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Charlotte Atkins: I do not have the details to hand on all those questions. I am not sure whether anyone has any help on that. Clearly, it will be introduced over time. I will write to the hon. Gentleman on the issue.
Mr. Chope: I do not want to be unfair to the Minister, but she has had much more notice than we have about the contents of schedule 4. Before deciding how to vote on a schedule, it is reasonable to ask when it is proposed that it be brought in, what the implications are and so on. I do not think that any of the questions that I have put to the Minister are unreasonable and I do not think that she thinks that they are unreasonable.
It would be appropriate for the Committee to adjourn so that the Minister can get some instruction on the issue. When will we be able to have a debate, and get answers to those questions, if not during a stand part debate? The situation seems to me unsatisfactory. I hope that the Minister now has some more briefing that she will be able to use to inform her response so that we are all a bit wiser about what we are being asked to vote for.
Charlotte Atkins: I do not have a note on the time scale. Clearly the Secretary of State will require professional instructors to undertake training, because that is completely absent from the present scheme.
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Training instructors will have to ensure that they maintain and update their knowledge and skills. I do not have a note on when that is likely to take place. We will ensure that we have a full note before the Committee next meets.
Mr. Knight: With those remarks, the Minister has pretty much answered the point that I was going to raise. I was going to ask her to undertake to write to all members of the Committee before Report on that point.
Charlotte Atkins: I should be happy to do that.
Question put, That this schedule, as amended, be the Fourth schedule to the Bill:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 10, Noes 4.
[Division No. 13]
AYES
Atkins, Charlotte
Byrne, Mr. Liam
Ellman, Mrs. Louise
Heyes, Mr. David
Jamieson, Mr. David
Kidney, Mr. David
Mahmood, Mr. Khalid
Merron, Gillian
Stinchcombe, Mr. Paul
Thurso, John
NOES
Chope, Mr. Christopher
Flook, Mr. Adrian
Knight, Mr. Greg
Wilshire, Mr. David
Schedule 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 33 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 34
Registration plates
Mr. Knight: I beg to move amendment No. 67, in clause 34, page 40, line 38, at end add—
'(1C) Nothing contained herein or in any other statute shall prevent the manufacture, production, sale or display of any black and white registration plate or mark intended for display on a historic vehicle and which is in keeping with the style of registration plates produced when the said vehicle was manufactured.'.
This is a probing amendment, and I hope the Minister will assure the Committee that it is not necessary. Perhaps I should start by declaring an interest; not a financial interest, in the sense that I have a business involved in this area, but more a declaration of passion. I have an interest in historic vehicles, and collect classic cars. Most of them display the old-style non-reflective black-and-white number plates, in keeping with the period when the cars were first manufactured.
My concern is that the new rules in clause 34 might impinge on the current activity of manufacturing registration plates to maintain a supply of the old black-and-white plates. If I take a classic car to a show and it is hit by an incompetent who damages my number plate, I will seek to replace it with a like number plate; that is, a black-and-white one of the type in general use when the vehicle was manufactured. I do not want to be forced into having to affix to an historic vehicle a reflective number plate
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with a modern typeface. I hope the Minister is able to assure me that the amendment is unnecessary, and that nothing in the Bill will prevent the manufacture, production, sale or display of the old type of number plate.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. David Jamieson): Having more than a passing interest in classic cars and vehicles myself, I can give some fairly robust assurance to the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire. We totally understand the desire of owners of historic vehicles to display number plates in keeping with the historic nature of the vehicle.
Under the Road Vehicles (Display of Registration Marks) Regulations 2001, vehicles constructed before 1 January 1973 are allowed to display traditional-style plates with white, silver, light grey or translucent characters on a black background. Businesses that supply such plates must register as number plate suppliers with the DVLA and keep records of sales. They must make statutory checks to establish the entitlement of the customer to buy the plates requested, the reasons for which I am sure hon. Members will understand. Owners of historic vehicles should have no difficulty obtaining the appropriate number plates, and I assure the hon. Gentleman that nothing in the Bill will prevent them from doing so in the future.
