Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of reducing the price of bus travel for people under the age of 25 via an equivalent scheme to the 16-25 railcard.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Bus services are predominantly run on a commercial basis, where private operators decide on the level at which fares are set. Many bus operators offer reduced fares for young people, and the Department for Transport’s latest concessionary travel statistics show that in the year ending March 2025, youth concessions are offered by at least one commercial bus operator in 73 out of 85 local authority areas in England outside London.
Local authorities can also introduce fares initiatives in their local areas. The government has allocated £712 million to local authorities to support and improve bus services in 2025/26 including Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) and Bus Service Operators Grant funding. BSIP funding can be used in whichever way local authorities wish to improve services for passengers, which could include introducing fares initiatives for young people.
The government is exploring options for targeted fares measures that deliver value for money to the taxpayer, to ensure affordable bus travel is always available for the groups who need it most – such as young people.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps is she taking to reduce waiting times for driving tests in (a) Eastleigh constituency and (b) other areas.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) main priority is to reduce car practical driving test waiting times, whilst upholding road safety standards.
As of 2 September 2024, there were 552,863 car practical driving tests booked, and 94,169 driving tests available within the 24-week booking window.
Measures in place to reduce waiting times for customers at driving test centres, include the recruitment of driving examiners, conducting tests outside of regular hours, including at weekends and on public holidays, and buying back annual leave from driving examiners.
The DVSA also continues to deploy examiners from areas with lower waiting times into those centres with longer waiting times. This is in addition to the DVSA recruiting additional examiners across the country into areas where waiting times are highest.