Orders of the Day — Vehicles (Crime) Bill

House of Commons, 18 December 2000.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. As the House knows, vehicle crime is a serious problem, and one of the crimes that most concerns the public. Nearly 400,000 cars are stolen each year and 120,000 of those are never recovered. Vehicle crime accounts for nearly a fifth of all recorded crime and costs, at a conservative estimate, about £3 billion a year. It causes great distress and inconvenience to victims, as all of us know who have suffered from vehicle crime—in my case, before 1997, although I accept that it has gone on since 1997—[Laughter.] Thank you. Vehicle crime also ties up the resources of the criminal justice system. Two years ago my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set a national target of reducing vehicle crime by 30 per cent. by 2004. As the Minister with responsibility for delivering the target, I thought that that was, in the current parlance, challenging, but I accepted it none the less. There is a good possibility that we will reach that target. The Bill forms an integral part of our strategy for reducing vehicle crime. Although it is some time since I suffered from vehicle crime—there were special reasons for that—it is still a serious problem. None the less, vehicle crime has already fallen by 17 per cent. according to recorded crime figures. In a different context, I must tell my right hon. and hon. Friends that, after about two months of denying its veracity, yesterday the Leader of the Opposition prayed in aid the British crime survey, which is the most thorough and authoritative survey of the total levels of recorded and unrecorded crime. The survey shows a similar trend for vehicle crime, and shows that it fell by 15.1 per cent. in the period—

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

Of course, in one second.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

Just let me finish the sentence. That period covered the calendar year 1997 and the calendar year 1999. The reduction in vehicle crime is the result of effective targeting by the police, working in partnership with manufacturers and the community. However, we have to do more. I shall give way, first to the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) and then to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow).

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

The Home Secretary referred to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. Will he take the opportunity to make it clear that he does not believe that my right hon. Friend is a racist or was guilty of racism? If people have taken the Home Secretary's remarks in that way and believe that, will he apologise for their effect?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

The answer is no. I cannot believe that the hon. Gentleman's question is in order, as we are discussing the Vehicles (Crime) Bill. However, if the hon. Gentleman wishes me to say parenthetically in the House, as I have done outside, that I believe that the Leader of the Opposition played the race card in his speech, I am happy to do so. In case the hon. Gentleman has not caught up with the news, I note that the apologies on the record have been forthcoming from the shadow Home Secretary, who said that she was extremely sorry if the Taylor family was distressed about the remarks made by the Leader of the Opposition. That is my understanding of what has been said.

Ann Widdecombe (Conservative, Maidstone and The Weald)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

Yes, of course.

Ann Widdecombe (Conservative, Maidstone and The Weald)

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Is his position that, any time that we decide to raise the issue of stop and search or the aftermath of the Macpherson report, that is playing the race card? Will he note that I did not apologise for comments made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition? The only thing for which I expressed any regret at all was any distress that might have been felt. However, I did not believe that that was caused by my right hon. Friend's remarks, but rather by the press coverage and the interpretation of those remarks by the Home Secretary.

Michael Martin (Speaker, Glasgow Springburn)

Order. Now that the right hon. Lady has finished, we will get on to the Second Reading of the Bill.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I shall return to the Bill. The hon. Member for Buckingham wished to ask a question.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

Given the Home Secretary's enthusiasm for the British crime survey, will he confirm that he accepts its finding that vehicle crime is approximately twice the level of that which is recorded in the official statistics?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

Yes, I will. The British crime survey tells us what we already knew—that the number of recorded vehicle thefts is pretty near 100 per cent. of the figure shown by the survey. When people's vehicles are stolen, most of them report that for insurance purposes. However, the recording of thefts from vehicles is much lower than that for vehicle theft, not least because the items stolen are sometimes below the excess on the insurance. Speaking personally, during the ancien regime, my stereo was stolen twice when my vehicle was parked at Preston station. On both occasions, I did not report the theft, because it was not really worth it. The vehicle was then stolen from outside my house in Blackburn.

Ann Widdecombe (Conservative, Maidstone and The Weald)

Why did the right hon. Gentleman not use a crook lock?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I did use a crook lock but, unfortunately, a crook lock has not yet been designed that can anchor the stereo to a vehicle. That may, however, be dealt with in the next Conservative manifesto, which might tell us that the Conservatives have solved that geometric problem. I was about to point out—this comment is both in order and timely—that when my vehicle was stolen, I reported its theft not only to the police, but to the world's most important newspaper, the Lancashire Evening Telegraph. I offered as a reward two tickets for the next game to be played at Ewood Park by Blackburn Rovers. I am pleased to say that the temptation of the tickets was such that, within half an hour of the newspaper's appearance on the streets, someone had telephoned the local criminal investigation department to tell it who had stolen the vehicle. Someone else who happened to spot the vehicle also phoned the local CID to tell it where it was. As a result, I got my vehicle back and the offenders were arrested, charged and subsequently convicted.

Jonathan R Shaw (Labour, Chatham and Aylesford)

I do not know whether my right hon. Friend can tell the House whether the Bill extends to dodging bandwagons, but will he comment on whether it extends to abandoned vehicles? Such vehicles are currently dealt with by the Refuse Disposal (Amenity) Act 1978. Does the Bill have scope to criminalise the abandonment of vehicles? Kent county council has given me statistics showing that 1,472 vehicles were abandoned between 1997 and 1998. It is estimated that that figure will increase to 11,600, which will cost the council and the council tax payer in Kent some £650,000. The increase is set to continue, as the price of scrap and of cars is falling. Is there scope in the Bill to deal with the problem?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

As my hon. Friend knows, the Bill does not cover abandoned vehicles, although it applies where they are subsequently put into the salvage system.

Dennis Skinner (Labour, Bolsover)

What about flat-backed lorries?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I dare may that bandwagons and flat-backed lorries are also covered. We are open to arguments on whether the Bill should include other arrangements for abandoned vehicles and on whether the problem with abandoned vehicles is an inadequacy in criminal law or in its enforcement.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

Did the right hon. Gentleman plead guilty to contributory negligence for failing to fit a crook lock when he lost his vehicle? Furthermore, does he accept that the Bill does not go far enough on the investigation and seeking out by the police of stolen vehicles? Will he consider contributing proper resources to that investigation, which is more important than the issue of an incident number for insurance purposes?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

The hon. Lady's first point gives me the opportunity to return to the traumatic moment when I lost my vehicle. I thank her for that opportunity, as it was thanks to the great affection in which Blackburn Rovers is held that I got the vehicle back—a fact that enables me to put on record in Parliament my affection and support for the team and my congratulations to it on its magnificent victory against Burnley yesterday. [Interruption.] There is no point in Opposition Front Benchers chuntering. There have been few more important occasions in Blackburn and Burnley than yesterday's victory. The hon. Lady's second and more serious point related to investigation. The police are doing a great deal of work on investigating the criminal rings that are often responsible for vehicle theft and are trying not to treat each such theft as a single crime committed by an individual crook without any other criminal record. That is why we are investing a lot of resources in intelligence analysis. I accept that a good deal more can be done, but the decrease of recorded and unrecorded vehicle crime, including thefts of and from vehicle is a testament to the partnership between manufacturers and the community that I mentioned earlier.

Fiona Mactaggart (Labour, Slough)

rose—

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

rose—

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

If I may, I shall make progress, but I shall take more interventions later. We believe that the Bill will make a significant impact in achieving our target. In drawing up the Bill, we were advised by the vehicle crime reduction action team, which included representatives from even sector of the vehicle industry as well as the police, motorists and insurers. I helped to launch its report at about this time last year in Leicester. A number of problems that are not covered by existing legislation were identified by the action team. There is no control over motor salvage dealers, who may receive stolen vehicles, nor, astonishingly, has there been any control over the supply of number plates to unscrupulous motorists. Indeed, plenty of motorists who get a number plate, as I did not long ago for a trailer, are surprised that they can walk into the premises of any supplier of plates and tell the supplier what numbers they want. A plate can be supplied without any record being held.

David Chidgey (Liberal Democrat, Eastleigh)

rose—

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

rose—

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I shall give way in a moment. Written off cars may be repaired I and returned to the road without any check being made on their identity. As we know, some are stolen vehicles in disguise.

David Chidgey (Liberal Democrat, Eastleigh)

On registration plates, is the Home Secretary aware that some 7 million plates are produced every year, and that 2 million go on new cars and 2 million on trade-ins? Where do the others go?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

Well, as I also know, occasionally—[Interruption.] No. A lot of plates will replace those of existing vehicles—for example, when someone has backed into another vehicle or been backed into.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

What estimate has the Home Secretary made of the number of extra police officers who will be required to enforce the new legislation? Has he had a chance to read this week's edition of The House Magazine, which carries an article by the chairman of the Police Federation entitled "Policing in Crisis"? He says: There's a huge suspicion and a powerful sense of unease in the police service … There is a drive to reduce costs whatever the consequences. Morale is the worst I have ever seen it. Has the Home Secretary read that article? How can the legislation be enforced with police numbers lower than those recorded in 1997?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

As it happens, I have not read the Christmas edition of The House Magazine, but look forward to doing so. I am familiar, however, with the article to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but I do not accept that the police service is in crisis. I happen to note that the chairman of the Police Federation, for whom I have a lot of regard, tends to make such remarks about every six months and has been doing so for the past 10 years—they are just a hardy annual. On other occasions, he has claimed that the single most damaging policy—pursued not only by this Government, but by the previous one—was the abolition of the housing allowance in 1994 in the wake of the Sheehy report. A direct consequence of that was that it became more difficult to recruit additional police officers, which is why, perhaps, the reduction in the Metropolitan police service under the previous Administration was significantly greater than that recorded since we have been in office. Those numbers are, at last, turning round. We want costs to be reduced in the police service, as we do in every other public authority, and that is happening. We are now all agreed that the British crime survey is the best measure of crime and I am therefore delighted to note that, not least as a result of the good work of the police service, overall crime has gone down under this Administration by 10 per cent.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Will the Home Secretary give way?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

No, no. The rates of vehicle crime, domestic burglary and crimes of violence are also down.

Fiona Mactaggart (Labour, Slough)

I echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Mr. Shaw). There are matters that the Bill does not necessarily cover that my constituents would want it to include, such as the frustrating issue of dumped vehicles. I have the dishonour to represent the car crime capital of Britain—there are more thefts from motor vehicles in Slough than in any other constituency. Obviously, that has nothing to do with how the local force polices, and although vehicle crime in my constituency has increased over the past year, it has reduced by a third in Milton Keynes, which is in the same police force area. Will the Home Secretary consider extending the scope of the Bill to include measures to reduce theft from motor vehicles and to deal with the problem of dumped cars?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I hope that I have already given an answer about the problem of dumped cars. It is already a serious criminal offence to abandon a vehicle. However, we have undertaken to re-examine the offence, and we shall do so. Manufacturers themselves have undertaken a great deal of work to ensure that thefts from vehicles are less likely. The figures we have published show both an inverse relationship between the value of a vehicle and the likelihood of its being stolen or broken into, and a direct relationship between a vehicle's age and the propensity for crimes against it. Although more modern vehicles are much more valuable, they are also much less likely to be broken into because breaking into them is more difficult.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Will the Home Secretary give way?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

No; I want to say more about this.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In the frenzy of the debate, the Home Secretary—who is normally assiduous in answering questions—may have forgotten about one of my questions. I asked how many extra police officers would be required to enforce the legislation.

Michael Martin (Speaker, Glasgow Springburn)

That is not a point of order. The Home Secretary is responsible for replying to the hon. Gentleman's question.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I was about to reply. The answer is none, because no more officers are needed. We have got vehicle crime down, and we aim to get it down further. The idea that every change in the law that is designed to drive crime down will lead to an increase in demands on the police is utter nonsense. Indeed, because we have driven crime down, there are fewer demands on the police in respect of crime, not more—although I fully recognise that that has been compensated for by additional calls in respect of disorder and other matters. There was a long period during which the Conservative Government understood that, intellectually and financially. It is no good Conservative Members going on about police numbers now, insinuating that they would increase those numbers, because the one thing that the shadow Chancellor has absolutely refused to do is even promise to match our spending on the police, still less increase it.

Ann Widdecombe (Conservative, Maidstone and The Weald)

rose—

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

We are going to hear a promise, are we?

Ann Widdecombe (Conservative, Maidstone and The Weald)

Will the right hon. Gentleman just tell the House this? Three years ago, we were funding 3,000 more police officers on a lower budget. What on earth has the right hon. Gentleman done with the money, given that he cannot afford them now?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

What happened was this. It explains why, in January 1997, the right hon. Lady told the House that the budget she was presenting for 1997–98 would provide for 5,000 more officers, when in fact it provided for fewer officers. The budgets that were set did not properly take account of cost pressures on the police service. It is not a question of any kind of magic. In particular, those budgets did not take account of the increased pressures of pension payments. I should add that, under a Bill for which the right hon. Lady's party was responsible, the police service was relieved of requirements to follow any direction from the Home Secretary involving overall police numbers, which then became a matte for individual chief constables. Some chief constables decided to use the limited resources available to them to maintain police numbers, but many decided to spend their resources for other purposes, such as civilianization—those numbers have remained stable—and information technology.

Ann Widdecombe (Conservative, Maidstone and The Weald)

But the Government have reduced the number of civilians as well.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

No; the number of civilians has increased marginally since 1997. The right hon. Lady may be interested to learn that I have had various analyses carried out to find out whether there is any correlation between forces whose total budgets have been increased or reduced, forces whose total officer and civilian numbers have been increased or reduced, and forces that have experienced an increase or a decrease in crime. The answer is that there is no correlation between those three variables, which is very interesting. The right hon. Lady must understand. She asks what I have done with the money. I have done absolutely nothing with it because it is spent not by me, but by the police authorities.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

No. If the right hon. Lady bothered to ask the police authorities, they would tell her that the money had been spent. If she wants to increase police numbers even further than we are proposing, she will have to increase the money even further. There is not a voter in the country who does not understand that.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Will the Home Secretary give way?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

No. I am sorry, but I wish to make some progress. In addition to the other problems that I have specified, the police have no general right of access to the motor insurers' database, which would allow them to identify uninsured drivers as they drive past. The Bill will tackle those problems. The Bill will make vehicle crime less attractive by reducing opportunities for professional car thieves to profit. The estimate is that it could prevent up to 39,000 car thefts and 6,000 fraudulent insurance theft claims each year.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Will the Home Secretary give way?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I want to make some progress first. The Bill will extend the time limit for prosecuting car thieves or those who take a car without the consent of the owner. It will make it easier for the police to detect uninsured driving. It will enable magistrates courts' receipts from fixed penalties for speeding and for jumping red lights to be directly applied to the funding of more safety cameras.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Does the Home Secretary agree with the Motor Vehicle Dismantlers Association of Great Britain, which deals with salvage, which has said that, to meet his target of preventing 39,000 thefts, there must be effective enforcement of the laws? If so, how will he do that with no extra police officers? If he is to achieve that with the same police officers, what jobs will they not be able to do?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

What the hon. Gentleman has to grasp is that, to enforce such a measure, additional police officers are not necessarily required. When they were in government, we heard Conservative Members talk time and again about the need to make all public services more effective. I do not exclude the police service from that, even though there is a tiny minority of police officers who do not like the fact that we are trying to make the system more effective. We are trying to deal, for example, with unnecessary sickness absence. We have already cut the paperwork, but there are a few police officers who do not mind paperwork because it keeps them out of action on the street—not very many, but a few. That needs to be borne in mind, too. The police service is no different from other organisations. The quality of what that service delivers depends on the quality of the individuals employed by it, which can vary, and the quality of the management and the leadership.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

Will the Home Secretary give way?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

