Department delays provisional licence crackdown until driver testing system clears backlog

Plans for a crackdown on motorists who’ve held provisional licences for years and sometimes decades have been delayed over fears of a knock-on effect on waiting lists for driving tests.

A detailed briefing from the Department of Transport said any dramatic change on how many learner permits a person could hold was likely to lead to “a surge of applications”.

Officials warned this would end up “causing extra stress on the already overburdened testing system”, according to records they released.

The briefing added: “That is why it is so important for the testing capacity to get back to service level agreements [a ten-week maximum wait] before the changes can be announced.”

At the time the document was prepared late last year, there were more than 230,000 holders of learner permits who had not taken a test.

This included up to 32,000 people who were on a third or subsequent provisional licence and hadn’t sat their driving test.

The briefing said: “However, there were…

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