Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help ensure that the Automatic Number Plate Recognition network is able to identify (a) false and (b) cloned number plates.

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.

Non-compliant and mis-represented plates are a significant concern to policing and law enforcement agencies. The DVLA and the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) are working closely with Trading Standards, local authorities and other government departments to improve the identification and enforcement of number plate crime.

The law requires anyone who supplies number plates for road use in the UK to be registered with the DVLA and for suppliers to carry out checks to ensure that number plates are only sold to those who are entitled to the registration number. Number plate suppliers must also keep records of the number plates they have supplied. Those found to have committed number plate offences can be prosecuted by the police.

I met the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) lead on ANPR in April to discuss the challenges associated with cloned licence plates and the potential role for ANPR in helping to tackle them.