Transport: South Wales
Debate between Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Lord Hain(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The M1 is one of our key arterial motorways, and it has had a number of upgrades over the years to increase capacity. We continue to look at those bottlenecks, and there will be more on that when announcements are made for RIS3, which is the next road investment strategy period, starting in 2025.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, why was electrification of the London to Cardiff line not extended to Swansea, as promised by the David Cameron Government?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
That was because assessment of that electrification project showed no significant journey-time savings. In 2018, the National Audit Office concluded that it is right to assess investment decisions about upgrades to make sure that they give passenger benefits. We have to put our funding where it can have the largest passenger benefits.
Electric Vehicles: Charging Points
Debate between Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Lord Hain(4 years, 12 months ago)
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Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that a lot of people, if not most, live in terraced properties and the real problem is lack of infrastructure to get cars parked outside their homes to a charging point? Has she looked at the city of Oslo, which has stanchions along the kerbside, which is safe, that allow car owners to charge their cars right on their doorstep, as it were, but on the other side of the pavement? Without government investment on a huge scale, the private sector will not be able to deliver this and the targets the Government have set will not be met.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I will certainly look at Oslo. As I mentioned in my opening Answer, there is a £4 million on-street residential charging point scheme for local authorities. To date, 28 local authorities have benefited, resulting in the installation of over 1,000 charging points. The noble Lord is quite right: this is not necessarily a matter for central government, but local authorities can make sure that there is a permissive planning environment whereby, if private networks come in—I hope that they will—they are able to put up those sorts of charging points.