HC Deb 27 May 1966 vol 729 cc892-910

11.8 a.m.

Mr. Arthur Lewis (West Ham, North)

It would be wrong for me to refer to any of the business which you have just mentioned, Mr. Speaker, but I am sure that it would be the wish of the House that we should say how pleased we were to hear your first announcement regarding yourself. We hope—I am sure that I speak for the whole House—that you will have a happy and enjoyable visit, that the weather will be kind, and that you will be able to convey to our colleagues in the Isle of Man our very best wishes for their success.

I thank you personally, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity of an Adjournment debate. This is the second occasion in 21 years when I have had this pleasure, though I cannot promise you that it will not happen again for another 21 years.

The matter I wish to raise is very serious. It is serious in that a number of laws are being deliberately broken. It is serious in that, due, perhaps, to lack of manpower and to several difficulties and present anomalies, many of these laws do not seem to be enforced by the authorities. I refer, of course, to the evasion of the road fund licence duty.

I want to focus both Ministerial and public attention upon what has become a public scandal. There are thousands of vehicles on the road which have no road fund licence. I will not quote the figures because they were quoted officially by the Minister as recently as 3rd March in the House. But his figures, in thousands, bear no relation to the facts, since he quoted only those known to him. He did not, and could not, quote those unknown to him.

I am not attacking people who inadvertently forget to tax their vehicles, because all of us, including myself—excluding you, of course, Mr. Speaker—might do that. I am concerned about the very large number of motorists who deliberately go out of their way to evade this tax for a paltry sum, because to defraud the Treasury of a maximum of £17 10s. a year works out at only about 1s. a day. It may well be said, "Why worry?" A shilling a day may not mean much to thousands of motorists, but in aggregate to the Treasury it comes to a very large sum.

It is not only a question of the motorist who says that he will not pay the tax because he cannot afford it. I do not believe that there are any motorists on the road who cannot afford a 1s. a day. If there are, they should not have a vehicle on the road. It is not just the poor chap with the old jalopy. It is not the hard-working man who is the sole offender, although there are some in that category. But there are some motorists who have quite large incomes inasmuch as they are able to run large cars.

During the past few months I have taken the opportunity of going round and noting this evasion. You, Mr. Speaker, will be surprised when I tell you that I have even noted Jaguars, Humbers and Rovers, and only in the early part of this year a most magnificent Rolls-Royce, without current road fund licences. I was invited by the Greater London Council, as all G.L.C. members were, to have lunch with the Chairman. I was a little early, so I passed the time walking round the G.L.C.'s parking area. The G.L.C. is the licensing authority whose job it is to ensure that every vehicle has a road fund licence when it is on the road. In the parking ground there were dozens and dozens of cars without road fund licences. I saw a most beautiful Rolls-Royce and asked the commissionaire, "Whose car is this?" "Oh", he said, "it belongs to one of the members". I said, "Do you notice that it has a road fund licence six months out of date?" Needless to say, he said, "It is nothing to do with me". Immediately afterwards a most magnificent £3,500 sports car pulled up behind. I saw one of my then Parliamentary colleagues get out and I said, "You have not a licence on this car". He said, "No. I never worry about things like that." It may be that because he never worries he is not now a Member.

As I have indicated, this does not apply only to poor people. It applies also to trade vehicles. People in business are doing it. Some private individuals buy second-hand tipping lorries from reputable firms, then set up on their own, go round collecting rubble and get paid so much a load. The more loads they carry the more money they get. I am told that some of these people are picking up as much as £20 or £30 per day in this way. But many are not paying the nominal road fund licence tax.

I have indicated that this is an offence. Several offences are being committed, which I will mention. I think that unconsciously the Departments are aiding and abetting these offences. I say "unconsciously", because I am sure they are not doing it deliberately. I do not believe that they are vigorously enforcing the law. First, there is the Home Office, under whose jurisdiction come the Metropolitan Police. It is the duty of the police to report to the licensing authority vehicles for which there is not a valid road fund licence. Incidentally, whether a vehicle is being driven or not, the mere fact that it is on the road without a current licence is an offence. It is the job of the licensing authority to take action.

