Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the threat posed by motorists using ghost plates, and what steps they plan to take to deal with the threat posed by the use of ghost plates to evade speed cameras and engage in other criminal activities.

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 and “ghost” number plates. It is already illegal to use a vehicle displaying cloned or “ghost” number plates.

The enforcement of road traffic law and how available resources are deployed is the responsibility of individual Chief Officers and Police and Crime Commissioners, taking into account the specific local problems and demands with which they are faced. The Police are operationally independent and they will investigate each case according to its individual merits.

The Government has pledged £2.7m for each of the next three years to support police enforcement activity. This is Operation Topaz which is a strategic partnership between the Department for Transport, Home Office and National Police Chiefs’ Council around roads policing.

Operation Topaz is helping to support and co-ordinate the existing effort that is already delivering the National Police Chiefs’ Council Roads Policing Strategy.

Funding has been allocated to enhance roads policing to deliver a proof-of-concept activity period, coordinated via the central Operation Topaz team, focused on unreadable number plates and all aspects connected to unattributable drivers or vehicles.

This Government takes road safety seriously. We are committed to reducing the numbers of those killed and injured on our roads. We are considering a range of policies under the new Road Safety Strategy; the first for ten years. This includes the case for changing the motoring offences. We are considering concerns raised by campaigns, Parliamentarians and bereaved families that Ministers have met.

The Government intends to publish the Road Safety Strategy by the end of the year.