Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of making the LGA's voluntary shared database on taxi driver licenses mandatory.

On 27 April 2023, the remainder of the Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Act 2022 was commenced, and the Department designated the use of a database, which previously operated on a voluntary basis supported by the Local Government Assocation, for the purposes of this Act. The Act mandates the use of a national database in England to record every decision to refuse, revoke or suspend a taxi or private hire vehicle driver licence due to safeguarding, road safety or discrimination concerns.