Asked by: Andrew Turner (Conservative - Isle of Wight)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions his Department has had with (a) local authorities and (b) other organisations on which (i) key net roads and (ii) highway responsibilities could be devolved to the proposed Solent combined authority.
Answered by John Hayes
DfT officials have had some early conversations with local authorities about the possibilities for coordinating/improving transport delivery across the Solent area as part of potential combined authority proposals. Discussions across Government are still ongoing.
Asked by: Andrew Turner (Conservative - Isle of Wight)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the effect on smaller bus operators of local authorities franchising bus services; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Andrew Jones
I want to ensure that smaller bus operators, who drive innovation and invention, form part of the mix of bus service providers in any future franchising model. The Department’s assessment of the effects of franchising on smaller bus operators will be set out in the Impact Assessment which will accompany the introduction of the Bill.
Asked by: Andrew Turner (Conservative - Isle of Wight)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent comparative assessment he has made of the cost to the public purse of expanding (a) Heathrow and (b) Gatwick airports.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The Government is currently considering the large amount of very detailed analysis contained in the Airports Commission’s final report before taking any decisions on next steps.
The Government will carefully consider all the evidence set out, including that on costs, when making a decision on additional runway capacity.
Asked by: Andrew Turner (Conservative - Isle of Wight)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the cost of the Crossrail programme has been (a) to date and (b) in each financial year since the programme began; what proportion of the cost in each of those categories has been borne by (i) the public purse, (ii) funding from the EU and (iii) private companies involved in the programme; and what the projected cost of that programme is expected to be over its lifetime in total and for each of the three sub-categories set out above.
Answered by Claire Perry
During the passage of the Crossrail Bill through Parliament, a commitment was given that a statement would be published at least every 12 months until the completion of the construction of Crossrail, setting out information about the project’s funding and finances. The first statement was published in July 2009.
The latest statement was published on 2 July 2015 and can be viewed here:
Expenditure incurred by Crossrail Ltd. in relation to the construction of Crossrail in the period covered by the statement (30 May 2014 and 29 May 2015) was £1,583,293,000 (excluding recoverable VAT on land and property purchases).
Crossrail’s funding package of £14.8bn is roughly split three ways between taxpayers, businesses, and future Crossrail fare payers. It is not possible to produce a detailed breakdown of which funding streams expenditure year on year comes from.
Crossrail Ltd. continue to forecast that the costs of constructing Crossrail will be within the agreed funding limits.
Asked by: Andrew Turner (Conservative - Isle of Wight)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many roads in each local authority area have been closed on (a) one occasion and (b) more than one occasion in the last year.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Information on the number of road closures in each local authority area is not held centrally by the Department for Transport.