Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to open negotiations with the European Union about rejoining the Erasmus scheme.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Minister for Women and Equalities)
The department is working to reset the relationship with its European friends to strengthen ties and tackle barriers to trade. My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, has said that we must do more to champion ties between the UK and the EU’s people and culture, for example through holidays, family ties, school and student exchanges, the arts and sport.
This is not about renegotiating or relitigating Brexit, but about looking forward and building a strong and constructive relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the economic impact of the cancellation of further stages of HS2; and whether they intend to undertake a formal reassessment of the new infrastructure required to improve rail services in the north of England, north Wales and Scotland, and on what timescale.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
Transport is an essential part of our mission to rebuild Britain and this Government is committed to delivering infrastructure that works for the whole country. We need a long-term approach to infrastructure and investment taking account of local transport priorities, which is what we will provide. We will thoroughly review the position we have inherited before setting out more detailed plans in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what are their estimates for each of the past five years of the amount of money lost to rail companies by ticket fraud and evasion; and what measures they plan to implement to reduce this.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Shadow Minister (Home Office)
The Government takes the issue of fare evasion and fraud very seriously. We currently do not hold estimates for the amount of money lost to railway fraud, however in 2023 the Rail Delivery Group estimated that in a normal year, approximately £240 million is lost through fare evasion on Great Britain's railways.
To reduce fare evasion, in January 2023 we increased the value of the penalty fare to £100, plus the price of the single fare to the intended destination. DfT operators are also contractually incentivised to reduce ticketless travel on their network.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to their consultation Smarter regulation: proposed changes to legislation for electrically assisted pedal cycles, which ran from 29 February to 25 April, what discussions they had with representatives of the fire and police services and organisations representing cyclists, pedestrians and UK cycle manufacturers either prior to launching that consultation or during it.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Shadow Minister (Home Office)
The Department for Transport engaged with various stakeholder organisations before and during the consultative process. The Department is currently considering the responses to the consultation and a further announcement will be made in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government when their planned Border Target Operating Model will be implemented.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Shadow Minister (Treasury)
The implementation of the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) is well underway in accordance with the published timeline (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-border-target-operating-model-august-2023). The first two major milestones were introduced respectively on 31 January 2024 and 30 April 2024, while the last milestone, which requires Safety and Security (S&S) declarations for EU imports, is scheduled to be implemented on 31 October 2024.
We will announce a date for physical checks on EU and Irish Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) goods imports on the West Coast of Great Britain shortly. In order to provide traders time to prepare, we can confirm that these checks will not be introduced before Spring 2025.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following recent press reports, whether the rate of biosecurity checks on goods arriving from the EU at some ports has in practice been "set to zero" to minimise disruption, despite businesses now being charged for all relevant consignments of goods imported into the UK.
Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller
No, the implementation is happening. The first milestone - health certificates - happened on 31 January 2024. Physical and documentary checks began on April 30th. Medium and high-risk goods posing the greatest biosecurity risk are being prioritised as check levels are scaled up in a sensible and controlled way.
We have not simply copied the EU model but taken the extra time to bring in an effective and innovative system with much lower burdens on business and much less disruption to trade.
Traders should continue to follow the published guidance which sets out BTOM inspection rates.
DEFRA will gradually increase changes in controlled stages to balance biosecurity risk and maintain trade flows whilst minimising disruption at the border.
This will allow the level of goods inspected at the border to be operationally manageable over the introductory stages.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what meetings they have had with representatives of delivery companies in the past six months; and what topics were discussed for their consultation Smarter regulation: proposed changes to legislation for electrically assisted pedal cycles, which ran from 29 February to 25 April.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Shadow Minister (Home Office)
Whilst a number of delivery companies have responded to the consultation, none have met with ministers to discuss it in the period specified.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports that the safety equipment installed on smart motorways has a high failure rate.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Shadow Minister (Home Office)
Smart motorways operate using a range of safety systems and are designed not to be reliant on one single piece of roadside technology for safe operation.
National Highways has worked hard to deliver a significant improvement in the performance of stopped vehicle detection (SVD), with all schemes now meeting performance requirements.
In their annual safety report published in December 2023, the ORR confirmed that SVD technology is now meeting performance requirements for detection rate, detection time, and false detection. The ORR will continue to monitor SVD performance closely.
Further, National Highways is investing more than £300m to maintain roadside technology and improve its performance during Road Period 2 (2020-2025). This includes £105m targeted at improving its systems and technology on All Lane Running (ALR) sections of smart motorway. Roadside technology on ALR smart motorways is given high priority.
National Highways has well-rehearsed contingency plans for both planned and unplanned outages. These include lowering speed limits, increasing patrols by its traffic officers, enhanced monitoring of CCTV, and using pre-positioned vehicle recovery to speed up attendance and clearance of stranded vehicles.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the use of fuel and energy consumption data to ensure that CO2 emissions and fuel or energy consumption values remain representative of real-world emissions over time for manufacturers of new passenger cars and new light commercial vehicles, as required by EU Regulation 2019/631.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Shadow Minister (Home Office)
The Department is considering how to collect real-world CO2 emissions data, including consulting on whether such data should be captured through the MOT, and will continue to engage with interested parties as the methodology is finalised. The data collection methodology must be finalised before the first annual report can be produced.
The Department will assess real-world representativeness of CO2 emissions and fuel or energy consumption values, once the methodology for collecting real-world data has been agreed with industry and subsequently introduced into law.
The Department is considering how fuel and energy consumption data could inform amendments to type approval testing procedures and certificates for petrol and diesel cars and light commercial vehicles. Specifically on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, the Department intends to update the calculation procedure for their carbon dioxide emissions to respond to the widely recognised gap in their real-world emissions performance compared to official approval values. This will be consulted on in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they will publish their first annual report on how the real-world emissions gap will be addressed for the period 2021 to 2026, as required by EU Regulation 2019/631 on setting performance standards for new passenger cars and new light commercial vehicles.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Shadow Minister (Home Office)
The Department is considering how to collect real-world CO2 emissions data, including consulting on whether such data should be captured through the MOT, and will continue to engage with interested parties as the methodology is finalised. The data collection methodology must be finalised before the first annual report can be produced.
The Department will assess real-world representativeness of CO2 emissions and fuel or energy consumption values, once the methodology for collecting real-world data has been agreed with industry and subsequently introduced into law.
The Department is considering how fuel and energy consumption data could inform amendments to type approval testing procedures and certificates for petrol and diesel cars and light commercial vehicles. Specifically on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, the Department intends to update the calculation procedure for their carbon dioxide emissions to respond to the widely recognised gap in their real-world emissions performance compared to official approval values. This will be consulted on in due course.