asked the Secretary of State for Transport, in view of the fact that for many years numbers of motorists have persistently refused to pay the road fund licence, what action he proposes to take to ensure that the recently announced £50 road fund tax is applied to all motorists.

Experience suggests that the level of evasion is not affected by increases in the rates of duty. Last year my Department received and acted upon over 1 million reports of apparent unlicensed use. A new survey of evasion is now in hand, and given centralisation of vehicle licensing records on computer at Swansea I am considering new methods both of deterring evasion and of catching evaders.