Freddie van Mierlo

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Parliament's party history for this member: Liberal Democrat (4 Jul 2024 – present).

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1. 3 Nov 2026·Parliament·Freddie van Mierlo

   Community Transport Services: Minibus Drivers

   I would like to start by talking about FISH, although not the aquatic kind, you will be pleased to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, given the topic of this debate. FISH stands for Friends in Sickness and Health. It is a wonderful charity in the village of Sonning Common in my constituency. Among other things, its volunteers run a minibus service for older residents and residents with disabilities to enable them to more easily get around the villages in my area. Their minibuses are perfect for providing people who would otherwise really struggle to leave the house with a trip out to the shops or to the market. Morrisons, I am told, remains ever popular, and the extra space on the bus is vital for bringing back all the shopping. FISH are not alone either in my constituency. Henley HandyBus, supported by Henley town council, operates daily, and the Woodcote Volunteers host events, providing transport to their monthly tea parties. But it was Sonning Common’s FISH group that brought to my attention the issue of D1 licences when we met in October here in Westminster. The Minister is likely to be familiar with the issue, but I will briefly describe it in the words used to explain it to me.  A category D1 licence gives a driver permission to drive a minibus with up to 16 passengers and weighing up to 7.5 tonnes. Prior to 1997, all new licences were issued with this category as standard. In 1997, that changed, and now D1 minibus driving licences require an additional test. This happened for a very understandable reason—to enhance safety—and it brought us in line with other similar countries, but it also created a problem.   Community transport services have become dependent on an ever-decreasing pool of drivers who qualified prior to 1997. Madam Deputy Speaker, I am confident that means that neither you, the Minister or I have D1 licences. The reality is that more than half of community transport operators report having insufficient D1 drivers to meet demand. According to the Community Transport Association, 81% of community transport operators are not confident that they will have enough D1 drivers to sustain their services in as little as three years’ time.  What is even worse is that once a driver gets to the age of 70, they automatically lose their D1 category licence unless they apply to retain it, and they must do that every three years. Again, that is for very understandable and sensible safety reasons, but the upshot is that 99% of all D1 licences in Great Britain are held by drivers in a narrow age band of 47 to 69.

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2. 3 Nov 2026·Parliament·Freddie van Mierlo

   Community Transport Services: Minibus Drivers

   The hon. Gentleman mentions D1 licences and a wider range of issues that face community transport organisations, and I am sure that the Minister will have heard his points.

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3. 3 Nov 2026·Parliament·Freddie van Mierlo

   Community Transport Services: Minibus Drivers

   I thank my hon. Friend for her very sensible intervention. My own local authority in Oxfordshire also heavily supports community transport organisations. I am sure that her proposals were heard by the Minister. Over the next five years, more than 3 million D1 licences are likely to be lost as drivers reach 70—equivalent to one in five of all D1 licences. We are therefore facing a ticking time bomb as qualified drivers age out at the top and are not replenished enough from below.  Without decisive action from the Government, there will be serious concerns for the future viability of community transport.

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4. 3 Nov 2026·Parliament·Freddie van Mierlo

   Community Transport Services: Minibus Drivers

   I thank my hon. Friend for that addition to the debate. I was aware of the costs, which I will come on to, but I had not been made aware previously of the distance that some drivers may need to travel to carry out a test. That would be an additional barrier to enabling volunteers to do what they love doing most. Madam Deputy Speaker, you might reasonably ask, “Why don’t people just take the test?” A test is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask someone driving 7.5 tonnes of fast-moving metal to pass—we accept that; no one is disputing it—but it is how difficult and how costly that test is that matters. How proportionate is the test to the social benefits of community transport? How easy are we making it for people who want to do good in their community, giving up their time for others, to do so? If we make it too difficult, they will just say, “What’s the point?” and move on to something else. At the moment, drivers must pass an additional theory test, a practical test and a medical assessment, all to the tune of up to £2,000. Setting a cost of up to £2,000 might make sense in terms of passing on the administrative costs of the testing regime to the customer. I can see how we might have got to that point rationally. The Minister may be able to confirm whether a profit is made on the testing regime; if that is the case, I ask him to look into that. I argue that the social and economic benefit of having more minibus drivers able to run local community services should be taken into account.

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5. 3 Nov 2026·Parliament·Freddie van Mierlo

   Community Transport Services: Minibus Drivers

   I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which highlights just how widespread the issue is and how keenly it is felt in all corners of the country. Rural constituencies like mine rely on volunteer transport to plug the gap between private motor vehicle usage and commercial for-profit bus companies. Many rural routes are not profit making and have no hope of being so. The alternative is clear: if we let community transport die a slow death, we will see more social isolation, with all the health and social care costs associated with that. We will also see councils come under pressure to step in with taxpayer-funded schemes and subsidies. At a time when the Government have cut my local authority’s funding, it is hard to see how that can happen. Why should it when we have a pool of people willing to volunteer? For the volunteers, it is rewarding work that gives meaning to people’s lives, providing an opportunity to give back and be part of something really special. I put on the record my sincere gratitude for all the hard work that volunteers put in every day and the contribution they make. Two of those wonderful volunteers are John Pearman, the FISH transport co-ordinator, and David Whitehead, the chair of FISH volunteer centre. They do excellent work to co-ordinate half a dozen drivers and look out for opportunities to recruit new volunteers. John told me how he found three potential new drivers, but once they had understood the costs and time needed to update their licence to D1 status, all withdrew their interest, even with the offer from Sonning Common health centre for free medical testing for volunteer minibus drivers. David and John therefore completely rely on the 47 to 69 age band, with the band becoming ever narrower each year. When thinking about how to move forwards, the Government do not have to start from scratch. The 2022 call for evidence on driving licensing took views on the minibus licensing regime from over 2,000 respondents. Although most respondents supported a change in current licensing arrangements, no substantial actions have since been taken to improve the status. The Government have pointed concerned parties towards exemptions that already exist for D1 licences. However, the Community Transport Association notes that those exemptions make no meaningful change in availability of drivers. The exemptions allow those with a standard driving licence issued post 1997 to drive a lighter minibus weighing up to 3.5 tonnes. However, nearly three quarters of all vehicles in the UK’s community transport fleet are minibuses with between 9 and 16 seats, often with weighty accessibility features. Larger vehicles give local charities, community groups and social enterprises the flexibility they need to operate effectively, with more affordable costs.

