Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government when decisions will be announced regarding applications submitted as statements of business cases in the Autumn of 2022 for the Restoring Your Railway Fund (RYR) to move forward to Stage 3 of the RYR process; and whether they will explain the reasons for the delay in announcing those decisions.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The timeframe for providing responses to schemes that have submitted business cases through the Restoring Your Railway programme will vary. The Department is not yet in a position to provide details on next steps for a number of schemes but hopes to be able to do so in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what budget is available for the Restoring Your Railway scheme, announced in January 2020.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Following the Network North announcement, many more Restoring Your Railway projects can now be fully funded and delivered. The Department for Transport is in the early stages of planning next steps, including delivery timelines, for individual schemes and is working closely with Network Rail and other delivery partners to develop and deliver on Government priorities. Costs for delivering individual projects within the RYR programme will vary.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Davies of Gower on 22 February (HL2450), whether the LEVI Fund can be used for the provision of lamp-post charging; and what standards they have set with electricity suppliers to facilitate the provision of those additional charging points.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The £381 million Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund, launched in March 2023, aims to deliver a step-change in the deployment of local, primarily low power on-street charging infrastructure across England. A condition of the LEVI Capital Fund is that the majority of project costs must be related to the installation of lower-powered infrastructure suitable for local charging, such as lamp column chargepoints.
As part of their LEVI application, local authorities must provide evidence of engagement with their distribution network operator (DNO) regarding their proposed LEVI project. This allows DNOs to plan and maintain greater awareness of the need for grid upgrades. In the Plan for Drivers, Government committed to work with DNOs and key industry stakeholders on wider challenges to chargepoint rollout to overcome chargepoint installation barriers. This builds on the commitments and announcements in the DESNZ Connections Action Plan and Powering up Britain paper.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to mandating electric vehicle charging point accessibility standards to remove any economic disadvantages incurred through voluntary compliance by charge point operators.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to ensuring that all electric vehicle drivers can easily find public chargepoints that they can use.
The Publicly Available Standard (PAS) 1899 provides specifications on designing and installing accessible chargepoints. Compliance with PAS 1899 is currently voluntary. However, Government is actively encouraging local authorities, and other relevant parties, to incorporate accessibility into their procurement models, including through the Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund. This £381 million fund will support local authorities to work with industry to ensure that the transition to EVs takes place in every part of the country.
The Department will continue to monitor progress to assess whether further intervention is required, including through a 24-month review into implementation of PAS 1899, launched in December 2023 and led by the British Standards Institution.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the annual reporting on the Railway Enhancements Network Pipeline committed to in 2019 is to commence in 2024.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Whilst the Government remains committed to investing in rail, as demonstrated by the Prime Minister’s Network North announcement which detailed an unprecedented number of commitments, significant changes to travel patterns after the pandemic and the challenging fiscal environment rightly require reconsideration of the rail infrastructure portfolio.
We understand the interests of stakeholders - industry and local representatives - in the visibility of our forward programme of work. Moving forward we intend to review, with involvement from the supply chain, how best to provide updates on the rail enhancements portfolio.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government why the Great Western Railway trial on the service from Bristol to Oxford is limited to weekends and leisure travel, and not commuter traffic.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Great Western Railway has proposed to the Department for Transport a limited trial of extra direct services between Bristol and Oxford. The proposed trial is planned to take place between mid-September and mid-December 2024 and will be restricted to Saturdays. This coincides with the Bath Christmas market, which experiences increased demand for trips on Saturdays to and from Oxford and Bath, particularly during the busy Christmas season. The trial is only currently planned for weekends because during the week, the additional trains needed to run the services are already used on other commuter routes.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to review the processes of the single justice procedure as used by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency; and whether such organisations using this procedure are obliged to take into account all evidence submitted in mitigation before proceeding with an individual case.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Single Justice Procedure (SJP) is used by a number of approved prosecutors, including the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). It is a more proportionate way of dealing with straightforward, uncontested, summary-only non-imprisonable offences. The prosecuting body cannot choose this route for any case which falls outside of these criteria. SJP also cannot be used in cases where a defendant pleads not guilty.
If entering a guilty plea online or submitting by post, defendants have the option to enter mitigating circumstances alongside their plea, to be considered by the magistrate dealing with their case. Guilty pleas and any entered mitigation are available on the system for the prosecutor to review as soon as the plea is received online or scanned into the system if received by post, however, prosecutors are not required to view this. For any case in the magistrates’ court, there is currently no system functionality to refer all guilty plea cases to the prosecutor before it is referred to a magistrate and there is no legal requirement to do so. This means that, in practice, prosecutors may not see the mitigation.
Prosecutorial review of mitigation has never been an aspect of the process for dealing with written guilty pleas; it is not specific to SJP. The system that applied before SJP was that the written guilty plea was sent to court and read out in court. The prosecutor would therefore only hear the mitigation if they chose to attend court. Having prosecutors review mitigation has never been an aspect of the process for dealing with written guilty pleas.
The mitigation provided is considered by the magistrate dealing with the case, who is supported by a legal adviser. The mitigation provided sometimes suggests that the prosecution may not be in the public interest; a magistrate can then adjourn the case and ask the prosecutor to review the mitigation provided. Whether the case is referred to the prosecutor to review is a judicial decision. The mitigation provided by defendants is considered by magistrates in the same manner whether the case goes through SJP or is held in open court.
At present, the Government has no plans to amend the SJP process.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many prosecutions have been brought by local authorities under the Highways Act 1980 against motorists seeking to charge electric vehicles on the street.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes information on the number of prosecutions for criminal offences in the Outcomes by Offence data tools.
Offences covered include the offence of ‘other obstruction, waiting and parking offences’, where this offence is most likely to be covered. However, to identify whether the prosecutions are for charging electric vehicles on the street specifically would require examination of individual court records, which would be of disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they will respond to their consultation on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) mandate published on 30 March 2023; whether it is still their policy to have five SAF plants under construction by 2025; and, if so, what is their progress towards meeting that target.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is on track to introduce the UK sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) mandate in 2025, with a target of at least 10% SAF in UK jet fuel by 2030. We will publish the government response to the second mandate consultation, setting out our final policy positions, in the Spring.
There are currently two commercial-scale sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plants operational or under construction in the UK. The Government’s Advanced Fuels Fund has allocated £135m across 13 projects to supporting our aim to have at least five commercial SAF plants under construction in the UK by 2025.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what conversations Ministers and officials have had with local authorities which have published local guidance against, or sought to restrict, the use of cable gullies or cable protectors to charge electric vehicles; and what was the outcome of those conversations.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
As part of the Plan for Drivers, the Government has committed to providing guidance for local authorities on the safe and effective use of cross-pavement solutions. This guidance is being drafted and officials have engaged several local authorities as part of this process, including site visits. Local authority feedback will be reflected in the guidance, which we intend to publish in Spring 2024.