Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to offer support towards the cost of obtaining a Driver Certificate of Professional Competence for those people interested in (a) returning to and (b) taking up driving a lorry, bus, or coach professionally.

Responsibility for planning and completing the necessary training in order to meet Driver Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC) requirements lies with individual drivers and their employers. In some circumstances, employers might decide to support the driver financially to undertake the training. The cost of periodic training courses charged to the driver is decided by approved centres and determined by commercial factors.

Many employers are currently offering training packages to support drivers whose Driver CPC has lapsed to update their training through classroom or online courses. Heavy goods vehicle (HGV) licence holders, who are currently unemployed or are in receipt of Universal Credit can, at the discretion of local Department for Work (DWP) advisors, access the DWP Flexible Support Fund to renew their Driver CPC.

The Department for Education is also investing up to £10 million pounds to create new ‘Skills Bootcamps’ to train up to 5,000 people to become HGV drivers. These free, intensive courses will train drivers to be road ready and gain a category C or category C+E licence, helping to tackle the current HGV driver shortage.

An additional 1,000 people are expected to be trained through courses accessed locally and funded by the government’s adult education budget. To help make sure new drivers can be road ready as quickly as possible, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has also agreed to ensure that driving tests will be available for participants who have completed training courses as soon as possible.