Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what criteria were used in analysing responses to the consultation on changes to the driving test booking system to identify and remove (a) duplicate, (b) automated or bot-generated and (c) otherwise incompatible responses.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) published details of the consultation methodology, respondent breakdowns and analysis in its response to the consultation, which is available on GOV.UK.

The consultation received 102,224 responses and 68 responses by email. Following data cleaning, 8,803 responses identified as automated or bot-generated were removed before analysis. The published methodology explains the process used to identify and remove duplicate, automated and incompatible responses.

Ministers were provided with analysis of consultation responses, including how views differed between respondent groups, before decisions on changes to the driving test booking system were taken.

As the methodology, respondent breakdowns and consultation analysis have already been published on GOV.UK, the Department has no plans to place additional material in the House of Commons Library.