Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps she has taken with relevant stakeholders to help tackle illegal car sales.

While the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has no powers to govern how cars are bought and sold, it does play a key role in maintaining accurate records of vehicles and their registered keepers to support wider efforts to tackle vehicle-related crime. It is a legal requirement to notify the DVLA when a vehicle is bought or sold.

The latest available data shows that more than 93 per cent of vehicle keepers are contactable and traceable from the information held on the DVLA’s records. Of the remainder, around six per cent are in the motor trade where a vehicle may legitimately have no registered keeper.