Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the performance of the Driver Vehicle Licensing Authority since its operation was centralised in Swansea following the transfer of DVA services from Northern Ireland in July 2014.

No specific assessment has been made of the performance of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) following the transfer of vehicle registration and licensing services from the Driver Vehicle Agency to the DVLA.

The objective of centralisation was to ensure customers in Northern Ireland had access to the same services that were already available in GB. This includes providing customers in Northern Ireland with the facility to license their vehicles online or by telephone, as well as other online vehicle registration services.

This has now been achieved. Motorists in Northern Ireland also now have access to a wider range of vehicle registration and licensing services at more than 175 Post Office branches.

The centralisation also allowed other new services to be introduced, such as the opportunity for NI customers to purchase and retain personalised registration numbers and the facility for fleet operators in NI to use the DVLA’s fleet scheme.