Department for Transport

Stakeholder views will be essential to the review of the Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate. The review process will include in due course a public consultation, to which stakeholders will be able to respond with written submissions and evidence in the usual way.

The Department engages regularly with a broad range of stakeholders across the aviation sector, including Heathrow Airport Limited and Heathrow West Limited on Heathrow Expansion.

Details of ministerial meetings are published in accordance with the Government's transparency requirements. Transparency returns are published periodically, and the published record will be updated in line with the Department's normal publication timetable.

The Northern Growth Strategy set out the Government’s long-term intention to build a new line between Birmingham and Manchester, following the delivery of HS2 Phase One and Northern Powerhouse Rail. We are learning lessons from HS2 and undertaking further feasibility work to assess in detail the wider economic benefits different route options provide. Feasibility work is expected to conclude in 2028.

Passengers who believe that maximum passenger numbers, crowding standards or other passenger welfare obligations have been breached can raise concerns directly with the relevant transport operator through its complaints process. If they are dissatisfied with the operator's response, rail passengers may escalate complaints to the Rail Ombudsman, while safety concerns relating to crowding can also be reported to the Office of Rail and Road. [orr.gov.uk], [nationalrail.co.uk], [railombudsman.org].

Complaints from passengers about a bus or coach operator should be made directly to the operator in the first instance. If the bus or coach operator has not responded to a complaint within 14 working days, or if the passenger is not happy with the response received, they can raise their complaint with Bus Users UK, an organisation that represents the interests of bus and coach users.

The Civil Aviation Authority is the independent economic regulator of Heathrow Airport and is responsible for establishing the regulatory framework within which Heathrow operates. The framework is intended to provide incentives for efficient investment, including investment that supports the resilience of airport infrastructure, while protecting the interests of consumers. The Government continues to engage with the CAA on aviation resilience whilst respecting its operational and regulatory independence.

Of the rail infrastructure projects in England currently delivering on site with an anticipated capital cost of less than £50 million, 144 projects are forecasting completion after their original baseline completion date, out of a total of approximately 500 projects.

The Department does not routinely monetise the costs of noise from existing noise sources and has not made an estimate of such costs for communities under Heathrow flight paths exposed to noise above 43dB.

The Department continues to work closely with Chiltern Railways and other partners to confirm a start date for the first East-West Rail services between Oxford and Milton Keynes Central via Winslow. For passenger services to commence, trains will need to have been modified and fully tested, future staffing arrangements be put in place and driver training will need to have been completed.

The Department does not require accessibility features such as Harrington Humps to be relocated solely because new rolling stock is introduced. However, when new trains are introduced, operators and infrastructure managers are expected to ensure that stations and rolling stock remain compatible and meet applicable accessibility requirements, and this may include assessing whether platform modifications or the repositioning of accessibility features are necessary at specific locations.

The Department continues to work closely with Chiltern Railways and other partners to confirm a start date for the first East-West Rail services between Oxford and Milton Keynes Central via Winslow. For passenger services to commence, trains will need to have been modified and fully tested, future staffing arrangements to be put in place, and driver training will need to have been completed. A start date for the first East West Rail services will be announced as soon as it is possible to do so and engagement with stakeholders will proceed once appropriate.

The Government engages regularly with devolved governments and local authorities (LAs) on electric vehicle charging.

The Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund supports local authorities to scale up EV charging provision across England. Through LEVI, LAs are expected to consider charge point accessibility. Support for LAs is available through one-to-one guidance, masterclasses and an online knowledge repository.

OZEV engaged the devolved administrations throughout the development and the review of charge point accessibility standard (PAS 1899). They will also be closely involved in the ongoing revision of PAS 1899.

As part of the department’s review of the Airports National Policy Statement (ANPS) it commissioned the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to model expected impacts of aircraft noise for an expanded Heathrow. Outputs of this work are set out in an annex to the Appraisal of Sustainability published on 18 June as part of the public consultation on the draft revised ANPS, renamed the Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement (HENPS). This sets out estimates of the numbers of people exposed to different levels of aircraft noise before and after expansion.

