My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Attlee for introducing the Bill so coherently this evening, and I wish it well. I declare my interest as chairman of the European Secure Vehicle Alliance—ESVA—and the associated parliamentary group dedicated to the reduction of vehicle-related crime and disorder.

Vehicle registration marks, especially their manufacture and distribution, have been a particular interest of ESVA since its formation in 1992. A register for manufacture and supply was established as part of the Vehicles (Crime) Act 2001. My last address to the House on this matter was on 25 October 2005, during the debate on the Road Safety Bill, which extended the aforementioned legislation to Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The Bill before the House is welcome in its aim to enhance the efficiency of the trade in vehicle registration marks, although concerns have been expressed regarding the added complexity that this trade can generate when exploited by criminals seeking to benefit from dealing in stolen vehicles. My main concern is that the Bill shares some characteristics with shifting the deck chairs on the "Titanic". I urge the Government to indicate that they are now prepared to undertake a fundamental review of the system of manufacture and distribution of vehicle number plates.

In other countries, such as Sweden, for example, number plates have the same provenance as bank notes. They are security-printed and distributed. Such a system should now be introduced in the United Kingdom. I have said previously that DVLA records indicate that there are 32,000 suppliers and 38,000 outlets registered to supply number plates. The DVLA estimates that at least 35,000 plates are stolen from vehicles each year.

The current trials, which the DVLA has supported, to promote the use of tamper-proof number plates and to fit electronic identification chips to plates are also welcome, but they should be regarded as steps that tinker at the margins. A more fundamental step-change needs to be adopted. The benefits of a new system suitable for the new millennium would be significant and would enhance the value of the trade in number plates, as referred to in the Bill, because the market in counterfeit plates would be, at best, eliminated completely.

We have observed over the past decade significant growth in our capability to identify vehicles via their number plates. We have the London congestion charge and the police's automatic number plate registration database, which is capable of reading up to 50 million vehicle movements nationally each day. Very competent networks have been developed across public and private enterprises, capable of managing what are essentially simple but in some ways also complex systems associated with road users and their vehicles. It is becoming increasingly evident that there is a growing appetite to tackle and significantly overcome the challenges associated with this step-change proposal.

The focus for all those associated with road use is to encourage greater compliance among all road users. A fundamental aspect of this strategy must be to make it very easy for all road users to comply with all aspects of the legislative framework associated with road use. Similarly, we should develop our approaches to make it simple to detect non-compliant road users. The preparedness to consider, develop and adopt a new national vehicle number plate infrastructure is entirely consistent with this approach. I wish the Bill well.