DVLA: Staffing Levels

Debate between Lord Pack and Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill

Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I hope that the noble Lord received my letter of 12 June, in reply to his email to me on 14 May. If he took the simple action outlined in my letter, he should now have his licence and be driving again. There are 53 million driving licence holders in Great Britain. In 2024-25, the DVLA received 837,591 medical licence notifications, a figure which increased to 922,123 in 2025-26. As I said, the average decision time fell from 68 to 56 working days. It recently recruited 60 extra full-time equivalent caseworkers and 100 additional FTE contact centre staff, to cut call waiting times. The noble Lord is right that, if he were to apply now, he would be able to use the newly launched digital medical services platform, which enables far more customers with medical conditions to notify, apply for and renew their driving licences online.

[Lord Pack (LD)]

My Lords, it was recently stated in the House of Commons that 34,000 suppliers of number plates are registered with the DVLA. Given the widespread problems with illegal number plates helping people dodge the law, can the Minister tell us how many DVLA staff are allocated to policing compliance by those 34,000 suppliers and whether that number is sufficient?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that this is a serious problem on a significant scale. The Government acknowledge that more needs to be done. A recent consultation closed on 11 May and the actions that we propose to take following the review of the consultation will include legislative change, if needed. I cannot tell him how many people currently do that job but I will write to him with the figure.