Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the relative cost of installing National Grid electricity cables that are (1) suspended from pylons and (2) buried underground.
Answered by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The relative costs of overhead lines and burying underground electricity cables are assessed by National Grid at a project-specific level, with costs varying depending on factors such as the terrain and other site conditions. The Institute of Engineering and Technology Study, 2012, found that the lifetime costs for overhead lines range from £2.2m to £4.2m per kilometre, while direct burial underground cables range from £10.2m to £24.1m per kilometre, meaning that undergrounding can cost between 5-10 times more than overhead lines.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what representations they have made to the government of Turkey about the detention and deportation of BBC journalist Mark Lowen.
Answered by Baroness Chapman of Darlington - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government provided consular assistance to Mark Lowen, a British journalist detained and subsequently deported from Turkey. The Foreign Secretary spoke with Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan on Saturday 29 March. The UK expects Turkey to uphold its international commitments and the rule of law, including the protection of the fundamental rights to free speech, peaceful assembly and media freedom.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of trains on Network Rail are (1) cancelled, and (2) arrive more than five minutes later than timetabled, and what proportion of these cancellations and delays are caused by (a) signal failure, (b) lack of crew availability, and (c) other reasons.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
(1) The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) reported that in the 12 months up to December 2024 the cancellation measure was 4.0%.
(2) The ORR publish train punctuality on a quarterly basis. They report trains arriving within 59 seconds, within 3 minutes or within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival time. These are reported in Table 1.
Table 1. Train punctuality in the year ending December 2024, Great Britain
Trains arriving within 59 seconds | Trains arriving within 3 minutes | Trains arriving within 15 minutes |
67.0% | 84.8% | 98.2% |
Source: ORR Table 3133: Delay minutes by operator and cause
The proportion of cancellations by the available causes is report in Table 2.
Table 2. Train Cancellations by cause and responsibility in the year ending December 2024, Great Britain
Infrastructure and network management | Infrastructure owner external event |
|
|
26.0% | 18.6% | 51.4% | 3.9% |
Source: DfT analysis of ORR Table 3123: Trains planned and cancellations by operator and cause
Information on the cause of delays is published by Rail Period by the ORR. This information is reported in delay minutes. The latest data (covering 3 March 2024 – 2 March 2025) on the proportion of delays minutes attributed by the available causes is reported in Table 3.
Table 3. Share of delay minutes by cause in the year ending 2 March 2025, Great Britain
| |
NR-on-TOC | |
External | 14% |
Network Management / Other | 16% |
Non-Track Assets | 17% |
Severe Weather, Autumn, & Structures | 7% |
Track | 7% |
NR-on-TOC total | 61% |
TOC-on-Self and TOC-on-TOC | |
Fleet | 15% |
Operations | 3% |
Stations | 3% |
TOC Other | 7% |
Traincrew | 10% |
TOC-on-Self total | 39% |
Source: DfT analysis of Office of Rail and Road Table 3184 - Delay minutes by operator and cause | |
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will conduct a strategic review of road construction, renewal and repair to identify the most economic approach to reduce potholes and costs to road users caused by potholes.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
It is the responsibility of individual highway authorities to maintain and improve their networks, based upon their local knowledge, circumstances, and priorities. This includes decisions on how best to prevent road surfaces from deteriorating in the most economic way. The Government is committed to updating its guidance to local highway authorities on how to manage their networks, which will include advice on matters of this sort.
For 2025/26, the Government is providing almost £1.6 billion for local highway maintenance, an increase of £500 million compared to 2024/25. Funding is not ring-fenced, and it is a matter for local authorities to determine how the money is best spent. The Department for Transport has written to all local highway authorities asking them to demonstrate that they are complying with certain criteria aimed at driving best practice and continual improvement. The Department will assess the information provided by local highway authorities in due course.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the economic case for small modular nuclear reactors compared with alternative options for achieving net zero.
Answered by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government is clear that nuclear power is and will continue to be an essential part of our journey to net zero by 2050, in combination with other low carbon and renewable technologies. Great British Nuclear is pushing forward with its SMR competition for UK deployment with final decisions to be taken this spring. The economic case for SMRs would be factored into any investment decision into the technology.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the safety implications of passenger aircrafts landing at airports during Storm Eowyn.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The safety of the traveling public is a priority for the Government. Whether or not it is safe to land at an airport is an operational decision between the aircraft operator, air traffic controllers, and ultimately the pilot in command of an aircraft.
UK aviation operates predominately in the private sector, with each airline responsible for its own severe weather plans, tailored to specific operations, locations, and infrastructure.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of public sector buildings in England will have decarbonised heating by 2030.
Answered by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government is committed to decarbonising a significant proportion of public sector buildings by 2030. This initiative is part of the broader effort to reduce carbon emissions and achieve net-zero targets. The Net Zero Strategy set-out the government’s commitment to halve direct emissions from public sector buildings by 2032 and an aim to further reduce them by 75% by 2037, both against a 2017 baseline.
To support this, up to £3.8 billion is being invested through the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme over the financial years 2020/21 to 2027/28 to provide grants for public sector bodies in England to fund heat decarbonisation and energy efficiency measures.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether all the 1.5 million new homes which they target to be built by 2030 (1) will have 360 insulation, and (2) will have decarbonised heating.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government is committed to ensuring that the 1.5 million homes we will build over the course of this parliament will be high quality, well designed and sustainable.
In 2021, the Government introduced an uplift in energy efficiency standards, which came into force in June 2022. New homes are now expected to produce significantly less CO2 emissions compared to those built to previous standards, with many homes already being built with better insulation, solar panels, and heat pumps.
Future standards, to be introduced later this year, will build on the 2021 standards and set new homes on a path that moves away from relying on volatile fossil fuels, ensuring they are fit for a net zero future. These homes will be future proofed with low carbon heating and high levels of energy efficiency, including high quality insulation. No further energy efficiency retrofit work will be necessary to enable these homes to become zero-carbon over time as the electricity grid continues to decarbonise.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to review the policy of increasing the State Pension by 25p per week for pensioners reaching the age of 80.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
There are no plans to review the current arrangements.
The 25 pence a week Age Addition is part of the old State Pension, for those who reached State Pension age before 6 April 2016. It is paid with the basic State Pension, when somebody reaches the age of 80.
The Age Addition is not part of the new State Pension, but for those people who reached State Pension age before 6 April 2016, the 25 pence Age Addition under the existing rules will continue.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of why the cost of incapacity-related benefit claims in the UK is rising faster than in other comparable countries.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department keeps abreast of the findings of research and analysis that covers different countries, for example that produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. However, as a result of the time it takes to obtain and process data from different countries, the most recent trends will not necessarily be reflected in these sources. Once the latest data is available this will feed into policy development as appropriate.