Asked by: Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many driving test examiner posts are vacant in (a) Dunfermline and (b) Kirkcaldy; how many applications the DVSA received for advertised driving test examiner vacancies in each of those areas in each of the last 12 months; and ( how many vacancies were successfully filled in each of those areas in each of those months.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Driving examiners (DE), based at Kirkcaldy driving test centre (DTC), are deployed between Dunfermline DTC and Kirkcaldy DTC to service demand.
There are test slots available to book at Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy within the booking window. There is sufficient resource to service demand at both test centres; therefore, there are no DE vacancies.
Asked by: Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many driving test appointment slots are available each week in (a) the Dunfermline and (b) the Kirkcaldy Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency test centre.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Based on demand, Dunfermline driving test centre operates 3 days per week, and Kirkcaldy operates 5 days per week.
On average, there are 78 driving test slots available per week at Dunfermline test centre, and 138 at Kirkcaldy. Driving examiners are deployed between the two test centres to balance out driving test waiting times.
The average waiting time for a practical car test at Dunfermline, and Kirkcaldy is 12 weeks, which is less than the current national average. As of 20 March 2023, there were 153 and 425 driving tests available at Dunfermline and Kirkaldy respectively.
Based on customer demand, 60 cities, out of 70, have permanent driving test centres. The ten that do not are listed below, alongside their nearest test centre. The only cities without a driving test centre within 15 miles are Wells and St Davids.
| Name of city that does not have a permanent driving test centre (DTC) | Name of nearest DTC |
| Bath | Bristol Kingswood |
| Brighton and Hove | Lancing |
| Dunfermline | Kirkcaldy |
| Ely | Cambridge (Brookmount Court) |
| Ripon | Knaresborough |
| Salford | Cheetham Hill |
| St Asaph (Llanelwy) | Rhyl |
| St Davids | Pembroke Dock |
| Truro | Camborne |
| Wells | Weston-Super-Mare |
Asked by: Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the average waiting time for a DVSA practical driving test was in (a) Dunfermline and (b) Kirkcaldy in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Based on demand, Dunfermline driving test centre operates 3 days per week, and Kirkcaldy operates 5 days per week.
On average, there are 78 driving test slots available per week at Dunfermline test centre, and 138 at Kirkcaldy. Driving examiners are deployed between the two test centres to balance out driving test waiting times.
The average waiting time for a practical car test at Dunfermline, and Kirkcaldy is 12 weeks, which is less than the current national average. As of 20 March 2023, there were 153 and 425 driving tests available at Dunfermline and Kirkaldy respectively.
Based on customer demand, 60 cities, out of 70, have permanent driving test centres. The ten that do not are listed below, alongside their nearest test centre. The only cities without a driving test centre within 15 miles are Wells and St Davids.
| Name of city that does not have a permanent driving test centre (DTC) | Name of nearest DTC |
| Bath | Bristol Kingswood |
| Brighton and Hove | Lancing |
| Dunfermline | Kirkcaldy |
| Ely | Cambridge (Brookmount Court) |
| Ripon | Knaresborough |
| Salford | Cheetham Hill |
| St Asaph (Llanelwy) | Rhyl |
| St Davids | Pembroke Dock |
| Truro | Camborne |
| Wells | Weston-Super-Mare |
Asked by: Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many cities do not have a full time DVSA driving test centre.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Based on demand, Dunfermline driving test centre operates 3 days per week, and Kirkcaldy operates 5 days per week.
On average, there are 78 driving test slots available per week at Dunfermline test centre, and 138 at Kirkcaldy. Driving examiners are deployed between the two test centres to balance out driving test waiting times.
The average waiting time for a practical car test at Dunfermline, and Kirkcaldy is 12 weeks, which is less than the current national average. As of 20 March 2023, there were 153 and 425 driving tests available at Dunfermline and Kirkaldy respectively.
Based on customer demand, 60 cities, out of 70, have permanent driving test centres. The ten that do not are listed below, alongside their nearest test centre. The only cities without a driving test centre within 15 miles are Wells and St Davids.
| Name of city that does not have a permanent driving test centre (DTC) | Name of nearest DTC |
| Bath | Bristol Kingswood |
| Brighton and Hove | Lancing |
| Dunfermline | Kirkcaldy |
| Ely | Cambridge (Brookmount Court) |
| Ripon | Knaresborough |
| Salford | Cheetham Hill |
| St Asaph (Llanelwy) | Rhyl |
| St Davids | Pembroke Dock |
| Truro | Camborne |
| Wells | Weston-Super-Mare |
Asked by: Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help (a) limit the average global temperature rise to 1.5 celsius, (b) address biodiversity decline by 2030, (c) protect nature and (d) decarbonise.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
At COP26, 197 Parties agreed to the Glasgow Climate Pact to urgently keep 1.5°C alive. We brought nature to the heart of the climate COP for the very first time, with more than 140 world leaders, representing 91 per cent of the world's forests, committing to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. At COP27, the UK Government continued to demonstrate leadership on nature and climate through new investments: the Secretary of State committed to £30 million of seed finance into the Big Nature Impact Fund, a new public-private fund for nature in the UK which will unlock significant private investment into nature projects. She (not he) also announced an additional £12 million investment in the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance to make marine biodiversity and vulnerable coastal communities more resilient, and a further £6 million in the UN’s Climate Promise programme to help developing countries achieve their climate commitments.
