Draft Road Safety Act 2006 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2015
The Committee consisted of the following Members:
† Burden, Richard (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
† Coffey, Dr Thérèse (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
Denham, Mr John (Southampton, Itchen) (Lab)
† Gilbert, Stephen (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)
Gilmore, Sheila (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
† Hain, Mr Peter (Neath) (Lab)
† Hammond, Stephen (Wimbledon) (Con)
Healey, John (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
† Jones, Graham (Hyndburn) (Lab)
† Kwarteng, Kwasi (Spelthorne) (Con)
Mitchell, Austin (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
† Parish, Neil (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
† Perry, Claire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport)
Shannon, Jim (Strangford) (DUP)
† Vickers, Martin (Cleethorpes) (Con)
† Wharton, James (Stockton South) (Con)
† Wright, Simon (Norwich South) (LD)
Oliver Coddington, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee
Fifteenth Delegated Legislation Committee
Wednesday 11 February 2015
[Katy Clark in the Chair]
Draft Road Safety Act 2006 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2015
2.30 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Road Safety Act 2006 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2015.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Ms Clark.
The order, which was laid before the House on 16 January, will abolish the driving licence paper counterpart from 8 June 2015. Primary legislative changes that provide for this were included by the previous Government in the Road Safety Act 2006 and will be brought into force on the same day as the order. The order amends several additional pieces of primary and secondary legislation, many of which have been enacted since 2006, that include references to the paper counterpart. To be clear, old-style paper licences are not being abolished and will remain valid documents.
The driving licence paper counterpart has been issued since the photocard driving licence was introduced in 1998. The main function of the paper counterpart has been to show provisional driving entitlement and penalty points or driving disqualifications. The counterpart was necessary because the EU driving licence directives to which every member state must comply do not allow provisional driving entitlement or endorsement details to be displayed on the photocard. Introducing a counterpart was then the only way to provide such information for individual drivers and for them to share it with those who required it for driving entitlement validation or enforcement purposes.
The primary powers to abolish the paper counterpart were included very sensibly in the Road Safety Act 2006. We intend to enact the provisions by a commencement of section 10 of and schedule 3 to the Act, which are to be brought into force on the same day as this order by a commencement order.
A public consultation was carried out 11 years ago in 2004, when 82% of respondents supported abolishing the counterpart, preferring to obtain the information held on the paper counterpart by secure electronic links to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency database. I am delighted that there has been cross-party support for many years in favour of abolishing the paper counterpart, but the question is: how to do it?
The secure electronic inquiry services needed to share driver data to replace the counterpart were not available in 2006. The significant development of online services and this Government’s commitment to developing the wider use of digital services as a key element of providing improved customer service have finally allowed us to enact what I think is a very sensible aim.
It has been obvious for many years that the paper counter-part is seen as unnecessary bureaucracy and a burden, and the Government have made a clear commitment to remove unnecessary burdens from individuals and businesses under the red tape challenge. The abolition of the counterpart will result in a significant saving for motorists, and it will be replaced with a digital service that will enable customers and stakeholders to access the driving licence details that they require securely.
An online service—Share Driving Licence—will enable individual drivers to log in, go online, check their own information and share it as they need to with a third party who will be able to view the up-to-date driver record digitally and securely, but—I can hear the question in people’s minds—what about protecting individual driver data? The Share Driving Licence service will enable customers to generate a one-time use authentication code, which they can then share with a third party, enabling that party to access—once—the relevant information held on the DVLA’s driver record.
There is nothing to stop an individual printing out their online counterpart and sharing that, but, if somebody wishes to validate it, the one-time authorisation code is available to do so. The online service, plus the authentication code, ensures that control of the data remains in the customer’s hands, giving them the power to share or not to share the information.
