Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the period of validity of checks on driving licences for the purposes of hiring cars has been extended from three days to three weeks; what assessment they have made of which is the better practice; and why the new procedure was adopted initially.

The validity period of the code for checking driving entitlement was extended from three days to three weeks following customer feedback. This suggested that the 72 hour validity period would not be long enough, particularly for people on holiday. The change will be reviewed after three months.

While the validity period has been extended to 21 days, each code can still be used only once. Car hire companies or employers also need the last eight digits of the driver’s licence number to be able to redeem the code. The code can also be cancelled by the driver at any time, which puts individual users in control of their information.