No. We know clearly that even within London the level of crime recorded—robbery, burglary, vehicle theft and many other offences—in different boroughs varies a lot. It is dependent not on the number of officers in those areas, but on the quality of the leadership and of the officers on the streets. It is one of the matters about which I have asked the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis to raise performance—he has fully embraced that. We need to identify the boroughs that are not performing well and to raise their performance to the level of the best. It is in that way, as well as through our huge additional investment in the police service, that we will be able to make this country safer, after the appalling 18 years when crime doubled.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

Has my right hon. Friend had an opportunity to look at what we do in Plymouth to cut down on car crime and, in particular, the joint approach that is taken through environmental health, taxation and the police? The law is difficult to enforce at the moment. The Bill should make things much easier. The detection of vehicle crime will take up not only less police time, but that of other departments' staff.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I am indeed aware of what is going on in Plymouth because I was told about it by Sir John Evans, who was the chief constable. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the matter. There are many examples—Plymouth is one, Milton Keynes is another—where police using similar resources per head are able to do significant things. There are lessons there for other boroughs, whether they are represented by Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat Members, that are not doing as well. They can make progress with more imagination. Often, greater imagination by the police service and better partnerships with local authorities and others can ensure that fewer resources are used more effectively.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

No; I shall take the House through the Bill. Part I introduces regulation of motor salvage dealers. Most salvage dealers already operate to high standards and fully within the law; however, as all hon. Members know, some do not. Almost one third of stolen cars are never recovered, and the motor salvage industry offers opportunities for the identities of stolen cars to be disguised and for stolen cars to be broken up and resold as parts. There is also a link between salvage dealers and insurance fraud. Some cars that are reported stolen are sold to motor salvage dealers and broken up for their parts, or they are given the identity of written-off cars and resold. Therefore, clauses 1 to 6 establish a registration system, and clauses 7 to 11 will allow us to ensure that registered dealers keep appropriate records, including a note of the destruction of vehicles. Part II regulates the supply and issue of number plates. I cannot believe that there will be any argument at all in the House about that scheme, except perhaps about whether it goes far enough.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Will the Minister give way?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

No; I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman. As all hon. Members know, the effects of the number plate problem go beyond vehicle crime. Burglars may use false number plates to cover their traces when making a getaway, and terrorists also may use them. Many other people may use false plates simply to avoid penalties from safety cameras. Clauses 16 to 22 require number plate suppliers to register with the Secretary of State—which, in this case, in practice, means with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. Number plate suppliers will have to allow police to enter and inspect their premises without a warrant. It will also be an offence for a wholesaler to supply an unregistered supplier and to sell fake plates. The prospect that details of the transaction will be recorded should deter prospective purchasers of number plates who require them for criminal purposes. Record keeping will provide police with the means of tracing the source of plates used in criminal activities. There will be a power in clause 33 to make regulations prescribing additional information to be held on number plates and the way in which it should be contained or displayed. Therefore, it will not be easy to forge plates. The information on the number plate will link it to the vehicle for which it is intended, making it difficult to swap vehicle identities.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

I offer a general welcome to the provision that the Home Secretary of State has just outlined, but may I ask him to address himself to a problem that has arisen in Wales—the display of the Welsh flag on number plates? I have received a note from the Library saying that, currently, such display is illegal. I should also tell the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Chidgey) that some of the number plates in Wales have been created simply to show off the Welsh flag. Will the Home Secretary clarify whether such display is illegal? Will it remain illegal to display a Welsh flag or an English flag? Will it be necessary to display an EU flag? Does clause 33 give the Home Secretary the power to vary the restriction, to make it legal to display the Welsh flag? Will he consider doing that?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

It says in my brief—I knew it anyway because I am a swot—that use of the Euro symbol will be permitted as a means of aiding the circulation of vehicles in Europe, and also of increasing the blood pressure of Conservative Members of Parliament. No other emblems will be permitted as they could cause confusion. The Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Executive were consulted on that and—the brief says—raised no objection. I am happy for the issue to be raised in Committee. There are other places on the back of vehicles where those who are proud of their national heritage can display a sticker identifying their nationality, and long may that continue. In the legislation, we are addressing only the issue of identification on the vehicle plate.

Eric Forth (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

Will the Secretary of State give way?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I thought that that might wind up the right hon. Gentleman. I shall give way.

Eric Forth (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

Will the Secretary of State clarify whether it will be permitted, if not mandatory, to show the European Union symbol on British car registration plates, but illegal to show the Union flag on British car registration plates? Is that what he is telling the House?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

It is permitted to show the European Union symbol, and country identification letters are also shown on the vehicle number plate. I have no briefing on the Union flag, but I would be happy for that question to be dealt with in the winding-up speech. There is nothing to stop motorists from proudly displaying a representation of the Union flag on the rear of their vehicles—many do—but not necessarily on the vehicle plate.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way? It is a matter of great importance.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

If it were, I would, but it is not, so I shall not. Part III of the Bill deals with vehicle licensing and registration, and other measures to combat vehicle crime. The present law allows written-off vehicles to return to the road without being checked. That means that the unscrupulous can get away with illegal tampering. The Bill will change that by insisting on an identity check before a new registration document can be issued. Part III also contains our proposals for tackling uninsured driving. That offence too often goes undetected, yet uninsured drivers are often dangerous and, like those who speed, may well have broken other laws. To combat the problem, the motor insurance industry has proposed that the police should have bulk access to its new database, which will be available from 2003. The Bill will enable that to happen. Clause 36 extends the time limit for prosecuting unauthorised vehicle taking. Those who take vehicles without the consent of their owners, as well those who thieve from them, cause great distress to their victims and are often also involved in accidents. At the moment, such people can escape justice because of the six-month time limit on the prosecution of offences that are summary only. Advances in DNA and fingerprinting mean that evidence may come to light after the six months have expired. Clause 37 represents a real improvement in joined-up government. It will allow money received by magistrates courts from fixed penalties for speeding or from jumping red lights to be used to fund the roll-out of safety cameras.

Andrew Miller (Labour, Ellesmere Port and Neston)

I am sure that the whole House welcomes the decision by the Law Lords a fortnight ago to overturn the rather silly decision in Scotland about the use of speed cameras. Does my right hon. Friend accept that the evidence in the pilot areas now clearly shows that increased use of speed cameras saves lives, and that they are a worthwhile investment? Will he join me in encouraging the House to campaign vigorously against the right-wing libertarian view, as expressed in the Daily Mail, that these measures would be controversial and used as an incentive to trap more motorists? They are a means of saving lives, and that is the justification for them.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I share my hon. Friend's view about this improvement. What those at the Daily Mail have to say about it is a matter for them. I dare say that that newspaper opposed the introduction of the breathalyser and the use of seat belts on a similar basis, yet those changes have helped to create a much safer environment for road users. When I was a young man, people used to drink and drive, friends of mine lost their lives, and terrible damage and injury were caused to others. The number of road deaths and injuries is still far too high, but we should be proud that this country's record is far better than that of any other European country that I can think of. We must continue to make progress to improve that record still further. To give a direct answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller), since the pilot schemes came into or operation in eight police force areas, there has been a 20 per cent. improvement in road safety in those areas.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I am not sure why the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) used the description "right-wing libertarian" as though it were a term of abuse. I am more than happy to have that description conferred on me. Although we have no objection to the use of speed cameras in principle—or, very often, in practice—will the Home Secretary accept that our concern is with the avoidance of regulation for the sake of regulation? We are also concerned to avoid yet another stealth tax from the Government.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I note what the hon. Gentleman says. This road safety measure has broad support across the country, and if the Conservatives want to oppose it, that is a matter for them. However, I am in no doubt that speed cameras moderate drivers' behaviour. After I was apprehended because of a speed camera in 1993—after I had paid my fine and got three points on my licence—my driving behaviour improved, and I think that that is true of other people. I say that from personal experience—incidentally, I have not had any points since then. I have put on record the need for the Bill and hope that it will have the endorsement of the whole House. I do not doubt that it could be improved in Committee—indeed, I have not introduced a single Bill in the House that has not been improved as a result of the parliamentary process. We want to build on the Government's strong record in fighting vehicle crime. We should be able to unite against the criminal on the issue of vehicle security. There is a comprehensive set of proposals in the Bill which, I hope the House will agree, deserves a Second Reading. It is a measured response to a number of serious problems, and I commend it to the House.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I should say at the outset that the official Opposition does not intend to divide the House on Second Reading. The principle of the Bill is unobjectionable and its purpose is valid, although we are at this stage uncertain about its probable effects. The jury is out on that, and we shall have to wait and see. I greatly enjoyed the Home Secretary's speech—there is nothing unusual in that. I cannot promise that my contribution will be exciting or racy on this important subject, but I will endeavour to address the facts. I was intrigued by what the right hon. Gentleman said about car crime. He started off by giving the clear impression that he regarded it as a matter of great seriousness, and that although he was pleased that some progress had been made, he was fully conscious of the seriousness of the incidence of offences that still plague the country. However, as he continued, he seemed to display a certain insouciance towards those of us who criticised the Government's record, suggested that an improvement would require an additional resource and were not convinced that the Government's bona fides on the subject were satisfactory. For the avoidance of doubt, let the facts be placed on the record. I think it very likely that Labour Members will have the precise figures for the number of offences committed over the past couple of years. The hon. Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones), for example, is a veritable walking—or, in this case, sedentary—encyclopaedia on the Labour Benches. She always knows the facts. However, there may be some who require clarification. Between March 1998 and March 1999, 1,482,889 car crimes were committed. The following year, there was, interestingly, a reduction in the incidence of car crimes of exactly 7,000, taking the figure down to 1,475,000.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Will my hon. Friend give way?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

In a moment, if my hon. Friend will just contain himself. That figure represented a cut in the incidence of car crime of 0.5 per cent., of which more anon.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

My hon. Friend is, as ever, more than generous to me. Does he agree that some of the reduction in car crime is due to the introduction of closed circuit television cameras? In that respect, will he pay tribute to the previous Government who were responsible for the widespread introduction of closed circuit television cameras throughout the United Kingdom?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I am delighted to pay tribute to the previous Government. I do not always do so on every subject, but in that respect their record was very good. We got the CCTV programme under way and it secured real benefits. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to that point.

David Lammy (Labour, Tottenham)

As the hon. Gentleman gives credit to the previous Government for the introduction of CCTV, does he agree that, because many police officers are scrutinising those videotapes, they may not be on the streets—the point he has been going on about over the past few months?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

The hon. Gentleman makes a slightly ungracious point. I hope that he does not deny the significance of CCTV in combating crime; it has an important role to play. I am well aware that, in general, the hon. Gentleman identifies with what might be described as the new Labour philosophy and programme, so he will want to be fully on-message. He will appreciate that Members on the Treasury Bench are accustomed to drawing attention to the plans for the expansion of CCTV schemes in the following year; I hope that he will not cavil at that. Obviously, the study of the videotapes takes time and requires the commitment of certain officers. Despite Labour Members' unrealistic expectations of the police, it goes without saying that the police cannot be expected to do two things at once. Manifestly, if an officer is studying the video, he or she cannot also be out detecting crime and apprehending criminals.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

I am rather surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman describe CCTV as a libertarian measure. I should have thought that his libertarianism would mean that he thought of CCTV as non-libertarian. However, as he accepts CCTV, does he agree that there is no difference between the use of CCTV and of speed cameras?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's analogy. While we are engaged in a philosophical discussion about what constitutes libertarianism, I emphasise that nothing incumbent on someone who takes a broadly liberal-minded view of the world obliges him to oppose measures that are likely to be successful in reducing the incidence of crime. The point that I am making about speed cameras is that there is no justification for a massive, universal roll-out of such cameras across the country. The resource required to facilitate such a roll-out is enormous. One can only assume that Ministers are anxious to extract rich pickings from unsuspecting motorists in the form of heavy fines. In so far as that policy is by way of being a stealth tax, it does not commend itself to Her Majesty's Opposition.

Andrew Miller (Labour, Ellesmere Port and Neston)

I hope that the reduction in deaths that would occur as a result of such a policy commends itself to Her Majesty's Opposition.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I am in favour of reducing both car crime and the incidence of death on the roads. The idea that in order to reduce death on the roads a universal system of CCTV or video speed cameras is required across the country is not sound. If the hon. Gentleman wants to persuade the House of the merits of his argument, I hope that he will be successful in catching your eye in due course, Mr. Speaker. I shall not be distracted by Labour Members from emphasising that there had been a reduction of 0.5 per cent.—[Interruption] It is no good the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) chuntering at me from a sedentary position. He wants to cover his blushes; he is embarrassed about the record, which shows clearly that in the period to which I referred

Andrew Miller (Labour, Ellesmere Port and Neston)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I have already given the hon. Gentleman an opportunity to intervene and he made a mess of it—I do not see why I should cause him to suffer embarrassment a second time. Between March 1998–99 and March 1999–2000, there was a reduction of 0.5 per cent. in the incidence of vehicle crime. The significance of that reduction should surely not be lost on even the most obsequious and sycophantic Labour Member. As the Home Secretary helpfully explained, the Government have committed themselves over a five-year period to a 30 per cent. reduction in car crime. The point that I am making—a point that is so blindingly obvious that only an extraordinarily clever person could fail to see it—is that, at present, the Government are a long way from meeting their target. If in the first year, they have secured a cut of only 0.5 per cent. that does not augur well for the prospects of achieving by 2004 the 30 per cent. reduction that the Home Secretary himself described as challenging, but to which the Prime Minister has nevertheless committed the Government. There would need to be an improvement of about 900 per cent. in the Government's performance over the next four years if they were to meet the target for the reduction of vehicle crime with which the Prime Minister has lumbered the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary is, of course, justified in pointing out the progress that has been made. He is normally a generous man, not only in providing people with match tickets but in conferring praise on those who deserve it. I therefore hope that he will join me in congratulating the previous Government on securing a 26.6 per cent. fall in vehicle crime between 1993 and 1997. That was a real and creditable achievement. I wish the Government well in reducing car crime. It was, shall we say, bold to set the target of a 30 per cent. cut over five years, but at present it does not look as if the Government are likely to achieve it. It is important to clarify the categories of car crime about which we are speaking. The figure that I mentioned, of slightly fewer than 1.5 million offences between March 1999 and March 2000, included 374,686 offences of the theft of a vehicle, but also 669,232 offences of theft from a vehicle. A clear and large majority of the offences committed are thefts from, rather than of, vehicles. I was sorry to hear about the Home Secretary's personal misfortune, in respect both of the theft of his car and of the extraction of his stereo. I wanted to intervene to congratulate him on his generosity in offering match tickets, but I could hardly have congratulated him on the measures that he took—or failed to take—to protect his property. He gave the distinct impression that he had failed to secrete his stereo or cassette player in one of the obvious places. He could have put it in the glove compartment or the boot, or he could have wandered off to his next meeting with it on his person.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

indicated dissent.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

It is perfectly possible to extract the frontage to prevent a stereo from being stolen.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Hall Green)

