A parliamentary inquiry has been launched into the use of illegal vehicle number plates amid increasing concern from police, motor industry specialists and MPs about non-compliant plates and their impact on enforcement.

The inquiry, announced by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Transport Safety (APPGTS), will consider how plate misuse affects road safety, fraud and wider vehicle-related crime.

The move stems partly from work by West Bromwich Labour MP Sarah Coombes, who introduced a Ten Minute Rule Bill on illegal plates, co-sponsored by Labour MP Paul Waugh.

Ms Coombes said she wanted to reduce “deviation allowed on number plates” and described the current market as a “Wild West”. Police and motor crime researchers have raised similar concerns, including the use of coatings, physical obstructions and modified materials that prevent plates being read by ANPR and speed-enforcement cameras.

Operation Phantom, a West Midlands pilot, detected more than 4,000 “ghost plates” across Birmingham in two weeks. West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Simon Foster said the plates helped offenders “evade detection, enforcement and accountability”, adding that he had long called for national action.

The APPGTS inquiry will review the UK’s registration plate system and assess what Regtransfers, an independent specialist and DVLA-registered supplier of private number plates, described as its potential “shortcomings” and vulnerability to criminal exploitation.

Areas for consideration include regulation of the supply chain, enforcement capacity and the prevalence of cloned and stolen plates. Transport for London has reported a 64% rise in plate-cloning cases over three years, while the National Police Chiefs’ Council estimates that up to 20,000 vehicles may currently display cloned plates.

Professor Fraser Sampson, formerly the Surveillance Camera Commissioner and now at Cranfield University’s Vehicle Identification Group, told Regtransfers the existing system was “wholly inadequate”. The expert group has also warned that current supply arrangements pose a “significant enduring risk” to policing and critical infrastructure.

Ms Coombes said that improving supplier oversight could reduce misuse, adding that the present one-off £40 DVLA registration fee for suppliers was insufficient. She suggested annual checks and stricter conditions to ensure “only legitimate suppliers can sell number plates”.

Technology-led enforcement tools are also under review. Surrey Police and smart-infrastructure firm NOW Wireless recently trialled SenseTrace AI, which compares live CCTV and ANPR imagery against vehicle records to flag suspected ghost or cloned plates. Surrey Police and the company described the trial as successful. Other firms, including MAV Systems, are testing ANPR hardware capable of detecting plates treated to avoid conventional camera reading.

Motor finance and insurance stakeholders are watching the inquiry closely, as plate tampering and cloning are frequent enablers of vehicle-related fraud, including false finance applications, misrepresentation at point of sale and evasion of liability during repossession or recovery. Any tightening of supplier regulation or technology-driven enforcement may have implications for lenders’ fraud-prevention processes.

Potential policy options include restricting access to plate-manufacturing materials and exploring digital identifiers, though such proposals remain contentious and technically complex.

The PCC’s Foster told the BBC, he has called for 3D and 4D plates, which are legal but can contain reflective material and be used as ghost plates, to be banned.

While future reforms may incorporate new tracking or verification technologies, number plates are expected to remain the primary means of visual vehicle identification. The inquiry’s findings are likely to influence both enforcement strategy and industry compliance standards in the coming years.