Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to (a) detect and (b) reduce the use of ghost number plates designed to evade Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems.

The table below shows the number of occasions where members of the public have contacted the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) about correspondence, fines or penalties that they have received from third parties about the use of vehicles which they do not recognise or accept responsibility for.

It is important to clarify that these figures do not represent confirmed cases of number plate cloning. While some of these reports may relate to cloned number plates, others may result from administrative errors, such as incorrect entry of registration numbers.

The DVLA continues to work closely with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and other government departments to improve the identification and enforcement of number plate crime, including the use of cloned and ghost number plates.

Under UK law, suppliers of number plates must be registered with the DVLA and are required to verify that customers are entitled to the registration number. Suppliers must also maintain records of all plates issued.

The DVLA supports enforcement efforts by investigating reports of illegal trading and sharing intelligence with police and Trading Standards where appropriate.