Is that general advice from those on the Opposition Front Bench—that if some me has a fixed stereo unit they should dismantle it and secrete it in the glove compartment?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I grant that if the unit is fixed that makes it more difficult. I have a different arrangement myself, and I would be happy to communicate the obvious benefits to the Home Secretary. If he wishes to accompany me to the car park I will show him my system, which has a real advantage over his, and I could advise him on what steps to take so as greatly to reduce the chances of his suffering such a crime again. The significance of car crime is well understood, but so too, should be the significance of Government policy in relation to it. I acknowledge that the Government have taken some steps to counteract the threat of car criminals, but they have also taken other steps that give altogether the opposite impression of their intentions. I hope that I shall enjoy the support of my right hon. and hon. Friends when I say that it is pitiful that since the inception of the home detention curfew scheme in January 1999—I remind the House that that has resulted in the early release of 27,000 serious offenders—no fewer than 300 car thieves have been let out of jail early. Typically, as the figures demonstrate, they are released before they have served half their sentence. That sends the wrong signal. The undesirable message is: "Don't worry. You will be caught, sentenced and locked up, but you will only be incarcerated for a short time. Then you will be released and have the opportunity to resume your life of crime." That is an extraordinary state of affairs. It is peculiar that the Government should, on one hand, introduce the Bill—which has at least the appearance of robustness—and, on the other, pursue a policy that genuinely merits my recent description of the Home Secretary as a lily-livered liberal. Is it any wonder that this country's criminal classes are praying for a Labour election victory? [Interruption.] I am surprised that that causes such surprise among Government Members; they must know that if they pursue soft penal policies and release people from jail before they have typically served half their sentence, people will be encouraged in the belief that crime is not taken all that seriously and that they can come out of prison and, either immediately, or after a reasonable, decent interval, embark on a continuing life of crime. I must emphasise the fact that that is so obvious that it is surprising that anyone chooses to dispute it. I was grateful to the Home Secretary for his confirmation of the position as shown by the British crime survey. I know that he is greatly attached to that survey; he clutches sheaves of statistics to his breast every time he comes to the Chamber, but I was pleased that he confirmed the British crime survey's finding that the level of car crime is roughly twice what is officially recorded. Interestingly, as the Home Secretary will know and as my right hon. and hon. Friends should be aware, 61 per cent. of thefts are from vehicles and only 11 per cent. are thefts of vehicles. That confirms the overall trend, and it is relevant to the Bill, for as I will say later, and I have support from outside organisations in doing so, the Bill overwhelmingly deals with the theft of vehicles rather than with the statistically more significant phenomenon of theft from vehicles—[Interruption]—as the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Chidgey) concurs from a sedentary position. So we are talking about 28 per cent. of all recorded crime in 1999–2000—crime that costs about £3.5 billion a year. The Home Secretary was right to emphasise the effect of such crime, but unless I misheard him he did not emphasise its full effects. He rightly said that financial loss, inconvenience and personal distress are involved, but more than that is at stake. Vehicle crime is not only distressing to its victims, but represents a gateway to the commission of other serious offences, such as drug trafficking and terrorism. Hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree that we need to view such crime in that context. The target for the reduction is good, challenging and bold; it might even be describedw—this will terrify the Home Secretary—as a brave target. Despite the announcement of the target, we know two facts about the Bill. First, almost certainly, it will not reach the statute book before the Prime Minister tames the day for a general election, so it should be considered in context. I do not doubt that on the basis of pager messages and Millbank tower briefings, there will be no shortage of supportive speeches from Labour Members; they will rush to shower confetti on the Home Secretary, tell him what a good chap he is and embolden him to pursue the measures contained in the Bill; but the reality is that the Bill, introduced at the fag end—if that is not a politically incorrect term—of this Parliament will not reach the statute book before a general election takes place.

Eric Forth (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

I have no doubt that my hon. Friend will deal with this matter later in his speech, but in the context of what he has just said, does he agree that, lest anyone should imagine that the Bill is uncontroversial, clause 9 contains our old friend, the right to enter and inspect premises? I pick that clause at random to emphasise the fact that if the Government are under any illusion that they can introduce the Bill now, declare it uncontroversial and try to blackmail both Houses of Parliament into slipping it through without very thorough scrutiny, they will be very much mistaken.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend's observation. It is no secret that he and I have what in political terms might be described as a symbiotic relationship; periodically, I can anticipate my right hon. Friend, but he is invariably able to anticipate me. Lest he should worry, I assure him that I intend to say something about that provision. What is more, I had fully intended to do so even without his characteristically helpful observation. The Bill will not become law before the election in any case. The second fact that we know about the Bill is that there will be 3,000 fewer police officers to enforce it. I was as shocked as my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary by the Home Secretary's alarming display of complacency. Of course, we do not have to increase the size of the police force every time a new Bill is introduced, but people outside the House will now start to get the clear message that there is a chronic mismatch—a gaping chasm—between Ministers' rhetoric and the reality of the policies that they pursue. Again and again, Ministers promise more, but deliver less. It is not reasonable of them to push through legislation, to make highfalutin promises and to commit themselves to great policy objectives while expecting others who are reduced in number, increased in terms of pressure and diminished in terms of political support from those on the Treasury Bench still to achieve those objectives. The leaders of our police forces do not lightly speak out in public. I hope that, when they do so, the Home Secretary will listen. I was concerned when, in a response to an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant), the Home Secretary airily dismissed the observations of a senior policeman by saying that he says something every six months or so, that he has been doing so for about 10 years and, therefore, that no special significance should be attached to his remarks. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that, just as he is an important, highly influential and greatly respected man with a full diary, the same goes for the chairman of the Police Federation. When the chairman of the Police Federation speaks out, the Home Secretary should listen, especially because the chairman has castigated the right hon. Gentleman for the inadequacy of the support that he has made available to the police while increasing their responsibilities all the while. Let us consider the detailed proposals for cutting car crime. The Home Secretary rightly referred to the vehicle crime reduction action team. As he well knows, its strategy focuses on several objectives. The first is better vehicle security and several measures offer the prospect of improving the detection of car crime and deterring its incidence. Electronic immobilisers on new cars are compulsory under the European Union law of 1998 and the anti-theft directive of 1995–96. It is now proposed that it should be compulsory for cars that are seven to 10 years old to have electronic immobilisers. Instead of applying the idea simply to new cars, it is possible that the owners of old cars will be requested—or more likely, obliged—to install immobilisers. I have not yet observed my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) quivering at that suggestion, but it is only a matter of time before he becomes alarmed. It is a cost issue, and we have to strike a balance. Although we want to improve vehicle security, we do not want to impose burdens that people cannot realistically be expected shoulder. I do not know what the cost of developing the policy would be, but it is incumbent on the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill), to share that information with us when he winds up. The Government have not yet pursued the idea of making the installation of electronic immobilisers compulsory on cars of seven to 10 years old. I do not know whether they intend to do so, but I am sure that the Under-Secretary can enlighten me. I hope that he will. The vehicle crime reduction action team has estimated that such a development could result in the commission of 60,000 fewer offences by 2004. That raises an interesting question. Do the Government intend to make installation compulsory for seven to 10-year-old cars? The answer is important. If they do not intend to do that, there will be a saving—a burden for consumers forgone—but the prospect of reducing offences by 60,000 by 2004, after which the Under-Secretary no doubt hankers, will be removed. If they intend to go ahead with the compulsory policy for older vehicles, they might have a slightly greater chance of achieving their car crime reduction target, but only at the personal expense of a large number of car buyers of—I must emphasise—more modest means.

Desmond Swayne (Conservative, New Forest West)

Has it escaped my hon. Friend's notice that drivers of more modest means drive more modest and older vehicles and are much less likely to have their vehicles stolen, precisely as a consequence of the modest and elderly nature of the vehicle?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I am not sure that that is true. Some car criminals are fairly undiscriminating. We know that they steal to feed a habit. It is uncertain that they take a sophisticated view as part of the car cognoscenti. For once, I am sorry to say, I fear that my hon. Friend might be wrong.

David Chidgey (Liberal Democrat, Eastleigh)

Perhaps I can help. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) might be wrong. Work by Sallybanks and Thomas shows that the highest number of vehicles stolen are owned by people on the lowest incomes, who live in the most disrupted areas and whose cars are of a lower value and older.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

That is a helpful observation. It might be churlish to suggest this, but I wonder whether that important information was given to the hon. Member for Eastleigh by my very good friend, the excellent prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate for Eastleigh, Mr. Conor Burns. I know not—but it is likely. We have talked about better vehicle security, but we should also mention better enforcement. I must emphasise that enforcement is a great task for the police, but they have suffered a huge cut in numbers, which will not change immediately. It is also a challenge for the crime and disorder partners. Although there is no strict statistical relationship between areas in which police numbers have been reduced and those in which car crime is alarmingly high, it must logically follow that if fewer officers are available, it is more difficult to investigate thefts. The trend, therefore, is not likely to improve, but over a period it will be exacerbated. The Government have emphasised the importance of a safer environment. They are right to do so, because 22 per cent. of vehicle crime occurs in car parks. Ministers are justified in highlighting the need for CCTV. The secured car parks scheme is also significant, but has not been mentioned. It is supported by the Association of Chief Police Officers and some evidence suggests that it is achieving worthwhile results. Ministers tell us that £153 million is available until March 2002 for CCTV. We anticipate that they will not get around to spending that money because we hope to have crossed to the other side of the House by then, but we are strongly committed to continuing the programme. There is also a role for the modernisation of information systems. The motor industry anti-fraud and theft computerised database holds information about insured vehicles that are stolen or subject to insurance write-offs. The register will be linked to DVLA from next year, which augurs well for the prospects of a reduction in car crime. The motor insurance database will hold details of all insurance policies on individually insured vehicles and will, I think, be operational in 2001. It will link directly to the police national computer and should enable uninsured drivers to be more easily identified. I think that I am also correct in saying that the MOT record is to be computerised and fully operational from 2002–03. That bodes well, although I am getting no signal from the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions on that point. Part I deals with the regulation of motor salvage operators, on which the Home Secretary dwelt for a few minutes. Let us be clear about our definitions. Salvage or recycling companies are defined as any person, persons, company or organisation taking possession of or dealing in stolen and recovered, damaged or redundant motor vehicles for the purpose or repair, salvage or recycling. The Bill defines motor salvage as: the recovery for re-use or sale of salvageable parts from motor vehicles, followed by the sale or other disposal for scrap of the remainder of the vehicles concerned. It goes on to define it as: the purchase of written-off vehicles and their subsequent repair and re-sale. It should be emphasised that most decent, reputable motor salvage operators provide an excellent service, which consists of disposing of about 1.5 million vehicles each year. In 1998, about 430,000 vehicles were written off by insurance companies; it is those vehicles that currently provide the cover to disguise the true identity of some of the 120,000 vehicles stolen and not recovered in 1997–98. The police estimate that about 65 per cent., or 78,000, of the stolen and unrecovered vehicles are either rung—of which more anon—or broken for spare parts: it is thought that approximately 25 per cent. are rung and 40 per cent. broken for spare parts. In addition, insurance fraud is thought to account for a further 20 per cent., or 24,000 vehicles, some of which will end up in the salvage industry and be reported stolen by the owner. Advocates of statutory regulation contend that the lack of it provides a green light for the disposal of stolen vehicles. Existing regulation is controlled by the insurance industry and the trade associations. The British Vehicle Salvage Federation represents 75 larger salvage dealers which together represent about 75 per cent. of the insurance industry salvage business. The Motor Vehicle Dismantlers Association of Great Britain represents smaller dealers whose primary function is dismantling; it represents only about 10 per cent. of the 2,000 to 2,500 dismantlers in Great Britain, which is significant in the context of the Bill's regulatory provisions. So that we are aware of the terms and the context in which we are debating the Bill, the sector as a whole consists of about 2,500 to 3,000 companies, which together employ between 20,000 and 30,000 people. The trade associations operate a code of practice that is based on co-operation with the DVLA and, through it, with the police, but that approach is thought to suffer from several weaknesses. First, the ability of those organisations to police their own members is limited. Secondly, the code of practice has not been adopted by hire companies or by the Crown, which operates large fleets of vehicles that carry their own insurance against total loss. Thirdly, and most significantly, up to 25 per cent. of the salvage business and up to 90 per cent. of the dismantling business are not covered by the code. That is the rationale behind the issuing by the Home Office of its consultation document on the proposed regulation of the motor salvage industry. I feel sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends are aware that that document flagged up several possibilities, of which statutory regulation was one. If memory serves correctly, of the 26 organisations that responded to the exercise, 22 favoured the option of statutory regulation.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

I have been listening with great interest to my hon. Friend's comments on the failure to some extent of self-regulation within the industry. Does that not imply that, for the legislation to be successful, there must be a degree of supervision by the regulatory authorities, in this case the police? Does that not provide prima facie evidence either that there will have to be extra police officers to do the work, or that other aspects of law and order will suffer as a consequence?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

My hon. Friend is invariably perceptive, and his observation was no exception to the general rule. He is right. It upsets and perturbs me that the Home Secretary, who much of the time is a sensible fellow, persists in ignoring or denying this obvious point. I can see that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe) is becoming itchy, so I shall give way.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Hall Green)

I want to clarify a simple point that arises from the intervention of the hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant). Does not clause 13 give the local authority powers to prosecute and supervise in relation to that part of the Bill?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that observation. He is partly right, but he should be aware—I do not dispute his textual reference—that there will be a responsibility on police constables as well. I am sure that he will not dispute that. If there are fewer of them, if there is more crime to detect and if the political pressure on them to be successful in doing so is greater, I appeal to the hon. Gentleman to recognise that somewhere along the line the equation breaks down. That is not fair on the police. I find it curious—I am sure that this has not escaped the attention of my right hon. and hon. Friends—that whereas in respect of many of the great public services, Labour Members rush to the defence of those employed in delivering them and are always anxious to improve their conditions in recognising what a difficult job they do, when it comes to the police they are happy to increase the burdens but not ready to pay tribute to the enormous work against the odds, often under severe physical threat, that the officers undertake. I am not applying that point to the Home Secretary, but many Back-Bench Labour Members are guilty of that approach. Under part I, motor salvage operators will need to be registered with the local authority in which they are based. The local authority will have powers to refuse renewal of registrations, having originally granted them. Operators will have to keep records of the vehicles entering the industry and of disposals. The Government believe that their policy could avoid about 39,000 vehicle thefts and 6,000 fraudulent insurance claims each year, with an economic benefit of £183 million. Allan Greenouff on behalf of the British Vehicle Salvage Federation, John Hesketh on behalf of the Motor Vehicle Dismantlers Association, Richard Allen on behalf of the Association of British Insurers, Sandy Dalgano on behalf of the National Salvage Group, the AA, and Ken Williams, the chief constable of Norfolk and the representative of the Association of Chief Police Officers on VCRAT, have all welcomed the Bill. Nevertheless, several issues require the close attention of the House. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst characteristically identified one of them at an early stage in the debate. I have in mind, of course, clause 9, which will give police constables the power to enter and inspect registered motor salvage premises and their records without warrant. It makes provision for searches with warrants to take place at premises that are unregistered or where a police constable has previously been refused entry. Is that necessary? It is not clear to me that it is.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Will there be enough officers?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

It is not even clear to me, as indicated by the sedentary intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield, that there will be sufficient police officers effectively to discharge the statutory obligation. There appears to be a slightly curious differential between the treatment of premises that are registered and that of those that are not. Why are registered operators apparently subject to harsher treatment than that meted out to their unregistered counterparts? I shall be grateful for the comments of the Under-Secretary of State when he replies. Secondly, clause 8 will require all motor salvage dealers to provide notifications of the destruction of a vehicle. At present, under the code of conduct, those who belong to the BVSF and the MVDA comply with that process. They already send certificates, which are V860s, to the DVLA. The idea behind the code of conduct was that when the DVLA has received a V860 for a vehicle, it will refuse to issue a V5 in response to any future request as it would know that the car in question was permanently broken and that the request must therefore be fraudulent. I consider myself no great authority on the matter, but I am told that the arrangement worked well for a while, before someone spotted a loophole in the law. Apparently—I should be grateful for comeback on this point from the Under-Secretary, who is looking earnestly in the direction of those who advise—the DVLA is technically not allowed to refuse a V5 request. All that it can do is to issue the V5 and ask the police to investigate. I feel sure that I am carrying my right hon. and hon. Friends with me on this important theme. Now the DVLA must issue V5s for cars that it knows no longer exist, and it can only notify the police—the underfunded, overburdened, insufficiently supported police. In practice, of course, the police investigate different proportions of such referrals in different police areas. Some routinely investigate all, but some investigate only a few.

