Large Goods Vehicle Drivers: Driving Tests

(asked on 8th July 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment has he made of the waiting times for HGV driving licence tests; and whether he has plans to take steps to reduce them.


Answered by
Rachel Maclean Portrait
Rachel Maclean
This question was answered on 13th July 2021

The suspension of routine vocational testing as a result of the pandemic has created an inevitable backlog. The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) is doing all it can to increase the number of vocational tests available and has put in place a number of measures to do this.

These include offering overtime 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, and conducting out of hours testing (such as on public holidays and weekends). This has increased the overall number of vocational test slots made available to around 3,000 per week.

The DVSA will be launching a recruitment campaign to increase the number of HGV examiners. It will also continue its training programme to enable more examiners to conduct vocational tests.

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