§ Lord Lairdasked Her Majesty's Government:
Why major updating work to MoT facilities in Northern Ireland involving the reduction in capacity was undertaken at the same time as the department initiated a campaign to encourage the taxation of cars, thus increasing demand for MoT facilities. [HL4384]
§ The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Amos)The refurbishment of test centres was undertaken over a two-year period following the award of a major contract to a private sector consortium in March 2001. However, the project, which was necessary to ensure that the Driver and Vehicle Testing Agency could continue to deliver a high quality testing service, was in the planning stage for a considerable period before that.
Driver and Vehicle Licensing Northern Ireland has had an ongoing campaign to tackle vehicle excise duty evasion (VED) for some time. The introduction of wheel clamping in January 1998 and camera detection in January 2002 were a direct response to the relatively high evasion rate in Northern Ireland. VED campaigns do not increase the number of vehicles requiring an MoT, but they help to persuade those who need to get their vehicles tested to do so. Both are important elements in the department's road safety strategy. However, both involve lengthy lead times, and despite extensive planning it is impossible to keep them entirely separate or to predict the precise impact of a particular campaign.