Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many drivers have applied to reduce their driving disqualification period in each of the last 10 years; and how many of those applications were successful.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA)’s role in the driving licence endorsement and disqualification process is to update and maintain the driver record with information provided by His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service. The DVLA does not disqualify individuals from driving. The courts are responsible for convicting and sentencing individuals for road traffic offences and notifies the DVLA of any convictions where the offence attracts either penalty points or a period of disqualification.
Where a driving licence holder has accumulated 12 or more penalty points, a court can exercise its discretion and not disqualify them. The courts may decide to allow drivers to retain their entitlement to drive where it is considered by the court that disqualification would cause exceptional hardship. These are decisions for the courts and not the DVLA. On 30 August 2025 there were 10,384 drivers with more than 12 or more penalty points who have current driving entitlement and have not been disqualified by a court.
The table below shows the number of drivers who have been disqualified from driving by a court as they have received 12 or more penalty points over the last four years. Some drivers may appear more than once in this table. Please note that this type of disqualification is removed from the driver record after four years so figures are not available before 30 August 2021.
Year | Number of drivers with a TT99 offence |
2021 | 14,158 |
2022 | 42,367 |
2023 | 39,586 |
2024 | 41,020 |
2025 (to 30 August) | 27,313 |
The DVLA does not hold information on the number of drivers who have applied to have their driving disqualification period reduced.
Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many drivers successfully claimed exceptional hardship when they reached 12 penalty points and continued to drive in the last five years.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA)’s role in the driving licence endorsement and disqualification process is to update and maintain the driver record with information provided by His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service. The DVLA does not disqualify individuals from driving. The courts are responsible for convicting and sentencing individuals for road traffic offences and notifies the DVLA of any convictions where the offence attracts either penalty points or a period of disqualification.
Where a driving licence holder has accumulated 12 or more penalty points, a court can exercise its discretion and not disqualify them. The courts may decide to allow drivers to retain their entitlement to drive where it is considered by the court that disqualification would cause exceptional hardship. These are decisions for the courts and not the DVLA. On 30 August 2025 there were 10,384 drivers with more than 12 or more penalty points who have current driving entitlement and have not been disqualified by a court.
The table below shows the number of drivers who have been disqualified from driving by a court as they have received 12 or more penalty points over the last four years. Some drivers may appear more than once in this table. Please note that this type of disqualification is removed from the driver record after four years so figures are not available before 30 August 2021.
Year | Number of drivers with a TT99 offence |
2021 | 14,158 |
2022 | 42,367 |
2023 | 39,586 |
2024 | 41,020 |
2025 (to 30 August) | 27,313 |
The DVLA does not hold information on the number of drivers who have applied to have their driving disqualification period reduced.
Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many times the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency revoked the driving licence of a driver who reached 12 points on their driving licence in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA)’s role in the driving licence endorsement and disqualification process is to update and maintain the driver record with information provided by His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service. The DVLA does not disqualify individuals from driving. The courts are responsible for convicting and sentencing individuals for road traffic offences and notifies the DVLA of any convictions where the offence attracts either penalty points or a period of disqualification.
Where a driving licence holder has accumulated 12 or more penalty points, a court can exercise its discretion and not disqualify them. The courts may decide to allow drivers to retain their entitlement to drive where it is considered by the court that disqualification would cause exceptional hardship. These are decisions for the courts and not the DVLA. On 30 August 2025 there were 10,384 drivers with more than 12 or more penalty points who have current driving entitlement and have not been disqualified by a court.
The table below shows the number of drivers who have been disqualified from driving by a court as they have received 12 or more penalty points over the last four years. Some drivers may appear more than once in this table. Please note that this type of disqualification is removed from the driver record after four years so figures are not available before 30 August 2021.
Year | Number of drivers with a TT99 offence |
2021 | 14,158 |
2022 | 42,367 |
2023 | 39,586 |
2024 | 41,020 |
2025 (to 30 August) | 27,313 |
The DVLA does not hold information on the number of drivers who have applied to have their driving disqualification period reduced.
Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the proportion of DVLA keeper records that are (a) missing and (b) falsified.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The latest available data shows that more than 93 per cent of vehicle keepers are contactable and traceable based on the information held on the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency’s (DVLA) records. Of the remainder, around six per cent of vehicles are in the motor trade, where a vehicle may legitimately have no registered keeper.
Information on potentially falsified keeper data is not readily available as the DVLA will only become aware of alleged incidents of this when it is identified through customer contact, third-party notification, or enforcement activity.
Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many and what proportion of people who were waiting to be tried in court for motoring offences had their driving licence revoked while waiting for court proceedings to begin in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Transport does not hold this information.
The Government treats road safety seriously and is committed to reducing the numbers of those killed and injured on our roads. The Road Safety Strategy is under development and will include a broad range of policies. More details will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of offenders convicted of (a) dangerous driving, (b) driving under the influence and (c) causing serious (i) injury and (ii) death by (A) careless and (B) dangerous driving have also previously failed to who fail to produce (a) a driving licence, (2) an MOT certificate and (3) insurance certificate.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on prosecutions for a wide range of offences, including dangerous driving, driving under the influence, and causing serious injury or death by careless and dangerous driving in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal justice statistics - GOV.UK.
It is not possible to identify those who were convicted of an offence and had been previously convicted for failing to produce either a driving licence, an MOT certificate or insurance certificates. This information may be held in court records but to examine individual court records would be of disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of drivers accused of death by dangerous driving have pleaded exceptional hardship.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on prosecutions for a wide range of offences, including causing death by dangerous driving in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal justice statistics - GOV.UK.
The Ministry of Justice does not centrally hold information on those who pleaded exceptional hardship. This information may be held in court records but to examine individual court records would be of disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how may and what proportion of people awaiting trial for a motoring offence in court commit further driving offences.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice does not hold information on the number or proportion of those awaiting trial for a motoring offence who go onto commit a further offence whilst waiting.
Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer given to Question 74060 on Dangerous Driving: Convictions, how many and what percentage of offenders convicted of dangerous driving in each of the last five years had previously been convicted of dangerous driving offences (a) on one occasion and (b) on more than one occasion.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The information requested is provided in the tables attached.
Safety on our roads is an absolute priority for this Government. That is why the Department for Transport is committed to delivering a new Road Safety Strategy – the first in over a decade. They will set out the next steps on this in due course.
Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of drivers convicted of death by dangerous driving were (a) repeat death by dangerous driving offenders, (b) repeat death by careless driving offenders and (c) repeat dangerous driving offenders in each of the last five years.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The information requested is provided in the tables attached.
Safety on our roads is an absolute priority for this Government. That is why the Department for Transport is committed to delivering a new Road Safety Strategy – the first in over a decade. They will set out the next steps on this in due course.