My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for the issues raised. If I miss some of the questions, we will try to catch those up afterwards. I understand that for the ordinary motorist the number to call for the DVLA is a standard-rate number—an 0300 number—0300 790 6801. That may answer a number of the noble Lord’s concerns.
In terms of costs to businesses, we have acknowledged that this may add somewhat to the burden of the car rental industry. However, we can compare the advantages to the motorist. It seems that the benefit is significant. The noble Lord may know anecdotally from friends and family that trying to find the paper counterpart is one of the great annoyances as so many people manage to mislay or lose them, which creates problems in having to apply again, with all the costs and inconvenience involved. The benefits to the motorist are significant, which outweighs what I suspect will be rather minor additional burdens to the industry, outlined by the noble Lord. We appreciate that the industry will need to manage this process effectively.
The DVLA will use its many regular communications with the public through a whole variety of channels. It will send out information leaflets with all full drivers’ licences, which equates to 1 million drivers a month getting a leaflet to outline this. The DVLA is working with industry stakeholders, such as trade associations for the car hire companies and the motor industry, to make sure that they have up-to-date information that they can communicate to their members and the motoring public. A campaign page has been created on GOV.UK to provide the Government with general information and the DVLA will use all those forms of media, which I confess I do not look at much myself, but a large part of the world does, such as web chat, social media, information videos and blogs to maximise awareness. A substantial communications campaign sits behind this, but it is also true that when people call to make bookings with a car hire company, they are typically told what documents to bring with them. Therefore, that is an opportunity for the car hire company to make it clear that people need to come along with an access code.
Change is never without the occasional hiccup but there will certainly be a substantial communication process. Indeed, there probably will be additional calls. The DVLA is expecting calls from people who do not feel comfortable going online to obtain information. That, by the way, is a free service. The DVLA is staffing up to be able to respond appropriately to that additional level of demand.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked if the information was secure, as government is responsible for a great deal of data affecting the lives of many people. Therefore, the levels of security are always significant—no less so in this case than in any other. I can give the noble Lord the confidence that this will not be treated in a more casual way than important information that is held on individuals by government departments and agencies. In terms of the accuracy of the data, because an individual can go online and check for themselves, it gives them an opportunity to make sure that the data are accurate. They can also call the DVLA if they have some concern. In many ways this gives them an opportunity to be sure that they are up to date in the way that the paper counterpart, sitting in a back drawer and possibly long forgotten, does not.