Mr. Knight: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, as will be the hundreds of thousands of historic vehicle owners in all parts of the country. For the first time during our proceedings—but, I hope, not for the last time—he has satisfied me. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
4.30 pm
Mr. Chope: The Road Vehicles (Display of Registration Marks) Regulations 2001, to which the Minister referred in answer to the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire, were discussed on the Floor of the House in 2001. During the course of that debate, I clearly recollect the Minister giving undertakings that amendments would be tabled to ensure that the GB symbol could be incorporated on number plates. When I last inquired about that, I was informed that it was taking a long time to draw up the necessary amending regulations, and that in the meantime I should not worry because people could put stickers over their number plate to indicate that it was a GB plate.
As the Minister knows, there is quite a lot of resentment that unless one spells it out to the contrary, the default position of most number plate suppliers is those ghastly stars. Sometimes, people do not realise that they are going to get the stars on their number
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plate until it is too late, but on a recent occasion when I specified to the vehicle supplier that I wanted a plate without stars and I ended up with a vehicle with stars, I am afraid that that cost the supplier some money, because he had to do it all again in accordance with the instructions I had given.
Some of us take that issue seriously, and the Minister will remember the debate, which was quite heated. The Government came under a lot of pressure to give way on that issue, and in the end they did. It is now three to four years since the debate, and the amendments that we were promised have not been brought forth. Will the Minister use the provisions of this Bill and clause 34 in particular as the means by which the amending regulations are brought forward or included in the Bill? That is another example of where the Government have failed to deliver even in accordance with their own words.
Mr. Wilshire: My hon. Friend has partly made one point that I wanted to raise. I hope that we do not move to a situation where we have to have a pseudo-national flag stuck on our vehicles by virtue of those silly little yellow stars. I shall not go too far down that track, other than to say that I am totally opposed to anything that purports to be to do with a united states of Europe, and I do not wish to see it forced on us in any shape or form.
New subsection (1B), which amends section 28 of the Vehicles (Crime) Act 2001, says:
''The Secretary of State may by regulation provide that the offence under subsection (1A) is not committed in circumstances prescribed by the regulations.''
Reading the explanatory notes, I am concerned that that gives the Secretary of State the right to say, ''Notwithstanding the regulations, I hereby decree that this will not be an offence.''
Another bee in my bonnet is advertising on number plates. I made it my business when I was changing cars to double check exactly what is permitted. In my view, a registration plate should have nothing on it other than the number, but I was told that there had to be a very small identification of its supplier, so that it could be checked. I also discovered that the requirement for a mark indicating who supplied it did not extend to large type underneath, saying, ''Joe Bloggs Ltd. Vauxhall dealers'', which is what tends to appear on number plates. I sincerely hope that the Minister will give us an assurance that the Secretary of of State will not succumb to the blandishments of the motor trade and allow adverts on number plates. Whenever I have changed cars, I have always said to the supplier that I would deduct £500 from the purchase price as an advertising fee if he wished to advertise his garage on my number plates. I do not understand why those people should use number plates for free advertising.
I hope that the Minister can assure us that advertising will not become an exception and that the only thing allowed on the number plate will be some very small indication of the supplier. If he went further and said that he will ban the blue flags, I would be even more grateful.
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Mr. Knight: Will the Minister confirm that nothing in this clause will be retrospective? For example, many plates on motor vehicles do not have the typeface that the Department now prefers, yet the typeface was perfectly legal at the time the plates were produced. Many plates do not state who the supplier was, and some people have preferred to have running along the bottom of the plate their own name or the make and model of their vehicle, for example. Will the Minister confirm that he is not about to start making owners affix to their vehicles new plates if they are not seeking to replace their plate but wish to continue with their existing one, which complied with the law at the time it was issued?
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