Clause 11 - Offence of giving false particulars on sale for salvage
Vehicles (Crime) Bill
8:30 pm
Mr Michael Fabricant (Lichfield, Conservative)
I welcome the clause—it echoes the North Yorkshire County Council Act 1991 and the Medway Council and Kent County Council Bills—which makes it an offence for someone who sells a vehicle to a salvage operator to fail to give information or give a false name and address. However, I question the level of the fine at level 3. The Minister has said clearly that there should be different levels so that someone who does not provide information or does not comply with the Bill innocently is fined at one level. He justified the level 5 fine by saying that it was right to impose a higher level when someone deliberately provided false information. Yet clause 11 states:
Any person who, on selling a motor vehicle to a person who is in the course of carrying on business as a motor salvage operator ... gives that person a false name or address shall be guilty of an offence.
That is quite right, but someone who gives a false name and address is clearly committing an offence with intent. The Minister of State defended the consistency of the Bill and argued correctly just before 7 o'clock that there should be two levels of fine, depending on whether someone committed an offence with intent or unwittingly. However, someone who gives a false name and address does so deliberately to commit a crime. It is right that clause 11 is in the Bill, but it should have teeth. The fine should be at a high enough level to provide those teeth, and it is questionable whether level 3 is high enough.