What happens if someone does not want to use the online service or is unable to do so themselves? There will be an assisted digital inquiry service. The customer can telephone the DVLA’s contact centre, which can provide them with the access code, so that they can then share it with the third party. Alternatively, businesses can, as currently, call the DVLA’s driving licence checking service. This is a three-way conversation between the customer, the third party and the DVLA to verify information from the individual’s driver record.
Companies that are interested in checking—motor insurance companies or car hire companies—already have an online inquiry service called My Licence, which enables them to check the status of a driving licence, with the driver’s consent, when giving a quote and when a policy is renewed.
Pre-photocard paper driving licences, which I know many people hold dear, are not being abolished and will remain valid documents, showing the categories of vehicle that an individual can drive. However, they will no longer be endorsed with new penalty point information. The digital driver record held by the DVLA will be the legal record of penalty point information, which will all be in one place. Drivers who wish to retain their old-style paper licences will need to use the inquiry services to access the most up-to-date information on their penalty points and endorsements.
This is a complicated measure to introduce. I recognise the need to minimise any confusion between the paper counterpart and the pre-photocard paper driving licence. That is a key message that features prominently in the wide-ranging communications activities being carried out now, which will continue as abolition draws nearer. The DVLA is working hard with customers and businesses to help individual drivers to understand the change.
Mr Peter Hain (Neath) (Lab): The DVLA’s staff are working very hard. Many of my constituents work there, and they are having a tough time at the moment.
There is an enormous amount of pressure, as well as job cuts, conditions and hours cuts and so on. Will the Minister make inquiries and see what she can do about that?Claire Perry: I will be delighted to. I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents. It is a time of change at the DVLA, but the move to digitisation is making the place more efficient. How annoying it must be to sit there writing people’s penalty points down in pen and sending them back; it seems an old-world style. The staff there are working magnificently to cope with the changes. As a result, we are seeing reductions in the cost of many services. Indeed, the cost of licences is coming down. The right hon. Gentleman’s constituents who work at the DVLA should feel proud of working for a world-class Government organisation that is at the forefront of digitisation.
About 90% of motorists do not have penalty points and rarely need their paper counterpart. I have to confess that I did not realise I was supposed to carry it at all times. I should not say that, as the Minister responsible, but it is the case. Many people are confused about the purpose of that piece of paper. However, if someone loses their counterpart, they have to pay £20 to get a replacement in order to fulfil the legal requirements.
The requirement for drivers to hold a paper counterpart to their driving licence is no longer considered by motorists to be the most effective way of enabling people to show their up-to-date penalty point information. It seemed to us and, indeed, to the respondents to the survey in 2004, that the current arrangements impose unnecessary costs on motorists and can perpetuate the use of inaccurate and out-of-date information.
Generally, abolishing the paper counterpart has been warmly welcomed by individuals and businesses. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon, who was in his place briefly and has now left. He did a lot of work on this issue. Of course, there was industry concern about the original date for abolition, which was 31 December 2014. Some organisations such as smaller car rental, car hire and taxi companies told us that they were not yet ready to operate without the counterpart. I listened to those concerns, and we have delayed the abolition until 8 June 2015. That will allow businesses more time to work with the DVLA on introducing the changes and, crucially, to communicate the changes to their customers.
The Department for Transport has worked closely with enforcement partners, including the Ministry of Justice and Scottish Court Service, to ensure that they are prepared for the change. The processing of road traffic offences will continue without any issues, as fixed penalty offices and courts are prepared for when the paper counterpart is abolished.
The abolition of the paper counterpart in Northern Ireland and the whole issue of the devolution of driving licences has been a topic of discussion. As with the design of driving licences, the use of a paper counterpart is a matter for the devolved Northern Ireland Executive. Northern Irish drivers will therefore continue to hold a paper counterpart under the legislation applied by the Executive.
The order supports the Government’s commitment to improving public services through increased digital delivery. They will realise significant savings to motorists,
following the savings that the Government have already passed on to motorists through the superb work of those at the DVLA in Swansea to reduce driving licence fees. That will save drivers and businesses £150 million over the next 10 years.It surprised me when I opened a piece of mail addressed to my daughter—a very naughty thing for a mother to do—and found a cheque from the DVLA giving her a rebate because she had applied for a provisional licence before the change in licensing. I have, of course, ensured that she has received the cheque to pay into her bank account. It was nice to get some money back.
