Road Safety Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 130:"Before Clause 33, insert the following new clause—"    ““CESSATION OF PART 2 OF VEHICLES (CRIME) ACT 2001    Part 2 of the Vehicles (Crime) Act 2001 (c. 3) (regulation of registration plate suppliers) shall cease to have effect.”” The noble Earl said: My amendment is very simple. Part 2 of the Vehicles (Crime) Act 2001, which provides for the registration of number plate suppliers, shall cease to have effect. The legislation inconveniences no one except law-abiding motorists, and it has undesirable side effects. Some time ago, shortly after implementation of the Vehicles (Crime) Act, I asked my friendly motor factor what documents I would need to obtain a number plate from him for my car’s trailer. The answer was ““Don’t worry about that. We know who you are””. The Committee will understand exactly what the motor factor meant, but that is not the point. On another occasion, when I went to Halfords—a major retailer of car accessories—one person did the paperwork and another produced the number plate. They both completed their tasks at the same time. What does that say about productivity? Does the Committee honestly believe that criminals will find obtaining a number plate an insurmountable obstacle to making several thousand pounds of profit from selling a stolen vehicle? To be slightly more charitable about this issue, I was thinking that there might be one advantage. Quite often, youngsters have been buying false number plates from a motor factor, attaching it to their car, going to a petrol station and filling up, then driving away without paying. It could of course be thought that the new legislation would combat that. It is much more difficult for them to obtain number plates, because they are not fully fledged criminals. The problem is that they are now stealing the number plates from someone else’s car. So we used to have a problem of kids buying a number plate from a motor factor to stick on the front of their car, but they are now seriously inconveniencing someone. If that someone is a long way from home—say he lives in Liverpool and his number plate is stolen in London while the log book for his vehicle is at home in Liverpool—he cannot even get a replacement number plate, because of the legislation that caused him the problem in the first place. I beg to move.