Clause 45
Road Safety Bill [Lords]
5:00 pm
Owen Paterson (Shadow Minister, Transport; North Shropshire, Conservative)
I was told that 18,000 people in the Stockholm area pay no taxes, live outside the law and are driving around. No system is perfect. But does the Minister think there are merits in the system that I have described, where there is effectively an annual check? It is not possible to get a sticker for a number plate in the States without insurance. The TUV certificate and insurance have to be presented in Germany. Although what the Minister describes is very sensible and it must help with the titanic task of the DVLA in tracking this huge number of vehicles, in Germany there is an annual check on every vehicle, which is administered locally and the information passed on to the central database. Does the Minister not think that that would have some merit?