asked the Secretary of State for Transport if the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre in Swansea receives 500,000 letters a day, making a total of about 125 million a year; and if he will state the number of licences issued by the centre in a year to give an appreciation of the efficiency of the business system used.

This year DVLC will be issuing about 11 million driving licences and—through its local offices and the Post Office—about 29 million vehicle licences. Letters and telephone calls from members of the public are being received at a rate of rather more than 1½ million a year; of these about half relate to individual transactions.