Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make it her policy that local authorities issuing Blue Badges within her Department's guideline timescale of 12 weeks will be able to recover the full costs of delivering that service.

The Blue Badge scheme is administered, funded and operated at local level by individual local authorities. There are no timescales set for administering applications other than a suggested guideline that issuing authorities should aim to complete end to end applications within 12 weeks.

In England local authorities are legally entitled to charge a fee of up to £10 for each badge issued which allows them to recover some of the costs involved in administering the scheme. The Department has no plans to amend legislation.