I have a file here of dozens and dozens of letters which show that, to use a non-Parliamentary term but one which is found in the Army vernacular, the "passing of the buck" between Ministry and Ministry is amazing. If one takes the matter up with the Ministry of Transport it says, "This is not our responsibility. It is the Home Office's responsibility." If one takes it to the Home Office, it says, "It is not our responsibility. It is the licensing authority's responsibility." If one takes it to the Treasury it says, "We only impose the tax. It is not our job to see that it is paid." While the ball is being passed backwards and forwards, one does not know exactly where the ball is. All I know is that this practice still goes on.

I have emphasised that I am not concerned with the man who forgets. One may have a bad memory for perhaps a week or a fortnight, but when it comes to three months or 12 months, two years, three years or four years—and I can produce evidence on this—it is stretching one's absentmindedness a little to far.

Then there are those I would term as "the clever dodgers". They use various methods to evade the tax. They are the blatant evaders. Where the licence should be on the windscreen—and this is the height of impertinence really—they put a little label which reads, "Tax applied for", "Tax in the post", or "Tax pending". They have run out of wonderful expressions. But if one looks at these "Tax applied for" notices, one finds sometimes that they have been on the windscreen for almost as long as the car has been in existence—tattered, torn, faded with the sun, because they have been there month after month and, indeed, year after year. I call this "the windscreen smokescreen".

The police know that this goes on, and so do the licensing authorities. The police, I suppose, because they are too busy and have quite a lot to do, take no action. Not on one occasion but on numerous occasions—even as recently as yesterday afternoon—I have stopped a policeman and said, "Look, officer, will you please take notice that here is a vehicle without a licence. Will you take action and report it?"

Indeed, on one occasion when I was coming to the House, being pulled up by traffic lights, I saw a number of vehicles stretching the length of this Chamber, and parked on both sides of the road. I noticed a couple which I thought were unlicensed, so I pulled my car in and stopped for two or three minutes to go along and see, and I counted nine vehicles unlicensed—or, at least, with no sign of any road fund licence. This was outside Caledonian Road police station. I thought this a wonderful opportunity, so I went into the station and saw a police sergeant and I said, "Please take note that outside your station there are nine vehicles without a licence."

Perhaps it is unfair of me to report as completely and absolutely true what I am now revealing, for there was an altercation, and I accept that about my ex parte statement the officer concerned might well say that he did not say what I reported him as saying. All I will say is this, that he immediately said to me, "Well, of course, if you go around here you will find three or four thousand." I said, "That doesn't mean anything." He replied, "We are so busy, and so much of this goes on we have just given it up." I then said to him, one of his fellow officers being there then, that I wanted the matter recorded, and then he began to shift and to change.

I have seen and reported dozens of cases. I have seen police officers standing talking to some of these trade lorry experts who evade licence. I have seen them standing talking to a driver, and they themselves must have seen, as I have seen, that the vehicle has been unlicensed for as much as 12 months on end.

There has been a lot of publicity on this, and I want to pay a tribute now, if I may, to the Press in general, because they have tried to focus Ministerial and public attention on it, and I particularly pay tribute to the London Evening News and Daily Mail. A number of papers have both shown photographs and have given details in articles. I was so pleased to see an article by a young lady called Caren Meyer in the Evening News on 4th May—and, by the way, so astounded by what I read in it—that I thought this something the Ministers concerned should have their attention drawn to, and I put down an Early Day Motion —No. 40—to draw attention to it. Unfortunately not many hon. Members signed it, but that does not matter. The facts are in the article.

In my Motion I ask the various Ministers to have a look at it, because it is fascinating. There are described in it dodges that even I did not know of. It is reported here that a chap admitted that for months and months he was in arrears with his licence. He admitted being pulled up by the police. He admitted that he got a licence put it on the car. and showed it to the police, and said, "I have got a licence." He immediately went back and cashed it in and got his money back—because there is a refund system. This article was fascinating. I cannot read it to the House because it would take too long, but I should like any hon. Member who can to get the Evening News of 4th May and read it. I would ask the Ministers, what are they doing about it?

