Clause 1 - Requirement of registration formotor salvage operators
Vehicles (Crime) Bill
10:30 am
Mr Keith Hill (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Streatham, Labour)
I join my colleagues in welcoming you to our proceedings, Mr. O'Brien. I know that you presided over the first sitting, which, unfortunately, I was unable to attend. I am delighted to serve under your excellent chairmanship.
I add to those of my colleagues my word of welcome to the hon. Member for Lichfield, too. Much concern has been expressed about the reasons for his absence, so we are delighted to have his reassurance about the precise location of the famous bite, and to see him in excellent fettle.
The amendments, to which the hon. Member for Colchester spoke so succinctly, would significantly widen the scope of the Bill. They would include businesses not involved in the dismantling of vehicles which buy, use or sell on used vehicle parts, and those which buy vehicles and use or sell the parts while keeping the shell of the vehicle rather than selling or scrapping it.
Let me take a step back and remind the Committee that the purpose of this part of the Bill is to tackle the criminal element that takes advantage of the salvage industry to ring cars—in other words, to disguise the identity of stolen cars with that of written-off vehicles or to break up stolen cars for their parts. That is why we are targeting those who receive whole vehicles to sell on or dismantle.