Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Thursday 23rd April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Members might be interested to know that we will come to the Front-Bench spokespeople at half-past 4. About 10 Members are standing, so you can work out that a time limit will not be needed, unless they talk for an excessive 10 minutes each.

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[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

In the west midlands, the average waiting time for a driving test is 22 weeks—nearly six months, up from 12 weeks in October 2022. That often means that young people are unable to take a driving test before taking their A-levels or leaving home for university.

When I was growing up in Atherstone, getting my driving licence was a milestone for my independence. It meant I could see friends, share the driving with my parents when they picked me up at the end of term from university, and take up jobs that simply were not reachable by bus. And when I reached 21, driving the Leeds University night-time women’s minibus provided me with a good income and some great fun, and I was providing an excellent service. In fact, without learning to drive as a teenager and building up my confidence in driving, I would not have been able to drive a group of students from Leeds down to London, and also across to Manchester, to protest against section 28.

That is why I find it so frustrating that so many young people in North Warwickshire and Bedworth are now stuck on endless waiting lists for their driving tests. In a rural area with poor bus connections and unreliable timetables, a driving licence is not a luxury—it is crucial. It gives young people the independence and confidence to pursue education, training and work in neighbouring towns and cities.

I also want to talk about the freight and logistics industry. It is one of the largest employers in my constituency, offering excellent apprenticeships and training opportunities for school leavers ready to start their careers, but buses simply do not run frequently or at the right times for shifts at those hubs. My constituents who are waiting for driving tests are effectively locked out of those opportunities.

An elderly constituent called me because her driving licence was stuck with the DVLA, preventing her from being able to get around. My team and I contacted the DVLA and spoke to a member of the team, who reissued her driving licence fairly promptly. She told me how grateful she was and how much it would help her, but it should not take MPs getting involved to deal with these issues. For people like my constituent, a driving licence is a lifeline, allowing her to get to appointments, shops, and nearby villages and towns to see friends and stop being isolated. The DVLA must process requests in a timely manner to ensure that people are not left isolated in rural communities.

In 2021, the UK experienced a huge shortage of heavy goods vehicle drivers, which was compounded by the delays in tests for HGV licences. Luckily, that situation has improved, with current practical test wait times broadly acceptable at around three weeks; the real problem now is with the availability of theory tests for HGV drivers. As HGV candidates must sit multiple theory tests—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. It might be helpful if I highlight that driving tests are governed not by the DVLA, but by the DVSA—the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. The subject of this afternoon’s debate is very specifically the DVLA. Perhaps Members might take that as a point of information and constrain their remarks to the DVLA.

[Rachel Taylor]

My apologies. I think when most of our constituents think of the DVLA and the DVSA, they think of them as one and the same, but thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for correcting me on that point.

I think it is still fair to say that young people need access to their driving licence, and that the many people with health conditions who might have to hand in their licence are reliant on it coming back quickly. My own mum has to take my dad around for hospital appointments; she cannot get to her nearest shop or go out to see her friends. There are real impacts here for people who have suffered minor strokes, for example, and have not had their driving licence returned. It is a situation that the Government need to look at, and I would be grateful for anything that the Minister can tell us to inform the situation. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) for securing the debate.

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[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) on securing the debate and the Backbench Business Committee for granting it.

As we have heard, the DVLA covers important aspects of work overseeing driving licences and people’s ability to drive safely. I pay tribute, as others have done, to the DVLA staff working to support my constituents. However, I also want to highlight some of the issues raised by a large number of my constituents over quite a period of time, which I know are similar to concerns raised by other hon. Members.

One of the most common issues relates to—surprise, surprise—medical applications, which we have heard time and again this afternoon. The crux of the issue seems to be that the system is paper-based and by post. Unfortunately, that adds further delays, not helped by issues with postal deliveries. There also seems to be a lack of co-ordination between the DVLA and clinicians.

Constituents have highlighted other concerns. No matter the outcome after their applications have been processed, there are significant delays in returning documents and, in some cases, licences, as well as delays in issuing medical letters. Six to seven months seems to be the average for cases that do not appear overly complex, but in the worst cases that I have dealt with, returns have taken in excess of seven months. It is clearly deeply unsatisfactory for things to take that long. As my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) said, many more people try to navigate these issues on their own, so MPs do not see the full extent of the problem.

I was pleased that the Government increased the number of additional staff being recruited to support the DVLA’s medical team. That is a fairly new development, but we all look forward to seeing that investment in the workforce, which will, I hope, help to reduce waiting times for decisions. That will, in turn, reduce the frustration felt by my constituents and many others across the country.

