Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent estimate his Department made of the number and proportion of vehicles that were untaxed in the last two years.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) operates a comprehensive package of measures to tackle unlicensed vehicles. These range from reminder letters, penalties and court prosecutions through to the use of automatic number plate recognition cameras, wheelclamping and the removal of unlicensed vehicles. The DVLA is currently running a publicity campaign to highlight the consequences of not licensing vehicles. The DVLA also runs adverts on social media, mobile gaming, search engines, poster sites, and radio.

The DVLA collects more than £7 billion in vehicle excise duty each year on behalf of HM Treasury. Every two years, a roadside survey is carried out to estimate the number of unlicensed vehicles on the roads. The last survey, carried out in June 2021, showed that 98.1 per cent of vehicles were correctly licensed.