'Four out of 10 bikers dodge tax'

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A total of 5% of drivers evaded Vehicle Excise Duty in 2006, costing the taxpayer £214 million, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee found.

Avoidance was up from 3.6% in 2005, and brought the level to twice the Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency's 2.5% target, which officials admitted they would not hit. Among motorcyclists evasion soared to 38% from 30% the year before.

And the committee found that a loophole in DVLA procedures meant that even law-abiding motorists could avoid paying their road tax for a month between each renewal without risk of a fine.

The MPs called on the DVLA and Department for Transport to "strongly consider" tougher measures to tackle evasion, such as impounding untaxed motorbikes and imposing penalty points on tax-dodgers. The DVLA should work with police and local councils to carry out more on-road checks, and should use new powers to check bikes being driven off the public highway.

In the longer term, hi-tech solutions such as computer chips in numberplates, electronic sensors in vehicles and theft-resistant plates may have to be introduced to beat the growing problem of cloned, false and foreign plates, said the committee.

Committee chairman Edward Leigh said: "Motorists and motorcyclists who refuse to pay road tax are stealing from law-abiding taxpayers and unlicensed cars are often associated with other forms of crime. And yet the Department for Transport and the DVLA are losing ground in their fight against VED evasion.

"If the DVLA's motorcycle enforcement regime is not to be a complete laughing stock, then the Agency and the Department must make the most of new powers to enforce VED off public roads - and strongly consider more severe measures such as impounding unlicensed motorcycles.

"Large parts of the biking community are cocking a snook at the law."

The report found that enforcement of VED on motorbikes was difficult because roadside cameras have been unable to read their numberplates from the rear and because police are often unwilling to pursue bikers for fear of causing an accident.