Clause 34 - Registration plates
Road Safety Bill
4:15 pm
Mr Greg Knight (Shadow Minister, Environment and Transport; East Yorkshire, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 67, in clause 34, page 40, line 38, at end add—
'(1C) Nothing contained herein or in any other statute shall prevent the manufacture, production, sale or display of any black and white registration plate or mark intended for display on a historic vehicle and which is in keeping with the style of registration plates produced when the said vehicle was manufactured.'.
This is a probing amendment, and I hope the Minister will assure the Committee that it is not necessary. Perhaps I should start by declaring an interest; not a financial interest, in the sense that I have a business involved in this area, but more a declaration of passion. I have an interest in historic vehicles, and collect classic cars. Most of them display the old-style non-reflective black-and-white number plates, in keeping with the period when the cars were first manufactured.
My concern is that the new rules in clause 34 might impinge on the current activity of manufacturing registration plates to maintain a supply of the old black-and-white plates. If I take a classic car to a show and it is hit by an incompetent who damages my number plate, I will seek to replace it with a like number plate; that is, a black-and-white one of the type in general use when the vehicle was manufactured. I do not want to be forced into having to affix to an historic vehicle a reflective number plate with a modern typeface. I hope the Minister is able to assure me that the amendment is unnecessary, and that nothing in the Bill will prevent the manufacture, production, sale or display of the old type of number plate.