Eric Forth (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Does he concede that it is his experience, as it is mine and that of many other people, that the police, rightly but regrettably, give greater priority to crimes involving violence, violence against the person, housebreaking and so on, and that vehicle offences come, rightly, pretty low down on the priority list of most, if not all, police forces? If my hon. Friend agrees with that general contention, what does he think will be the effectiveness of the role of the police in discharging the responsibilities given to them by the Bill?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

My right hon. Friend's judgment of the significance of car crime in the overall scale of police priorities is almost certainly right. They are more likely to focus on violent crime and they are especially justified in doing so in light of the figures for increasing violent crime over the past 12 months or so. In other words, the position on violent crime is being made substantially worse. In London, for example, another 36,000, I think, violent offences were committed over the past 12 months. That requires a police resource. The police will have to focus first and foremost on that, yet they are faced with the introduction of the Bill. I would like to think that Ministers will be modest, but I suspect that they will trumpet the provisions of the Bill, claim to be robust and insist that they are involved in a ferocious crackdown on vehicle crime. All that the Home Secretary will have done, which is not an insignificant accomplishment, but it is an exiguous one, is to pilot through the Bill. Police officers will have to do the dirty work—police officers of whom there are not enough, who face greater regulatory burdens and who are confronted with a large increase in violent crime, not least as a result of the lily-livered feebleness that the right hon. Gentleman has displayed over the past three and a half years.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

A moment ago, the hon. Gentleman correctly made the link between motor vehicle crime and drug crime. He will acknowledge, I think, that there is also a link between drug crime and violent crime. Will he therefore give a little more credit to our police to assign priority to such matters?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I am sorry to be so misinterpreted by the hon. Lady, who usually has a keen ear and attends closely to what is said. I was not in any way criticising or casting aspersions on the police. For the avoidance of doubt, I. was criticising and casting aspersions on the Government's record, from which both the innocent public and the police suffer. I am not cavilling at the achievement of the police, nor am I saying—I emphasise this to the hon. Lady—that they should not give priority to the pursuit of violent criminals. [Interruption.] It is no good the hon. Lady chuntering from a sedentary position in an entirely unintelligible manner, when I am seeking to respond effectively to the half-point that she made. Of course, the police are right to focus on violent crime. However, they are being charged with additional responsibilities under the Bill, but are not being promised increased resources to discharge those responsibilities. I made that point earlier, but I am repeating it, as it is so obvious that it is extraordinary that even a new Labour apparatchik can choose to ignore or deny it.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for being generous in giving way for the third, or even fourth, time. Is he surprised to learn that the office of the chief constable of Staffordshire has informed me that the latest Government initiative—the crackdown on yob culture—will be difficult to achieve on a Friday or Saturday night in Lichfield, where there are only three or four police officers, backed up by, perhaps, five or six special constables? How will those police officers meet the provisions of clause 9? The clause states that, in addition to cracking down on yob culture, A constable may at am reasonable time enter and inspect premises for the purposes of the Bill.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

Police officers will be able to do that only with great difficulty, if at all. The experience in the centre of Lichfield to which my hon. Friend referred is by no means atypical. He will find that it is replicated throughout the country in constituencies of my right hon. and hon. Friends and importantly, those of Government Members. I hope that Government Members will have something to say about the mismatch between the responsibility that will be imposed and the resources that will be provided. How ever, I am not to be distracted from the important point.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

The hon. Gentleman may wish to take advice from the hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter), in whose constituency violent crime has gone down in the first eight months of this year. Violent crime has gone down by 23 per cent. in Plymstock Radford in that constituency; by 13 per cent. in my constituency; by 38 per cent. in Efford; by 21 per cent. in Plymstock Dunstone; by 4 per cent. in Plympton St. Mary; and by 18 per cent. in Plympton Erle. Therefore, there are examples to which the hon. Gentleman can look to see what works.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I am grateful for the hon. Lady's observation, but I am not sure that she has advanced her cause greatly. Of course, there are examples of the reduction of crime. I join the hon. Lady in celebrating the reduction in violent crime. However, I hope that she will acknowledge that, statistically, it is clear that, overall, violent crime is increasing substantially. We know that in London, the Thames valley area, and throughout the country.

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

I remind hon. Members that this is a debate about vehicles. It is not a debate about statistics and the levels of crime.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for steering me back on to the path of virtue, along which, as you know, I ordinarily tread. I am not going to be diverted again by observations about violent crime, and shall focus on vehicle crime. As I said a few moments ago, I want to emphasise the fact that the DVLA must issue V5s for cars which, it knows, no longer exist, and of which it can only notify the police. In practice, the police investigate differently in different areas. Some police investigate routinely, but others investigate only a few offences. It is notable that an experienced observer advised Her Majesty's Opposition that, nationally, the chance of being investigated is about 7 per cent. I must tell the Home Secretary that I can see nothing in the Bill that will change the law and allow the DVLA to refuse V5 applications for vehicles for which it has received V860s. Is that not a loophole, and do the Government intend to close it? If not, Ministers must provide more police to allow for routine investigation of such cases, which the fight against crime and the protection of the public patently require.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his usual courtesy in giving way. To help him, does not clause 32 enable the Secretary of State to make new regulations to permit the DVLA to refuse to issue the new certificate?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman is right in supposing that the Bill will prevent the automatic issue of V5s. I have looked at the Bill closely and consulted on it. However, I am a generous and gracious chap, so I say to the hon. Gentleman, who is a keen observer of all our proceedings, that I shall happily concede to him if he is right and I am wrong. I hope that he is right, but I am not optimistic.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

I shall listen out in Committee.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

The hon. Gentleman is welcome to do so and he knows that I shall not seek to avoid responsibility for dealing with the point. Page 4 of the Home Office consultation paper on the proposal to regulate the motor salvage industry contains a statement that should be of some concern to the House. Paragraph 34 states: It is not considered that it would be necessary to formally monitor the effectiveness of the regulation. I shall not dwell on the split infinitive, but I point out that that observation is complacent and irresponsible. Ministers should intend to monitor closely, regularly and publicly the outcome of any measures in the Bill if they eventually become law. There are a number of other concerns about part I. For example, the British Motorcyclists Federation thinks that it is deficient in particular respects and is susceptible to amendment in Committee. For now, however, I shall focus on part II, which deals with the regulation of registration plate suppliers. It is estimated that approximately 27,000 outlets assemble number plates and that they supply about 6 million to 7 million plates each year. About 2 million plates are fitted to new vehicles and a further 2 million are trade-ins. Replacement plates account for the balance. The main objective of part II is to regulate the supply of number plates in order to combat vehicle ringing and cloning. [Interruption.] The Home Secretary is pointing to the time. I am sure that other hon. Members want to contribute, but, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, the matter must be thoroughly examined. Earlier, he referred indirectly to the phenomenon of vehicle ringing, but did not define it. It is, however, important, as it is central to the Bill. To elucidate for people outside the House who are listening to our proceedings, I should point out that vehicle ringing is the name attached to the process of giving to stolen vehicles the identity of legitimate vehicles that have been seriously damaged or written off. Vehicle cloning uses the identity of an existing vehicle to disguise another vehicle. I think that I am right in saying that Sweden, which has tightly controlled number plate supply since 1993, is much more successful in deterring criminal offences and in identifying those that have been perpetrated. Part II, which contains clauses 16 to 30, provides for the registration of persons who supply number plates and allows the Secretary of State to make details of the register available to the police. It provides also for the charging of a registration fee and confers a power by which the court may suspend registrations of persons who contravene it. In addition, it provides a power to prosecute for contravention of statutory requirements.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Will my hon. Friend give way?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I shall do so in a moment. Part II also allows the Secretary of State to remove from the register persons whom he believes to have ceased trading. There is some uncertainty about the reason for the specific provision on that. However, before I come to that concern, I must, of course, come to my hon. Friend's aid.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

After his study of the Bill, does my hon. Friend know whether licence plate manufacturers will be subject to a tighter obligation to ensure that they produce plates in the proper manner? Has he noticed the number of licence plates with italic writing or strange graphics that make them difficult to read? Such plates are not printed in Roman, sanserif script, which is the prescribed form.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I do not know how heavy an obligation will be placed on plate manufacturers. On the plates' composition and appearance, my feeling is that what counts is the capacity to detect crime. If virtual or total uniformity of appearance aids and abets the detection of crime, I am happy to settle for it. However, I must emphasise to my hon. Friend that if the different composition or appearance of number plates seemed to be insignificant to the level of crime, I would be much more relaxed about that. Fighting crime is what matters, although, in general terms, as he knows, I favour choice and diversity. I want to deal with the point about removing people from the register of practising plate suppliers, about which, I say to the Home Secretary, I was a little quizzical. If memory serves me correctly, the Bill provides a power, which he can exercise, to deregister a registered plates supplier who has not practised that trade or profession for 28 days. I do not want to do him a disservice: the Bill provides for such an individual to make representations, there is a period of grace—14 days, if memory serves me correctly—in which to make those representations, there is the prospect of an appeal and, ultimately, in the event of a continuing disagreement between a plate supplier and the Secretary of State, the matter can go to a magistrates court. However, I am intrigued, first, as to why 28 days was chosen. I have made discreet inquiries and understand that the figure was a brainwave of those in his Department who advise him, though it was plucked arbitrarily from the air and there is no particular reason for specifying 28 days rather than 42 or 56. Secondly, what would lead Ministers to suspect that someone had ceased to trade? I may have failed to notice an obvious point, but feel sure that the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the hon. Member for Streatham, would put my mind at rest in such circumstances. I put it to the Home Secretary that it is entirely possible that someone might cease to trade for such a period because he or she had gone abroad or for personal or family reasons, so it seems rather draconian to put or to threaten to put such a person out of business. What scope will there be for recompense should it transpire that an error has been made in deregistering him or her?

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

That point also applies to the regulation of motor salvage operators. The Bill will not allow them to receive restitution should their business be affected by local authority registration and should they successfully appeal through the magistrates courts and on through the legal system. Why does not it enable them to obtain such restitution, as required under the European convention on human rights, even though the explanatory notes refer to that convention? I am grateful to the Clerks for acknowledging that there has been an administrative error. There may be a convention problem in respect of the lack of provision for restitution.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

My hon. Friend asks why the Bill does not make such provision. I do not know because I am not psychic, but I feel sure that Ministers know and they will be able to advise us during the winding-up speech or before. Clause 25 will give police constables and local authority inspectors the power to enter and inspect registered suppliers and their records without a warrant. It also provides for searches with warrants to take place on unregistered premises. Again, I flag up the concern that that seems to be harder on suppliers who are registered than on those who are not. In that context, the Bill also creates three new offences, one of which is knowingly supplying plates to a person who is in the business of selling fake registration plates. That will be hard to prove, and I should be interested to know what thinking took place on the measure, but I certainly wish Ministers God speed in relation to it. Clause 20 will allow the Secretary of State to cancel a person's registration if he is satisfied that the registered person has ceased trading. That relates to the point about ceasing to trade for 28 days. I must re-emphasise that we need to know not only the rationale for that proposal, but what recompense would be available should a mistaken decision be made. Another concern of some importance has been raised by the European Secure Vehicle Alliance. A plate that does not meet the technical design specifications established by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and which is intended, for example, to deceive a roadside camera will be deemed to be counterfeit. Is it also intended to deem counterfeit plates that are supplied without due diligence to a buyer seeking to deceive the purchaser of a vehicle of uncertain provenance? I feel sure that Ministers know the answer, and I hope we shall hear it in the winding-up speech. Clause 33 allows the Secretary of State, by regulations, to prescribe specifications for number plates, and/or to require them to contain or display such information as he thinks fit. The DETR consultation paper raised the possibility—alluded to earlier by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst—that the information would include anything from the vehicle inspection number to the European flag. It would be helpful to know whether the Government plan to include vehicle inspection numbers, and what impact Ministers think that would have on vehicle security and car crime. If the Government intend to make the change, will it be made to coincide with the introduction of the new licence-plate system next year? For my part, I have little doubt about the impact of any European-flag provision: it would probably damage the car, and it would certainly damage my concentration when driving it. I was a little perturbed to hear the Home Secretary say that he had no briefing on whether it would be possible to display a Union flag. If the right hon. Gentleman had allowed me to intervene, I would have said I assumed that—as a senior and respected Minister—he ran his Department, and did not allow his Department to run him. If he agrees with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst that a person should be allowed to display a Union flag, why does he not just say so? If the Bill requires amendment in order to facilitate that option, let it be amended in Committee. It would, however, be intolerable to be presented with a scenario allowing people to display a European Union flag, but not a Union flag. The only succour I can derive from what we have been told so far is that, at least for the time being, the provision in respect of the display of the European flag is permissive rather than prescriptive: that is, its display would be voluntary rather than compulsory. I am not a great driver; I am not even an enthusiastic driver. I am happy to vouchsafe that I regard driving as an unavoidable necessity—a chore—a means by which to get from A to B. Unlike most men, I do not claim to be a good driver. In certain circumstances, I could be tempted to desist from driving at all, and one of those circumstances would be an obligation to display a European Union flag. If for the remaining years of my parliamentary service—and I hope there will be many—I had to travel to and from my constituency by means other than a car, I would do so, if the alternative were being obliged to display a vulgar—

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the subject of the debate is clearly not to do with the European flag. We are actually debating vehicle crime.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I am grateful for your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. You have brought me to book, and I hope you will not have reason to do so again.

Eric Forth (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

As car registration plates are a matter directly connected with the Bill, and as my hon. Friend is now correctly discussing the issue of car registration plates, he may consider this point relating to car registration plates. My hon. Friend will know of recent reports that London taxi cab drivers have been prohibited from displaying the English flag on their registration plates. A question was asked earlier about the display of the Welsh flag on Welsh car registration plates, which would of course be covered by the Bill. Does my hon. Friend agree that we face very peculiar circumstances, in which we shall apparently be unable to identify ourselves voluntarily with a specific part of this country—whether by means of a flag or by other means—but obliged to subscribe to the idea that we are all Europeans?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I am genuinely alarmed by the news that my right hon. Friend has volunteered. You, Madam Deputy Speaker, pointed out that I must not dilate on the subject of the European flag, however great the temptation otherwise so to do might be. Of course, I immediately comply with your instruction, but I point out that clause 33 specifically enables the Secretary of State by regulation to provide specifications for registration plates—it will not have escaped the beady eye of my right hon. Friend— (whether relating to their size, shape, material of manufacture or otherwise). "Otherwise" is an all-embracing term. Specifications may relate to size, shape and material of manufacture, but also "otherwise". I emphasise to the Home Secretary—I do not think that he will deny it—that, if he wanted, under the Bill and specifically under clause 33(1)(a), he would be able to specify either that people could fly a particular flag on the plate, or that they could not do so. That is perfectly within his competence under the clause.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

I think that my hon. Friend will find that the European Union flag will come under subsection (b), the next one in the Bill, but I do not understand what his complaint is. If this country is unfortunate enough still to have the Government after the next election, the flag of the European Union will indeed be his national flag.

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

Order. I remind all hon. Members that "Erskine May" makes it clear that the Second Reading debate should not extend to the details of clauses. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) and others not to anticipate debates that are properly held in Committee.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I am grateful for that guidance. I simply accept the correction that my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) issued. A number of important issues in relation to vehicle crime are covered by part III. The proposed vehicle identity checks, for example, have received a mixed reception, but the Association of British Insurers welcomes them. However, it emphasises that many total loss vehicles are not regulated by the current code of practice because they do not pass through the hands of insurers. That prompts two concerns. I feel sure that the Home Secretary is listening attentively to the two concerns that I wish to highlight.