Abolishing the paper counterpart will save motorists an additional £17 million a year. I commend the order to the Committee.
2.40 pm
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Clark. Another day, another statutory instrument Committee: we seem to be running at about one or two a week on road traffic issues at the moment, but they are always a pleasure. It can sometimes lead to confusion; I have a stack of notes and I am just about staying ahead of each one. I will let you into a secret, Ms Clark. I nearly came over here prepared to talk again about wearing seat belts in ambulances. I am glad that I successfully changed my notes at the last minute.
As the Minister said, this abolition is long overdue. There has been widespread support for getting rid of the counterpart licence for some time. More than 80% of those who responded to the first consultation, in 2004, agreed that it should be abolished. Motorists get frustrated by the legal obligation to have the paper counterpart, when they remember that is what they have to do. When the counterparts are lost or damaged, they can cost a lot to replace. That is why the Road Safety Act 2006 made provision for abolition, which could not be delivered at the time because there was no viable electronic alternative at the time.
Abolition does not mean getting rid of the information that is provided on the counterpart, which is still used in a number of ways. It displays details of drivers’ current convictions, disqualifications and penalties. It is used by the freight industry to carry out safety checks on vehicle drivers and by the rental and leasing industry to verify customer driving licence details for car hire. That kind of information remains vital for many employment and enforcement purposes and is also important for road safety.
The Committee should consider the matter in context. Support for abolition is predicated on the DVLA providing an effective and efficient alternative to the paper counterpart. I welcome the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath, many of whose constituents work at the DVLA. Both he and the Minister were right to pay tribute to their work. However, I still have a number of questions about the agency’s ability to deliver what is necessary, and I would appreciate the Minister’s responses.
At the beginning of the year, I raised a series of concerns with the Minister about the Government’s motoring agency reforms. Those included a collapsed procurement competition to find a commercial partner for the Vehicle Certification Agency; a flood of resignations of driving-test instructors since the merger of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency in 2014; a failed tender
for the driving theory test, which cost taxpayers up to £2.5 million; the disruption caused by the closure of 39 DVLA local offices in 2013, before online services were up and running; and the DVLA’s website crashing on the first day of the paperless car tax system because the Government had not communicated the changes clearly enough.As I said last year, I wrote to the National Audit Office to ask the Comptroller and Auditor General to review the impact of the reforms on consumers and the motoring industry, to ensure that the taxpayer is getting value for money. I can confirm that the NAO has acknowledged that this issue needs to be addressed, and it is preparing the scope of the review that it will undertake.
In the light of that, we need to be confident today that the abolition of the paper counterpart will not add to that list of chaos and disruption. A paper-free system will not be successful unless a replacement electronic service is effective, easy to use and up to date. I do not have much confidence in that at the moment. Abolition was initially planned for January this year. In response to concerns raised by organisations such as the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association and the Freight Transport Association that an online alternative system was not fit for purpose, the Government have pushed back the implementation to June this year. It is good that the Government are listening, but there are still concerns. The BVRLA has said:
“it is vital that the agencies are given an adequate budget to publicise and provide guidance around… the impending removal of the paper driving licence counterpart.”After the recent tax disc abolition, companies such as Auto Trader stated that “low-key” communication was one reason for public confusion on the day.
Claire Perry: I will point out the conundrum for the hon. Gentleman. On the one hand, the DVLA were criticised for not informing enough people. On the other hand, the website crashed because so many people went online. All the research showed that the vast majority of people were aware of the change. Communication is important, but I remind him that the businesses he refers to are the ones demanding the counterpart information. For example, it is easy for an online car rental company to remind customers of the change when communicating with them. We need to be careful not to burden the Government with the costs of doing businesses’ communications for them.
