Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Sugg on 17 July (HL9180), what is the process for collecting the Heavy Goods Vehicle Levy (HGV) levy from lorries from the Republic of Ireland; and what assessment they have made of whether, and if so to what extent, lorries from the Republic of Ireland evade the HGV levy.

Lorry drivers from the Republic of Ireland pay for the HGV Levy in the same ways as users from other countries. The levy can be paid online, at a number of official Point of Sale (PoS) locations, at driver self-serve facilities offered by some operators and through a number of booking agents. The majority of levy purchases are via the HGV Levy website.

The overall compliance rate for foreign vehicles is high, according to figures collected by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency in Great Britain, at 95%. The Department for Transport has not produced equivalent compliance rates by country of origin, but there are indications that vehicles from Ireland in Great Britain have a very similar compliance rate compared to vehicles from other countries.