Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent steps he has taken to improve the availability of practical driving tests to tackle the backlog.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) operates a 24-week booking window for car tests and there are test slots available within this window.

The DVSA recognises the high demand for learners wanting to take their practical driving test and is working hard to provide as many practical driving test appointments as possible and has a number of measures in place to do this. These include offering a national recovery allowance and annual leave buy back to examiners, asking all those qualified to conduct tests, but who do not do so as part of their current day job, to return to conducting tests, and conducting out of hours testing (such as on public holidays and weekends).

The DVSA is also recruiting more than 300 driving examiners across Great Britain to help meet the increasing demand for driving tests.