HC Deb 16 May 1956 vol 552 cc1993-4
41. Mr. Collins

asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation for the latest convenient twelve-month period, the percentage of applicants for driving tests who satisfied examiners at their first test, and the percentage of applicants who failed on two or more occasions.

Mr. Molson

We do not keep comprehensive records showing the number of driving test candidates who pass at the first or second attempt, or subsequently. A sample check taken in 1954, however, indicated that 55 per cent. of candidates passed at their first attempt.

Mr. Collins

Is the Minister satisfied that standards of inspection between different inspectors and different areas are as uniform as they could be? To remove misapprehension, will he make the fact more widely known that more than one person out of every two passes the test at the first attempt?

Mr. Molson

It is obviously impossible to be absolutely certain that the standards of a very large number of examiners are entirely the same. We have, however, an arrangement by which the work of the different examiners is supervised, and we hope in that way to ensure that there is a fairly uniform standard all over the country. As to the fact that more than half the candidates pass at the first attempt, I hope that the Question that the hon. Member has put to me will have the effect of giving publicity to it.