Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has taken recent steps to help prevent approved driving instructors selling practical driving exams for a profit.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) is working hard to provide as many practical driving test appointments as possible at all test centres. As a result of the measures already taken by the DVSA, overall, since April 2021, an estimated 813,000 additional test slots have now been created. On average, the DVSA is creating approximately 35,300 extra test slots each month.

The average time between booking and taking a practical car test in Greater Manchester and West Didsbury test centres over the last 12 months is 15.2 weeks and 15.6 weeks respectively. As of 27 March 2023, there are 1,847 driving tests available in Greater Manchester and 465 available at West Didsbury.

To prevent the booking and re-selling of driving test appointments, the DVSA has:

• stopped accepting new automatic online registrations to use its tests booking service – any new applications must be made by email, where they’ll be thoroughly checked by the DVSA;
• stopped accepting any new registrations from companies who do not directly employ a driving instructor;
• removed registrations not linked to driving instructors;
• reduced the number of times a driving test appointment can be changed from 10 to the pre-pandemic limit of 6 - if changes are required after reaching this limit, approved driving instructors or candidates will have to cancel the test and rebook it; and
• updated the test booking service terms and conditions to make it clear that users must not book tests and sell them for profit. Users found breaching the terms and conditions may have their accounts closed.