Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many prosecutions there have been for motorcycles exceeding acceptable noise levels in each of the last five years.

Technical standards for noise from new motorcycles are set at an International level by both the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). These have recently been updated to better reflect real driving conditions.

The European Commission is obliged to investigate ways to improve legislation further and to introduce more stringent limits by 2021. They are currently conducting research with the aim of agreeing limit values, and the UK will continue to play a key role in these negotiations through our membership of the UNECE in Geneva.

The industry are fully engaged at the UNECE discussions and Department for Transport officials hold routine discussions outside of this forum.

Prosecutions are a matter for the Ministry of Justice.