Keith Hill (Labour, Streatham)

Why should he?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

The Under-Secretary of State says, "Why should he?" I will tell him why the Home Secretary should be listening and why he should be concerned. There are real grievances about the Bill. There are anxieties about cost. There are concerns about over-regulation. There is a desire that it should achieve the purpose that has been established for it. If the Under-Secretary of State in the fag end of the Parliament is so arrogant as to suppose that, simply because officials draft a Bill and the Home Secretary commends it to the House, there should be no further significant debate on the principles which inform it, he is wrong. So long as I and my right hon. and hon. Friends are in the House, he is to be disappointed because we will continue to argue the toss. We will look at the detail. We will expose the mismatch between Government words and Government deeds. If he wishes to provoke me further, he can do so. We will not abandon our obligation, which is to look at the detail. I said that the ABI emphasised that total loss vehicles were not regulated by the current code of practice because they did not pass through the hands of insurers. There are two concerns on that front. First, some vehicles are returned by the owner either because he does not wish to give up the salvage to the insurer who has settled the claim—perhaps because he wishes to rebuild the car—or because he was himself liable for the accident and is not comprehensively insured. In the latter case, the insurer may never become aware of the damage to the vehicle. The Government apparently believe that human rights legislation prevents them from compelling those motorists to hand over their vehicles to insurers, or to ensure that they are disposed of in accordance with the code of practice. The ABI believes that that is contrary to the public interest. I should genuinely be grateful for the response of the Under-Secretary of State when he winds up the debate. Secondly, there is the numerically larger problem of "self-insured" vehicles. Some large organisations give securities or deposits and have no commercial insurance cover at all. Certain Crown vehicles come into that category. Other vehicles have insurance cover only for the third party element of any claim, and their owners themselves are therefore responsible for the disposal of damaged vehicles. The Association of British Insurers would like those organisations to abide by the code of practice because the higher specification newer models of which they dispose are a prime source of vehicles for ringing. Clarification of the Government's intentions on those two types of cases would be helpful. However, in both types of cases, the ABI emphasises that it is essential that vehicle identity checks are conducted on total-loss vehicles returning to the road and that the regulations will be drafted accordingly. I gather that the initial legislation will also require the conduct of vehicle identity checks on only three of the four total-loss categories. Do the Government intend to extend the provision to the fourth category? I am looking in eager anticipation of some guidance on that point from the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, whose at least partial responsibility it is. The fourth category, of course, is that in which a vehicle is reparable but still written off by the insurer to minimise overheads during the repair period, if the Government intend that the provision should apply to the fourth category, can Ministers give some idea of when they intend to ensure that it does so? Clause 36 will extend the time-limit for bringing prosecutions for theft of a vehicle. As the current provision effectively prevents many car criminals from being apprehended and prosecuted because the time-limit has been reached, that extension seems to be an eminently sensible change. The current situation is silly, and we are right to try to assist the fight against crime as the Government seem to be proposing. Clause 37 will allow the Lord Chancellor's Department to make payments to magistrates courts to cover their costs in administering and hearing speed and traffic-camera cases. That provision, too, seems unobjectionable in principle. I now come to the matter of costs. It is estimated that costs on business will be about £13 million to £20 million in the first year, and £11 million to £18 million annually thereafter. We are told by Ministers that costs to the Exchequer will be met from within departmental limits. The impression is given, therefore, that there is nothing with which we need to concern ourselves. We are told that the cost to police will be about £110,000 annually. Ministers seem relaxed about that cost, too, on the basis that, as the checks would form part of the routine police investigation, police would "absorb the costs". It is rather less certain that police are quite as relaxed about the burden that Ministers have cheerfully imposed on them. On behalf of the British Vehicle Salvage Federation, Allan Greenouff—I think that the Home Secretary owes it to the sector to pay attention to this—stated: any costs, particularly for registration, which will fall on the vehicle salvage industry, as a result of the new legislation, must be kept to a minimum. So many requirements are being imposed on the industry at the present time, which is a very bad economic period, and any additional costs must be fixed for administration only and should not include any costs for police enforcement. If this is not the case, the new law will represent an unfair burden on the salvage industry which could lead to more withdrawals in the market. This would be disastrous at a time when maximum capacity is needed to handle end of life vehicles according to the forthcoming ELV directive and the ever increasing problem of abandoned vehicles. Mr. Greenouff adds that the proposed regulations on vehicle identity checks are a cause of concern to his members. He is sceptical of the cost and practicality of the proposals in part III, and he gives notice that the drafting of proposals that are both workable and acceptable may result in protracted negotiations in the coming months. We have glancingly referred to the subject of regulations. No fewer than nine clauses in the Bill—clauses 7, 8, 17, 23, 24, 32, 33, 34 and 35—provide for government by regulation. When will the regulations be published in draft? Will they be debated in the House, or are they to be rammed through under the negative procedure, which allows no debate? Can the Home Secretary guarantee that a minimum of three months will be allowed for consultation? How much notice will be given of the intended date for implementation? The regulation issue is important. Small business has to negotiate a sea of regulation that is unprecedented in the history of the United Kingdom. I call to mind an important observation made by the director-general of British Chambers of Commerce, Mr. Chris Humphries—on 20 January 2000, if I remember correctly—that, despite the Government's rhetoric, they had dramatically increased the regulatory burdens that threaten small business competitiveness. In Britain, 99.6 per cent. of businesses employ fewer than 100 people. Those businesses account for approximately 57 per cent. of the private sector work force and generate two fifths of national output. I am sure that the Home Secretary will acknowledge from the figures that I gave earlier, and from his own knowledge of the motor salvage and dismantling industries, that the great majority of companies in the sector are small businesses. Indeed, some of them qualify for the Department of Trade and Industry's description "micro-businesses", because they employ fewer than 10 people. If regulation can be justified because the benefit that it will achieve outweighs the cost that it will impose, we are game for that. However, it makes sense to ensure that the regulation is proportionate. I hope that the Home Secretary, as an experienced Minister, will accept that one of the problems that has bedevilled business over the years—under Governments of both complexions, I readily concede—is that British officials have tended over-zealously to interpret European directives and regulations to the detriment of British businesses. Whereas our continental counterparts sign up to highfalutin declarations with only the vaguest intention of complying with them, we play by the Queensberry rules and regard that as an earnest of our serious intent to get on with the business of proper enforcement and compliance without delay. I do not object to that, but let us not make regulations over-elaborate. Let us not impose a burden that the pubic policy objective does not justify. What is the lesson of the past three and a half years of the Labour Government? The Home Secretary knows that I admire him personally, but I fear that the Government's record is of hyping policy, raising expectations, failing to deliver and letting people down. Despite the considerable personal qualities of the right hon. Gentleman, his performance as Hon to Secretary has confirmed that general drift. The Government make great claims for what they are going to achieve and encourage people to believe that major progress will be realised, but then fail to match reality to rhetoric and people end up feeling deflated. At best, people think, "Oh, is that all that came of all the good intent and fine words?" At worst, they feel bitterly betrayed and let down by the inadequacy of the Government's performance. My advice to Ministers is to be honest and realistic and not to over-hype the measure and make out that it is going to make dramatic strides towards the achievement of the target of a 30 per cent. reduction in vehicle crime by 2004. It is unlikely to do so. As the European secure vehicle alliance put it: There is little evidence that this proposed legislation will make an immediate impact on organised vehicle crime but it must be the intention of all parties to create the climate whereby we increase the risk of detection of organised vehicle crime. Ministers should not give the wrong impression. They sometimes like to create an image of themselves rushing to the rescue. Previously, we all quaked in our boots and shivered in our beds at the prospect of our cars being stolen, or of objects being taken from them, but now we need no longer worry, because jumping Jack Flash is at hand. That is an unwise approach for Ministers to take. It would surely be sensible to be modest about the impact of the Bill, because, as the European secure vehicle alliance stresses, it focuses entirely on the theft of vehicles, but makes no reference to theft from vehicles—the incidence, albeit not the cost of which is much greater. Moreover, the Bill will struggle to reach the statute book before Britain goes to the polls, so Ministers should keep calm and stick to the facts. I offer Ministers two facts about the attitude of Conservative Members. First, we shall scrutinise the Bill fully and fairly. Secondly, we propose to tackle car crime by restoring the numbers of police, increasing their visibility and instilling fear into the hearts of criminals. Such an approach is the offer of a breath of fresh air after 43 months of miserable failure by the Labour Government.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Hall Green)

I begin by declaring a non-pecuniary interest in this matter. I am a vice-chairman of the European secure vehicle alliance—ESVA—to which the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) referred. As the organisation is dedicated to combating vehicle crime, I obviously welcome the Bill and many of the measures that it contains, for which ESVA has campaigned for a number of years. It is fair to say that this has been a light-hearted and good-humoured debate so far. Over the past hour and 19 minutes, we have witnessed almost the full range of the hon. Gentleman's parliamentary repertoire. Perhaps that is it for the term—I do not know. However, this is a serious matter, and we have to pay attention to its serious elements. Vehicle crime not only concerns us at a national level but has international implications. It crosses all boundaries and impacts on all people at different levels in society. It is certainly not confined to cars nor, as the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) suggested earlier, to new vehicles. In fact, older vehicles are more likely to be stolen, although there is clearly a market in stealing to order high-performance sports cars and other specialist vehicles, which often end up in former Soviet Union countries such as Russia Vehicle crime is not confined to motor vehicles. It also covers motor cycles, plant and machinery and quite costly pieces of equipment.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

And farm machinery.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Hall Green)

Indeed, it covers farm machinery as well. As vehicle crime has a serious impact on people's livelihood, we must put it in perspective and treat it seriously. Many of us regard the figures in the explanatory notes to the Bill as an underestimate, but if it is true that 375,000 vehicles were stolen last year, with a recovery rate of around 70 per cent., that means that about 112,000 were not recovered, which in turn means that about 300 vehicles a day were lost and never recovered. So we must treat the matter seriously, however light-hearted the debate. This is not the kind of problem that we can deal with exclusively through Government measures. The Bill provides measures from the top that can make a difference and tackle some areas with which we are familiar, but we also need measures at the bottom through the community safety partnerships. For example, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mrs. Gilroy) referred to the situation in Plymouth. Measures can be taken at a local level, and I think that a combined approach will have the most useful impact. The Government have demonstrated that they treat the matter seriously. We should welcome the vehicle crime reduction action team initiative and the Government targets. I was somewhat surprised when the hon. Member for Buckingham suggested that his figures showed that the achievement towards the target had been only 0.5 per cent. I may have misunderstood him, but I think that I am right in saying that the most recent British crime survey shows something like a 15 per cent. reduction between 1997 and 1999.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I am listening with interest and some respect to the hon. Gentleman's contribution. If I may clarify my remarks, I was referring to the change from the period of March 1998–99 to March 1999–2000. I no longer have my speech in front of me, but I think that I said that the figure in March 1998–99 was 1,482,889 and that it had gone down by exactly 7,000 12 months later. That represents a reduction, over that 12-month period, of only 0.5 per cent.—welcome, but modest.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Hall Green)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. It demonstrates why we should all support the Bill; if we want to make quicker progress, we need to implement the measures that would enable us to do so. I would have thought that that was self-evident. We can draw on the example offered by the approach on road safety where there was a 30 per cent. target for the reduction of accidents. Significant progress was made, although the figures dipped during some periods. Two lessons from that approach could be effective in the present case. The first is that such a system works best when there is co-operation among all the parties. The second is that, if there are deficiencies in the system, it is best for the Government to introduce supplementary measures to plug the gaps. It seems to me that we are trying to do that with the Bill. It is fair to say that, in England and Wales, the rate of vehicle theft is the highest and the rate of recovery the poorest in the developed world. Despite some good operations recently by the West Midlands police, the Birmingham and west midlands area has one of the worst recovery rates in western Europe. From talking to policemen and to my constituents, I know that they are desperately worried about the problem of vehicle crime; they are anxious to see measures to tackle it.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

The hon. Gentleman is aware that I know his constituency and at least two of his constituents extremely well. Does he believe that there might be a correlation between the fall in police numbers in the west midlands and the inability of the police to recover stolen vehicles? He will be aware that the West Midlands police force has experienced one of the greatest drops in numbers in England and Wales.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Hall Green)

If my information is correct, the figures show a slight drop in vehicle crime in the west midlands, because of the operations that the police have been carrying out. I am not sure whether that necessarily supports the hon. Gentleman's observations. I shall make no comment about the people he knows in Hall Green. I do have some comments on police operations. Earlier, there was some debate as to whether the Bill would add to the pressures on the police. In my conversations with officers in the west midlands, they admit that vehicle crime operations are labour intensive, but they enjoy undertaking them because of the other crimes and criminal activities that they uncover. The police consider that, although such operations are labour intensive, they have significant benefits because they enable the police to clear up and identify other forms of crime. That is a judgment on the use of police resources. I welcome measures to develop more rigorous and integrated information systems. That will be of considerable benefit. The hon. Member for Buckingham referred to the Swedish experience. Theft rates in Sweden are only about half those in the UK and there is a much higher clear-up rate—almost 90 per cent. One of the clear reasons for that is the much greater use made in Sweden of integrated information systems, so that, when the police stop a vehicle, they can almost immediately, at the road-side, establish its excise duty, insurance and MOT status as well as the identity of the owner. If anything, we might argue that although the Government have gone some way towards addressing the problems and information gaps in our system, they could have gone much further. Had they looked more closely at the Swedish experience, that aspect of the Bill might have been better. I strongly support the measures introducing registration and enforcement schemes for the salvage industry and those who deal in number plates. As both the Home Secretary and other hon. Members have said, there is a real problem in this country because it is so easy to produce and acquire number plates. That is clearly a contributory factor in vehicle crime. It is true that there will be some costs. We heard something about those towards the end of the speech of the hon. Member for Buckingham, and I would be the first to acknowledge that there will be some cost burden. However, we should balance those against the enormous costs associated with vehicle crime, which are estimated to amount to about £3 billion a year. Everyone is affected. People cannot go to work because their vehicles have been stolen or damaged, vital machinery is taken from contractors, and hire purchase and vehicle rental companies lose their vehicles. In that context, although it is important to guard against the costs of the Bill being too onerous, we must set them against the existing costs to society. Provided that the burden is not excessive, the price will be worth paying. We should welcome the measures relating to the salvage industry, and acknowledge that they are long overdue. It should no longer be possible for vehicles that have been written off to have their identities swapped with those of stolen vehicles, which can then be put back on the road. We should also try to reduce the market in spare parts, and the sale of goods such as the Home Secretary's stereo. We should also try to tighten the regulations to ensure that vehicles written off in a smash are not patched up, put back on the market and passed on to some innocent unsuspecting buyer. That would not be directly related to the provisions in the Bill, but the restraining of the salvage industry will have a welcome impact on such activity. I was a bit surprised to hear people asking whether the police should have the power to enter premises to inspect the register. It would seem strange to give tacit approval to legislation that requires those in the salvage industry to keep a register, yet deny the police the power to gain access to it. That is the worst kind of burden to put on industry, because it would create a register without providing any mechanism whereby the information in it could be used. That would be absurd.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

The hon. Gentleman will recall that the main concern that I highlighted was the seemingly differential treatment between registered and unregistered operators, to the disadvantage of the former. What is his view of that?

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Hall Green)

There is a simple answer to that concern. There is an expectation that the police will build up good relationships with registered dealers and will know who is who, so they will be able to work with them in a way that is not intrusive or burdensome. As for unregistered operators, the police, through their intelligence, will now have a clear ready-made target. That is a persuasive argument for the approach being taken, as I hope the hon. Gentleman would agree. The hon. Member for Buckingham asked whether someone who supplies plates without due diligence will be guilty of supplying counterfeit plates. I should be grateful if the Minister would make that point clear. The Bill is welcome, so far as it goes. Some things are missing from it and there are areas where we could strengthen it. As at least two or three of my hon. Friends said earlier, it does not cover theft from vehicles, which is a crime of much greater proportions, although the financial sum involved may be less. As we are dealing with vehicle crime, it would be sensible to tackle not only the theft of vehicles, but theft from them. I do not know whether there is scope to study that in Committee, but it would be welcome. We should wonder why there has not been greater concentration on the industry. We should acknowledge the efforts that it has made in the past few years. The theft of new vehicles has decreased in direct relation to the measures that the industry has taken and such crime would be further reduced if further measures were taken. The introduction of laminated glass for side glazing panels is a simple example. I understand that, at the current rate, it will take 10 years for that to apply to most vehicles. If the industry were required to speed up that introduction, we could make more significant progress and reach the target more quickly.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I am sorry to trouble the hon. Gentleman, but this is an important point. The target of a 30 per cent. reduction by 2004 is challenging, in the Home Secretary's words. Would he bet on its achievement, and if so, how much?

