Driving test delays hit trainee paramedics and aspiring police officers, MPs say

Driving test delays have hit trainee paramedics, aspiring police officers and an MP, the roads minister has heard as she vowed to tackle the issue as a “priority”.

MPs told Lilian Greenwood on Wednesday that some of their constituents had travelled hundreds of miles to secure their licences, including between Reading and Cornwall, and Bracknell and Aberdeen.

More than half a million tests are booked in the system at any one time, according to the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), and the organisation changed its terms and conditions last year in a bid to block people from using bots to secure slots and sell them on at a profit.

Labour’s Kevin McKenna told MPs in Westminster Hall that he met a constituent whose daughter was “desperate” to become a police officer.

The MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey in Kent said: “She can’t start a job because she needs to be able to drive for the job, she’ll be working in shifts, all she could find was a driving test months down the line in Birmingham, 150 miles away. She’s one of the luckier constituents in that she could actually find one.”

Mr McKenna, 50, also revealed he is yet to put on his L-plates.

“After the election, it finally forced my hand to learn to drive,” he told the PA news agency, speaking after the debate.

“And then I started looking and hitting this problem and hearing from constituents and really digging into it and it’s like, well, how do I even plan to learn to drive?”

Mr McKenna added: “It doesn’t stop me getting around, to be fair, I’m quite good cadging lifts and I’ve got my bike and I can get around but not in the way that I really want to.

“So it’s moved it on – ‘let’s make that a next year project rather than right now’. And this is the kind of impact it’s having on all sorts of people.”

He said people working in construction and trade “need a van and a lot of these are self-employed and setting up their own businesses – it’s really hard to do that if as well as learning the trade, they’re struggling to actually get through that basic hurdle which is the ability to move around”.

Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Paul Kohler said he had heard about a newly trained paramedic who faced a four-month wait to take the driving test required for an ambulance.

Mr Kohler, the MP for Wimbledon, also described “a black market” which had emerged, “with individuals forced to compete with computer bots to book the precious few slots available when they come online”.

Peter Swallow, who secured the debate, said constituents from his Berkshire patch had travelled to Wales, “which involved a costly round trip and an overnight stay all just to get a test sorted in a reasonable timeframe”, the Isle of Wight and Aberdeen.

The Labour MP, who confessed to having failed his first test, said: “Honourable members will remember the great feeling of liberation of getting behind the wheel for their first time after passing their driving tests. It’s a rite of passage but instead of the moment of great excitement, it’s a source of punishing expense, confusion and misery.”

The average waiting time for a test hit 19 weeks in September, according to the DVSA, which has begun buying back annual leave from its examiners.

The agency has also closed 705 business accounts and issued 766 suspensions since a January 2023 rule change, in a bid to stop bots and brokers from making a profit out of tests.

Conservative shadow transport minister Greg Smith said the problem of bots “requires very firm action”.

He added: “Post-pandemic, the Conservative government did take clear action. We opened up nearly 10% more driving tests every week than before the pandemic by the end of 2022 but despite the DVSA making a million extra tests available since the pandemic – a million extra tests – waiting times have remained stubbornly high.

“That’s partly because of a growing economy that the new Government has inherited and the demand that has created for new tests.”

Ms Greenwood said the DVSA had recruited and is training 250 new driving examiners in 2024, and is looking for 200 more to add to its books “focusing on areas where demand is the highest”.

She said “fixing this issue is a priority” and added: “We want learners who are ready to pass to be able to take their test quickly and easily at a location that’s convenient for them. We don’t want them to feel the need to take difficult decisions and compromises when it comes to taking a practical test.

“And we need concrete measures that will make a real difference, and that’s why we’ve asked the DVSA to look at how their tests are booked and managed.”