Cheryl Gillan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cheryl Gillan on 2016-10-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many car owners whose car tax has expired have not made a SORN declaration since the tax licence disc was abolished in 2015.

Andrew Jones

The Department for Transport conducts a roadside survey every two years. This survey estimates the number of vehicles without a valid licence or Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN) to determine the rate of vehicle excise duty evasion.

The last survey took place in June 2015, which was eight months after the DVLA stopped issuing paper tax discs. The survey estimated that 1.4% of vehicles on UK roads were unlicensed and were not subject to a SORN.

The DVLA aims to make vehicle excise duty easy to pay and hard to avoid and operates a comprehensive package of measures to tackle vehicle excise duty evasion. These measures range from reminder letters, penalties and court prosecutions through to the use of Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras, wheel clamping and the removal of unlicensed vehicles.