§ 14. Mr. Freudasked the Secretary of State for Transport what is the current waiting time for a driving test in Cam bridgeshire; and how this compares with the position in Great Britain as a whole.
§ Mr. FreudThe House will welcome the fact that the waiting time has not increased since the Minister answered question No. 10. Sixteen weeks is fractionally better than the average. As the Government are in the business of job creation, will the Minister consider appointing more examiners? Is he aware of the abuse of the procedure by driving instructors and driving schools, which manage to circumvent or cheat on the waiting lists? What will he do about that?
§ Mr. HoramI shall certainly look into any allegations which the hon. Gentleman can substantiate. I should be interested to do so in the general public interest. With regard to recruiting more examiners, we are about 400 under complement. We have about 140 trained examiners. It takes about six months to train examiners from the time the advertisement appears in the newspapers. About 140 have come into the ranks, which leaves roughly 260 to go. We are recruiting steadily.