Clause 34 - Registration plates

Part of Road Safety Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:30 pm on 1 February 2005.

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Photo of Mr David Jamieson Mr David Jamieson Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport 4:30, 1 February 2005

I am somewhat impatient, but the matter has to be resolved fully and properly. If the hon. Gentleman wants to talk in further detail about that, I shall happily do so, but I do not want to detain the Committee any longer than necessary.

The hon. Member for Spelthorne quite properly made the point that we do not want number plates to have a plethora of information on them, other than that needed to identify the vehicle and the supplier of the plate, which is not necessarily the dealer that sold the vehicle. I am anxious that we do not have a lot of clutter on plates; only information that is absolutely essential.

The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire, with all of his knowledge on such matters, may know of certain show plates, which people might want to put on their bedroom wall or wherever and are not intended for a motor vehicle. Goodness knows why people want those, but they certainly do. Those will have to be clearly marked ''not suitable to go on a vehicle'' or words to that effect, demonstrating that they are not legal plates to use on a vehicle. There is quite a market in these, and we do not want to spoil it. However, we do not want a loophole to appear so that those plates can appear on vehicles.

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