§ Mr. MacleanTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many(a) privately owned motor vehicles, (b) company cars and (c) commercial vans and lorries there were in the United Kingdom at the latest date for which figures are available. [70696]
§ Dr. ReidAccording to Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency files, at the end of September 1998 there were 23.43 million motorcars with a current licence in Great Britain, of which 2.43 million had a company address as the registered keeper.
At the end of September 1998, there were 2.69 million licensed vehicles with some form of goods body type, the majority of which were light goods vehicles taxed within the private and light goods taxation group, but including 417,000 goods vehicles in tax classes 1 and 2, with revenue weight over 3.5 tonnes gross.
448WWhile vehicles pay excise duty according to their taxation class, determined on the basis of their construction and use, DVLA records, in general, contain no further information on the purpose for which vehicles are used. The degree to which the above goods vehicles are wholly or partially involved in commercial activity is not known.
Comparable statistics for Northern Ireland are prepared by the Department of Environment (Northern Ireland). Figures taken from the Northern Ireland Transport Statistics report for the end of 1997, showed 583,000 licensed cars, and 68,000 vehicles with all form of goods body type, including 18,000 goods vehicles in tax classes 1 and 2, with revenue weight over 3.5 tonnes gross.