Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the overall condition of the local road network in England.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government takes the condition of local roads very seriously and is committed to maintaining and renewing the local highway network, which is why the Government has announced a record of £7.3 billion investment for local highway maintenance over the next four years, bringing annual funding to over £2 billion annually by 2029/30. This investment to improve the condition of our roads will make journeys faster and smoother but also protects drivers from paying hundreds of pounds in costly repairs following pothole-related breakdowns. This builds on nearly £1.6 billion in capital funding that has been provided for local highways maintenance in England for the financial year 2025/26, a £500 million increase compared to the previous financial year. Funding allocations for individual local authorities can be found on gov.uk.
DfT collects and collates information on the condition of roads from local authorities in England annually. This information is published as official statistics. The latest release of these statistics was in December 2024, which covered data for the financial year ending March 2024. These statistics showed that in the financial year ending March 2024:
The statistics can be found online, at: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/road-conditions-in-england-to-march-2024
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the backlog in local road maintenance.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government takes the condition of local roads very seriously and is committed to maintaining and renewing the local highway network, which is why the Government has announced a record of £7.3 billion investment for local highway maintenance over the next four years, bringing annual funding to over £2 billion annually by 2029/30. This investment to improve the condition of our roads will make journeys faster and smoother but also protects drivers from paying hundreds of pounds in costly repairs following pothole-related breakdowns. This builds on nearly £1.6 billion in capital funding that has been provided for local highways maintenance in England for the financial year 2025/26, a £500 million increase compared to the previous financial year. Funding allocations for individual local authorities can be found on gov.uk.
DfT collects and collates information on the condition of roads from local authorities in England annually. This information is published as official statistics. The latest release of these statistics was in December 2024, which covered data for the financial year ending March 2024. These statistics showed that in the financial year ending March 2024:
The statistics can be found online, at: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/road-conditions-in-england-to-march-2024
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what powers other than additional funding she has to ensure Staffordshire County Council fills potholes in Newcastle-under-Lyme in a timely and thorough way.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Local highway authorities, such as Staffordshire County Council, have a duty under Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980 to maintain the highways network in their area. The Act does not set out specific standards of maintenance, as it is for each individual local highway authority to assess which parts of its network need repair and what standards should be applied, based upon their local knowledge and circumstances.
To receive their full share of the Government's £500 million funding uplift for local highways maintenance in 2025/26, local authorities had to publish transparency reports on their website to set out how they will spend the additional funding. As part of this, local authorities were required to demonstrate how they comply with best practice in highways maintenance, including in relation to preventative maintenance which helps to keep roads in good condition for longer and prevents potholes from forming in the first place. These requirements are designed to drive greater adoption of best practice to ensure that this funding is spent as effectively as possible to improve local road conditions.
The transparency report for Staffordshire County Council is available online, at:www.staffordshire.gov.uk/Highways/Managing-the-highway-asset/Local-highways-maintenance-transparency-report.aspx
The Department is also currently updating the Code of Practice for Well Managed Highways Infrastructure. The Code provides guidance to local authorities on the delivery of safe, efficient, and sustainable highway services through a risk‑based, evidence‑led approach to asset management. The Code encourages highways authorities to set repair timescales against defined risk levels, ensuring that safety-critical defects are fixed swiftly to reduce the likelihood of incident or liability. This is available online, at:
https://www.ciht.org.uk/ukrlg-home/code-of-practice
There are occasions where potholes need to be repaired quickly for safety reasons, but the Department encourages local authorities to also focus on long-term preventative maintenance to ensure that roads are fixed properly and potholes prevented from forming in the first place. This is also more cost-effective than the repeated and reactive patching of potholes. The current Code of Practice emphasises that “when determining the balance between preventative and reactive maintenance, authorities should adopt the principle that prevention is better than cure”.
Asked by: Laurence Turner (Labour - Birmingham Northfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what agreements are in force under section 20 of the Transport Act 1968.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
There are currently no agreements in force under section 20 of the Transport Act 1968.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department has had discussions with Tesla UK regarding the potential child safety implications of vehicle-integrated artificial intelligence systems.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Transport has not had discussions with Tesla specifically regarding potential child safety implications of vehicle-integrated artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
Many manufacturers use AI tools and techniques to develop and optimise various aspects of vehicles, including their safety systems. For those aspects covered by vehicle technical regulations, the systems are required to be fixed (i.e. they are no longer permitted to evolve) before they are placed on the market and subject to objective testing to verify their performance.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps she is taking to help ensure that the transport system supports economic growth in (a) Surrey and (b) Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
In the Spending Review of 2025 this government announced Local Transport funding of £38.19 million to Surrey County Council for the period from April 2026 to April 2030 for local transport improvements.
Surrey County Council has also been allocated £38.2 million of Local Authority Bus Grant for 2026/27 to 2028/29. Local authorities will have the flexibility to use this funding to meet local needs, which could include introducing local fares schemes to further reduce the cost of bus travel.
In respect of rail travel, the Chancellor and Transport Secretary have announced that regulated rail fares will be frozen for a year from March 2026, for the first time in 30 years. Over a billion journeys are going to be affected by this freeze with season tickets, anytime returns on commuter routes, and off-peak returns on longer-distance routes all subject to the freeze. Commuters in the Surrey Heath constituency could save over £200 on season tickets into London.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what guidance her Department has issued to local authorities on when resurfacing should be prioritised over pothole filling.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Local highway authorities have a duty under Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980 to maintain the public highway network in their area. The Act does not set out specific standards for maintenance, as it is for each individual local highway authority to assess which parts of its network need repair and what standards should be applied, based upon their local knowledge and circumstances.
