Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many fake license plates were recorded in each of the last five years.

It is not possible to provide the full-time equivalent number of staff who deal with number plate issues. The staff involved do not exclusively work on number plate related issues and also investigate other types of cases.

While on road enforcement of number plates issues is a matter for the police, the information in the table below shows the number of occasions where members of the public contacted the DVLA about correspondence, fines or penalties that they have been received from third parties about the use of vehicles which they do not recognise or accept responsibility for in the last five years.

However, it is important to note that the misuse of a registration number or number plate is just one of the possible reasons why someone might receive such correspondence. A proportion of these cases will have been made as a result of errors, for example where a vehicle registration number has been entered incorrectly.