§ Mr. Iain Millsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the number of prosecutions in respect of overloaded lorries in 1981; and if he will divide this figure by police authority.
§ Mr. Mayhew[pursuant to his reply, 27 January 1982, c. 355]: Numbers of findings of guilt for all tyres of offences relating to loads of motor vehicles in each police force area in 1980, the latest year for which information is available, are published in table 17 of "Offences relating to motor vehicles, "England and Wales 1980, supplementary tables", a copy of which has been placed in the Library of the House. The information available on numbers of prosecutions for offences of exceeding the maximum gross weight or axle weight of goods vehicles of all kinds is given in the following table. However, the reporting of non-police prosecutions, such as those brought by highway authorities, is known to be less than complete.
96W
Proceedings in Magistrates Courts for Offences of Exceeding Gross Weight or Axle Weight of Goods Vehicles by Police Force Area, 1980 Police force area Number of offences Avon and Somerset 454 Bedfordshire 249 Cambridgeshire 351 Cheshire 480 Cleveland 231 Cumbria 385 Derbyshire 464 Devon and Cornwall 168 Dorset 205 Durham 80 Essex 1,070 Gloucestershire 137 Greater Manchester 120 Hampshire 552 Hertfordshire 1,914 Humberside 480 Kent 1,280 Lancashire 20 Leicestershire 258 Lincolnshire 535 City of London 167 Merseyside 552 Metropolitan Police District — Norfolk 487 Northamptonshire 85 Northumbria 289 North Yorkshire 242 Nottinghamshire 1,274
Police force area Number of offences South Yorkshire 251 Staffordshire 660 Suffolk *4 Surrey 504 Sussex 1,045 Thames Valley 258 Warwickshire 446 West Mercia 521 West Midlands 1,882 West Yorkshire 1,215 Wiltshire 160 Dyfed-Powys 23 Gwent 339 North Wales 90 South Wales 67 Total 19,994 * In addition, 271 prosecutions are known to have been recorded as trade licence offences because exceeding the maximum gross weight infringes the conditions of a trade licence.