Oral Question: Uninsured Drivers

Speech delivered on Tue 19th Oct 2004

Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset & North Poole) (LD): What steps his Department (a) has taken and (b) plans to take to reduce the number of uninsured drivers on the roads; and if he will make a statement.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. David Jamieson): Uninsured drivers on our roads are a menace. We have taken a number of steps to bear down on uninsured driving, including setting up a review of motor insurance arrangements in the United Kingdom by Professor David Greenaway. His report was published on 11 August this year, and we are now taking urgent measures to implement its recommendations. We are working closely with the insurance industry, and we now plan to introduce legislation, further education and enforcement programmes to force uninsured drivers from our roads.

Mrs. Brooke: Does the Minister acknowledge that fines can be as low as £150, which, in many cases, is less than the cost of insurance? Liberal Democrats have long called for higher penalties, as recommended by Greenaway. What will the Minister do as soon as possible to clamp down on the million and more motorists who are creating danger every day and cheating the law-abiding motorist?

Mr. Jamieson: The top end of fines for being uninsured is very high indeed, and we are introducing a range of measures, we hope in legislation, to give power to the police, for example, to seize a vehicle at the side of the road and, if necessary, have it destroyed if someone is driving while uninsured. We are also looking at other measures to improve the insurance database and give police access to it so that they can use automatic number plate-reading cameras to take pictures and identify people who are not only untaxed but uninsured. Recent action that we have taken has considerably reduced the number of uninsured drivers on the road, and we want to drive those figures down further.