Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps she plans to take to improve rail services in the West Midlands.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
West Midlands Trains has recently introduced two brand new fleets of high capacity trains in the West Midlands area, with a third new fleet on its West Coast routes starting service shortly. Five new stations are also under construction. Meanwhile, CrossCountry started operating a bigger fleet last weekend, significantly boosting capacity on its network, and all its trains will be fully refurbished in the next three years. A Pay-As-You-Go scheme is being implemented to help deliver seamless journey integration. Longer term, work continues on developing the Midlands Rail Hub scheme.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what funding she has allocated for the repair of roads in Sutton Coldfield in the last two years for which information is available.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Birmingham City Council (BCC) is the local highway authority for Sutton Coldfield and is a constituent authority of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA).
BCC has a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) agreement for its highway maintenance operations, under which the Department for Transport provides approximately £50.3 million per year to BCC. The Department will make an announcement in due course on the future of this agreement.
In addition, WMCA receives a City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS) from the Department, that runs for 5 years between 2022/23 – 2026/27. This settlement consolidates all transport capital funding allocations, including highways maintenance. The WMCA has a total CRSTS settlement of £1.05 billion; decisions on how this funding is allocated is a matter for WMCA. On Friday 20 December, the Government announced that, as part of the £500 million autumn Budget uplift, WMCA will receive an additional £8.61 million funding for local highway maintenance for the 2025/26 financial year.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans she has to improve the electric vehicle charging network in the West Midlands.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to accelerating the roll-out of charging infrastructure so that everyone, no matter where they live or work, can make the transition to an electric vehicle (EV). As of 1 January 2025, there were 6,484 public charging devices in the West Midlands region, or 108 per 100,000 of the population.
Going forward, the West Midlands region has been allocated over £37m capital and resource funding as part of the £381m Local EV Infrastructure Fund (LEVI), to transform the availability of EV charging for drivers without off-street parking in the area. The LEVI Fund is expected to leverage significant further private investment and support the installation of at least 100,000 local chargepoints across England and will give EV drivers, especially those without off-street parking, confidence they are never too far from a chargepoint.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether she is taking steps to implement a (a) long term and (b) devolved approach to funding for (i) local and (ii) regional transport services in the West Midlands.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The department is working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to implement an “Integrated Settlement” for the West Midlands Combined Authority from April 2025. This will give the Mayor and Combined Authority a consolidated budget across local transport, housing, regeneration, local growth, skills, buildings retrofit, and employment support, with much greater freedom and funding flexibility to drive forward the local economy and deliver growth.
The department is also looking to simplify the current funding arrangements for all other Local Transport Authorities so that they can spend funding according to their local priorities and avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy. Multi-year funding will be confirmed at the upcoming spending review.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to increase the availability of practical driving tests in the West Midlands.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) main priority is upholding road safety standards while it works hard to reduce car practical driving test waiting times.
On the 18 December, DVSA set out further plans to reduce driving test waiting times across the country. These steps include recruiting 450 driving examiners (DEs). Full details of these steps can be found on GOV.UK.
DVSA continues recruitment for DEs at driving test centres (DTCs) that serve customers in the West Midlands region and is currently working through the recruitment process from recent campaigns. As part of this, DVSA is currently aiming to recruit up to twelve potential new DEs in the Birmingham area, five in the Worcester area, two in Ludlow and two in Hereford. There is also the potential for five new DEs for DTCs in Gloucestershire, which might also serve customers in the West Midlands region.
Some of these candidates have started training, whilst others are currently undergoing checks as part of the recruitment process.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans she has to support funding for (a) small transport projects and (b) local infrastructure after the latest round of Levelling Up Funds is completed in March 2025.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Budget announcement on 30 October confirmed departmental budgets for the rest of this financial year and the financial year 25/26. This included a commitment of over £650m in local transport funding beyond city regions in 25/26 to ensure that transport connections improve in our towns, villages and rural areas as well as in our major cities. Allocations for individual local authorities will be confirmed by the Secretary of State for 25/26 in due course.
Funding for the Department post 25/26 is subject to a comprehensive bottom-up Spending review process that is planned to conclude in June. Local funding options are being considered as part of this review.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of expanding the Remembrance Day travel concession to include The Royal Tank Regiment parade.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The rail industry continues to offer free travel in the same way it has done historically, this includes free travel to Remembrance Sunday events. Eligible passengers can also apply for a Veterans Railcard which offers discounted prices on train fares for those who have served in the UK Armed Forces.
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.