Driving test wait time target pushed back to autumn 2026, says Transport Secretary

The Transport Secretary has admitted that the target to reduce driving test waiting times to seven weeks will not be met until autumn next year, as the average wait currently stands at nearly 22 weeks. Heidi Alexander told MPs on Wednesday that she understood people's frustrations, but insisted demand remained “very high” and that there was still “a lot of work to do”. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the typical wait was about five weeks. The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency had initially aimed to bring the average down to seven weeks by the end of 2025. Alexander pushed that deadline back to summer 2026 last November, but now even that has slipped further. The backlog has prompted a series of changes to the booking system aimed at cracking down on touts who resell test slots at inflated prices. A BBC investigation in December found that some driving instructors were being offered kickbacks of up to £250 a month to sell their login details to resellers. Since the end of March, learners have been limited to making only two changes to a booked slot, such as the date or test centre location. From 12 May, only pupils themselves have been able to book tests – a move that stopped instructors from booking on their behalf. And from 9 June, anyone wanting to move their test can only switch to the three centres closest to their original booking, a measure designed to stop learners booking the soonest available slot anywhere and then swapping it to a more convenient location. Alexander told MPs it was too early to draw firm conclusions, but said there was already evidence of less speculative booking. “The volume of test swaps has gone down by 70%,” she said. On the challenge of recruiting and retaining driving examiners, Alexander said there had been a net increase of 147 examiners in the 12 months to May. “My aspiration is to get us back down to a point where when someone is booking a test, they're not having to wait months on end to get one, which is the situation for some people in some locations at the moment,” she added. The BBC has repeatedly heard from learner drivers frustrated by the difficulty of booking tests when and where they need them. Some have ended up buying slots from resellers who charge many times the official cost of taking a driving test.