It's not going to hurt to call Vodafone and ask the question formerly as we're a peer-to-peer forum so only advise from our own experiences.
I do understand the thought process behind 'well it's not in use so why can't they assign it to me?' but the reality is, it may have been already assigned elsewhere.
E.g. the PAYT sim cards you see in stores (supermarkets etc.) for Vodafone and all their MVNOs already have numbers assigned to them and will appear to be inactive / out of service until the sim is placed in a handset and activated.
So even though the number appears to be not in use, it could just be that it's out there somewhere.
But like I say, call up and formerly ask. The worst they can do is confirm it's a no.
In theory, if the number is a Vodafone number, not been allocated elsewhere then in theory it could be picked up and assigned to your line or an additional sim.
The complications come from the fact that the number may not be sat in this status. Even though it's not in use (so when you call it, it says out of service), it may already be assigned to another SIM card somewhere (e.g. look at all the PAYT sims that are out there, the numbers are assigned to them but until the first chargeable call is made, the number appears to be out of service).
It may have been assigned to an MVNO meaning it's not with Vodafone anymore and is awaiting connection on a different network.
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