At Richard's town hall meeting in Kings Reach, Biggleswade earlier this summer, a constituent who is a driving instructor spoke about there still being a 6-8 month backlog on tests, which he believed was at least, in part, down to low examiner recruitment.
Richard has raised this issue of driving test backlogs with the Department for Transport on several occasions: on 6 December 2024; 11 March 2025 and again on 9 April 2025, pressing for urgent action both nationally and within our local area. While the Department has acknowledged the problem, the pace of progress has been far too slow.
Richard Fuller MP said:
Following the interaction at the town hall meeting, I agreed to write again to the Minister responsible to put this point to her and have received the attached response.
I appreciate recruitment and training of driver examiners cannot happen overnight. Nevertheless, I fear the injection of 200 new examiners will struggle to make much of a dent in the waiting times that applicants are having to endure.
I would also like to see greater alacrity on addressing the unscrupulous practice of tests being booked in advance and then upsold at a higher cost. People shouldn't be able to circumvent the system in this way and people certainly shouldn't be able to profit from people's desperation to have a test.
The current system is under significant strain. The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) operates a 24-week forward booking window, but despite this, many learners are still struggling to secure timely appointments. While the DVSA has a target to offer 95% of candidates a theory test appointment within 28 days, it’s clear that the practical test backlog remains a serious issue.
The Labour Government outlined a number of measures to address this, including recruiting new examiners, extending the cancellation notice period, and reviewing booking rules to prevent the resale of test slots. However, despite these announcements, waiting times have reached record highs and the Government says it does not expect to meet its own seven-week target until summer 2026.
This is simply not good enough. Learner drivers and their families are being let down by a system that is not keeping pace with demand. The Government must do more, and do it faster, to ensure fair access to driving tests and to crack down on the exploitation of the system by third-party resellers and bots.
The Minister's letter can be read here.
