Cat Smith
Main Page: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Wyre)Department Debates - View all Cat Smith's debates with the Department for Transport
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
A small but important sub-clause to my announcement that we will be consulting to outlaw the sale of diesel HGVs by 2040 is that by 2035—five years earlier—we will already have done that for lorries up to 26 tonnes. A 26-tonner is a very considerable size of lorry, so my hon. Friend’s prayers may well be answered much sooner than he fears.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
Poor air quality caused by congestion causes health problems and costs lives. This is a particular problem for my constituents in the village of Galgate, which has the A6 running down the middle of it. Will the Secretary of State look favourably on plans to reconfigure junction 33 of the M6 to create a bypass for the village? Regardless of that, there will still be buses running through the village. I note that the Secretary of State said that some zero-emission buses were in production, but does he admit that his target of 4,000 is unambitious, when that represents only about one tenth of the English fleet?
Grant Shapps
The hon. Lady will be pleased to hear that, if anything, we are ahead of schedule on the bus target, with 900 already on their way—in production—so I hope that we can go even further.[Official Report, 20 July 2021, Vol. 699, c. 5MC.] Our £3 billion bus strategy is by far and away the largest for generations, and I look forward to it helping her constituents. I will certainly mention her point about junction 33 of the A6 to the Roads Minister and ask her to come back to the hon. Lady.