Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to help prevent the reselling of block-booked driving tests.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
As of April 2025, the average waiting time for a car practical driving test in Great Britain was 22.3 weeks.
The attached Excel document shows the average waiting time for a car practical driving test at each driving test centre in Scotland, as of 26 May 2025.
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) main priority is upholding road safety standards while it works hard to reduce car practical driving test waiting times.
On the 23 April, the Secretary of State for Transport appeared before the Transport Select Committee and announced that DVSA will take further actions to reduce waiting times for all customers across Great Britain.
Further information on these actions and progress of DVSA’s plan to reduce driving test waiting times, which was announced in December 2024, can be found on GOV.UK.
To ensure fairness for everyone wanting to book a practical driving test, DVSA continues to work hard to combat the unscrupulous practice of reselling tests across the country and has announced further measures to review the driving test booking system.
DVSA deploys enhanced bot protection to help stop automated systems from buying up tests unfairly. These applications, however, are constantly evolving and changing, and DVSA’s work on this is ongoing.
On 28 May 2025, DVSA launched a public consultation on improving the rules for booking car driving tests. Views are being sought from the driver training industry, learner drivers and other interested parties on changes which aim to prevent learner drivers being exploited by those who resell tests at a higher price.
This consultation follows the agency’s recent call for evidence. The call for evidence, about the rules and processes for booking and managing practical car driving tests, received almost 27,000 responses.
On 6 January 2025, DVSA introduced new terms and conditions for use of the service driving instructors and trainers use to book and manage practical driving tests for their pupils. Since this change DVSA has issued 44 warnings, 120 suspensions, and closed 270 business accounts.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce waiting times for driving tests.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
As of April 2025, the average waiting time for a car practical driving test in Great Britain was 22.3 weeks.
The attached Excel document shows the average waiting time for a car practical driving test at each driving test centre in Scotland, as of 26 May 2025.
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) main priority is upholding road safety standards while it works hard to reduce car practical driving test waiting times.
On the 23 April, the Secretary of State for Transport appeared before the Transport Select Committee and announced that DVSA will take further actions to reduce waiting times for all customers across Great Britain.
Further information on these actions and progress of DVSA’s plan to reduce driving test waiting times, which was announced in December 2024, can be found on GOV.UK.
To ensure fairness for everyone wanting to book a practical driving test, DVSA continues to work hard to combat the unscrupulous practice of reselling tests across the country and has announced further measures to review the driving test booking system.
DVSA deploys enhanced bot protection to help stop automated systems from buying up tests unfairly. These applications, however, are constantly evolving and changing, and DVSA’s work on this is ongoing.
On 28 May 2025, DVSA launched a public consultation on improving the rules for booking car driving tests. Views are being sought from the driver training industry, learner drivers and other interested parties on changes which aim to prevent learner drivers being exploited by those who resell tests at a higher price.
This consultation follows the agency’s recent call for evidence. The call for evidence, about the rules and processes for booking and managing practical car driving tests, received almost 27,000 responses.
On 6 January 2025, DVSA introduced new terms and conditions for use of the service driving instructors and trainers use to book and manage practical driving tests for their pupils. Since this change DVSA has issued 44 warnings, 120 suspensions, and closed 270 business accounts.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the waiting time for a practical driving test is at each of the test centres in Scotland.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
As of April 2025, the average waiting time for a car practical driving test in Great Britain was 22.3 weeks.
The attached Excel document shows the average waiting time for a car practical driving test at each driving test centre in Scotland, as of 26 May 2025.
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) main priority is upholding road safety standards while it works hard to reduce car practical driving test waiting times.
On the 23 April, the Secretary of State for Transport appeared before the Transport Select Committee and announced that DVSA will take further actions to reduce waiting times for all customers across Great Britain.
Further information on these actions and progress of DVSA’s plan to reduce driving test waiting times, which was announced in December 2024, can be found on GOV.UK.
To ensure fairness for everyone wanting to book a practical driving test, DVSA continues to work hard to combat the unscrupulous practice of reselling tests across the country and has announced further measures to review the driving test booking system.
DVSA deploys enhanced bot protection to help stop automated systems from buying up tests unfairly. These applications, however, are constantly evolving and changing, and DVSA’s work on this is ongoing.
On 28 May 2025, DVSA launched a public consultation on improving the rules for booking car driving tests. Views are being sought from the driver training industry, learner drivers and other interested parties on changes which aim to prevent learner drivers being exploited by those who resell tests at a higher price.
