For a lot of young people, learning to drive is taking longer, costing more and further out of reach than ever before.

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In many parts of the country driving is not a luxury. It is simply how you get to work, college, training or even just see friends. When learning to drive becomes harder, it closes doors for people.

For years Labour and the Tories have left the system to fail. The test backlog has grown, costs have risen and the system cannot keep up with demand. At the Liberal Democrats’ Spring Conference in York, we revealed our plan to fix this.

First, tackle the driving test backlog. The average wait time for a practical driving test is nearly 6 months. That means learners have to keep paying for extra lessons while they wait.

Expanding DVSA testing capacity would make a real difference. Recruiting more examiners and improving access to test centres where appointments are hardest to find would bring waiting times down and get the system working properly again.

Cost is another big barrier. Most learners need forty to fifty hours of lessons, which on average costs more than £1,500 before you even book a test.

Our plan includes a Young Drivers Support Fund to help low-income young people and disabled learners with the cost of lessons and tests. Learning to drive should not depend on whether your family can afford it.

But passing the test is often only the first hurdle. Insurance premiums for under-25s can exceed £2,000 a year, leaving many young drivers with only one affordable option: ‘black box’ policies that track how they drive.

That is why the plan also tackles insurance. Pricing needs to be far more transparent and excessive age-based price multipliers need to be addressed so young drivers are not priced off the road.

Where insurers use black boxes, drivers should have clear rights over how their data is used and genuine alternatives.

The booking system needs to work for learners, not for people trying to make a profit. Bots and resellers are grabbing test slots the moment they appear and selling them on at inflated prices.

Learners, who are already facing long waits and huge costs, end up paying far above the official test fee just to get an earlier appointment.

Our plan blocks this by adding proper anti-bot protections, linking bookings to individual learners and cracking down on reselling so test appointments go to the people who actually need them.

Public transport must improve too - and Liberal Democrats have ambitious plans to bring our public transport into the 21st century after years of neglect under the former Conservative government.

But for millions of people, especially outside big cities, driving is still the only practical way to get around.If we want young people to be able to make the most of education and work opportunities, we need to make learning to drive accessible again.

Written by Mackenzie Gregory - Young Liberals

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