I shall not read my Motion to the House because I assume, as I hope, that it will be quoted, and so I shall save time by not reading it, but I ask there for the various Ministers to look at this. We have here today one Junior Minister. I do not know whether he is speaking for each Department, the Treasury, the Ministry of Transport and the Home Office, but I ask him, what action have the Departments taken on that article? What action have the police taken? What action have the Treasury taken? Have they attempted to interview Miss Myer? Have they gone along to the Evening News to get evidence? Have they come along to me? I do not know about the others, but I know they have not come to me. I would have loved to have given the Ministers statements. I would have loved to have given the police statements, but, of course, no one has been along to see me to ask for evidence. So far as I am aware no one has written to me about it. I know, of course, that a letter could have gone astray in the post, but I am always about here, and no one has asked me to give any evidence at all.

I know, of course, that the police are busy, and I am not attacking or castigat- ing the police. I know they are doing a good job, and I know that there are so many thousands of these cases that it is getting a hopeless task for the police to do anything about them. Therefore, I have tried to help the police. I have written both to the Home Office and to the licensing authorities.

Indeed, I wrote to the Greater London Council about one vehicle and told the Council where it can be seen. I told them what route it takes. I told them that from my personal knowledge this trading vehicle had not had a licence since October, 1964. I explained that this particular vehicle is used as a kind of mock auction where thousands of pounds—thousands of pounds—are turned over in two or three hours in a street market which is known to Londoners as Petticoat Lane and known as Club Row and that on Sunday mornings between 10 and 1 o'clock this vehicle will be there and turning over £2,000 or £3,000 merchandise —and it has not had a licence since 1964. Eventually, of course, the G.L.C. did prosecute—at the beginning of this year; but from that day to this, from January, it has still not got a licence, it still has not attempted to take out a licence. I could quote other cases. All the details have been given.

I would ask the Minister not to accept the official figures which come from various licensing authorities. Let him or someone from those Departments take five or ten minutes and go round in the normal business hours of nine to five to any Underground station in and around London and let them look up the side roads, and they will be able to count, as I have done, hundreds of unlicensed vehicles. Let them go to Finsbury Park Station. This morning I took note of 34 vehicles in two roads about the length of this Chamber. Let them go into Hendon, King's Cross, Caledonian Road —which I have mentioned—Turnpike Lane, in north London.

Indeed, in Turnpike Lane I once counted 12 vehicles. There was a chap commiting a parking offence and a police car—a Z car—came along and an officer got out to see about the parking. I said to the officer, "I agree that he is causing a parking offence, but what about these vehicles?" He said, "Oh, that is so prevalent now. We can't do much about it".

I mentioned that yesterday afternoon there was an alteration. It was in Doughty Street in the Holborn area by the crosing with Guilford Street. It was fascinating. A large coach, which I call a charabanc, was trying to turn from Guilford Street into Doughty Street and it could not do it. There was a "Keep Left" bollard in the centre and parked almost on top of the bollard was a most magnificent sports car blocking the way of the charabanc and on the other side was a beautiful red sports car, both of which were unlicensed. The policeman told the driver of the charabanc to give way and to use another road he showed him. I said, "That is all right, but tell me, can't you do something about these unlicensed cars?" I have the name of the officer and a number of people came up. I said to him, "That chap has taken the trouble to go another route because he can't get round because these cars are parked, but they are not really supposed to be on the road." Of course. nothing was done about them.

A number of people came up, including local inhabitants who said they were very upset because they cannot park their vehicles there; if they do, they are likely to be towed away. Ministers can go to see for themselves. At any ordinary business time of day in Mecklenburgh Square, people find parked outside their doors vehicles without licences. They themselves cannot get away even with parking, while people who do not pay licence get away with that.

On one magnificent car I counted 30 of those labels that say where it has been. It had been to Austria and Switzerland and almost all round the world. Thirty of these labels were stuck on, but there was no road fund licence. You will see stickers saying, "I have a tiger in my tank"—indeed, all the labels that one could imagine and all the fittings, but no road fund licence. These motorists will have not two spot lamps but four; not two horns but five; ocelot and leopard-skin upholstery covers—all the very best; but, by jingo, they will have no licence on their car. This ought to be stopped.

