Lilian Greenwood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lilian Greenwood on 2016-05-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps (a) his Department and (b) the DVLA is taking to increase the number of seizures of uninsured vehicles.

Andrew Jones

Since 2011 the Government has had in place an insurance and compliance strategy, namely the Continuous Insurance Enforcement (CIE) scheme operated by DVLA and the Motor Insurers Bureau, which aims to reduce the level of uninsured driving.

It is estimated that CIE has already helped reduce levels of uninsured driving from 1.4 million in 2010 to 1 million vehicles now.

The police have powers under Section 165A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 to seize a vehicle that is being used on a public road without motor insurance. How police enforce the law is an operational matter for their discretion.

The table below shows the number of vehicles seized by the police for driving without insurance.