Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an estimate of the number and proportion of (a) taxi and (b) private hire vehicles that use number plates that do not conform with regulations.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is working with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, various police forces and Trading Standards in relation to the supply and use of illegal number plates as well as number plates with raised characters, commonly known as ‘4D plates’. Some 4D plates can also be described as ‘ghost’ plates where the characters are constructed from materials that are unable to be read by infrared Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems. Work is currently ongoing to quantify the number of illegal plates that may be in circulation, which would include on taxis and private hire vehicles.