If a person causes an obstruction for two or three minutes, the police soon cart his car off. Why do they not cart off to the pound some of these cars that have no licences and charge these people a very heavy amount to get them back? Sometimes I go shopping with my wife in Wood Green High Road. I have seen several policemen going up and down the Wood Green High Road almost every minute of Friday and Saturday mornings chasing off "pavement spivs" selling such things as plastic macks. All round the streets there are dozens and dozens of vehicles which are breaking the law, but no action is taken over them. When I ask the policemen to take action they are too busy because they are chasing one or two of these spivs.

What can be done? First, the Minister could announce an amnesty; at a certain time and for a certain period people could be allowed to get their licences without being penalised, even for arrears. If these licences are not applied for and put on, then after the amnesty period has ended the cars should be carted off to the pound and the drivers should not get them back, even if they produce a licence, without paying a £50 fine.

I have received dozens and dozens of letters from all over the country putting forward ideas and suggestions and corroborating what I am now saying. Whilst I have not been able to answer them all, I do appreciate them. I would, however, ask the writers please not to write to me but to their own local Member of Parliament and ask him or her to do something about it. If all those who are interested in this matter were to do something and wrote to their Member something would be done Ministerially.

I have not mentioned something which is troubling a lot of people quite fairly. They ask, "Why should we pay for our licences so religiously when so many people are getting away with it? Should not something be done?". Of course, that is right. I can tell the Minister of a case where two cars in the same household have both been without licences for months on end. If the Minister wants, I can give him the name and address of the owner of a vehicle which has a C licence but has had no road fund licence, to my personal knowledge, for four years. I can tell him the street and where he can go and see it. It is there every Sunday morning, as regularly as I attend this House.

I want to make some tangible suggestions to the Minister. It has been suggested to me that we should drop the tax and increase the tax on petrol. But that would be inflationary and it would, perhaps, have a deleterious effect. Therefore I would not recommend it. Next, it is quite right and possible that both the traffic wardens and the police could do what the traffic wardens now do with regard to traffic offences. If I overstay my parking time in the City a warden comes along and sticks a slip on my car saying that if I do not pay a fine further action will be taken. I do not see why traffic wardens and police cannot have the same power to say that unless one pays for one's road fund licence action will be taken and one will have to pay double, treble, or whatever amount it may be.

It might be argued that the police and traffic wardens are too busy and that this cannot be done. I shall tell the Minister a very good way in which this problem can be solved quite simply. This would be to make it illegal, under threat of a very severe penalty, for any garage to supply a vehicle with petrol or oil, or provide any other service, unless it displays a current road fund licence.

There is also the problem of other motoring laws being broken, particularly the roadworthiness test. After it is five years old a vehicle must be tested for roadworthiness, and this costs 15s. But none of the people who do not have road fund licences are taking their vehicles for the test because they cannot have it tested without the licence, and so they save another 15s. That kind of vehicle may well not have been tested for five or six years and may be a death trap when it goes on the road.

Another problem is that of the derelict vehicles on the road which are a danger because kiddies put matches in the petrol tank, and so on. I could tell the Minister of other aspects of these problems and a number of remedies, but time seems to go so quickly when we are on this topic, and I know that the hon. Member for Essex (South-East) (Mr. Braine) wants to speak.

My last word is that the fines are ludicrous. The Greater London Council tells me that the average fine last year was £8. In Hertfordshire the average last December was £4. The maximum that can be charged, I am told, is three times the fee for the last licence period, and any chap who wants to avoid the licence can only be charged three times the quarter, even though he may have accumulated arrears equivalent to £60 or £70. Therefore it is a good dodge. They say, "The most I can be fined is £4 or £5 and I am going to get £60 or £70 back. It is worth it".

I ask the Minister to try to do something about this. If he does not, I give him this advice. I shall consistently oppose the Estimates from each of these Departments until something is done.

11.39 a.m.

Mr. Bernard Braine (Essex, South-East)

Mr. Speaker, I join the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) in expressing from this side of the House our very great pleasure in the announcement which you made at the beginning of business this morning. I am sure that everyone in the House will feel that nothing but the greatest good to the reputation and standing of our Parliament can come from visits of this kind. We wish you a safe journey.

