Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Mid Buckinghamshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 21 April 2026 to Question 124880, what proportion of completed applications resulted in (a) interview invitations, (b) driving assessments, (c) appointments to training courses and (d) successful qualification as a driving examiner in each recruitment campaign listed.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The table below provides updated data, where possible, for the recruitment campaigns listed in the Answer, 21 April 2026, to Question 124880. This data is again broken down by the total completed applications received, the number of applicants invited to interview, the number of applicants invited to the driving assessment stage, applicants recruited and placed on a training course and how many applicants successfully passed training.
Campaign date | Total completed applications received | No of applicants invited to interview stage | No of applicants invited to driving assessment stage after a successful interview | No of applicants recruited and placed on a training course | No of applicants that successfully passed a training course |
May-23 | 655 | 432 [Note 1] | 432 [Note 1] | 79 | 62 |
Sep-23 | 1,168 | 718 | 152 | 53 | 40 |
Feb-24 | 2,629 | 1,578 | 273 | 79 | 62 |
Jun-24 | 1,816 | 1,207 | 501 | 175 | 125 |
Sep-24 | 2,248 | 1,460 | 479 | 191 | 142 |
Mar-25 | 3,865 | 2,388 | 361 | [Note 2] | [Note 2] |
Jul-25 | 1,182 | 602 | 267 | 101 | 77 |
Sep-25 | 2,676 | 1,658 | 380 | [Note 2] | [Note 2] |
Dec-25 | 3,409 | 1,014 | 504 | [Note 2] | [Note 2] |
Feb-26 | 1,141 | 777 | 388 | [Note 2] | [Note 2] |
[note 1] - No of applicants invited to interview and driving assessment are the same as this was an assessment centre.
[note 2] – The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) continue to recruit from merit lists for these live recruitment campaigns. The final numbers for the recruitment campaigns shown are therefore not yet known.
DVSA continues to run recruitment campaigns for new driving examiners (DE). DE numbers are at their highest level since November 2017.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Mid Buckinghamshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has received all data returns from the forces who participated in the pilot of the freight crime recording flag, and if she will published the assessment of the effectiveness of the pilot.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office have conducted a pilot initiative within a small number of police forces, which trialled the use of a hashtag to identify freight-related offences within their crime reporting systems.
This approach aimed to improve visibility and tracking of freight crime. The pilot has now finished and data from the forces who participated in the pilot has been returned.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Mid Buckinghamshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will publish a list of legislative and statutory requirements that apply to the planning and construction of railways.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Railways may be authorised and constructed by:
Various impact assessment requirements would be incorporated into these consenting regimes. General planning legislation, under the Town and Country Planning Act 1992, may still be relevant for related development or where railways are altered or constructed on existing railway undertakers’ land in reliance on permitted development rights.
The construction of railways would be subject to the requirements of general legislation on construction and some specific railways legislation and regulation, for example:
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Mid Buckinghamshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 6 July 2026 to Question 13947 on Road Traffic Accidents: Minibuses, how many casualties in reported road traffic collisions involving a minibus, where a contributory factor was attributed to the minibus driver, were (a) fatalities, (b) seriously injured and (c) slightly injured in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The number of casualties in reported road traffic collisions in Great Britain, as reported by the police using the STATS19 system, with a contributory or road safety factor attributed to a minibus driver, broken down by severity, are shown in the table below. These figures include only collisions where police attended the scene and at least one factor was recorded.
Year | Killed | Serious | Slight |
2016 | 6 | 50 | 283 |
2017 | 2 | 44 | 250 |
2018 | 13 | 45 | 202 |
2019 | 0 | 34 | 204 |
2020 | 3 | 22 | 91 |
2021 | 4 | 26 | 89 |
2022 | 2 | 41 | 143 |
2023 | 2 | 39 | 153 |
2024 | 5 | 34 | 151 |
2025 | 2 | 49 | 136 |
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Mid Buckinghamshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 7 August 2026 to Question 18174 on Government Communication Service: Staff, how many full-time equivalent staff in the central Department for Transport were members of the Government Communication Service on 4 July 2024.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
For the 2024 Government Communication Service annual data collection return, the central Department for Transport reported 99.01 full-time equivalent staff headcount who are members of the Government Communication Service.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Mid Buckinghamshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he next plans to visit (a) HMP Springhill and (b) HMP Grendon.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
There are no current plans to visit HMP Springhill and HMP Grendon.
Should any visits take place at HMP Grendon/Springhill, the MP for the constituency will be notified.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Mid Buckinghamshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate her Department has made of the long-term maintenance costs incurred by local authorities as a result of active travel infrastructure funded by Active Travel England.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The government is providing £7.3 billion of capital funding for local highway maintenance between 2026/27 and 2029/30 for transport authorities to maintain and improve local highways, including walking and cycling routes. This can be used to maintain schemes funded by Active Travel England, who have additionally made specific maintenance funding available to authorities as part of the wider Active Travel Fund, as follows: £48 million in 2024/25 and £128 million per year from 2025/26 to 2029/30. Authorities can choose to use this funding for new schemes or maintenance of existing schemes.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Mid Buckinghamshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether sensitivity analysis or assessment of how consultation outcomes varied by respondent category was provided to Ministers before the changes to the driving test booking system announced on 12 May 2026 were approved.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) published details of the consultation methodology, respondent breakdowns and analysis in its response to the consultation, which is available on GOV.UK.
The consultation received 102,224 responses and 68 responses by email. Following data cleaning, 8,803 responses identified as automated or bot-generated were removed before analysis. The published methodology explains the process used to identify and remove duplicate, automated and incompatible responses.
Ministers were provided with analysis of consultation responses, including how views differed between respondent groups, before decisions on changes to the driving test booking system were taken.
As the methodology, respondent breakdowns and consultation analysis have already been published on GOV.UK, the Department has no plans to place additional material in the House of Commons Library.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Mid Buckinghamshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what criteria were used in analysing responses to the consultation on changes to the driving test booking system to identify and remove (a) duplicate, (b) automated or bot-generated and (c) otherwise incompatible responses.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) published details of the consultation methodology, respondent breakdowns and analysis in its response to the consultation, which is available on GOV.UK.
The consultation received 102,224 responses and 68 responses by email. Following data cleaning, 8,803 responses identified as automated or bot-generated were removed before analysis. The published methodology explains the process used to identify and remove duplicate, automated and incompatible responses.
Ministers were provided with analysis of consultation responses, including how views differed between respondent groups, before decisions on changes to the driving test booking system were taken.
As the methodology, respondent breakdowns and consultation analysis have already been published on GOV.UK, the Department has no plans to place additional material in the House of Commons Library.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Mid Buckinghamshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether she will place in the House of Commons Library the analytical tables, methodology and respondent-type breakdowns underpinning the consultation on changes to the driving test booking system.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) published details of the consultation methodology, respondent breakdowns and analysis in its response to the consultation, which is available on GOV.UK.
The consultation received 102,224 responses and 68 responses by email. Following data cleaning, 8,803 responses identified as automated or bot-generated were removed before analysis. The published methodology explains the process used to identify and remove duplicate, automated and incompatible responses.
Ministers were provided with analysis of consultation responses, including how views differed between respondent groups, before decisions on changes to the driving test booking system were taken.
As the methodology, respondent breakdowns and consultation analysis have already been published on GOV.UK, the Department has no plans to place additional material in the House of Commons Library.