Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential impact on public safety of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency not routinely carrying out physical verification of completed vehicle safety recalls.

Ensuring the safety of their products is the responsibility of vehicle manufacturers, with DVSA providing regulatory oversight of manufacturers’ systems and performance.

Given the volume of vehicles affected by recall campaigns (in excess of 4 million vehicles annually), routine physical inspection of every recalled vehicle by DVSA would not be a proportionate use of regulatory resources.

DVSA instead evaluates manufacturers’ processes, recall data, technical evidence, and completion rates, and will investigate concerns where there is evidence that a recall may not have been implemented correctly or effectively.