Forcing Government staff to work from their offices will not cut driving test waiting times, a transport minister has said.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill told peers that working from an office is “the one thing that driving examiners can’t do”, after Conservative peer Lord Hannan of Kingsclere accused the Government of a “state failure” since Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns began in 2020.
Conservative peer Lord Young of Cookham had earlier complained that “middlemen are hoovering up slots on the DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency) website and then charging learner drivers a premium to access them” by selling them on.
He asked the minister on Monday: “Why doesn’t the Government just get on with this and ban this racket?”
Lord Hendy said the Government would make changes at a pace “so that we don’t inadvertently make it more difficult for legitimate people looking for tests to book them”.
He told peers that “tougher terms and conditions” for test bookings came in on January 6, and added the Government is recruiting 450 extra driving examiners in a bid to reduce waiting times from almost 21 weeks to seven by the end of December this year.
This is on top of the existing 1,456 full-time equivalent posts, and the first tranche of new recruits is “about to start doing driving tests”.
Lord Hendy replied from the despatch box: “The same reason as you didn’t.”
He said that a “quarter of total test bookings had been swapped from one licence to another” and added “driving instructors can apply for a test for one pupil and then transfer it to another if the second pupil is making faster progress than the first”.
Lord Hendy continued: “And that’s how it should be.
“The number of people going through these agencies is clearly more than zero, and since it is, we should do something about it.
“But we have to do that in a way which doesn’t prevent driving instructors from running decent businesses and also allows people to change their bookings when they need to.”
Lord Hannan told the Lords: “Secondary markets almost always develop as a consequence of state failure and this is no exception.
“We all know people, I have two children who have been affected by this, and the state failure began, the explosion in these websites began with lockdown.
“Isn’t the ultimate answer to get these and indeed other Government employees to come back to the office?”
To laughter, Lord Hendy said: “The one thing that driving examiners can’t do is work in an office.
“And I think that must be self-evident and the real answer to this whole issue is to reduce the amount of time it takes from an application for a test to the test to occur.”
