§ 31. Simon HughesTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps her Government are taking to support local authorities in dealing with abandoned vehicles. [55150]
§ Mr. MeacherWe have supported pilot schemes in the London boroughs of Newham and Lewisham in which the local authority was given DVLA's powers to wheelclamp and remove unlicensed vehicles after 24 hours. We announced the extension of the scheme nationally on 10 April. The London borough of Wandsworth joined the scheme on 23 April.
In October 2001 we published a consultation document on measures to remove abandoned and untaxed vehicles from the streets more quickly and, for the longer term, bring forward changes to vehicle registration and licensing procedures to ensure greater accuracy of DVLA's vehicle record.
Primary powers have now been included in the Finance Bill for changes to the vehicle registration and licensing system, which will place a clear obligation on the last registered keeper to tax and licence a vehicle, and establish an automatic penalty for those who do not relicense on time. the full details of the scheme—including the levels of the automatic penalties and their operation—and the implementation date have yet to be decided.
Regulations to reduce the statutory notice periods after which local authorities can remove abandoned vehicles and the storage periods for unlicensed vehicles were laid before the House on 19 March and came into force on 9 April.
Kent Police piloted a "blitz" approach (Operation Cubit) on abandoned vehicles in the Medway area in co-operation with Kent county council, Medway council, DVLA and the Kent fire brigade for eight weeks in early 2001 and the Home Office has commissioned a detailed evaluation of the pilot which has been academically assessed and circulated to other stockholders for comments, including the Kent police and Kent county council. We hope to publish it in the near future.
Since the original pilot, similar operations have taken place and are shown in the table:
819W
Date Swanley June 2001 Dartford October 2001 Gravesend October 2001 Maidstone January 2002 Swale January 2002 Hastings January 2002 Brighton February 2002 Liverpool March 2002 To date the operations have removed almost 3,000 abandoned unlicensed vehicles from the streets of Kent and Hastings.