Schedule - Consequential amendments
Vehicles (Crime) Bill
11:30 am
Mr Charles Clarke (Minister of State, Home Office; Norwich South, Labour)
I can, and am glad to do so. The schedule details consequential amendments to the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964, the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994 and the Justices of the Peace Act 1997. It is given effect by clause 42.
Clause 34 closes a loophole in the regulatory apparatus for motor salvage by amending the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964. It enables regulations to be made requiring registered scrap metal dealers to notify the destruction of a motor vehicle, which mirrors the provision in clause 8 for registered salvage dealers. Paragraph 1 to the schedule amends the section of the 1964 Act dealing with rights of entry and inspection to extend the powers to the records of notification of destruction of motor vehicles.
Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)
The Minister is pronouncing ``schedule'' the American way.
Mr Charles Clarke (Minister of State, Home Office; Norwich South, Labour)
That is my pronunciation. Paragraph 2 adjusts the definition of carrying on business as a scrap metal dealer to exclude motor salvage operators required to be registered under the Bill who carry on ancillary scrap metal dealing activities. This ensures that there is no undue overlap between the 1964 Act and the Bill.
Paragraphs 3 and 4 are related to the provisions of clause 31 and to the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994. Clause 31 enables the Secretary of State to require applications for vehicle licences to furnish ``documentary or other evidence''. Paragraph 3 inserts similar provisions in section 7(2) of the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994 in relation to goods vehicles. Paragraph 4, to which the hon. Member for Buckingham referred, amends section 22(2A)(d) of the 1994 Act to reflect the provisions in clause 31 in relation to exempt vehicles.
I will not deal with paragraphs 5 and 6 in detail, as the hon. Gentleman asked specifically about paragraph 4.
All these provisions are consequential, because a vehicle that needs to be submitted for a vehicle identity check will not necessarily have a current vehicle excise duty licence. The keeper of a vehicle that does not have one will be unable to obtain one until the vehicle has passed a vehicle identity check.
I hope that those explanations are satisfactory to the hon. Gentleman.
Question put and agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
Clauses 43 to 45 ordered to stand part of the Bill.