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6. 3 Nov 2026·Parliament·Freddie van Mierlo

   Community Transport Services: Minibus Drivers

   Of course, we want to encourage a shift to more sustainable and greener forms of travel, while still maintaining a good cohort of drivers. I will not take any more interventions because I know we have to move on. More than one in 10 organisations have changed their service delivery model, often replacing conventional minibuses with cars or lightweight minibuses, resulting in lower capacity, increased costs and operational complexity.  However, drivers of those lighter vehicles are not eligible to be paid, unlike those with the standard D1 licence, adding further to the burden. So how can we help community transport? The CTA has put forward a proposal. It is not a blanket minibus licence for all drivers—not a return to 1997. Instead, the CTA proposes a targeted intervention to allow drivers to acquire a D1 licence to drive a minibus for non-profit organisations. The licence would draw on minibus learning programmes that already exist and require the driver to complete a training-based upgrade accredited by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, similar to the minibus driver awareness scheme, or MiDAS, which is a national programme of quality-assured education and training for the community transport sector. This approach was supported by respondents to the Government’s 2022 call for evidence. The CTA proposal requires an online theory test, a short practical session, and on-road and medical assessments, but, crucially, with a cost of under £300. The proposal allows the number of drivers to be increased in a safe way, using an established information and learning assessment.  Will the Minister say in his remarks whether he has considered the CTA’s proposals? I caveat that by saying that I am not a road expert and the CTA’s proposals may not be 100% the answer, but surely the Government can come up with a regime that achieves both aims: safe roads and a thriving community transport sector. I look forward to the Minister’s remarks on the points that I have raised.

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7. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Freddie van Mierlo

   Strengthening Community Resilience

   In my constituency of Henley and Thame, Greener Henley has already sprung into action and is seeking community champions to organise street by street. What action will the Government take to support community organisations to improve resilience not just on a household basis, but at street level?

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8. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Freddie van Mierlo

   Support for Farmers

   I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) for opening this debate. In introducing the motion, he was right to speak about the chaotic handling of SFI by this Labour Government, and also to outline the catastrophic mismanagement by the Conservatives post Brexit. They bear responsibility for the system we have today. In 2016, prominent Tories—including the now Father of the House, the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh)—said that “if we leave the EU the level of subsidy to the farming community will remain exactly”<span id="vol606_col617" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="617" data-volume-number="606">—[<em>Official Report</em>, 26 February 2016; Vol. 606, c. 617.]</span> the same. Tell that to my farmers now. Vote Leave told the Treasury Committee that farmers would get paid “at least as much as they get now” and the former Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a former holder of my seat in Henley, said that he could “100% guarantee” that farmers’ subsidies would continue or increase after Brexit. I think I have just shown why the good people of Henley and Thame no longer wish the likes of Johnson and the Conservatives to represent their interests. Betrayed by the Tories, they said, “Enough is enough.” However, farmers in my constituency have told me how disappointed they now are with Labour, and with a Government who just do not get farming. APR and BPR were the prime examples of that, but there are more, and the SFI is the latest. One of my local farmers put it best: applications should not be like a scramble for Oasis tickets. He told me that it is an “appalling way to treat farmers and how they can care for the farmed environment.” Another, Jack Burchmore, who leads the Henley young farmers group, said that they did not even know what time the window was going to open, so they sat there waiting for it. This is not a serious way to treat people, is it? Another of my wonderful local farmers has described to me how lucky they were to apply for SFI26 in the short window that it was open. They received the agreement, but now describe a feeling of guilt when so many others are in even more dire financial situations. I would like to put their ideas directly to the Government. First, there should be an early application window for SFI27, with applications open in February, ready to start as soon as we hit the new financial year. Secondly, there should be priority for those farmers whose existing SFI or mid-tier agreements are ending. Failure to do so quickly will mean farmers ripping up their environmental areas in the spring and planting crops instead. Thirdly, there should be a better application process than fastest finger first. Fourthly, there should above all be a larger budget for the SFI. Farmers face a perilous time, and further extreme weather could push many more farms out of business. With such global uncertainty, is it not time to back British farmers?<span id="1230" class="column-number" data-column-number="1230"></span>

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9. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Freddie van Mierlo

   Topical Questions

   <Question HRSContentId="{2A582B09-6B95-4B12-83D7-2B22A6527B49}">T1. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{7B1967A7-E1EC-44EC-B8C4-A998A3420CE4}">If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.</QuestionText></Question>

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10. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Freddie van Mierlo

    Topical Questions

    The Diamond Light Source facility and ISIS Neutron and Muon Source facility neighbour my constituency of Henley and Thame. They are on the frontline of cuts to the Science and Technology Facilities Council, and now there are concerns that further savings may be required. Can the Minister confirm to the House today that those facilities will remain open and operational to the end of the financial year, and through to 2028?

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