Lib Dems call for probe into claims test touts are paying driving instructors

Ministers have been urged to launch an investigation into claims touts are paying driving instructors for access to the official test-booking system.

An investigation by the BBC found instructors were being offered £250 a month for login details that touts could use to block-book driving tests and sell them on to learners.

Block-booking is said to contribute to the large driving test backlog, forcing learners to wait months for a test or pay significantly more than the normal £75 fee to book a test through a tout.

The Government recently announced a series of measures aimed at cutting the backlog, including a ban on driving instructors booking tests on behalf of others.

But the Liberal Democrats have urged ministers to go further, calling the findings of the BBC investigation “appalling, but unfortunately not surprising”.

Lib Dem transport spokesman Olly Glover said: “I have been contacted by some Oxfordshire constituents who have had to book tests hundreds of miles away as the only way to beat this failing system.

“Many others have to pay hundreds of pounds to buy driving test slots from the middlemen that are exploiting young people.

“The Government needs to get a grip on this issue, and they can start by launching a full investigation into these touts, to establish the scale of this problem and hold those responsible accountable.”

The BBC also reported that an Oxfordshire driving instructor wrote to the outgoing chief executive of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), Loveday Ryder, setting out evidence of payments by touts.

But the instructor, Peter Brooks, said “nothing has ever happened” as a result.

The DVSA announced last month that Ms Ryder was stepping down after almost five years at the head of the organisation amid concerns about the mounting test backlog.Shortly after the announcement, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told the Commons Transport Committee that she would be “looking to the new leadership” to “really get a grip on the issue of driving test wait times” as a “top priority” for the DVSA.

DVSA figures show the number of learner drivers in Britain with a future test booking, a key indicator of the backlog, stood at 642,000 at the end of October.

This was around 70,000 more than in October 2024 and well above the 220,000 recorded just before the start of the pandemic in 2020.

Ms Alexander is understood to have made cutting the backlog a major priority for her department.

Last month, she announced that military driving instructors would be brought in to provide 6,500 extra tests over the next year.

She has also committed to changing the rules on test bookings, requiring them to be booked by learners rather than instructors, limiting the number of times a test can be rearranged and preventing tests from being moved to other parts of the country.