The DVLA’s medical licensing system is, as we know, a vital service for our constituents. For too long, my constituents have had to put up with long and unexpected delays. I acknowledge that the Government have unfortunately inherited this and a number of other long-standing issues from the previous Government, and that they recognise that there is much work to do, but will my hon. Friend the Minister set out what more can be done? The length of time that my constituents and others are waiting, and the frustration and inconvenience that it causes them, is just too much for them to put up with. Many of the constituents who have contacted me are armed forces veterans, public servants and people who are doing the right thing, but unfortunately the system is letting them down. I hope that the Minister will address that in his winding-up speech.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) for securing a debate on this important topic, and the Backbench Business Committee for choosing it.

We have heard from many hon. Members the important reasons the DVLA needs to improve. I do not have time to mention all the excellent contributions, but I highlight that of the hon. Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore), who certainly need not have apologised for not using notes. In fact, the passion and authenticity of his speech show the rest of us that having fewer notes can often lead to much better contributions—alas, I have not managed to do that this afternoon.

We have heard lots of reasons why a well-functioning DVLA really matters, including safety culture, which is so important for everybody on our roads. Only if the DVLA works, and if people have faith in it, will we be able to encourage everybody to do the right thing in relation to medical conditions that any of us could develop and which could affect our ability to drive safely. Faith in public institutions, and in the accountability of institutions with which we have an obligation to comply, is important. It is all the more important in the light of the 70 years of societal change—encouraged by Government policy—that have made the car an essential and almost inevitable form of transport for most in our country.

The Government have rightly set out an ambitious road safety strategy that will impose additional duties and expectations on the DLVA, so we will need a better DVLA if that strategy is to succeed. Like other Members, I have had many constituents get in touch with me about issues that affect their ability to access jobs and contribute to the economy, and the personal independence their cars give them. I have constituents who have had very long, unexplained waits for licence renewal. That is often the real frustration: the accountability and the communication from the DVLA just are not there in many cases. Another constituent had a circular and extremely confusing communication merry-go-round between himself, the DVLA and medical personnel. He turned to me and my excellent casework team for help with how to emerge from that incredibly frustrating communication merry-go-round, because he did not know how to get out of it, despite his best efforts to engage with the process.

We are in the midst of a vehicle technological revolution. Driverless taxis are being piloted in London, and electric vehicles are now commonplace. As these changes are felt on our roads, we need to have confidence in the regulator responsible for managing them. We need a dynamic organisation ready to adapt to the challenges that these changes will bring. Unfortunately, the DVLA has not given us confidence that it will be up to the task, and that is not just based on constituents’ experience; the Public Accounts Committee, the National Audit Office and a November 2024 Cabinet Office review have all found it wanting.

The well-documented delays in medical driving licences show a system struggling to cope with demand. The 2023 Public Accounts Committee report found that over 3 million people had experienced long delays, with some losing employment and income as a result. Improvements have been made, with the average time to process medical licence cases being 44 days in 2024-25, down from 54 days the year before, but that is clearly still far too long. The DVLA is only facing more and more demands for its services, with an ageing population and the Government’s plan to introduce mandatory eye tests for over-70s. Without structural reform, this problem is not likely to improve any time soon.

Equally, the DVLA’s capacity to administer an increasingly complex and rapidly changing vehicle excise duty regime is a concern. The current VED system is already complex and opaque, given that cars, heavy goods vehicles and motorbikes are all calculated according to different metrics. Shortly after the transition in April 2025, when electric vehicles began paying VED, the DVLA acknowledged issues with V5C vehicle logbooks displaying incorrect tax information. That understandably raised concerns about the robustness of the agency’s data and systems.

At the 2025 Budget, the Government announced electric vehicle excise duty—eVED—a new tax payable alongside the existing VED from April 2028; there are far too many acronyms here, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given that electric vehicle registrations accounted for a record 19.6% market share in 2024, this will put further administrative pressure on a DVLA that is already making mistakes and struggling to cope with demand.

Finally, as driverless cars become more commonplace in the UK, the DVLA will play a central role in licensing, registration and data management for autonomous vehicles—a function for which the agency’s current legislative mandate and systems were not designed. The hon. Member for West Bromwich (Sarah Coombes) highlighted some of the existing problems with the administration of licence plates.

All these changes will place greater pressure on the agency, and confidence is low that it will be able to handle it, so the Government need to go faster in their reform of the DVLA. The 2024 report was a welcome start in identifying the structural problems. The Government now need to get on with the unglamorous but essential job of genuine and meaningful system reform, to ensure we have a regulator that is up to the job it faces. Although it is outside the scope of the debate, reform of the DVLA must go hand in hand with further reform of the DVSA to address the persistent backlog in practical driving tests. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the shadow Minister.