Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing web-enabled out-of-hours transfer of vehicle ownership and payment of vehicle excise duty by new vehicle owners.

Vehicle keepers are already able to license their vehicle and pay vehicle excise duty online, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The online notification of a change of vehicle keeper service is an innovative new facility that was launched in 2015 as an alternative to postal services. This service is currently available between 8am and 6pm as the systems that support it rely on real-time validation of the registered keeper’s details against the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA)’s vehicle register. The legacy IT services that support the vehicle register are only available during these hours, due to the system requirements to update the record daily. There are no current plans to extend the hours that this service is available.