§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Minister of Transport whether he will give the figures of one fifth of the total of reports made last year of failing to show a current licence when owners were in possession of such a licence; and in how many of these cases prosecutions were initiated for this offence.
Mr. Bob BrownThe estimate that one fifth of apparently unlicensed vehicles are properly licensed is based on returns from only some of the 183 taxation authorities. Figures for the whole country are not available. The provisional figures for 1967 show that the police in England and Wales issued 3,639 written warnings and undertook 2,433 prosecutions in cases where excise licences were obscured or not affixed.