It is illegal to drive a car in the UK without a valid MOT certificate unless you are driving to an MOT test station. Details held regarding insurance, tax and Mot are all held on an insurance database. The DVLA do checks every month to see if a car has a valid MOT certificate and any that don’t are instantly sent to the ANPR of the police vehicles. If the ANPR camera detects one of these cars then it will be stopped to see why it is travelling with no MOT.
All vehicles that are over three years old need to pass an MOT every year. If the vehicle fails, then you will need to get the work required completed and submit the vehicle back in for the retesting.
If you are caught driving with no Mot you can get sent to court and incur up to a thousand pound fine.