious injury on our roads so anyone who breaks the speed limit should expect to face proper sanction.
We recently announced plans to strengthen the law so that these vehicles can be seized by police when they are used to commit anti-social behaviour, including illegal street racing, without having to issue a warning which delays enforcement action. This will allow them to swiftly deal with vehicles being used anti-socially.