These steps build on a strong foundation of action and leadership by the UK, reducing our emissions by over 40% since 1990 while growing the economy by three quarters. Defra has a vital role to play in delivering the Government's Net Zero Strategy and ensuring nature-based solutions are a vital part of the climate agenda.
The UK will continue to lead globally on the road to the Convention on Biological Diversity COP15.2, hosted in Montreal, where we must secure agreement to halt and reverse biodiversity loss globally by 2030.The UK is committed to securing an ambitious outcome. We will continue to champion the protection of at least 30% of land and ocean globally, as the chair of the Global Ocean Alliance.
Responsibility for the domestic environment is devolved. However, in England, we are taking unprecedented steps to address biodiversity decline and protect nature, not least through our world leading Environment Act, which requires a new, legally binding target to be set in England to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030, and introduces Biodiversity Net Gain, Local Nature Recovery Strategies and a strengthened biodiversity duty on public authorities to work together to protect our native species.
Asked by: Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, how much the UK pavilion at the EXPO 2020 in Dubai cost to (a) design, (b) build and (c) maintain; and whether that pavilion is still being utilised to promote UK exports and trade.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The UK pavilion recorded 1.1 million visits. To note ‘visits’ does not necessarily equate to separate individuals, who may have visited more than once. The number of individual visitors is not known.
Although not directly comparable, for planning purposes, the UK at Expo 2020 anticipated 10% of overall visits to the wider Expo event which was based on visitor attendance at the previous Expo. The organisers of Expo in Dubai announced 24.1m actual visits, whilst the UK registered 1.1m, equating to 4.6%. Our assessment is that this was due to the much larger scale of the Dubai Expo, and the site configuration which resulted in less overall footfall past the UK Pavilion.
The number of business contacts was not set or captured as a key success metric.
The cost to design the pavilion was £2.83m. The cost to build and maintain was covered under one contract and therefore these costs are being finalised as decommissioning (including dismantling) of the pavilion has only recently been completed.
Asked by: Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, if she will make an estimate of the number of business contacts that were made at the UK pavilion during the EXPO 2020 in Dubai in each month of that event; and whether her Department adjusted its forecast of the number of business contacts that would be made during that event.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The UK pavilion recorded 1.1 million visits. To note ‘visits’ does not necessarily equate to separate individuals, who may have visited more than once. The number of individual visitors is not known.
Although not directly comparable, for planning purposes, the UK at Expo 2020 anticipated 10% of overall visits to the wider Expo event which was based on visitor attendance at the previous Expo. The organisers of Expo in Dubai announced 24.1m actual visits, whilst the UK registered 1.1m, equating to 4.6%. Our assessment is that this was due to the much larger scale of the Dubai Expo, and the site configuration which resulted in less overall footfall past the UK Pavilion.
The number of business contacts was not set or captured as a key success metric.
The cost to design the pavilion was £2.83m. The cost to build and maintain was covered under one contract and therefore these costs are being finalised as decommissioning (including dismantling) of the pavilion has only recently been completed.
Asked by: Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, if she will make an estimate of whether the number of people who attended the UK pavilion during the EXPO 2020 in Dubai was higher than her Department had anticipated in advance of that event.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The UK pavilion recorded 1.1 million visits. To note ‘visits’ does not necessarily equate to separate individuals, who may have visited more than once. The number of individual visitors is not known.
Although not directly comparable, for planning purposes, the UK at Expo 2020 anticipated 10% of overall visits to the wider Expo event which was based on visitor attendance at the previous Expo. The organisers of Expo in Dubai announced 24.1m actual visits, whilst the UK registered 1.1m, equating to 4.6%. Our assessment is that this was due to the much larger scale of the Dubai Expo, and the site configuration which resulted in less overall footfall past the UK Pavilion.
The number of business contacts was not set or captured as a key success metric.
The cost to design the pavilion was £2.83m. The cost to build and maintain was covered under one contract and therefore these costs are being finalised as decommissioning (including dismantling) of the pavilion has only recently been completed.
Asked by: Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, if he will make an estimate of the number of people who attended the UK pavilion during the EXPO 2020 in Dubai.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The UK pavilion recorded 1.1 million visits. To note ‘visits’ does not necessarily equate to separate individuals, who may have visited more than once. The number of individual visitors is not known.
Although not directly comparable, for planning purposes, the UK at Expo 2020 anticipated 10% of overall visits to the wider Expo event which was based on visitor attendance at the previous Expo. The organisers of Expo in Dubai announced 24.1m actual visits, whilst the UK registered 1.1m, equating to 4.6%. Our assessment is that this was due to the much larger scale of the Dubai Expo, and the site configuration which resulted in less overall footfall past the UK Pavilion.
The number of business contacts was not set or captured as a key success metric.
The cost to design the pavilion was £2.83m. The cost to build and maintain was covered under one contract and therefore these costs are being finalised as decommissioning (including dismantling) of the pavilion has only recently been completed.
Asked by: Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he is taking steps to agree a reciprocal arrangement for (a) pilot and (b) engineer licences with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Whilst the UK/EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement provisions on aviation safety provide a framework under which arrangements for the reciprocal recognition of personnel licences could be agreed, the EU has indicated that it is not currently minded to enter into discussions on this issue.