Speeches by Atkinson.

“Thank you. This leads quite nicely from what you were saying. I have a few questions on electrification to begin with. What is your assessment as to why Great Britain has been so slow to electrify its network?”

“My concern is that I stopped you telling us more about what you were doing when it came to operational skills and more workforce for future drivers. We didn’t get into that.”

“From what you said, though, the only role that GBR will have is providing clarity, as opposed to more actively looking at the kinds of skills that are needed and how we ensure that the training is in place for that.”

“I am certainly keen to understand more about operational skills, but could I come back to manufacturing skills? There is not a rail-related industry that I go to that does not talk about its real concerns about skills going forward. You mentioned the private sector being able to plan for that. Will GBR not have a role …”

“As a Derby MP, the damage done by boom and bust is something that I am very familiar with. How can we ensure that when it comes to their supply chains we are really encouraging and enforcing the use of British talent and British jobs to provide the work that they need further down the supply chain?”

“Bus cuts are absolutely devastating for the woman I spoke to who could not get her weekly shop, the young man I met who had to leave for work hours early to try to get multiple buses, and the husband who could not get a bus to the care home his wife was in. Since 2008, the east midlands has suffered bus cuts of 60%—mor…”

“At the Excel parking on Copeland Street in Derby, some residents are getting parking fines if they do not pay for their parking within five minutes. I am pleased that the Government will drive up standards in the private parking sector and are on the side of motorists. Could we have an update from a Local Government Mi…”

“Can that be explored to see what would need to change?”

“You’ve raised four particular areas: pay, travel to different test centres, forced weekend working and the culture and pressure. In relation to the 130 that we see being lost annually, what do you think the main issue is for them? Is there an order to those concerns?”

“You were talking about the possibilities of instructors doing part-time examining. You said there were some regulatory obstructions to that. Is it regulatory?”

“There is an element of them being paid less and having to travel further.”

“Examiners. It is about whether or not we can encourage more instructors to do part-time examining to be able to fill the void. What are your thoughts on how that could be encouraged and whether or not there are barriers to that encouragement?”

“I will probably be directing my questions more to the DVSA and Loveday. We have been told that we have an examiner attrition rate of approximately 130 examiners per year. Why do you feel you cannot retain examiners, and what are you doing to improve that retention?”

“Your DVSA 2023-24 business plan said that you would be asking your “people and external experts to help us shape our employee value proposition, (our offer), to attract and retain the best people to deliver our vision.” In terms of the people we have heard evidence from already, there is some concern about who you have…”

“The point is that you were going to speak to your own people and others about your offer, about what was going to be attractive in order to recruit and retain.”

“It sounds like you have a particular issue with examiners and being able to speak to examiners, and therefore to PCS. Certainly the evidence we have had today is that it sounds like that interaction has not been as open and full, or the learning that it posed has not been taken on board as much as it could have been.”

“The staff satisfaction level on pay and benefits is only 15%, so it feels that there is a lot more discussion that needs to be happening to try to ensure that lessons are being learnt to increase that. We were specifically told about pay and culture, and not being paid extra for weekends or recompensed for having to do…”

“Acknowledging the intention that you set out, if it seems to be having the opposite impact, and we are still facing really difficult attrition rates, at what point do you look at it again and decide that maybe it was not the best direction to go in, and change your mind?”

“That was my question.”

“There was a suggestion about trying to increase the number of those who are part-time instructor, part-time examiner. Is that something you are looking at? As a follow-on, what more can be done about addressing the drop-out rate?”