The Department does not gather information from local highway authorities about the causes or recurrence of individual potholes. There are occasions where potholes need to be repaired quickly for safety reasons, but the Department encourages local authorities to focus on long-term preventative maintenance, which is more cost-effective than the reactive patching of potholes.
This is a core aspect of the Code of Practice for Well-managed highways infrastructure, which states that “when determining the balance between preventative and reactive maintenance, authorities should adopt the principle that prevention is better than cure”. This is available online, at: https://www.ciht.org.uk/ukrlg-home/code-of-practice/.
The Government is also encouraging local highways authorities to take a long-term preventative approach by making some of their funding conditional on meeting certain best practiced criteria. To qualify for their full share of this financial year's £500m uplift in highways maintenance funding, local authorities had to publish transparency reports and set out how they comply with best practice, for example in relation to the extent to which they prioritise preventative maintenance. In this context, the Department for Transport wrote to all local highway authorities in England in December to inform them whether they would be receiving their full funding uplift, and emphasised the importance of following the guidance set out in the Code of Practice with regard to preventative maintenance.
The findings from the transparency reports will enable the department to identify where extra support may be needed to ensure compliance with best practice. The department will set out more detail on the further support and training it will make available to local authorities in due course.
Finally, regarding analysis of the effectiveness of preventative maintenance approaches, in November 2024 the Department for Transport published an Economic Appraisal of Investing in Local Highway maintenance. The analysis found that proactive maintenance can be more cost effective. In contrast, reactive maintenance was shown to be less cost-effective and associated with higher long-term expenditure. This report can be accessed at:
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the relationship between vehicle weight and the formation or deepening of potholes.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government recognises that heavier vehicles can accelerate road surface wear. While we have not undertaken a specific assessment of this effect, we are actively considering the implications of introducing zero-emission heavy goods vehicles, including the potential for additional road wear.
The increasing weight of all road vehicles, both electric vehicles (EVs) and their petrol and diesel counterparts, is one of many factors affecting the condition of our roads. While EVs tend to be heavier than their equivalent petrol or diesel counterpart, on average all passenger cars have been increasing in weight for many years. This trend has been driven by consumer choice and improving safety features for passengers. It is the much heavier commercial vehicles, rather than passenger vehicles, that cause the most wear and tear to road surfaces and other highway structures.
More broadly, there are many reasons why loadings on local roads may change, such as commercial development increasing traffic and the number of heavier vehicles on a road. Because of this, guidance for local authorities already highlights the need for maintenance plans to account for changes in circumstances. The main guidance for local highway authorities on asset management is the Code of Practice for Well-Managed Highways Infrastructure, published by the UK Roads Leadership Group and funded by the Department for Transport. The guidance sets out a national framework for how local highway authorities should manage their networks using a risk-based, evidence-led approach, taking account of current and expected highways usage.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of whether (a) electric vehicles, (b) buses and (c) lorries accelerate road surface deterioration.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government recognises that heavier vehicles can accelerate road surface wear. While we have not undertaken a specific assessment of this effect, we are actively considering the implications of introducing zero-emission heavy goods vehicles, including the potential for additional road wear.
The increasing weight of all road vehicles, both electric vehicles (EVs) and their petrol and diesel counterparts, is one of many factors affecting the condition of our roads. While EVs tend to be heavier than their equivalent petrol or diesel counterpart, on average all passenger cars have been increasing in weight for many years. This trend has been driven by consumer choice and improving safety features for passengers. It is the much heavier commercial vehicles, rather than passenger vehicles, that cause the most wear and tear to road surfaces and other highway structures.
More broadly, there are many reasons why loadings on local roads may change, such as commercial development increasing traffic and the number of heavier vehicles on a road. Because of this, guidance for local authorities already highlights the need for maintenance plans to account for changes in circumstances. The main guidance for local highway authorities on asset management is the Code of Practice for Well-Managed Highways Infrastructure, published by the UK Roads Leadership Group and funded by the Department for Transport. The guidance sets out a national framework for how local highway authorities should manage their networks using a risk-based, evidence-led approach, taking account of current and expected highways usage.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps is she taking to ensure that local road maintenance practices reflect changes in (a) vehicle weight and (b) usage patterns.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government recognises that heavier vehicles can accelerate road surface wear. While we have not undertaken a specific assessment of this effect, we are actively considering the implications of introducing zero-emission heavy goods vehicles, including the potential for additional road wear.
The increasing weight of all road vehicles, both electric vehicles (EVs) and their petrol and diesel counterparts, is one of many factors affecting the condition of our roads. While EVs tend to be heavier than their equivalent petrol or diesel counterpart, on average all passenger cars have been increasing in weight for many years. This trend has been driven by consumer choice and improving safety features for passengers. It is the much heavier commercial vehicles, rather than passenger vehicles, that cause the most wear and tear to road surfaces and other highway structures.
More broadly, there are many reasons why loadings on local roads may change, such as commercial development increasing traffic and the number of heavier vehicles on a road. Because of this, guidance for local authorities already highlights the need for maintenance plans to account for changes in circumstances. The main guidance for local highway authorities on asset management is the Code of Practice for Well-Managed Highways Infrastructure, published by the UK Roads Leadership Group and funded by the Department for Transport. The guidance sets out a national framework for how local highway authorities should manage their networks using a risk-based, evidence-led approach, taking account of current and expected highways usage.