Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking with the DVLA to reduce driving test wait times in Sunderland Central.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) is taking action to reduce waiting times in Sunderland Central and across Great Britain. This includes recruiting and training more driving examiners (DEs), providing additional tests through overtime and targeting examiner capacity where demand is greatest. DVSA has also strengthened booking rules to tackle misuse and improve access to appointments for learner drivers.

DVSA is actively recruiting DEs for Sunderland through its current recruitment campaign. It has also transferred two DEs from another centre to conduct driving tests at Sunderland, and one potential new DE from recent recruitment in Sunderland is due to begin training. A full-time DE can provide approximately 1,200 tests a year.

DVSA publishes detailed data on car driving test waiting times to help learners better understand the availability of driving tests. Waiting-time data for individual driving test centres is available on GOV.UK in table DRT122F.