Transport Decarbonisation Strategy

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are extremely ambitious in this area. We are not even bothering about hybrids—we are going straight for zero-emission vehicles. As part of the £3 billion announced prior to the bus strategy, we will invest to support 4,000 zero-emission buses across the country. In this year alone, we will invest £120 million in zero-emission vehicles, which we expect to support 500 buses. This is in addition to the £50 million we are giving to Coventry for 300 buses. We are making a good start. There is a way to go, but we will have supported 4,000 buses by the end of this Parliament.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, will my noble friend consider giving local communities much greater freedom to experiment with low-speed zones, road closures and other measures which might really encourage active travel locally? The more centralised system that we have at the moment takes an inordinate amount of time to navigate.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I accept my noble friend’s point, and we have had some good conversations about this in the past. I encourage him to wait for the transport decarbonisation plan; I suspect there will be a bit more about that in it. We want local authorities to take more control over carbon emissions in their area and their local transport strategies.