Clause 38 - Disclosure to foreign authorities of licensing and registration information
Road Safety Bill
12:00 pm
Mr David Jamieson (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport; Plymouth, Devonport, Labour)
The clause will enable the DVLA and its counterpart in Northern Ireland, the DVLANI, to disclose information regarding driver licensing and vehicle registration to overseas counterparts. That statutory authority will enable the UK to ratify the treaty on European vehicle registration and driver licensing information systems known, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is aware, as EUCARIS. It was signed by the UK, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands on 29 June 2000.
The treaty is designed to facilitate the exchange of information on driver licensing and vehicle registration to reduce cross-border crime and improve road safety. Disclosure of the licensing and registration information will make it much more difficult for criminals to reregister stolen vehicles or commit other vehicle-related offences and to obtain British driving licences to which they have no entitlement. We want to ratify the measure in our law because we want the treaty to come into effect. The relationships with various countries will gradually build up and we will have more comprehensive information. I shall get hold of something intelligible on the subject of what the DVLA can disclose and pass that information on to the Committee.
As I understand it, the arrangement is bilateral and only there for those countries with which we have such agreements. The right hon. Gentleman can see the huge advantage of such an exchange throughout the European Union, because that is where most of the inter-country traffic comes from. The arrangement will have a huge benefit because it does not affect law-abiding people, only those who try to slip around the law.