Richard Burden: The Minister has a point, but when there is a consensus on the need to communicate, it is important to understand what communication means. The message coming from Auto Trader and others on the problems with tax disc abolition was that there was an announcement, so that people knew it was going to happen, but they did not quite know what that meant in practice. Communication needs to be a bit more than putting up a notice on the DFT website. Not everyone is as interested as the Minister and I in checking that website all the time. Useable information is not reaching enough people at the moment. I would therefore appreciate a bit more information from the Minister about how the communication will happen—not if it will happen, but how—between now and June.
I should like to ask a few questions about potential costs and benefits. Good awareness of the forthcoming changes is vital, as we have said. The information we are dealing with is important for employment and enforcement purposes, among others. We need to look closely at the likely impact of the change. An impact assessment has been done—that is a good thing—but it is not particularly conclusive. It estimates that the net value of abolition will be £38.8 million over 10 years, largely from time savings for consumers who will no longer have to pay for replacement counterparts.
The impact assessment confirms that the DVLA will suffer losses—around £8.8 million a year—as a result of implementing the change and handling additional call volumes, while losing more revenue from issuing licences when people lose their counterparts. Those costs will be absorbed by the agency and offset by eventual efficiency savings. That seems to be the calculation, but we do not have clarity on the additional costs.
The impact assessment specifically refers to
“additional costs for some businesses”.
Those costs will result people having to take longer to check drivers’ details online and spending more time on the phone to the DVLA to access information that they formerly had on one piece of paper. Will the Minister explain—if possible today, but if not, perhaps in writing—how significant the costs are likely to be? What types of business are likely to be adversely affected? What steps are being taken to mitigate those impacts?
That brings me on to another important point about costs, which is not simply about businesses. The Government say that a range of inquiry services will be established to replace the counterpart licence. As the Minister said, that is predominantly the My Licence service, where a customer can access their driving licence details online and print them or provide access codes to the information for others. It will include the use of DVLA telephone lines to help verify the customer’s driving licence details or aid customers in using the My Licence service. Such calls already occur, often when an individual does not have a paper counterpart licence. They can easily result in a call between the DVLA, a business, such as a car rental company, and the individual being set up. There are already more than a million such calls every year. I would assume, with people getting used to the new system or struggling with the new online arrangement, that that is only likely to increase, certainly in the short term.
When we talk about motorists, not simply businesses, we can be sure the calls are not cheap. They take around three minutes on average and cost £1.53 per inquiry—about 51p a minute. Hon. Members may raise their eyebrows at those prices, but we are talking about a premium rate telephone line. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) and my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), I have raised concerns with the Government about their Departments and agencies using rip off phone rates.
The cost of calling those numbers can have a serious impact, particularly on vulnerable people and those who rely on mobile phones. Last year, the Government appeared to take that seriously, with the Cabinet Office issuing guidance that stated the use of premium rate phone numbers is “inappropriate”. That guidance is clearly not being implemented across Whitehall or beyond. Will the Minister comment on whether cheaper alternatives,
particularly the 03 range of numbers, for this phone line, for which we can expect to see a surge in demand, have been considered and, if so, when will they be introduced?I should finally like to touch on the wider costs associated with the online shift within the motoring agencies. We do not oppose digitisation, but we want to ensure that it is delivered effectively and cost-efficiently. The insurance industry is being granted free access to the My Licence system, which contains information on people’s online driving records. That benefits motor insurers by enabling them to provide quotes for consumers more easily. Many companies and the Cabinet Office claim that motorists will see premiums reduce as a result. The problem is that the Government have not monitored the impact of such policies on premium rates, so it is impossible to verify the claim.
I would be grateful to the Minister if she commented, if not today, in correspondence, on what financial benefit the insurance industry gained from access to this information, how much is being passed down to consumers and whether the industry should contribute financially to use a system that is of great benefit to it.