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Hall Green)

I am afraid that I cannot help the hon. Gentleman because I do not gamble. That is why I am a Labour Member of Parliament. I am surprised that the Bill does not contain measures on the way in which the insurance industry deals with vehicle theft. There are enormously high pay-outs and no restriction on people continuing to make claims. There was some debate earlier about the measures that people should take to protect their property. If people persistently do not take action to protect their property and continue to receive insurance pay-outs, we encourage the notion that such crime is victimless, but we know that everyone pays for it through increased premiums. The Bill could provide the opportunity to oblige individuals to protect their property. If they do not, insurance companies might take that fact into account in determining pay-outs. An interesting experiment recently took place in Merseyside, where the police and an insurance company worked jointly to recover stolen vehicles. People may be worried about the Bill's impact on the police, but that experiment had the great advantage that the insurance company made money available to the police, so extra resources were available to target vehicle crime. The consequence was a massive increase in recovery and the insurance company gained because the pay-outs were dramatically reduced. We could learn from that example. Perhaps the Bill should include enabling powers to try to encourage that approach in other parts of the country. The Bill is primarily about trying to reduce the market for stolen vehicles and, therefore, the opportunities for vehicle crime. In that sense, it is inevitable that it is a regulatory Bill, and we cannot object strongly to that fact despite some of the comments that have been made. However, we could take complementary measures that would immensely strengthen the approach to such crime. For example, the European secure vehicle alliance has campaigned for some time on the issue of education. We must try not only to reduce the market for stolen vehicles, but to change people attitude's to vehicles and to the theft of vehicles. That involves our notions of ownership and behaviour. To some extent, the Government have acknowledged that point in their advertising campaigns. The campaign to reduce crime focused on individual behaviour, but the Government have been reluctant to consider the issue of younger people. We know that, sadly, younger people are over-represented in some crime statistics and in the accident statistics. At present, there does not appear to be a process by which we attempt to educate younger people about responsible driving, safe behaviour and the ownership and security of vehicles. One complementary measure that the Government could consider would involve the Home Office, the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and the Department for Education and Employment working together. They could consider key stage 4 requirements for those youngsters who do not respond to the conventional or standard national curriculum. Such youngsters already opt out and they are in danger of drifting, but we have an opportunity to develop a community safety education model that is designed to complement the other regulatory work that aims to reduce the market for stolen vehicles. The other side of the equation is to educate the next generation of drivers to be more responsible and to treat driving more seriously.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that some projects in the voluntary sector, such as the "wheels" project in Hertfordshire and the excellent project in Oxford, concentrate on exactly the point that he is making? They seem to be achieving good results with young people, including those who have had difficulties with the police.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Hall Green)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman; he makes my point for me. We already have one or two examples that show how effective such an approach can be. It is complementary to the other measures designed to tackle crime, so it would be helpful if the three Departments could come together to give a further boost to such work and to consider whether something could be done at key stage 4 of the curriculum. I am conscious that I have spoken for rather longer than I intended and that other Members wish to speak. With that in mind, I conclude my remarks.

David Chidgey (Liberal Democrat, Eastleigh)

I listened to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe) with great interest. He made several important points. In particular, he confirmed that hon. Members on both sides of the House share concerns about the amount of vehicle crime in this country. It is one of the most pervasive, far-reaching and invidious crimes from which we suffer. According to the analysis of the European secure vehicle alliance, to which the hon. Gentleman referred several times, one in three car owners in England and Wales fear that their vehicle will be stolen. In fact, one in eight vehicles owners had their vehicle stolen last year. For most people, a car is probably their most expensive purchase after buying their home. For non-home owners, it is certainly the most expensive purchase. Cars are often bought on credit and the period of repayment often stretches up to five years. To have one's vehicle stolen and to go through the misery of trying to obtain its full worth from an insurance company is quite a traumatic experience that should not be underplayed or ignored. Every day 1,000 cars are stolen in England and Wales. Thirty per cent. are never recovered, and of the 70 per cent. that are recovered more than half are damaged beyond repair. Vehicle crime is a major feature of the criminal statistics. The Home Secretary gave a figure of less than 20 per cent., but some estimates put the figure at more than 20 per cent. However, it is clear that it is a major area of criminal activity. Vehicle crime takes up a disproportionate amount of the resources of the criminal justice system, crime detection, prosecution and front-line policing. A reduction in vehicle crime might lead to a reduction in the police resources needed to pursue and prosecute offenders. So far I have referred to recorded crime, but the British crime survey—everyone seems to recognise it as a valuable source of information—suggests that fewer than half the thefts from vehicles are reported to the police, and that fewer than 60 per cent. of reported thefts are recorded by the police. Therefore, only a quarter of thefts from vehicles enter the statistics of recorded crime. The Bill deals exclusively with the theft of vehicles, but theft from vehicles is a major area of criminal activity that should be tackled with equal vigour. Theft from vehicles accounts for two thirds of all recorded vehicle crime. The work of Joanna Sallybanks and Nerys Thomas provides an important reference point, and I shall return to that point. Although the Bill is limited in its aspirations, it proposes useful measures aimed at reducing vehicle crime. As other hon. Members have said, the draft Bill was welcomed by many organisations as disparate as, among others, the European secure vehicle alliance, the Automobile Association, the RAC and the Motorcycle Action Group. The industry and those interested in motor vehicles have broadly accepted the Bill, and we certainly welcome it in principle. However, we have some particular concerns that I shall discuss later. I am sure that they will be examined as the Bill goes through the due process. Improvements can be made by amendment. I listened to the Home Secretary and I hope that his remarks referred not just to the spirit of accepting amendments, but to the practice of accepting them. There are many ways in which the Bill can usefully be improved. The Home Secretary and other hon. Members have referred to the Prime Minister's commitment to reduce vehicle crime by 30 per cent. in five years. That commitment has been described as "challenging" or "frightening", and there has been much argument about how much progress has been made. However, it is clear that we are still a long way from the target and the clock is ticking. There is not much time left. The Bill is aimed specifically at reducing crime in the ringing of stolen vehicles and breaking them for spare parts. The Home Office estimates that, along with a reduction in insurance fraud, the Bill could reduce vehicle crime by 36,000 vehicles a year. That is an admirable aim, but we have to compare that figure with the fact that 375,000 vehicles are stolen every year. Whatever the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) said about his figures, it is a fact that reducing the number of vehicles stolen by 36,000 represents less than 10 per cent. of the vehicles stolen every year. Those are Home Office figures. The Bill will make no impact on reducing the 130,000 vehicles that are stolen every year and recovered, but wrecked beyond repair. It will have no impact on the more than 700,000 thefts from vehicles every year. Those are recorded thefts, but they represent probably only a quarter of actual thefts from vehicles. To put the Bill in the context of the research carried out by Sallybanks and Thomas and the statistics of the British crime survey, it aims to reduce vehicle crime by about 1.5 per cent. of the total. It is still a good objective, but let us be realistic and admit that the Prime Minister's target is, indeed, challenging. England and Wales suffer some of the highest vehicle crime rates in the developed world. Other hon. Members have highlighted the fact that we are far in front of many other western countries in that respect. Hardy's work on European vehicle crime shows that the most reliable comparison of the rate of vehicle crime is the rate of theft deducted from the total number of vehicles in the vehicle "parc" in a particular country. It is worth considering those figures and putting the scale of the problem in context. In England and Wales, the rate of theft is 16 per cent. higher than it is in France, 70 per cent. higher than it is in Italy and nearly four times higher than it is in Germany. Vehicle crime rates in England and Wales are not universal. There are significant regional variations, but the most important variations are due to demography. The Conservatives seemed to be unsure about what cars were stolen most frequently I can advise them that the highest levels of theft occur from low-income, inner-city estates and in areas with the highest incidence of disorder, and that the highest rates of theft are of lower value, older and less-secure vehicles. The issue of vehicle crime is clearly wider than just preventing the ringing of stolen vehicles or the recycling of stolen vehicle parts. Although the Bill's aims are welcome, there are wider issues to consider in connection with vehicle crime, such as crime prevention, law enforcement and community policing. A major aspect of vehicle crime is the theft of parts, which is estimated to cost our economy five times as much as vehicle theft. Although the Bill attempts to regulate the trade in second-hand parts, much more needs to be done to prevent their theft. The hon. Member for Hall Green was right to say that the industry has a responsibility to produce better-designed vehicles and to make parts more secure and more easily traceable. It is common sense to produce a car in which the spare wheel is kept within the main body and not in a tray that is accessible outside the car. It is simple for the design shop to incorporate lockable wheel nuts before a car is produced, and they are a vital aid to ensuring that car wheels are not stolen. I feel for the Home Secretary, who commented on the fate of the audio systems in his car, but surely the technology is available to make them more secure. As the hon. Member for Hall Green said, we should accelerate the introduction of laminated side glazing so that it is a standard feature on all cars. We should not wait another eight years, when we shall hit the end of the 10-year programme. There is great scope for improving vehicle crime prevention measures. Industry must take the lead, with Government prodding, probing, persuasion and, if necessary, regulation to ensure that such issues take a higher priority in the design of cars. However, the Bill does not address that.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I am following carefully what the hon. Gentleman says about the areas from which cars are likely to be stolen. Does he agree that the people most at risk are on low incomes, are unemployed or are single parents? Is it enough simply to say that the manufacturers must find solutions, because many of those people's cars would require retrospective fitting to make them more secure? Where would the money come from for that?

David Chidgey (Liberal Democrat, Eastleigh)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments, which accurately reflect the research by the scientists to whom I referred. I said that in areas where such vehicle crime is prevalent, it is necessary to put more emphasis on crime prevention, law enforcement and community policing, because the crime from which those communities suffer is part of a wider scene of criminality and disorder. We must see such crime in the wider sense of crime prevention, and not just in terms of preventing vehicle theft. A more significant aspect of vehicle crime prevention is secure parking. That is not addressed in the Bill, but several hon. Members alluded to it. A quarter of all vehicle thefts are from car parks. For the past five years, the AA has been administering secure car park schemes on behalf of the police, but fewer than 700 out of an estimated 10,000 car parks have achieved that secure status. According to the law, a motorist who buys a ticket and enters a car park is merely paying a licence fee for the space. The car park operator has no duty of care for a car that is parked on his land. Most car park operators do not provide basic security—why should I they when there are queues of motorists at the entrance to most car parks around our major cities? Either the industry must be confronted and made to embrace the secure car parks scheme, or consumer protection legislation must be introduced so that a payment for car parking is a payment for a service, and not just a licence fee to enter the land. Until there is radical change, public car parks will continue to be the honeypot for cat thieves.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I endorse my hon. Friend's comments on car parks. In addition, will he consider the fact, which I learned in Oxfordshire, that railway station car parks are traditionally policed by the British Transport police and not the local police? As the British Transport police cannot be in all places at all times and station car parks are not on their patch in the same way as they are for local police does he agree not only that the landlord should take proper responsibility but that there should be a change in policing to ensure that community parking is the responsibility of the community police service, and not people who are rarely there?

David Chidgey (Liberal Democrat, Eastleigh)

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I agree that we need not only joined-up government, but joined-up policing. The main thrust of the Bill is aimed at reducing the number of unrecovered stolen vehicles, which is a small proportion of vehicle crime. In that regard, its measures are broadly welcome. However, we need to consider how effective they might be. Some 30 per cent. of stolen cars are not recovered. In proportion to cars that are stolen from the fleet, they are, by definition, practice and statistics, of the highest value. They tend to be top of the range and the police estimate that professional theft of such cars is rising. About 20 per cent. of uncovered stolen vehicles are in that category, and the number is increasing. Many are stolen to order and, within hours, are crated up whole or stripped into parts and exported to mainland Europe for resale, where they are virtually untraceable. There is no requirement to include full details on shipping documents for container transport. Individual stolen cars can be driven out of the country and are unlikely to be checked. There is clearly a need, which the Bill could address, to consider how we can improve checks and identification at our ports to help to reduce the number of vehicles that are exported by professional thieves. It is unclear what measures are proposed to reduce crime as the Bill relates to other categories of vehicles. The hon. Member for Hall Green mentioned construction plant and motor cycles. Other hon. Members referred to agricultural equipment, and there is a roaring trade in second-hand caravans that have been stolen from forecourts or drives. The theft of construction plant involves individual items and vehicles that are often valued at hundreds of thousands of pounds. There is a thriving world market in those expensive and highly valuable items, and professional criminals certainly specialise in their theft and export to that market. The important point is that many of those vehicles are outside the DVLA system, and will not be covered by the Bill's provisions on notification of ownership. They are not necessarily registered as road vehicles. The most serious issue pertaining to those categories of vehicles is the theft of motor cycles. Car theft is falling, but the theft of motor cycles, scooters and mopeds is soaring, and the RAC Foundation reports that there has been a dramatic 25 per cent. increase in the past 12 months. Statistics show that only 14 per cent. of those bikes will be recovered, which is less than a fifth of the recovery figure for cars. The Association of Chief Police Officers has confirmed that its computer lists more than 80,000 bikes as stolen and not recovered. It believes that most are broken for spares, and estimates that there are already nearly £400 million-worth of black market spares in circulation. It is essential that the Bill fully addresses the rising rates of motor cycle theft. It is far easier to steal a motor cycle than it is to steal a car; it is a simple matter of loading it into the back of a van and driving off. There is a strong case for crime prevention measures such as the provision of more secure on and off-street parking for motor cycles. I turn now to the details of the Bill. I am cognisant of the Chair's advice that "Erskine May" requires us to consider the clauses not in detail, but in general, and I shall try to obey that ruling. An important omission from the Bill is any mention of safety. The regulations on rebuilt vehicles and recycled parts concentrate on the provenance of those goods, but it is equally important that they are safe when they are offered for sale. There is a strong case for introducing inspection for fitness of purpose to the regulatory chain. In the main, we agree with the aims in part I to bring the motor salvage industry within the framework of statutory regulation. It is important to reduce opportunities for disposing of stolen vehicles and to assist the police in their investigation of those offences. The majority of salvage operators are extremely responsible and law-abiding citizens who run properly regulated companies, but it is important to eliminate opportunities for the minority to give stolen vehicles the identities of legitimate vehicles that have been written off or seriously damaged. It is important to eliminate opportunities for them to break stolen vehicles and use their component parts for repairs or for resale to the second-hand market and fraudulently to report vehicles as stolen to insurance companies and dispose of them through the trade. Many hon. Members have emphasised that point, and those aspects of the Bill are very important. Concerns have been expressed outside the House that part I is incomplete. The British Motorcyclists Federation has expressed concern that it does not cover situations in which breakers use their legitimate business as a cover to purchase stolen parts from criminals or break stolen vehicles and sell the parts on. It does not cover dealers who buy stolen vehicles along with legitimate second-hand cars so that they can ring the cars or strip them and supply other vehicles with the parts. I turn now to the role of local authorities as registrars, as it were, of salvage companies. Part I does not supply local authorities with funds to pursue inquiries into the fitness of an applicant for registration, nor does it require them to provide the funds themselves, so there is no statutory requirement for them to give any priority to vehicle theft prevention. It might be only one of the jobs that they have to do, but I should have thought that it was important to have a sense of priority if we are to hit the Prime Minister's target of a 30 per cent. reduction in car crime in five years. What provisions does the Bill contain for effective liaison with the police? They, more than anyone else, have a strong motive for ensuring that applicants for registration are fit and proper persons. I am sure that the police would welcome the right to express to local authorities their concerns about particular applicants in the area. Part I recognises that some local authorities would welcome statutory guidance on who constitutes a fit and proper person to act as a motor salvage operator, and there is scope for amending the Bill to expand and amplify that guidance. Part II deals with the regulation of registration plate suppliers. Other hon. Members have compared the Swedish system with that in this country. It is clear that our system is a mess, with 27,000 outlets supplying between 6 million and 7 million plates a year. In Sweden, one supplier produces and distributes registration plates within a carefully regulated system. As the hon. Member for Hall Green said, that allows the police to make immediate roadside checks to ensure that a vehicle is properly taxed and insured and has an MOT.

