asked the Minister for the Environment in view of: (a) the large numbers of motor vehicles stolen each year in this country, (b) the large expenditure of police time on solving and recovering car thefts, (c) the constant rise in car insurance due to car thefts, (d) the fact that the most readily identifiable feature of a car, its individual number plate, is easily changed, (e) the success of the experiments in the States of Kentucky and Michigan in the USA involving the etching of an individually identifiable number on to the windows of cars which have resulted in the number of car thefts falling dramatically, (f) the fact that it is more difficult to replace the windows of a car than to change its number plates and (g) the low cost of etching identifying numbers on to car windows, if he will bring forward legislation to introduce the etching of an individual identifying number on to the windscreen and other windows of all new motor vehicles in this country as soon as they are registered.

I have no proposals at present to introduce such legislation.