Driving Tests: Coronavirus

(asked on 13th October 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 17 June 2020 to Question 57396 on answered on 17 June 2020 on Driving Tests: Coronavirus, what estimate he has made of the cost to his Department of providing (a) refunds of theory test fees or (b) a free replacement test where a candidate's theory test certificate expires during the six months following the passing of the Coronavirus Act 2020 without the candidate being able to sit their practical test within the required timescale.


Answered by
Rachel Maclean Portrait
Rachel Maclean
This question was answered on 21st October 2020

No estimate has been made of the cost of refunding theory test fees as this is expressly forbidden by the Road Traffic Act 1988 section 91 (except in limited cases not relevant here). The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) pays its contractor, Pearson, per theory test delivered.

The Coronavirus Act 2020 came into effect on 25 March 2020. Around 118,000 theory test pass certificates were due to expire by the end of September 2020. However, on average 14,000 candidates let their certificate expire each month in the normal course of events.

If candidates were exempted from having to pay for one-retest, then the DVSA would have incurred costs of up to £1.5m if all of the 118,000 learners chose to retake the theory test. In addition, applications for a re-test would need to have been validated and systems amended to remove the requirement for payment in these cases. No estimate was made of these additional costs to the DVSA. The fee for any practical test booking was refunded on expiry of the candidates’ theory test certificate.

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