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Motor Vehicles: Excise Duties

Volume 472: debated on Wednesday 20 February 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many successful prosecutions the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency secured against motorists failing to pay vehicle excise duty in each of the last 10 years. (184958)

The number of successful prosecutions in magistrates courts for unlicensed vehicle excise duty offences (section 29) for each financial year is as follows:

April to March

Number

1999-2000

204,606

2000-01

203,773

2001-02

223,047

2002-03

229,846

2003-04

234,924

2004-05

189,441

2005-06

142,055

2006-07

103,108

The total number of prosecutions for the first 10 months of 2007-08 is currently 69,847.

Section 29 vehicle excise duty offences are identified by police and local authorities. Since the introduction of continuous registration (CR) enforcement from the record in March 2004, these reports have gradually decreased. Since 2004-05, in addition to the achieved prosecutions in the table, the following number of evasion cases have been successfully settled out of court:

April to March

Number

2004-05

317,482

2005-06

425,698

2006-07

391,708

The total number for the first 10 months of 2007-08 is currently 381,980.