The CAA modelling focused on the estimated total number of people impacted rather than distinguishing between individuals currently overflown who may experience increased noise exposure and those who may become newly affected. Results disaggregated to this level of detail are not currently available. As part of the consultation process, the department will keep under review if any further aircraft noise modelling is necessary.

The Department does not routinely monetise the costs of noise from existing noise sources and has not made an estimate of such costs for communities under Heathrow flight paths exposed to noise above 43dB.

The analysis has used an indicative flight path design produced for the Airports Commission, which was considered the most relevant and reasonable by Department for Transport policy officials given information available at this time, in discussion with the CAA, NATS and Heathrow Airport Limited (as current airport operator). Work is currently underway to design modernised airspace for the whole London region in line with the CAA’s airspace change processes.

The analysis has used an indicative flight path design produced for the Airports Commission, which was considered the most relevant and reasonable by Department for Transport policy officials given information available at this time, in discussion with the CAA, NATS and Heathrow Airport Limited (as current airport operator). Work is currently underway to design modernised airspace for the whole London region in line with the CAA’s airspace change processes.

The Department recognises that reliability and punctuality affect passenger benefits, journey times and wider economic outcomes, and these factors are considered when assessing any timetable changes.

Soil moisture deficit (SMD) caused significant and prolonged disruption to Southwestern Railway's West of England Line in 2025. Exceptionally dry conditions led to substantial shrinkage of clay embankments between Salisbury and Exeter, resulting in track movement and the imposition of multiple 40mph speed restrictions across long single-track sections.

Whilst other parts of the UK Rail Network also suffer from these issues, the unique nature of the West of England Line with long single-track sections and limited passing points means that the base timetable is unable to accommodate delays resulting from speed restrictions. Despite mitigation work, further record-breaking dry weather means SMD is again highly likely to affect the route this year.

During Autumn, seasonal conditions prevent trains on the predominantly single line track between Salisbury and Exeter from passing each other at their planned times. The single line track means that even small delays can make the timetable unworkable and lead to wider disruption. Removing some station stops with lower demand reduces the time spent in the single lines sections and reduces delays.

Where timetable changes are necessary, operators are expected to consider the effect on passenger travel times and seek to reduce disruption while ensuring services continue to operate safely and reliably.

The Department works with Network Rail and train operators to consider the impacts of timetable changes on passengers and local communities, including when temporary service alterations are required to maintain a safe and reliable railway.

The Department recognises that reliability and punctuality affect passenger benefits, journey times and wider economic outcomes, and these factors are considered when assessing any timetable changes.

Soil moisture deficit (SMD) caused significant and prolonged disruption to Southwestern Railway's West of England Line in 2025. Exceptionally dry conditions led to substantial shrinkage of clay embankments between Salisbury and Exeter, resulting in track movement and the imposition of multiple 40mph speed restrictions across long single-track sections.

Whilst other parts of the UK Rail Network also suffer from these issues, the unique nature of the West of England Line with long single-track sections and limited passing points means that the base timetable is unable to accommodate delays resulting from speed restrictions. Despite mitigation work, further record-breaking dry weather means SMD is again highly likely to affect the route this year.

During Autumn, seasonal conditions prevent trains on the predominantly single line track between Salisbury and Exeter from passing each other at their planned times. The single line track means that even small delays can make the timetable unworkable and lead to wider disruption. Removing some station stops with lower demand reduces the time spent in the single lines sections and reduces delays.

Where timetable changes are necessary, operators are expected to consider the effect on passenger travel times and seek to reduce disruption while ensuring services continue to operate safely and reliably.

The Department works with Network Rail and train operators to consider the impacts of timetable changes on passengers and local communities, including when temporary service alterations are required to maintain a safe and reliable railway.

