Speeches by Greenwood.

“The regions are split by four zones. Zone A is Scotland and north-east England, and the average waiting time is 17.1 weeks before you get to 10% of available slots. In Zone B, which is Wales and north-west England, it is 16.8. In Zone C, which is midlands and south-west England, it is 21.4. In Zone D, London and south-…”

“Emma, you are probably best placed to talk about that because it pre-dates me being in post.”

“It is clear to me that industrial relations have not always been where I would want them to be as a Minister responsible for holding DVSA to account. I want us to be able to recruit and retain driving examiners. They are the people who provide the tests. I really appreciate the hard work that they do, and we want them …”

“From my perspective, no one should be subject to abuse and assault at work, and we absolutely have to take action to address that. It was an interesting suggestion in the first session that potentially you could reduce it by not giving people their result at the end of their test verbally but by emailing them afterward…”

“One of the big changes is recruiting more driving examiners and absolutely ramping that up. There is always going to be an attrition rate in any role. You recruit people and some people leave. We need to make sure that the numbers that we are recruiting are significantly higher so that we see a net increase in the numb…”

“Not without increasing the pay of other people on the equivalent grade.”

“Loveday can speak to this. It is not that people are not applying for the jobs. People are applying for them. There is quite a high drop-out rate between someone coming for interview and starting the training process and actually becoming a driving examiner. A question for me is whether we are getting the right people.…”

“I don’t think that is correct.”

“To come back to the broader point and then to yours, Catherine, as the Chair said, in terms of supply, increasing the supply of tests is the most important, and that is going to be achieved through recruiting and retaining more driving examiners and providing more tests—some of that is asking people to work overtime an…”

“Sorry, the past target?”

“It is particularly difficult in London and the south-east, where obviously wage rates are higher, so it is more difficult to entice people to become driving examiners. Those are quite shocking figures—to go from people who express an interest and apply for the job to people who actually end up working in the job. I wan…”

“There is a really big question about whether it would be appropriate that someone could be a driving instructor and a driving examiner, and it would require primary legislation to change it. It is one of the things that could be considered as part of an overall package of measures.”

“There is a problem with that in that the legislation specifically says that you cannot be both a driving examiner and a driving instructor.”

“It is fair to say as well—Loveday can correct me if not—that because the DVSA’s IT system is relatively old, as we already discussed earlier in the session, there is an intention to have an improved technology system, which might allow further protection measures to be put in place. If you log on to—I don’t know if thi…”

“The current target, as you heard earlier, is in the previous business plan, which is to reduce waiting times to seven weeks. It is clear that the DVSA is not going to reach that by the end of this year. You could talk some more, Loveday, about the measures that you have put in place to try to get us towards that. Obvio…”

“We welcome that, Chair. From our perspective, it has been a really useful session. As I said at the start, this is a priority. We want to fix it. It is not an acceptable situation for your constituents who are waiting, and we want it to change. This has certainly been helpful for us. It is useful scrutiny and plays a v…”

“It feels very strange.”

“Lilian Greenwood, Minister for the future of roads.”

“Thank you, Chair, and Committee members. I am pleased that the Committee is doing this work. It is really helpful. Waiting times for car practical driving tests are far too long. I spend a lot of time replying to letters from Members of Parliament on behalf of their constituents, and they are right to be raising it. Th…”

“First of all, on behalf of our Department and the DVSA, yes, I am really sorry that learner drivers are facing that problem. It is not a situation that anyone would want to encounter. As we heard in the earlier session, this is something that is really important to people. For many people it can be the thing that allow…”