I support much of what the hon. Gentleman has said this morning. Indeed, I think that he has done a great public service in focussing attention on what he correctly describes as a public scandal. There is no doubt that there is widespread evasion. One of my constituents came to me about a fortnight ago, probably prompted by the campaign which the hon. Gentleman has been waging with such persistence, and told me that one Saturday in the nearby county borough of Southend-on-Sea he had counted no fewer than 171 vehicles without their tax discs.

The truth of the matter—and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary must face this—is that the present system is one under which it pays to flout the law. I have been told of hauliers who run small fleets of lorries, taxed in different names at different addresses, who find it profitable not to pay the road fund licence and to run the risk of a fine. In due course they may pay fines, which can amount to £15, £20 or £25, but it pays them to do this. A constituent recently told me of a haulier who operates a fleet of ten or twelve eight-wheel lorries taxed in different names who is regularly fined but finds that this pays. He told me that the law is being flouted and everybody knows it, including the police.

What disturbs me is the way in which the law, the Regulations and the administrative arrangements that we in this place enact or authorise, place an almost impossible burden upon an undermanned and overstretched police force in the metropolitan areas.

My belief is that the Home Secretary could do a great deal to help by ensuring more carefully than in the past that the mass of regulations which Parliament in its wisdom feels obliged to authorise are enforceable and realistic. I suggest also that he should discuss with the Law Officers of the Crown the pressing need to require the courts at lower levels to take notice of trends in breaches of the law and to fix penalties so that they are a real deterrent. At the same time, he could hammer home the fact that it is not possible for the police to operate efficiently without greater co-operation from the public.

I think it is known that I hold a watching brief in this House for one of the police organisations. The hon. Member for West Ham, North was quite right in emphasising the impossible burden which the police, particularly in London, have to carry. One chief superintendent recently told me—these were his actual words: Parliament, Press and public must be brought to understand that we are engaged in a continuing and relentless civil war, the criminal against society, and because the police are not being given the tools for the job, society is losing. There are over three and a half times as many indictable offences, over four times as many crimes of violence and over five times as many youths engaged in crime as in 1938. Moreover, not only is there more crime, but it is becoming more violent, more vicious and more organised. In these circumstances, the attitude of many police officers on this subject is understandable.

Briefly, what can be done about it? The hon. Member for West Ham, North has made some suggestions. One question which I address to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary is whether it is administratively possible, now that we have computers, to tighten up the system of registration and to ensure that an end is put to this deliberate evasion of tax liability.

The hon. Member for West Ham, North dismissed the idea of abolishing the road fund licence and putting an additional impost upon petrol and diesel oil, and he may well be right about the inflationary consequences of such a method. Certainly, an equivalent amount could be raised by that means and it would be a foolproof system too, because the Government would at least ensure that they got 100 per cent. of the tax. It would be possible to arrange for exemptions for public service vehicles and other special categories. Such a method would be easy to administer and the police would no longer be put in an impossible position.

However, I have an open mind on the subject. My hope is that after the very careful case which has been deployed this morning by the hon. Member for West Ham, North, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will give the most careful attention to his suggestions and take up the matter as necessary with the appropriate authorities.

11.45 a.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler)

I should like to echo, Mr. Speaker, what my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) and the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) have said. We wish you a very happy and enjoyable visit to the Isle of Man.

This has been a useful opening to our Whitsun Adjournment debates. I want straight away to acknowledge the public spiritedness of my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North in pursuing this campaign and drawing attention to the problem. We certainly want everybody to co-operate in trying to tackle it. There is absolutely no room for complacency in general about evasion of the law and, in particular, about the duty of citizens to contribute their share of the taxation in the case of vehicles on the roads.

As my hon. Friend remarked, this is the second debate within a very short time on the subject of alleged evasion of vehicle Excise duty. The hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Frederic Harris) raised the matter on 3rd March. I hope, therefore, that hon. Members will forgive me if I inevitably cover part of the ground simply to get the basic facts again on the record.