The Department assesses the impacts of a variety of factors when forecasting passenger revenue and the cost of operating the railway, including the direct cost savings from public ownership through removing fees paid to private-sector operators, and the benefits, projects and programmes that the creation of Great British Railways (GBR) enables. Fare yield is one of the measures of passenger revenue that GBR will monitor; changes in yield are driven by various factors including average journey length, annual fares policy, and railcard use.

In April to June 2025, the average 'Time to 3' punctuality was 86.3 percent and the cancellations score was 3.2 percent in Great Britain. Rail performance statistics have not yet been released for the equivalent period in 2026.

The Government sets noise controls at Heathrow which include limits on the number of aircraft movements permitted between 11.30pm and 6am.

The current night flight regime runs from October 2025 to October 2028. Any changes to the regime from October 2028, including changes to the night period, will be subject to a consultation. We aim to publish a consultation on this early next year.

Separately, on 18 June the Department published a public consultation on the draft revised Airports National Policy Statement, now renamed the Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement (HENPS). The draft HENPS sets out requirements on noise mitigation that any successful scheme for expansion should meet, including a scheduled night flight ban of 6.5 hours between the hours of 11pm and 7am.

The Heathrow Expansion Appraisal Report estimates monetised disbenefits of noise to be approximately -£1.6 billion (2024 prices) over a 60-year appraisal period. This reflects the estimated increased noise exposure causing health, annoyance and sleep disturbance impacts.

Since being transferred into public ownership, c2c has continued to be monitored against the rail industry’s established performance measures, including punctuality & reliability, cancellations and passenger satisfaction, and remains subject to the same performance oversight arrangements as other publicly owned operators. All train operators are required to publish performance against targets on their website.

The Department for Transport (DfT) has not made a published estimate of the subsidy/premium for each operator in each of the next five years. Exact costs and income levels are agreed during the rolling business planning process. Information on subsidy/premium for each operator will be published next year in DfT's annual report and accounts.

The Department for Transport does not hold information relating to any backlog of maintenance for the rolling stock fleet of each train operating company. Responsibility for identifying, managing, and undertaking rolling stock maintenance requirements rests with train operators, rolling stock leasing companies and maintenance providers through their contractual asset management arrangements.

The Department for Transport has not made or published a ten-year estimate of passenger numbers specifically for c2c rail services. Future passenger demand forecasts are developed as part of business planning, investment appraisals, and rail industry forecasting processes, but projections are subject to significant uncertainty and are not routinely published on an operator-by-operator basis for the next ten years.

However, over the next ten years we would expect c2c to continue to grow passenger numbers. Long-term planning strategic advice, such as the Essex Thameside Strategic Advice, is published on Network Rail's website.

Information on individual rolling stock defects and the status of onboard facilities is held by train operators and rolling stock maintainers as part of their operational maintenance and asset management arrangements. Where toilets are fitted on board trains, the Department expects train operators to work with those maintaining them, to minimise any lack of availability and deliver facilities that passengers expect.

The Heathrow Expansion Appraisal Report estimates monetised disbenefits of noise to be approximately -£1.6 billion (2024 prices) over a 60-year appraisal period. This reflects the estimated increased noise exposure causing health, annoyance and sleep disturbance impacts.

Spend data for this category of cost is not held and the requested data could only be collated and verified at disproportionate cost. Senior managers are aware of the revised guidance and their responsibilities relating to branded goods and merchandise. The Department has implemented processes to ensure compliance and continues to review and adapt these as needed.

For the 2026 Government Communication Service annual data collection return, the central Department for Transport reported 80.83 full-time equivalent staff headcount who are members of the Government Communication Service.

All embedded communicators are members of the Government Communication Service.

The value of all contracts referred to in the answer to 13237 are published on Contracts Finder - https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Search (contracts above £12,000 - including VAT and £25,000 in the wider public sector) and/or Find a Tender - Find a Tender.

ORR currently holds contracts with Field Consulting, the spend on these contracts since July 2024 would be £9000.

From July 2024 to 31 May 2026, National Highways spent £280,921 on its technical professional services’ public affairs contract.

