Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the impact of covid-19 restrictions on learner drivers since March 2020.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) recognises there is a high demand for learners who are wanting to take their practical driving test following the suspension of routine driver training and testing during the pandemic.

The DVSA 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;
• conducting out of hours testing, such as on public holidays and weekends; and
• asking recently retired driving examiners to return to testing.

As of 31 March 2022, driving test waiting times at Llanelli is 3 weeks.

The DVSA has a live recruitment campaign covering Llanelli, and has recently completed a campaign to recruit Welsh speaking driving examiners. The DVSA is also launching a new national campaign to recruit an extra 161 examiners across Great Britain to help meet the increasing demand for driving tests. This is in addition to its previous campaign to recruit more than 300 additional examiners.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of extending existing Approved Driving Instructor (ADI) licences in the context of the holders of those licences having only been able to practise for eight out of the last 15 months as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency has no statutory power to issue partial refunds nor extend registration beyond four years.