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Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, will the Minister explain how you will be able to tell whether there are nine or more people in the car? I see those vehicles all the time, and they have black windows. Will the police have the right to pull the vehicle up?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, that is certainly an interesting point, although they are not the only vehicles on the road with opaque windows. There is no opacity with regard to the driver's window, for a startso the police can make a challenge. It is also the case that if a police officer suspects that something illegal is being done, he is perfectly entitled to make the necessary checks. It would not take him long to open a door to discover how many passengers there were inside.
So I do not believe that enforcement is a difficulty. What is at stake hereand what the noble Lord is trying to resolve with his amendmentis how the vehicles are rendered safe and proper and meet our licensing requirement, which is to guarantee safety on the road. We believe that the current legislation fully provides for any form of operation envisaged. We are aware of concerns in this area and officials are actively looking at what can be done to clarify the position for all parties. We recognise that we will need to get the licensing regime absolutely clear so that the licensing authorities know what kind of vehicles they are dealing with and deal with them properly. But we are absolutely certain that, when vehicles are operating illegally, prosecutions are occurring, because we are concerned about that.
Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that fairly lengthy explanation of the current situation
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and his assurances that officials are aware of the problems. We particularly draw his attention to vehicles carrying more than eight passengers, because some of the longer vehicles that are supposed to carry 16 are carrying considerably more. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 39 [Disclosure to foreign authorities of licensing and registration information]:
Lord Hanningfield moved Amendment No. 44:
Page 50, line 1, leave out from "territory" to end of line 4 and insert "that has ratified the Treaty on European Vehicle and Driving Licence Information System (EUCARIS)"
The noble Lord said: My Lords, as noble Lords will recall from Committee, this clause is designed to enable the DVLA and its Northern Irish counterpart to disclose certain licensing and registration information to foreign authorities, ostensibly for the purposes of ratifying the EUCARIS treaty. That is a worthy end to which we have no objectiona fact reflected in the design of these amendments to enable ratification of the EUCARIS treaty.
I am sure that we all agree that we want to do our utmost to support genuine measures to prevent and punish vehicle crime. However, that desire is tempered by our paramount concern for the protection of the British driver against misuse of valuable personal information by a foreign body. There were several reports last weekend, which noble Lords may have seen, about the potential selling of information about individuals by the DVLA, not necessarily to other countries but to other consortiumsperhaps crime consortiums, and so on. That is a worrying issue on which the Minister may like to comment.
These amendments are designed to restrict the disclosure of information exclusively within the nexus of the EUCARIS treaty. When I asked the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, in Committee about the necessity of making the power so extensive as to include any country or territory outside the United Kingdombe it north Vietnam, or anywhere elseshe replied that the Government,
"do not want to preclude the ability to exchange outside the EU in the future".[Official Report, 26/10/05; cols. 1201-2.]
However, in citing the examples of Japan and the USA, she mentioned that the USA has already shown some interest in EUCARIS. Am I correct in taking her reference to mean that the extension of the disclosure of licensing and registration information can be facilitated with non-European Union countries through the mechanism of the existing EUCARIS treaty? If that is the case, and in the light of the fact that the Minister has already assured the House that EUCARIS enshrines the principles of the Data Protection Act, it would seem eminently sensible to progress any extension of disclosure to other nations in this way, thereby utilising the benefits already inherent in the existence of the EUCARIS treaty, rather than renegotiating incessantly on a bilateral basis each time.
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In Committee I drew attention to the fact that very few countries have actually signed the treaty. In her answer, the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, claimed at col. 1202 that
"the EU Commission is looking at using the EUCARIS system as the technical solution for exchanging information between all EU countries".
I take this as further evidence of the versatility and broad possibilities of this treaty, qualities that seem to make it a most suitable mechanism and vehicle for the purposes of exchanging licensing and registration information with foreign authorities, and obviating the need for alarmingly loose provision. The original wording,
is totally less than satisfactory.
I look forward to hearing the Minister's comments, and in particular any information he may share about the development of the EUCARIS treaty. I only hope he can provide these answers to your Lordships' House, since the last letter I was promised seemed to get lost in the post. I beg to move.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I certainly apologise for the fact that the noble Lord did not receive the letter that was directed to him. I hope that I can make good that deficiency in this contribution.
The issue of stolen vehicles is a significant problem, not just in Europe but worldwide. We have problems with stolen Japanese vehicles, as does Australia. We all know that there is a fairly flourishing illegal trade in the marketing of stolen vehicles. If a householder has lost a rather valuable car and they ask what chance they have of getting it back, the police officer is likely to make the depressing statement, "If it is this side of the English Channel I would be somewhat surprisedand if it is ever recovered, it might be a good deal further away than that". It is a problem, and I think noble Lords will recognise this issue.
The EUCARIS concept is only one strand in our general strategy to try and tackle the issue of vehicle crime. The problem with the amendment is that it would restrict the information to those countries that have ratified EUCARIS, of which there are not very many. It is not Europe-wide; not even all the European states have signed up to it. It costs £35,000 a year to join, but for some countries that may be a sum of money that they could spend more easily elsewhere, because they have very few inquiries about the issue and it is of limited concern. Not everyone in the smaller states is seized of the necessity for action in this area. Some countries have such small volumes of inquiries that they wonder what all the fuss is about, whereas, as we know, it can be a significant problem for other countries.
I want to put a more positive gloss on the rather dismal report I am giving at this stage, however. Other countries can join EUCARIS that are not part of the European community. It is possible for them to join if they so wish. We are certainly in favour of encouraging that, but we do not want a restriction on our ability to
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provide information to other countries outside the framework, which the amendment would require. As I have indicated, this is a worldwide problem.
To restrict the exchange of information to those countries that ratify the EUCARIS treaty would undermine the effectiveness of the system by restricting the number of participantsand that number is not large enough at presentand would require an amendment to legislation each time the DVLA, or the authority in Northern Ireland, needed to disclose information to any other country.
I hope noble Lords will recognise that, given the safeguards we have with regard to the transfer of information under the Data Protection Act, this information would be used purely in relation to stolen vehicles. I hope that the noble Lord will accept my assurances on that front. We see no reason why we should be restrictive about this when our problem at the present time is that there are not enough participant countries within the framework to enable us to deal effectively with this form of criminality.
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