Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the reported national shortage of bus drivers; and what plans they have to address any such shortage.

My Department continues to work closely with the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (ADEPT) and the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) to gather regular information. This allows us to analyse and assess, the current staffing levels and recruitment pipeline in the bus sector; informing the Department about the extent of the shortages across the country. To address the issue, the DVSA have provisioned up to 50,000 more test slots each year enabling more prospective bus drivers to take their tests. Additional measures to boost testing capacity include the ongoing recruitment of new vocational examiners, with additional Defence Driving Examiners from the MOD trained and redeployed to conduct civilian tests with the DVSA.