Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent steps he has taken to increase the speed with which HGV licence applications are processed; how many additional staff have been hired by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in the last six months; what assessment he has made of the average time applicants must wait for a substantive response to correspondence; and if he will make a statement.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) is prioritising applications for vocational driving licences, including those for HGV entitlement. There is no backlog for provisional vocational licences and these are being processed within the normal turnaround time of five working days. The DVLA has significantly increased the processing of vocational licence renewals and has moved more staff into this area. Given this, the DVLA expects to be processing applications for both provisional vocational licences and renewals within normal turnaround times by early November. The large majority of those applying to renew an HGV licence can continue driving while their application is being processed.

In the last six months the DVLA has employed 180 new staff and is currently recruiting more.

Information about the average time taken to reply to correspondence is not available.