Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many taxi and private hire vehicle drivers were required to obtain a new enhanced DBS certificate in each of the last five years; what estimate she has made of the cost to those drivers; and whether she has assessed the potential merits of allowing drivers to rejoin the Update Service without first obtaining a new enhanced DBS certificate.

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) does not hold this data. The DBS records how many applications are received, not how many separate individuals apply for checks. Individuals can make multiple applications, and therefore application numbers are unlikely to tally to, and will likely be higher than the number of individuals applying.

It is not feasible for DBS to enrol taxi and private hire vehicle drivers into the Update Service based on previously issued DBS certificates. A new DBS check is essential as this forms an up-to-date baseline against which any new information the Update Service identifies is assessed.