This consultation follows the agency’s recent call for evidence. The call for evidence, about the rules and processes for booking and managing practical car driving tests, received almost 27,000 responses.
On 6 January 2025, DVSA introduced new terms and conditions for use of the service driving instructors and trainers use to book and manage practical driving tests for their pupils. Since this change DVSA has issued 44 warnings, 120 suspensions, and closed 270 business accounts.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of integrating chiropractic care into the National Musculoskeletal health strategy.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England does not nationally commission chiropractic care as it is a complementary and alternative medicine. There are no plans to make an assessment of the potential merits of integrating chiropractic care into centrally commissioned National Health Service care.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the report published by the University of York entitled The Impact of Chiropractors on Workplace Productivity in NHS MSK Pathways, published on 12 February 2025.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
No assessment has been made on the potential implications for policies of the report published by the University of York entitled The Impact of Chiropractors on Workplace Productivity in NHS MSK Pathways.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the meeting of the UK and Overseas Territories Joint Ministerial Council between 19 and 21 November 2024, what progress has been made on the implementation of public registers of beneficial ownership in the Overseas Territories.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Work is ongoing to improve beneficial ownership transparency in the Overseas Territories. At the Joint Ministerial Council (JMC) in November 2024, the Falkland Islands and Saint Helena committed to join Montserrat and Gibraltar in implementing fully public registers by April 2025. The British Virgin Islands (BVI), Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Anguilla and Turks and Caicos Islands agreed to implement registers of beneficial ownership, accessible to those with a legitimate interest, by June 2025. It remains our expectation that the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies will ultimately implement fully public registers.
Every Territory is making progress towards these commitments and FCDO officials are in regular contact with counterparts in the Overseas Territories on their proposals for registers to ensure they meet the agreement made at JMC. I have and will continue to raise this directly with elected leaders across the Overseas Territories. I have recently spoken with the Premiers of BVI and Bermuda on this issue.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Online Safety Act 2023 on (a) small websites, (b) personal blogs and (c) community forums.
Answered by Feryal Clark
Under the Online Safety Act, in-scope user-to-user and search services must risk assess for content that is illegal and harmful to children. Ofcom, the independent regulator for this regime, set out what steps small, low-risk providers need to take to fulfil their duties following their risk assessment. When implementing these duties, Ofcom is legally required to ensure burdens on providers are proportionate to their risk factors, size, and capacity. Ofcom recently launched an online digital toolkit, aimed at helping smaller services with compliance (https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/ofcom-launches-digital-safety-toolkit-for-online-services/
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure blind and partially sighted people have access to health information in an accessible format.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Under the Equality Act 2010, health and social care organisations must make reasonable adjustments to ensure that disabled people are not disadvantaged. Since 2016, all National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers are expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard which details the approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of patients and carers with a disability, impairment or sensory loss, including blind and partially sighted people. NHS England has been undertaking a review of the Accessible Information Standard (AIS) to help ensure that the communication needs of people with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss are met in health and care provision. A revised AIS will be published in due course. In the meantime, the current AIS remains in force and therefore there should not be a gap in provision for people using services.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, for what reason her Department has chosen to decline to support more open access services along the Kings Cross to Edinburgh Waverley via Newcastle route.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
As detailed in the 4 February response to the Office of Rail and Road, the Department did not support Lumo’s applications to operate additional Open Access services between London Kings Cross and Newcastle, and to extend existing Newcastle/Edinburgh services on to Glasgow, due to concern over the capacity of the East Coast Main Line and the consequential detrimental effects on reliability; and also the impact of the revenue reduction to existing services on the route, which would diminish revenue and thus increase subsidy from taxpayers to the railway as a whole. Access to the network, however, is currently a matter for the Office of Rail and Road in its capacity as independent regulator, and it will now consider the Department’s response alongside those from other consultees, and its statutory duties before making, a decision.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps she is taking to help increase the availability of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
We have committed £200m funding in the Autumn budget to support charging infrastructure rollout. This is on top of over £6 billion in private investment committed out to 2030, and bolsters existing grants and funding to support chargepoint installation. There are now over 74,000 public chargepoints in the UK, with almost 20,000 new chargepoints added and a 45% increase in rural chargepoints in 2024. On 24 December, we announced a range of measures to remove barriers to chargepoint rollout, including to improve grid connections for chargepoints.