NORTH West car tax dodgers are the worst in England.

National Audit Office figures show that the region has the highest percentage of unlicensed vehicles in the country.

A total of 3.7 per cent of all private and light goods vehicles in the North West are on the road without a tax disc.

This is worse than London where the figure is just 3.3 per cent.

Pendle's Labour MP Gordon Prentice is horrified by the figure.

He has demanded that proposals for cracking down on car tax dodgers in parts of London should be extended nationwide.

Speaking in a Commons debate on moves to deal with tax dodging in the capital, he said: "These new regulations are good as far as they go, but why on earth are they not being extended nationwide?

"According to the National Audit Office, the problem in the North West is greater than in London and evasion across the country is costing an arm and a leg.

"The revenue lost as a result of evasion is about £163 million a year.

"As a proportion of all vehicle excise duty revenue, the amount lost has risen from 3.5 per cent in 1984 to 4.1 per cent in 1994/95.

"Incredibly, 371,000 motor cycles on the road are unlicensed. This is 34.9 per cent of the total, £12 million revenue is lost as a result."

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