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Motor Vehicles: Foreigners

Volume 477: debated on Tuesday 17 June 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) how many foreign-registered (a) cars, (b) vans and (c) heavy goods vehicles have been found unroadworthy after entering the UK in each of the last three years; (210732)

(2) how many foreign (a) cars, (b) vans and (c) heavy goods vehicles were prevented from entering the UK because the vehicle was not roadworthy in each of the last three years.

The number of foreign vehicles found by our Vehicle and Operator Services Agency to be unroadworthy were:

Financial year

LGV

HGV (including trailers)

2007-08

113

15,009

2006-07

111

13,279

2005-06

71

5,396

Note:

The figures for cars and vans are not recorded separately and the figures for Light Goods Vehicles (LGV) include cars, vans, caravans and motorbikes).

Our understanding is that the police do not keep a central record of the nationality or country of residence of offenders, and so there are no statistics available relating to foreign vehicle offences which they process.

No vehicle will have been prevented from entering the UK because it was unroadworthy. What happens—irrespective of the location—is that a dangerous vehicle is simply prohibited from further use until the defects have been rectified.