Transport Focus have a Public Affairs monitoring contract with Randall’s Monitoring Ltd. They have spent £6,210 excluding VAT on this.

Network Rail holds a contract for stakeholder engagement services with Lexington Communications. The contract was awarded in September 2021. Spend on this contract amounts to £423,439.93 since July 2024. Network Rail also spent a total of £143,480 with Yonder. . A total of £33,660 has been spent on the Future Governance Forum project since July 2024.

HS2 Ltd identified 2 live contracts which fall into the scope of Public Affairs spending. From July 2024 to 30 April 2026, HS2 Ltd has spent £71,100 on live contracts.

The Highways (Financing) Bill will be brought forward when Parliamentary time allows. This House will have full opportunity to scrutinise this legislation in the usual way at that time. The Bill will be concerned with a new financing model for our largest road projects, not with utilities more generally.

The Class 810 Aurora fleet is being delivered and maintained under contractual arrangements involving East Midlands Railway (EMR), Hitachi Rail and Rock Rail. Those agreements include contractual obligations relating to train availability and performance, together with associated performance and remedy mechanisms where contractual requirements are not met. The detailed terms of those arrangements, including any compensation or liquidated damages provisions, are commercially confidential and are not publicly disclosed.

The Department has been clear to Hitachi Rail that its management of the Class 810 fleet programme has been unacceptable. Delivery of the new Aurora trains to EMR has been significantly delayed, with the first train entering passenger service around three years later than originally planned. The Department expects Hitachi Rail to improve both the rate of fleet introduction and the operational performance of the trains already in service.

Hitachi Rail is also responsible for the day-to-day maintenance of EMR’s existing Class 222 Meridian trains, which have experienced significant performance issues this summer. The Department expects Hitachi and EMR to work together to rapidly improve the reliability of these trains.

Alex Hynes, Chief Executive Officer of Department for Transport Operator, meets Hitachi Rail regularly and is pressing the company for urgent improvements to both the delivery pipeline and fleet performance so that EMR can realise the full benefits of the new Aurora fleet. The Department continues to monitor EMR's delivery of services and performance obligations under its National Rail Contract.

The Department monitors Southwestern Railway’s performance through a range of operational measures covering punctuality, cancellations, passenger experience and service quality. The principal operational performance metrics are:

• Punctuality (Time to 3), measuring the percentage of recorded station stops made within three minutes of the planned time.

• Reliability (All Stations Cancellations), measuring the percentage of planned station stops cancelled; and

• Passenger experience, including overall customer satisfaction and satisfaction with disruption handling.

Customer satisfaction metrics are:

• Service Quality Regime (SQR) measuring the condition, performance, and availability of a range of assets at stations and on trains.

• Overall Satisfaction and Satisfaction with Disruption Handling using the Voice of Customer survey.

In the latest reporting period, Southwestern Railway did not meet its punctuality or cancellations targets. It also did not meet its customer experience targets for overall satisfaction and satisfaction during disruption. Whilst a number of Service Quality station measures remained below benchmark, performance in all train areas exceeded the benchmark.

Whilst SWR’s performance before and after public ownership has been below standard passengers deserve, particularly with rolling stock issues and driver shortages inherited from the previous owning group, progress is being made under public ownership. Since their transfer to public ownership, SWR have unlocked their Arterio programme, with fifty-two daily service diagrams compared to just six when SWR entered public ownership.

To improve performance, Southwestern Railway and Network Rail's integrated Wessex team are focused on reducing delays and cancellations caused by infrastructure, fleet and operational issues. This includes investment in more reliable infrastructure, deployment of technologies to improve monitoring of track conditions, improvements to service recovery and disruption management through the Major Disruption Taskforce, and delivery of customer information improvements. The Department monitors progress through regular performance reviews and engagement.

Information on punctuality and reliability and improvement activity can be found on the SWR website.