Eric Forth (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

I am curious about whether it is a new Liberal policy that having one supplier is superior to having many. Does that apply in all circumstances, or only in this one, and how far does it rely on the effectiveness of the regulatory regime to deliver value for money and security of supply?

David Chidgey (Liberal Democrat, Eastleigh)

As always, I am delighted by the right hon. Gentleman's curiosity, but the issue is the regulation of plates to ensure that they are not manufactured and distributed illegally. The supply chain must be audited, whether there is one supplier or several. The right hon. Gentleman will recognise that I was merely quoting the example of Sweden. We want to achieve the end result that Sweden achieves, not necessarily to use the same system. Clearly, the laxity of this country's vehicle document and registration procedures are a major factor contributing to our high rate of non-recovery of stolen vehicles. New registration plates are essential for a "rung" vehicle, and denying them could reduce the number of unrecovered stolen vehicles by as much as a quarter. The Association of British Insurers estimates that the losses through ringing amount to more than £100 million a year. The regulation of registration plates is clearly long overdue, and we broadly welcome that part of the Bill, provided that it is aimed at vehicle crime prevention. However, we must ask whether it is also aimed at reducing, or monitoring, motor offences in general. That would raise concerns about civil liberties, and we need to know how those would be addressed and overcome. Part III deals with vehicle licensing and registration. The vehicle crime reduction action team has reported that the most effective way of combating crime, particularly ringing, is to raise the standards of the vehicle registration document, the V5. I support the requirement of proof of identity at the time of issue of the V5, the compulsory transfer of the appropriate part of the V5 when the vehicle is sold, the production of the V5 when applying for a vehicle excise duty licence and the compulsory collection of mileage data. The latter provides an important opportunity to stop what is commonly called "clocking" cars and selling them to an unsuspecting buyer. Part III also deals with information requirements, allowing the police access to insurance information. I understand that this important measure is intended to enable the police to have access to the motor insurance database, in conjunction with the automatic number plate recognition system, and to help them to detect people without insurance. The cost to the Motor Insurers Bureau of covering and aiding the victims of accidents in which the perpetrator is uninsured is £215 million a year. In addition, the direct cost to insurance companies is at least as much again. That cost is passed on to bona fide policyholders, and we all end up paying £15 to £20 a year extra. There are benefits to be derived from identifying unlicensed and uninsured drivers, and there is widespread support in the industry for improvements. The Parliamentary Advisory Council on Transport Safety supports a proposal to link the DVLA database to the police national computer, and I think that it is worth exploring, along with introducing access to other databases. However, we must ensure that the Bill does not fall foul of data protection and civil liberties provisions. Clause 37 covers the funding of certain magistrates courts' costs relating to the administration of speed and traffic camera cases. Let me make it clear that I and my colleagues welcome the reduction in the number of injuries and accidents that has resulted from the introduction of speed cameras. The measure is an important one that should help to finance the introduction of speed cameras in areas where great need has been proved. However, I do not want speed cameras to proliferate willy-nilly, perhaps with the aim of exploiting the opportunity to raise revenue, rather than reducing the number of accidents. If speed cameras are installed, it is most important that they work. I shall not detain the House with my explanation of the reverse collapse theory of traffic management, but those who know about it will know that a law work; only when it is self-enforcing and it is known to be self-enforcing. It is hopeless to have alongside the road little grey boxes with no cameras inside, because people, who use a route regularly get to know quickly which cameras work. Correctly channelled, we would support raising funds to install cameras that work in places where they are needed. My final comments relate to the financial effects of the Bill. I find rather strange the calculation of costs to the salvage industry, estimated to be £285,000 a year, of checking the identity of vehicles and recording details. That sum assumes a labour rate of £5 an hour, but most people recognise that today, the cost of labour includes an overhead, which is rarely less than 50 per cent. and is sometimes as much as 100 per cent. Therefore, if a calculation states that £5 an hour is the cost of labour, either it is assumed that salvage operators pay less than the national minimum wage, or a gross error has been made. The costing exercise at the back of the Bill is riddled with lots of rather broad a estimates—for example, the time for vehicle identification inspections is estimated at between 12 and 18 minutes, a 50 per cent. difference. The figures must be examined and made into a more robust analysis of the real costs to the industry and other financial effects. Despite the issues that I have raised and our concerns about the opportunity to amend the Bill later to address those issues, Liberal Democrats welcome the Bill and we hope to help to speed its passage.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

I declare a non-pecuniary interest as one who, with the hon. Member for Worthing, West (Mr. Bottomley), co-chairs the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Transport Safety—PACTS. Later in my speech, I shall focus more on those parts of the Bill that have the potential to improve road safety, but I shall comment first on the provisions that have the potential to help to reduce vehicle crime. My reading of the explanatory notes leads me to understand that scrap merchants have been registered since at least 1964, but that motor salvage dealers and the sellers of registered number plates are not registered. It strikes me as high time that consistency was established through a registration scheme for all. Vehicle crime accounts for almost one fifth of al1 recorded crime, and the Bill as it stands—several hon. Members have voiced ambitions to extend it—cracks down on three types of vehicle crime: the replacing of written-off cars with stolen ones, or "ringers"; the breaking up of stolen cars and the sale of the parts; and falsely claiming an insurance pay-out for the theft of a car that has, in fact, been disposed of by some other means. The value of the vehicles involved is high: the Association of British Insurers says that insurance pay-outs for vehicle crime totalled £498 million last year; and the explanatory notes estimate potential savings of as much as £112 million each year. Therefore, in terms of the cost of vehicles and their value to the economy, it is important to crack down on vehicle crime. Other hon. Members have commented on the importance of protecting the public. Vehicles that have been stolen, changed and given a false identity might well be unsafe on the road. Anything we can do to stamp out their use and keep them off the road is a safety gain. I should give credit to the motor manufacturing industry for its great efforts to make vehicles more secure from theft and removal, and I believe that the Bill will complement their efforts. It will protect all of us from unknowingly buying stolen vehicles and protect legitimate dealers in salvage and number plates from unfair competition that is, quite literally, criminal. In addition, as the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Chidgey) said, the costs of our motor insurance should fall. Information systems have the potential to contribute to the fight against this type of crime. There are five legal requirements to meet before one drives a vehicle on our roads: a driving licence, an insurance policy, an MOT test certificate if applicable, the excise licence and the registration document. A different organisation collects the information relevant to each of those requirements and holds it electronically, but, in most cases, it cannot pool that information with other agencies, nor share it with them. Another major player in the collection of data about the movement of vehicles and their occupants is the police national computer. The Bill contains a provision to enable the police to have access to the insurance industry's databases, but I would argue that it should be extended to address the broader issue of information exchange between all of the agencies. In any sharing of information that takes place, it is important to protect the individual's reasonable expectations of privacy, but the goal of reducing crime and making our roads safe is worthy. I should like Ministers to consider the provision of a new time limit for prosecuting offences of taking vehicles. Many offences are dealt with summarily and are subject to a six-month time limit for commencement of prosecution. The justification for extending the time limit in respect of only one offence is that modern investigation techniques and the availability of DNA analysis might result in the police coming upon evidence more than six months after a crime was committed. However, that argument can be used in respect of all other summary offences, and I suspect that the provision is the forerunner to a wider debate on extending time limits generally for summary offences. Clause 35 is a crime-cutting measure, but I contend that it also relates to road safety. It would allow the police access to motor insurance databases. The Government have been encouraging insurers to form a common database containing details of policyholders—the motor insurers database, or MID. That should help the police to identify those who are driving without insurance. The more police are given responsibility for processing automatic fixed fines, such as those levied when someone is caught speeding on a speed camera, the more helpful it would be to have access to such information during the process of prosecution. In that way, having detected someone committing a speeding offence, for example, the police will have the ability to check whether another offence has been committed, such as driving without insurance. That is important. Over the weekend, a newspaper reported that there are about 80,000 drivers who are not covered by insurance. Some people are doing so because they have not bought insurance for the vehicle that they are using. Others do not have insurance because they cannot obtain it. They may be disqualified by age and should not be driving. Others may be disqualified by a court order. That disqualification may be because their driving record is so bad that they have forfeited the right to drive. Detecting those who have been disqualified is very much an attempt to make our roads safer for those lawfully using them. Clause 37 is indisputably a road safety measure. It will allow a proportion of speed fines to be recycled for use in increasing the use of speed cameras and traffic light cameras. I drew attention to the contribution that speed cameras make to road safety in an Adjournment debate that I initiated about a year ago. I gave figures for casualty reduction in Staffordshire, and I shall give the latest figures shortly. The Government responded positively to my Adjournment debate. The Minister announced that they intended to set up a pilot scheme to test giving back to the police and local authorities a proportion of the income collected from fines imposed for speeding. From April, eight authorities have been allowed to use a proportion of speed fines to invest in more cameras. Although it is a two-year scheme, we have before us suggested primary legislation to enable a national scheme to be established. Is that because the results of the pilot schemes are so obviously successful already? I understand that over the first six months in Northamptonshire, for example, there has been a 20 per cent. reduction in deaths and injuries, with a fall of 50 per cent. in August alone. I return to the success of Staffordshire, which was an early authority to invest in speed cameras. It started to do so in 1995 and—

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Order. The hon. Gentleman is straying into too much detail. He must remember that this is a Second Reading debate.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

I need only to show that there is a safety implication in allowing the police to have access to some of the money that comes from fines imposed for speeding. Results in Staffordshire tell us that the number of vehicles travelling at speeds in excess of the fixed penalty level has fallen by 98 per cent. Eighty five percentile speeds, on roads with speed limits of 30 or 40 miles per hour that are monitored by speed cameras, have reduced by between 6 to 40 per cent. Most important of all these statistics, the three-year personal injury records at county sites show a reduction in fatal and serious injuries of 60 per cent., and 24 per cent. for all injuries. According to the Government's new safety strategy, which is called "Tomorrow's Roads—Safer for Everyone", speed is a factor in one in three of all collisions. With about 3,400 people dying on our roads every year, it can be seen that reducing excessive and inappropriate speeds can contribute greatly to meeting the Government's new challenging target for reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads by 40 per cent. by 2010. The target is 50 per cent. for children. Reducing speed is only one element in making roads safer. Education, enforcement, road engineering and careful evaluation all have a role. In Staffordshire, the speed camera strategy is only one part of a comprehensive road safety strategy, and one that has been remarkably successful. Fatal and serious injuries have been cut from 628 in 1994 to 350 last year. We have performed well in Staffordshire to date. The local authority and the police have set themselves a target of meeting the 300 figure that the Government's new targets imply for Staffordshire by 2005 instead of 2010. I have concentrated on road safety to show that more speed cameras nationally will be a means towards making roads safer. In this way, I hope that I can reassure those who fear that the measure is only a money-raising scheme. Staffordshire's experience of the finances derived from speed cameras would contradict any critic who talks of a stealth tax. The local authority and the police have invested £2.5 million in speed cameras since 1995. In the same period, the sum of all the fixed-penalty tickets for speeding offences has been £2 million. That money has gone to the Exchequer, but clearly it has not even covered the investment. A further reassurance can be gained by studying the criteria by which we decide on where to site speed cameras in Staffordshire. An assessment is made that is based on a points system. Points are awarded for various factors, including the number of collisions involving personal injury, the severity of the injuries and the volume of traffic. To keep the public's confidence, the message must be that more speed cameras are intended to make our roads safer, not to raise more money. The message will be reinforced by expressly indicating that the siting of new speed cameras will be in accordance with objective criteria. There is a financial benefit to the public purse in introducing more speed cameras, and one that we should publicise widely. Fewer fatal and serious injuries mean less expenditure to deal with the aftermath, fewer attendances by emergency services at the scene, less use of stretched health services and reduced social security payments. The Government estimate that the cost of one fatality on our roads is about £1 million. For a serious injury, the cost is about £100,000. Little wonder that Staffordshire reports a first year economic rate of return on its investment in speed cameras of 1,200 per cent. The answer to the allegation of a stealth tax is that the true purpose and effect of using speed cameras and traffic light cameras more widely is to reduce law-breaking and to reduce deaths and serious injuries on our roads. The overall objectives of the Bill—reducing vehicle crime and road casualties—should be welcomed by everyone.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

I am pleased that the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) has returned to his place. His contribution from the Opposition Front Bench was the usual pessimistic and, at times, pedantic perambulation.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I am content to plead guilty to the charge of pessimism. Will the hon. Lady now, without further ado, give me one example of pedantry?

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

I would prefer to make progress to relieve the pessimistic mood in which the hon. Gentleman left the Chamber. I hope to show that there is every reason to be optimistic about the Bill and that some of his worst fears will not come to light. In contrast, the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary were restrained and responsible in referring to some of the tools that are essential for places such as Plymouth, which have been able to bear down significantly on car crime generally and on the theft of motor vehicles, about which the hon. Gentleman made a great deal. Places such as Plymouth, which have a significant track record, especially need the proposals that are set out in the Bill to continue to bear down on car crime. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary referred to the reduction of 17 per cent. in vehicle crime nationally since the election, and that achievement is even more marked in Plymouth, where we have been fortunate in being able to build on six years of partnership between the police, the council it and the community to reduce crime and improve community safety. The Plymouth community safety partnership was set up during the time of a Labour-led council, and more than 100 partners have contributed to the success of the crime reduction strategy in Plymouth. From the beginning, auto crime has been one of the key elements of that strategy. That is hardly surprising. Even with the lower level of vehicle crime in Plymouth, it represents almost one in four of all reported crimes. The success of the strategy in Plymouth has resulted in a fall from the initial audit level in 1994–95, the year before the partnership came into being, of 2,555 crimes—that is, theft of vehicles—to 1,300 in the past full year. That is a reduction of 50 per cent. in theft of vehicles. Car crime as a whole fell by 50 per cent. in the first three years and is approaching 70 to 80 per cent. for the whole period. Plymouth's success is all the more remarkable when one considers the difficult background against which the partnership emerged. According to the 1995 index of local conditions, the St. Peter ward in Plymouth, Sutton was the poorest ward in England, with high unemployment. However, education, employment and health action zones have enabled us to pull together to address that effectively. The city now has unemployment at the national average for the first time in 20 years. Unemployment has plummeted from 12,000 to fewer than 4,000, and a further 2,000 people who were not even registered as unemployed are now in work. Over the first three years of the community safety partnership, theft of vehicles fell by 29 per cent., and in the three years from the year of the election, such offences fell by a further 29 per cent. They have continued to fall but, naturally, after such successes, it becomes much more difficult to see significant results. A figure of 1,300 car crimes in Plymouth is still too many. Despite some success in prosecuting some of the individuals responsible for substantial amounts of such crime—

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. Can she help us by saying what impact closed circuit television has had in the change that she describes, and tell us when it was introduced?