In conclusion, the abolition of the paper counterpart is a good idea and is overdue. Given past form, the Opposition would issue some caution over the move to a digital system if the necessary alternatives are not in place, not tried out, not staffed properly or not communicated effectively to the public. Those are my concerns and I hope the Minister can give some reassurance.
2.53 pm
Claire Perry: I thank hon. Members, especially the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield for his usual exhaustive list of probing questions. I will provide a written response to the question about job cuts and morale at the DVLA.
I will answer the hon. Gentleman’s specific questions about IT problems with business. There is an interesting conundrum when on the one hand the Department was criticised for not doing enough. By the way, the information about the tax disc was not just on the DVLA or gov.uk websites. It was broadly communicated through all sorts of different channels. There was an unprecedented demand, because clearly the message got through, on that one day that affected the service provided to the DVLA by its service supplier. That problem was quickly rectified at the time and lessons were learned. I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman that the View Driving Licence service has been live for several months, the new inquiry test services are being delivered rigorously and we are confident that the system will cope.
On the point about communications, lots of channels are being used. Information will be sent to all drivers with full driving licences, which equates to about 1 million drivers a month. The DVLA is working closely with industry stakeholders. Companies require motorists to present the piece of paper when rent cars. Indeed, many people do not do that currently, perhaps because not enough information is provided by the car rental company to the customer. We are urging industry to get behind the provision. If the information is required, it is up to us all to communicate that to individuals. We will continue to use a range of channels, including digital channels, to maximise awareness.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the net present value to UK plc. He is right that, in doing the analysis, there is clearly a set-up cost whenever we change how something is done. Right now, businesses rely on visually inspecting the counterpart, and they can continue to do so. An individual can still present with a pre-printed counterpart of their information. If the business chooses to check it right now, they get on the phone and have a conversation. We will be offering the same service, if required, and allowing them to move to a secure online service. Of course, training staff in the use of that service could amount to some additional set-up time, but the expectation is that businesses that want to get behind this will invest in the training and in the ability to check. I hope, as it is an instantaneous service, checking will be even faster. As the hon. Gentleman he pointed out, the overall net present value of the benefit is around £40 million over 10 years, taking into account the set-up costs and the ongoing reduction in costs to motorists.
The hon. Gentleman made a point about 0300 numbers, but that is a call of last resort. Only businesses use the premium rate and there is no change in that. If businesses choose to call that number, that service is there for them. He is right to ask about the true value of the provision and that it is tricky. We had to be absolutely sure that there was a secure digital system that preserved businesses’ and individuals’ abilities to check information without compromising a person’s individual data privacy rights. We have a solution that is being tested and implemented.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that I choose to delay implementation not because I was concerned about the technology, but because I wanted to give businesses time to adjust. If they have any concerns about how to use the system, the delay gives them a chance to train their staff and get familiar with the protocols.
Richard Burden: On telephone lines, the Minister said that only businesses would use the premium rate phone line. Why is that? If an individual driver needs to call with some query, they would go through on the premium rate line, would they not?
Claire Perry: The point is that they will be able to access the system online. Why would they have to phone and check? Perhaps they would if they were concerned about an error, but the premium rate phone line is predominantly used by businesses.
The hon. Gentleman made a point about insurance companies. A secure portal has been put in place so that insurance companies can check driving licences. That was done through the DVLA development, but there will be a cost to the insurance industry for using it. His point is about where those savings are passed on. The system is a huge benefit for the insurance industry because it is not insuring drivers who do not have permissions or who have convictions on their licences.
I hope that I have answered most of the hon. Gentleman’s questions. I am pleased that, like me, he thinks that this is a sensible step forward. The order will make minor and technical amendments to several different enactments that reference the paper counterpart to driving licences in various bits of legislation. Fundamentally, 11 years after the idea was first proposed, the change will finally
remove an unnecessary burden from the motoring public and provide them with savings of £17 million a year. I therefore recommend that the Committee approve the order.