Sarah Coombes

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank my constituency neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) for securing this debate about the scourge of these illegal bikes. They are a nightmare; they are intimidating; they are used for crime; they keep our residents awake at night when they tear up and down the roads; and they tear up our green spaces. Before Christmas, we had a terrible incident in West Bromwich when some lovely football fields in Charlemont were fine one day but the next day completely ripped up. A local football club, Bustleholme FC, had spent thousands investing in those pitches. In one night, a few people tore them all up; it was a disgrace. We have beautiful canals in the Black Country that people would like to walk along, but they cannot because they are terrorised by bikers going up and down, nearly knocking them into the water, which is outrageous. I am glad that this Government are finally going to do something about it. I briefly want to mention the related issue of ghost number plates. They are illegal number plates that look normal to the human eye but cannot be read by police automatic number plate recognition cameras. That means that people, including those using these bikes, can speed, run red lights and even carry out serious crimes, while evading being caught. Those number plates are currently too easy to get. If the police catch someone with them, the punishment is far too little. I worry that, if we do not clamp down on them, those ghost number plates will end up terrorising our communities in exactly the way the bikes have been doing for far too long.