Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to tackle the third-party selling of vehicle registration marks.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) is working 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 number plates. It is already illegal to use a vehicle displaying cloned number plates.

The law requires that anyone who supplies number plates for road use in the UK 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. Selling a number plate without carrying out these required checks carries a maximum penalty of a fine of £1,000 and potential removal from the Register of Number Plate Suppliers (RNPS). Officials are considering options to ensure a more robust RNPS process which would enable tighter checks on number plate suppliers.

On-road enforcement for offences relating to the display of number plates is the responsibility of the police. The police rely on existing statutory powers to seize vehicles displaying cloned number plates. The DVLA supports enforcement efforts by investigating reports of illegal trading and sharing intelligence with police and Trading Standards where appropriate.

To help victims of number plate cloning, the DVLA can, on request, provide a replacement age related registration number.

The table below shows the number of occasions where members of the public have contacted the 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. This data is not held by constituency or region so specific information for Surrey Heath or the south east is not available. 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.