Part of Road Safety Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:45 pm on 1 February 2005.
Christopher Chope
Conservative, Christchurch
4:45,
1 February 2005
Why is this requirement being extended to keepers of vehicles rather than just applying to buyers and sellers as is currently the case? If the purpose is to ensure that when vehicles change hands there is a record of the odometer reading, what difference does it make if the vehicle is being used by a whole host of different people, but has not actually changed hands? Surely the significant time and the point at which fraud arises is when somebody sells a vehicle with a reading that is inaccurate. It would be the owner of the vehicle who sold it, and the previous owner of the vehicle who sold it before that. Why should the keeper of the vehicle be under any obligation to keep the DVLA informed of the odometer reading in the interim period?
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
