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Parking Offences

Volume 487: debated on Monday 9 February 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what estimate he has made of the number of vehicles which have been impounded by the police because of accurate insurance details not being held on the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency database. (254581)

All motor vehicle insurance details are held on the insurance industry's motor insurance database (MID) and it is the insurance industry's responsibility to provide data to it.

The number of vehicles wrongly identified by the police as being driven uninsured based on information from the MID and impounded is not known. However, such cases are thought to be rare. The MIB supplements the database with a dedicated police helpline which the police can use in cases of doubt, e.g. if a driver claims he took out insurance very recently. This enables a direct check to be made with the claimed insurer.