Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to promote the return of public transport following the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Government has provided nearly £2bn of support for local transport networks to date through emergency and recovery grants to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic.
The Government has announced a further £183.9m in funding for local transport providers to continue supporting the sector following the Covid-19 pandemic from April until October 2022. A condition of this new funding will be that both Local Transport Authorities and operators work closely together to ensure that effective and financially sustainable networks which cater for the needs of the local public are implemented once recovery funding ends.
The Government has also started to see some substantial changes in passenger demand for rail travel and is working with the rail industry to develop a number of recovery initiatives, including a recent promotional national marketing campaign, focused on restoring passenger confidence and encouraging passengers to choose rail. Further announcements will be made in due course.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps the Government is taking to simplify and streamline the process for bus franchising.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Transport Act 2000 (as amended by the Bus Services Act 2017) provides access to franchising powers to all Mayoral Combined Authorities in England. These powers enable them to implement franchised bus services in their areas, following the completion of a franchising assessment and consultation process.
The Department is currently revising the existing guidance – “The Bus Services Act 2017 Franchising Scheme Guidance”, published in November 2017, to provide updated detailed advice on the franchising process. The revised version will be published as soon as possible.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to establish a long term, enhanced and devolved approach to funding bus services in the West Midlands.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
On 04 April 2022, the Government allocated £87.9m of indicative Bus Service Improvement Plan funding to West Midlands Combined Authority to deliver London-style services, fares and infrastructure improvements to their bus network. West Midlands Combined Authority has an enhanced partnership in place and is currently conducting an assessment exploring whether to pursue bus franchising in future.
The West Midlands will also receive over £1bn in a five-year funding deal from the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement to help deliver transformational transport programmes, which includes bus rapid transit corridors in this area.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions he has had with officials in the Department for Health and Social Care on the challenges faced by people who have recently fully recovered from covid-19 who are unable to obtain a negative PCR test as a result of having residual traces of covid-19 in their system despite being no longer infectious.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Guidance on Gov.uk in relation to pre-departure testing to travel to the UK states that, if people have recently recovered from COVID but are no longer infectious, they should use a lateral flow device (LFD) that meets the minimum performance standards. LFD tests have a lower sensitivity than PCR or LAMP tests, so are less likely to return a positive result from a historic infection. All passengers are currently required to take a PCR test on arrival in the UK, so that positive results can be genomically sequenced.
We continue to work across Government to review testing measures in place, with the next checkpoint review taking place shortly.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans he has to improve the electric vehicle charging network in the West Midlands.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Department is committed to ensuring consumers have reliable access to a comprehensive vehicle charging network so that they can easily and conveniently charge their vehicles wherever they live and travel. The Government has committed £1.3 billion to accelerate the roll out of charging infrastructure, targeting support on rapid charge points on motorways and major roads to dash any anxiety around long journeys, and installing more on-street charge points near homes and workplaces to make charging as easy as refuelling a petrol or diesel car.
The On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) is available to all UK local authorities and provides public chargepoints for residents without access to private parking. The ORCS has so far delivered 430 chargepoints in the West Midlands with funding in place for a further 73. This year, a further £20 million is available under the scheme to ensure more local authorities and residents can benefit. Government also committed at Spending Review 2020 a further £90 million to fund local EV charging infrastructure, to support the roll out of larger, on-street charging schemes in England.
In addition, the Workplace Charging Scheme, open to small and medium size enterprises and the charity sector has provided another 1,772 sockets with Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme and its predecessors seeing the delivery of another 17,141 domestic chargepoints, across the region.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the economic impact of the Midlands Rail Hub project.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Network Rail submitted the Strategic Outline Business Case (SOBC) for Midlands Rail Hub in August 2019, it was assessed in line with the HMT Green Book and approved by Ministers.
The next stage is the development of the Outline Business Case which is being progressed by Network Rail with input from Midlands Connect, the Department expects to receive initial reports in 2022.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has plans to roll out flexible ticketing in the East and West Midlands to encourage passengers to use public transport.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
We have introduced new flexible season rail tickets across England this year, including the East and West Midlands. Tickets were launched on the 21 June and became available for use on the 28 June.
We are also working with local authorities and the bus and technology sectors on establishing a model for multi-operator bus ticketing and on further developing existing smart card ticketing offers.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to improve response times from the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency to correspondence from hon. Members.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) aims to answer 95 per cent of hon. Members correspondence within eight working days days. Given the impact of the pandemic and industrial action taking place at DVLA 90% correspondence is being answered within ten working days. The DVLA also offers hon. Members a dedicated phone line for their use. Relevant information is taken during the call and hon. Members receive a call back from a specialist team within three working days.
Additional resource is being utilised in the relevant teams and every effort is being made to direct resource to the most critical work to ensure that customers in the greatest need are dealt with as a priority.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much funding he has allocated to Birmingham City Council for the repair of potholes in the last 12 months.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
Birmingham City Council, as the local highway authority, is responsible for the maintenance of its local road network. Birmingham City Council has a Highways Maintenance Private Finance Initiative project for the comprehensive upgrade and maintenance, over 25 years, of their highway network.
The project commenced operation on 7 June 2010; the Department is providing over £1.2 billion towards the £2.7 billion total cost.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to improve rail services in the West Midlands.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Passengers in the West Midlands will see the introduction of two new fleets of electric and diesel trains on local services commencing later this year. Cross Country is also adding carriages to some of its local services into Birmingham in 2021.
The West Midlands network also plans to grow by adding new stations on existing lines to serve communities that lost their rail services during the 20th century. These include three stations on the Camp Hill Line in south Birmingham, and two in the Black Country to serve the towns of Willenhall and Darlaston.
On infrastructure, the Department is working with Network Rail and Midlands Connect to develop an Outline Business Case for the Midlands Rail Hub. This work will further develop infrastructure proposals to enable up to ten additional trains per hour to serve central Birmingham.