The legal background to the tax lies in the Vehicles (Excise) Act, 1962. With very few exceptions, all mechanically propelled vehicles are subject to Excise duty when used on public roads. In this context, using a vehicle on the road includes having a vehicle parked on the road. It must be licensed. The rates are laid down according to the type of vehicle and the way it is used, and all citizens with such vehicles should, under the law, obtain licences.

The 1962 Act lays down the penalties for unlicensed use. The maximum penalty is £20 or three times the annual rate of duty chargeable on the vehicle, whichever is the greater sum. This certainly was considered by the House to be a quite severe penalty and in line with penalties for other Excise offences. For the private car, the rate of duty for which, as my hon. Friend has said, is £17 10s. per annum, the maximum penalty is, therefore, over £50.

Those are the basic facts in regard to this matter and I pass straight to the question of enforcement. The question of vehicle Excise duty is the responsibility of county councils, as my hon. Friend has made plain. The councils are responsible for the enforcement of the law, but they are assisted not only by the police, on whom they are often dependent, but by ordinary members of the public who, like my hon. Friend, report cases when they see vehicles either displaying out-of-date licences or carrying no licences at all. I propose to give some record of the efforts which are made in this respect.

As with any case of law enforcement, the amount of effort devoted to it and the success achieved depends in the last resort upon manpower as much as anything else. The processes of enforcing this law are inevitably time-consuming. It is also true that we must have regard to proper safeguards on behalf of the citizen to prevent miscarriages of justice or unduly harsh law.

My hon. Friend has over a period presented a formidable catalogue of cases of apparently unlicensed use of vehicles.

He has done this both in Questions and in this morning's debate, and he has referred to the article in the Evening News of 4th May, with particular reference to the situation in London. I repeat to my hon. Friend the assurance which was given by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that all these cases, whether mentioned in Press articles, by my hon. Friend or by any member of the public, are brought immediately to the attention of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police or of any other authorities who are responsible for taking necessary action with the licensing authority.

My hon. Friend has quoted figures suggesting that there is widespread evasion of the duty. It is very difficult, as he agrees to establish a comprehensive picture. One cannot conclude from observations in a few selected places, such as near underground stations, that the position all over the country is necessarily the same as one finds there. We have evidence from random checks carried out in various parts of the country and I want to give the House the results of the most recent checks so that hon. Members may see the situation as it is reported to us. These checks all refer to last year.

In Birmingham, in a recent check, one vehicle in 225 was found unlicensed, in Blackpool, out of 1,665 vehicles checked, all were properly licensed; in Wolverhampton, 2,314 vehicles were checked and only 29 were found to be unlicensed, which is rather less than 1 per cent.; in County Durham, out of more than 2,000 vehicles checked, only 20 were found to be unlicensed.

It may well be that, in the Metropolitan area, the position is much worse, but it is right that I should have given these figures in order to get a sense of proportion, although no single check can be conclusive. However, it may be that evasion is not as widespread as some people suggest. Certainly, I emphasise again that no one, whether in the Ministry of Transport, the Treasury or the Home Office or anywhere else, is complacent about the problem. We know that evasion exists and many thousands of cases are reported.

Last year, councils other than the Greater London Council received 118,000 routine reports from all sources of the unlicensed use of vehicles. Over the country as a whole, about one-sixth of the cases reported proved to have been properly licensed when a further check was made. Altogether, councils prosecuted in 62,500 cases while in 47,000 cases the authorities were satisfied that any duty due had been fully recovered and accordingly exercised their discretionary powers to impose a mitigated penalty or a caution.

The number of reports reaching licensing authorities represents each year is equivalent to about one report for over 80 vehicles—quite a high rate of reporting. More significantly, it compares favourably with the actual amount of evasion detected in the random checks I have mentioned.

I want to deal now with mitigated penalties and cautions. There is the impression, as was suggested in the Evening News article, that people asked to pay mitigated penalties or cautions are somehow getting away with it because there is no fine, or only a very small fine. This is not so. There is no loss of revenue in these cases. Councils do not proceed by way of mitigated penalties or cautions unless they are fully satisfied that any unpaid duty has been collected. This is normal excise practice.

