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.
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
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 Baroness Maclean of Redditch
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.