The department monitors short formations based on the passenger capacity of the trains rather than the number of carriages. Attached is data for the number of short - formed services and the percentage based on what is monitored for each operator. Please note that the percentages are not comparable and do not represent the total number of services for each operator.

The Department does not hold figures for the number of faults that have occurred on Avanti West Coast’s Class 805 and Class 807 Evero trains since their introduction into passenger service. However, the fleet performance metrics which are monitored by the Department show that the reliability of both fleets has steadily improved since they entered service, continues to do so, and is line with expectations for such fleets.

The 12 Network Rail-managed stations included in the current phase of Project Reach are Birmingham New Street, Bristol Temple Meads, Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Central, Leeds, Liverpool Lime Street, London Euston, London King’s Cross, London Liverpool Street, London Paddington, London Waterloo and Manchester Piccadilly.

The locations of the 57 tunnels included in the programme are located on the East Coast, West Coast, Great Western, Thameslink, Kent, North West and Wales.

The full list of tunnels is as follows –

The Department does not maintain a central record of the operational systems used by individual train operating companies to record service cancellations. Train operators are responsible for their day-to-day operational systems and reporting arrangements, while performance information is collected and monitored through industry-standard assurance and performance reporting processes.

The development of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Mandate was subject to extensive consultation. Open consultations, which any individual or organisation could respond to, were conducted in both 2021 and 2023. The Department received responses from stakeholders from a broad range of sectors.

Since 4 July 2024, the Department has not made any assessment of the impact of ecological survey windows and protected species licensing requirements on the cost and delivery of Network Rail projects.

Communications activity associated with the announcement of regulated rail fares for 2026-27 was undertaken by the Department, supported by its communications and rail directorates as part of normal Departmental business. Any routine communications activity associated with this announcement has been delivered using existing Departmental budgets, and costs are not held separately.

The department engages regularly with National Highways on improving lorry parking provision and driver welfare facilities across England, including in the Midlands.

Through the HGV Parking and Driver Welfare Match Funding Grant Scheme and National Highways' Lorry Parking Facilities Improvements Scheme, 62 sites across the Midlands since 2022, have received funding to enhance parking capacity, strengthen security measures, and improve facilities for HGV drivers.

The National Highways Scheme remains open to eligible lorry parking operators to improve driver welfare facilities, site security and lorry parking capacity.

The Department has not made a specific assessment of the adequacy of mobile signal coverage on Great Western Railway (GWR) services. However, the Department has secured funding to deploy low earth orbit satellite technology on mainline trains which will significantly improve the on-train Wi-Fi for rail passengers, this will include long-distance services across GWR. Pending final Treasury approval, Officials at the Department for Transport Operator (DFTO) are planning to begin the procurement and design work for this in the second half of this year. DFTO is also repeating an exercise to capture the measurement of 4G and 5G signal strength across the rail corridor and expects the full data to be available early in the new year. This will be published online.

The Peninsula Taskforce and GWR successfully trialled enhanced Wi-Fi on an Intercity Express train, using low earth orbit satellite technology. The trial demonstrated significantly stronger Wi-Fi connectivity, higher data capacity and received positive feedback from passengers.

Network Rail’s Project Reach will also address mobile coverage in 57 tunnels across the rail network.

The Entry/Exit System has been introduced by the European Union to increase border security and we have consistently sought to urge pragmatism to ensure that British travellers do not face disruption, The Transport Secretary has spoken with the EU Commissioner for Sustainable Travel and Tourism on the matter.

It is, however, inevitable that any new system faces challenges and passengers should not be inconvenienced as this system settles into operation. In July, I met with cross channel ferry operators and reminded them of their obligations to passengers should disruption occur and would encourage any passengers affected by delays at the border to speak with their operators.

The Secretary of State met with the European Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, Apostolos Tzitzikostas on 13 July. This was a productive call where both agreed on the need to work together to aim for smooth EES checks over the peak summer period to support holidaymakers.

This follows previous engagement with both the Commissioner and the French Transport Minister seeking agreement on increasing staffing levels to support the implementation of EES.