1. To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many individuals of each country of origin were deported from the UK in each of the last 12 months.
Hansard source (Citation: HC Deb, 16 September 2010, c1214W)
Damian Green (Minister of State (Immigration), Home Office; Ashford, Conservative)
The table showing the number of removals and voluntary departures from the United Kingdom, by country of nationality from July 2009 to June 2010 will be placed in the Library of the House.
The Home Office publishes statistics on the number of persons removed or departed voluntarily from the UK on a quarterly and annual basis. These publications are available from the Library of the House and from the Home Office’s Research, Development and Statistics website at:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigration-asylum-stats.html
Hansard source (Citation: HC Deb, 16 September 2010, c1236W)
2. To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent representations he has received from representatives of disability organisations on proposed changes to the driving test; and what representations he has received on making provision for those with special needs to enable them to take the test.
Michael Penning (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Roads and Motoring), Transport; Hemel Hempstead, Conservative)
The British Dyslexia Association (BDA) made representations in summer 2010 regarding the introduction of ‘independent driving’ in to the practical driving test. The Driving Standards Agency (DSA) has also received similar written representations from driving instructors who teach candidates with special learning needs. The agency then worked BDA to ensure that implementation arrangements will not discriminate against candidates with dyslexia.
As part of reforming the way that people learn to drive and are tested, we are introducing, from 4 October, an assessment of a candidate’s ability to drive safely and make decisions independently (known as Independent Driving), to mirror what they will have to do once they have passed their test.
When developing proposals for independent driving DSA commissioned the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) to conduct the independent trials, which included non-English speaking participants and participants with a disability. The majority of the participants perceived the independent driving exercises to be socially inclusive, but the participants who considered themselves dyslexic reported that they had found the independent driving exercises more challenging.
DSA took into account potential difficulties that these groups may face when designing the independent driving tasks and further engaged with the BDA, who advised on the formatting of the supporting diagrams.
The methods adopted to help dyslexic candidates perform the independent driving task will also be useful for candidates with learning difficulties, especially if they have difficulties in reading or following a sequence of instructions.