Mr. Arthur Lewis

But how can the authorities know how long a vehicle has been unlicensed? I know a case where a vehicle was unlicensed for four years. The man told the licensing authority that he had only been using it for the last six months. How could the authority know that, in fact, he had been using it for four years unless it was able to get the record of what he had been doing?

Mr. Swingler

If there is no evidence —and enforcement of the law depends upon accumulated evidence—it would be wrong to impose penalties. The authorities must investigate and get the evidence. But it is right that the licensing authority should have discretionary powers in these cases.

Many citizens are merely forgetful or they procrastinate; they mean to take out a licence but find that they are late in doing so. Councils should not be asked to prosecute in all cases, therefore. That would be an absurd waste of time. They should, nevertheless, on the evidence they receive and after investigation be able to impose this mitigated penalty, which a citizen may refuse to accept, in which case the council must decide whether to prosecute or not or, in some cases, to give cautions.

Now I turn to enforcement in London. The figures I shall give are for the year ended 31st March, 1966—the first 12 months of operation of the G.L.C. The Council received 95,000 reports of apparent unlicensed use of vehicles, including about 10,000 which were taken over from the previous authorities. A very high proportion of these reports were made by the police and 30,000 reached the Council in the three months January to March, 1966.

Thirty-six thousand were still under investigation at the end of the year and the other 59,000 have been dealt with as follows: in 7,000 cases, there were prosecutions; in 11,500 cases, mitigated penalties were imposed; in 12,000 cases, cautions were issued; 28,500 were not proceeded with because the authority accepted that, on further investigation, there was a valid reason for not doing so.

Cases in which investigation showed that the vehicle was, in fact, properly licensed, but that the licence was not displayed, were quite numerous and the council was satisfied that, in a fairly large number of cases, the offence was actually failure to display the licence and was an innocent oversight.

In the case of the G.L.C., I should point out that the council has suffered from acute staff shortage. Investigation of reports of unlicensed vehicles is time consuming. Many records have to be gone into and both the Metropolitan Police and the G.L.C. have been up against the difficulty of manpower. Indeed, at the end of 1964, the Metropolitan Police decided that its manpower problems were such that it could no longer undertake to do follow-up investigation work in these cases and, therefore, the responsibility had to be accepted wholly by the G.L.C.

Following this change in Metropolitan Police procedure, the G.L.C. has set up an organisation to do the investigation work itself but, of course, it has taken some time to get the staff in order to carry it out. However, I believe that these difficulties are now being overcome and I am confident that the G.L.C. recognises the importance of dealing as expeditiously as possible with apparent offences reported.

Reference has been made to the question of notices on windscreens. In the Metropolitan area, a notice stating that a report is being made of apparent unlicensed use of a vehicle is affixed to the windscreen of the vehicle concerned. We are considering extending this to the rest of the country. My hon. Friend suggested that traffic wardens should be used for the job and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is already considering this suggestion.

It is also suggested that the penalties should be increased, but, as I have said, the maximum fine possible is three times the annual duty, and we feel that at the moment this is a sufficient deterrent and a hard penalty on those who are taken to court.

My hon. Friend suggested that the police might be empowered to tow away vehicles which they see parked on the road without current licences, but there is the difficulty that in so many cases, as I have shown, the offence is failure to display a licence, and not a failure to have one which is currently valid. I have some doubt whether the House would be willing to give the police power to tow away vehicles which were not displaying licences which were currently valid. If one in six were discovered to be licensed, but not displaying licences, I am sure that there would be a strong reaction on the part of the citizen.

We are considering all possibilities of reforming and streamlining the procedure, a point which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East. I cannot this morning give any details, but we are urgently considering and discussing with those concerned whether improvements can be made in the reporting and investigating processes, and also in the system of licensing itself, so that we shall be able to establish a better standard of enforcement.

I assure my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman that the suggestions which they have made will be very carefully considered by the Department and discussed with the licensing authorities, but let us realise that we do not imagine we can achieve a perfectly refined system of enforcement in this respect. In general, and in the last resort, we must depend on the good will and honesty of the majority of the citizens of the country.

Mr. Speaker

I am grateful to the Minister for co-operating by curtailing his speech. I must protect the timetable, in the interests of the hon. and learned Member who has the last Adjournment this afternoon.