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

Yes. I am happy to admit that CCTV has had some impact, but the greater impact has come from the people involved in the community safety partnership—the 100 partners from neighbourhood watch schemes and others, which I may mention if time permits. The Bill will help us by making it much more difficult to profit from car theft, by licensing those involved in the salvage industry and controlling the supply of number plates. Both proposals will reduce the opportunities for criminals to disguise the identity of stolen cars, by preventing criminals from swapping the identity of a vehicle that they have stolen with that of a written-off or scrapped vehicle. They will take the profit out of stealing cars. The Bill will also help to prevent unsuspecting purchasers from buying stolen cars, which in turn will bring benefits to the vehicle insurance industry and its customers. It will back up the work that the vehicle insurance industry is undertaking to develop the motor insurers database to prevent uninsured driving which, we know, costs each policyholder about £20 a year and the insurance industry more than £400 million. I hope that the Bill will also help the work of trading standards officers. The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Chidgey) highlighted some interesting points. Some of the most difficult cases with which trading standards officers have had to deal entail spotting cut and shut vehicles before they become a problem, with huge safety implications for consumers, whom their service aims to protect. The ownership of stolen vehicles has always been a problem for purchasers who find that they have paid a significant sum for something that turns out to belong to someone else. I hope that we will draw on the long experience of trading standards officers in such matters, to ensure that safety, title to property and car clocking are dealt with more effectively in future. Re-investing money from speed camera enforcement in road safety will be popular with many of my constituents. We have in Plymouth one of 20 pilot home zones, and I know that all over the country there is huge demand for effective traffic calming, including the use of more speed cameras. Like many hon. Members, I have had to explain to too many constituents who fear for their own and their children's safety that speed cameras are not available for all the circumstances that might merit their use. The most recent discussion that I have had about that was at this time last week, when I was speaking to some young members of the Efford youth club. One of them asked me what we could do to stop speeding motorists like the one who had recently knocked down and injured his cousin. I understand that the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), visited my constituency on Friday. I am delighted that she did so, and especially that she visited the St. Peter ward, which I mentioned earlier. I understand that she visited the Millfields police station, which was opened after a campaign in that community supported by local residents, their Labour councillors and myself, and which received a positive response from our then local chief inspector of police, Mr. Russ Mitchell. I am delighted that the right hon. Lady viewed that important project, which has brought local policing back to an area that is still among the poorest in the country. I am only sorry that I did not know in advance about her visit. Perhaps hon. Members on the Conservative Benches will bring to her attention my remarks about aspects of vehicle crime and how we are tackling it in Plymouth, which I would have been delighted to show her. For although the lives of my constituents are still spoiled by levels of deprivation and crime—including vehicle crime—that are far too high, the right hon. Lady could not have chosen a better constituency or ward to see how things are at last turning round, and how our policies are working to improve people's lives and give them back the feeling that they have some control over their quality of life. The local community is working on a neighbourhood compact. The ward will get five more police with the extra funding from the crime-fighting fund and the Devon and Cornwall police budget, which will help to combat vehicle crime, using the new measures. The statistics for the eight months to October this year show an overall 8 per cent. reduction in crime in that ward, and 13 per cent. in Plymouth as a whole. The impressive reduction in car crime in Plymouth is the more remarkable because it occurred against the background of deep-seated poverty, which was getting worse when we were elected in 1997. The people of Stonehouse showed early determination to deal with that appalling Tory legacy. The successful campaign to re-open a police station in the area was one early result. The work with an adjacent ward of Sutton produced some remarkably successful projects to tackle vehicle crime. The significant reduction of some 50 per cent. in car crime over the period could not have happened without such initiatives. If I were to pick out a project that illustrates why Plymouth has been so successful, I would suggest Treads, a training programme in which more than 500 young people have participated this year. It makes a special contribution to working with those who have a history of involvement in auto crime. The partnership is led by the Devon Youth Association and involves Plymouth city council and the Devon and Cornwall constabulary. Young people are referred to the programme by the youth offending team, and they learn responsible driving and car mechanics. The programme has Open College Federation accreditation. Just last week, two young people from North Prospect received a Crimebeat award of several hundred pounds for a project to build a car from a kit. The award was made in the presence of Major Ranulph Rayner, Devon's high sheriff, who is backing such Crimebeat initiatives during his term of office, and Sir John Evans, our chief constable. In addition to showing the right hon. Member for Maidstone and the Weald that excellent project, I would have shared with her my concern about the car park at the rear of the Theatre Royal. In May this year, the Tories took control of the council [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Well, it is not "hear, hear", as far as we are concerned. Since May, there have been several worrying signs that the Tories do not fully understand the importance of putting time and money into the partnership work for which Plymouth has become well known. In the case of the crime partnership, they have cut the council's contribution to the youth offending team. Personally, I should have thought that that would be one of the last things that one would think of cutting. Even less would one expect the Tories to cut car parking charges within weeks or almost days of taking office. In fact, they did not just cut them, but abolished them on evenings and Sundays. The car park that I am concerned about is inspected by patrols, which see whether cars have tickets. In doing so, those patrols provide a degree of security against theft from, and of, cars. The Tories say that they will maintain the patrols, but there are signs that crime in the car park is going up. The police have introduced dog patrols since December, which may help for the time being and over Christmas. The idea is to create a partnership. The Tories on Plymouth city council, however, seem to think that people who can afford to come in and pay £20 for a theatre ticket and, often, have a meal out as well—but who do not even pay our community charge—cannot afford to contribute to the cost of car parking and security for their own cars.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I followed with great interest the hon. Lady's comments on Treads, which is the sort of scheme that I mentioned earlier. However, I do not understand what she is saying about the Conservative group on Plymouth council. From what she is saying, it has not only cut car parking charges, but is continuing the checks made on vehicles in car parks. Dog patrols have also been introduced. Surely, that is an improvement. I am sure that local residents quite like not having to pay car parking charges.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

Those people are not local residents, as they come from outside Plymouth. Plymouth city council is losing £400,000 in income this year, and would lose £800,000 in a full year. That could be used for better things and for work under the community safety partnership.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

It is a tax cut.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

It is not a tax cut, but a cut in the funding for fighting crime. It is a public services funding cut by stealth.

Angela Smith (Labour/Co-operative, Basildon)

A stealth cut.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

Indeed, it is a stealth cut. In my constituency, the Tories will have to make stealth cuts such as that, and, in the city of Plymouth, cuts amounting to £55 million to meet their £16 billion pledge of cuts.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Order. For a little while, the hon. Lady has been straying rather too far from the Second Reading of the Bill.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

I take your advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

I think that I might be tempted down another path along which I ought not to be tempted, so I shall not give way at this stage. I urge my hon. Friends and the Home Secretary to try to ensure that Opposition Members understand that all the initiatives that I have described work together. I have tried to highlight the point at which successful community safety partnerships have apparently achieved as much as they can. While other types of crime are going down, the one that is showing signs of edging up again by a percentage point or two is vehicle crime, especially theft of vehicles. As we have reached that point, the Bill provides useful tools, which are not currently available, to plug the gaps. As we discussed earlier, those tools make far better use of the time of the police and other enforcement agencies. That ensures that their time is used in the best possible way so that they can tackle car crime, violent crime and other sorts of crime. As we are discussing vehicle crime, when my hon. Friend the Minister comes to sum up, will he consider whether he could add a clause or two to the Bill to control the Tories' wish to drive a coach and horses through our partnership work? My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Mr. Shaw) referred to clauses perhaps being added for protection. I am not sure whether he meant that bandwagons should be protected, but they certainly should be protected from Tories who are constantly leaping on them, thus proving to be a great danger to themselves and other people.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Order. Until those particular bandwagons need registration plates, the hon. Lady is out of order.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

The bandwagons to which I was referring are particularly badly maintained as they keep backfiring loudly, frightening Opposition Members rather more than they frighten anyone else. Seriously, however, I have real fears for partnership work and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary can find a means of enabling Opposition Members to get their heads around the need to tackle the issue of auto crime from both non-legislative and legislative angles; otherwise, I fear that the measure's great potential to bear down on vehicle crime in Plymouth and elsewhere will be neutralised—or, indeed, worse. That would be dispiriting for all those involved in working together in community organisations in the city and throughout the county of Devon, as well as those in the community safety partnership team. I know that my right hon. Friend understands those things, and I hope that he will try to educate the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald, who speaks for the Opposition. Plymouth's community safety partnership has matured and developed over a longer period than most crime and disorder partnerships. As other partnerships have a chance to develop and achieve similar successes to Plymouth's—which they ought to be able to achieve faster once we introduce the Bill's provisions—they will find that those new tools are essential.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I have been listening to the hon. Lady with no little interest. She will be aware that the largest two parts of this four-part Bill concern the regulation of motor salvage operators and number plate suppliers. In order that the House can get a feel for the significance of the Bill's regulatory impact in the hon. Lady's constituency, will she say approximately how many motor salvage operators and plate suppliers there are in Plymouth, Sutton?

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

I am reliably advised that there are about five. As we discussed earlier, it will not be necessary for the enforcement agencies to focus on all of them. As the hon. Gentleman himself has pointed out, many of those in the salvage industry make a highly respected contribution to the local economy. As with all trading standards issues, they have as much to gain as anybody else from the proper regulation of their trade, which will safeguard their reputation. Earlier, the hon. Member for Buckingham said that it was important to have enough police to make good use of the provisions in the Bill. As I indicated, I believe that, throughout the country, there are now 400 community safety-type partnerships under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. They have been in existence for only a year or two but, in Plymouth's case, we have been working on the issues for six years. I was making the point that police time would be freed up to be used in a better way if legislation were clarified and the police could enforce things far more quickly. The Bill's contents are extremely important to all of those who take auto crime seriously. I referred to Tory bandwagons and coaches and horses. I hope that, in five to 10 years' time, those will be the only vehicle crimes still causing problems. Who knows? With appropriate amendments in Committee, we, might even have eliminated them.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

I have been following the debate with considerable interest. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mrs. Gilroy) made an interesting point; she thought that it was wrong that a council under Conservative control should cut taxes, yet provide additional services. She then showed a complete incomprehension of local business men in her area, by saying that the worst thing was that 14,000 people from outside the constituency came into her city to shop. How wrong that is.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

Not only is Plymouth city council reducing the youth offending team budget—one of the last budgets that should be cut—but it is also closing old people's homes. Those are not my priorities or those of the people of Plymouth.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

rose—

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman responds, I would ask him to return to the Bill.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

I accept your advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and shall not discuss the sad position of the people of Plymouth, Sutton with their Member of Parliament. The hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) waxed lyrical about the number of speed cameras in Staffordshire, but not once did he speak about the appalling loss by Staffordshire of 240 police officers. He mentioned his consultation with the chief constable's department, but he did not say how difficult it would be to enforce the Bill without sufficient police numbers. Such a Bill is needed, however. As we heard earlier, the British crime survey said that 2,956,000 thefts occurred in 1999, representing about 20 per cent. of all British crime. Slightly more than one in 10—or 11 per cent.—of those crimes were thefts of vehicles. We are discussing these matters hot on the heels of the Queen's Speech, in which we heard about another Home Office initiative to control yob culture in our streets. How can that aim be achieved without the police officers necessary for enforcement? As we heard earlier, the 18 December issue of The House Magazine contains an article entitled "Policing in Crisis" by the chairman of the Police Federation. It is worth repeating two lines of the article that are directly relevant to the Bill: There's a huge suspicion and a powerful sense of unease in the police service … Morale is the worst I have ever seen it. I remind hon. Members that those are the words of Fred Broughton, chairman of the Police Federation. Although we all welcome the Bill, we must ask how it will be enforced.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

Does my hon. Friend agree that it was alarming to hear the Home Secretary accuse, to all intents and purposes, the chairman of the Police Federation of crying wolf?

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Very few things shock me in this life nowadays. Having just had my 50th birthday, I have seen many things. However, it is frightening to hear a Home Secretary say that the comments of the chairman of the Police Federation are pointless and useless, and that he cries wolf and makes similar statements every six months. I shall not pursue the matter in detail, because you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would rule me out of order. I point out, however, that the Home's Secretary's remarks are especially alarming as, according to the article, the Police Federation is making its first ever call for the establishment of a royal commission to consider the future of policing in this country. I can forgive the Home Secretary, as he said that he had not read this most serious article in The House Magazine, but I hope that my raising the issue again will ensure that he reads it. No matter what the right hon. Gentleman says, no sensible person would doubt that police officers will be needed to enforce the Bill. We all welcome the legislation, providing that the Home Office supplies resources for the police officers who are necessary to enforce it.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Of course I shall give way to the charming hon. Lady.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

I thank the kind hon. Gentleman for giving way. Is he aware that the police training schools are full to overflowing, to the extent that it has been necessary to open a new facility? When did such circumstances exist under the previous Conservative Government?

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

The hon. Lady knows that record numbers of officers are leaving the police force and that the numbers are higher now than they ever were during 18 years of Conservative government.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

indicated dissent.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Will the hon. Lady then quote the relevant figures?

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

I welcome the opportunity of pursuing a point that I cut short in my speech. I did so because I was afraid that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, might stop me continuing. In Plymouth, there will be 41 extra police officers, of whom I have seen some of the early recruits. I imagine that the shadow Home Secretary was told when she visited the St. Peter ward on Monday that five of the officers would be located there.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Order. I have allowed the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) to pursue that point, but we have now had enough background remarks on the number of policemen. I ask the hon. Gentleman to return to the contents of the Bill.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

I shall not speak further about police officer numbers. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady laughs from a sedentary position, but I make that comment only because I am obeying your correct instruction, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is, however, worth setting out a little background. Interestingly, 12.6 per cent. of vehicle-owning households have been victims of car crime at least once. Of those households, 8.1 per cent. suffered thefts from their vehicles and 3.7 per cent. suffered attempted thefts. For those who belittle attempted thefts, I point out that such thefts often involve damage to the car, whether it is caused by smashing side windows, forcing boots or breaking locks. Anyone who has been a victim of such crime knows that it involves considerable cost, either directly, through payment to avoid loss of a no-claims bonus, or indirectly, through the loss of such a bonus. I have never been a victim—I touch the wood of the Bench in front of me when making this comment—of vehicle crime in this country. In the past three years, however, I have suffered it twice in France. That will be almost my only Euro-sceptic remark this evening. I may be tempted to say a bit more when we discuss provisions on the production of licence plates. People who have suffered crime feel not only that they have lost something tangible, but that they have been emotionally affected. That is understandable, but revealingly, the British crime survey states that 89 per cent. of victims reported anger. Again, that is understandable; indeed, I am surprised that only 89 per cent of people felt anger. However, only 22 per cent. of people whose cars were broken into or stolen reported shock. We should consider that figure for a moment, as it demonstrates what this country has come to. The statement that only 22 per cent. of victims were shocked implies that 78 per cent. of them expected the crimes to occur.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Hall Green)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that that might be the case because people were conditioned during 18 years under the previous Administration to expect soaring vehicle crime, cuts in police numbers and other law and order failures?

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Police officer numbers increased under the previous Government and vehicle crime fell by 27 per cent. In the past three years, however, such crime has fallen only by 2 per cent. That is why I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman, whose remarks are not logical. As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) said, the Government build up an exciting picture of what will happen, only to disappoint people later. That happens because adequate resources are not being made available.

Eric Forth (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

Before my hon. Friend leaves the matter of expectation, disappointment and rage, does he have any figures on the regional and rural/urban breakdown of the incidence of such events? Those blanket figures are informative, and I am grateful to him for bringing them to the attention of the House, but must not we be much more aware of the enormous variations—between one area or region and another and among different parts of our communities—that underlie those figures and the bearing that they must have on policy making and direction of resources?

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Sadly, I do not have the figures, but my right hon. Friend is absolutely right to ask that question. I hope that the Minister, who is listening to the debate keenly, will be able to report some of those variations in his winding-up speech.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

In a moment. I will say that the hon. Lady is a marvellous advocate for her constituency, or at least tries to be. We may find that there is a variation between urban and rural areas. For too long, the Government have underestimated the amount of rural crime throughout the United Kingdom. I believe that the constituency of the hon. Member for Birmingham. Hall Green (Mr. McCabe) has more vehicle crime than other parts of the west midlands, though I would be the last person to blame the sitting Member for that.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

I give way to the hon. Lady for the final time.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

On that point, I have a specific example. The hon. Gentleman will no doubt be extremely pleased to hear that there were a mere 15 thefts of motor vehicles in a ward in the constituency of his colleague, the hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter), in the seven months from April to October 2000. However, there were 73 such thefts in the inner-city ward of St. Peter, to which I have referred. That shows the stark contrast between rich and poor areas and between the leafy suburb and the inner city. No doubt the hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) represents an area akin to the leafy suburb.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.