Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will commit to allocating more funding to local authorities to build secure (a) cycle hangars and (b) on-street cycle parking spaces.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
£239 million of capital funding is being made available to local authorities outside London this financial year for active travel measures, including cycle parking infrastructure. Local transport authorities have been invited to bid for this funding and allocations will be announced in the autumn.
In London, Transport for London (TfL) and the London Boroughs are responsible for the provision of public cycle parking. The Government announced a third funding and financing package for TfL in June this year, which includes £100 million to continue the delivery of healthy streets and active travel programmes.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to accelerate the conversion of the world fleet of commercial ships to green propulsion.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The Government is working actively to accelerate the transition of the shipping industry to zero emissions operations.
Internationally, the UK has played a key role in the development of the International Maritime Organization’s strategy for climate change, and we will be pushing for a zero emissions international shipping industry by 2050 in future negotiations.
Domestically, we have set out our next steps in the recent Transport Decarbonisation Plan and committed £23m to support research and development through the Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what support his Department is providing to local authorities to fund and increase the availability of electric charging points.
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 which will see the installation of more on-street charge points near homes.
Local authorities will have a key role in planning and enabling the delivery of charge points to meet the needs of their local communities and areas, with particular focus on supporting those who do not have access to off-street parking. The On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) is available to all UK local authorities to provide public chargepoints for their residents without access to private parking. By 01 August 2021, the Scheme had supported 49 different local authorities to install over 1,400 chargepoints, while a further 88 local authorities have also been awarded grant funding to provide more than 3,200 on-street public chargepoints with their installations to be completed. This year, £20 million is available under the Scheme. Free support and expert advice for applications to the Scheme is provided on the Department’s behalf by Energy Saving Trust.
Government also committed at Spending Review a further £90 million to fund local EV charging infrastructure, to support the roll out of larger, on-street charging schemes and rapid hubs in England.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he has taken to help tackle road safety issues in respect of e-scooters hired under the Government’s e-scooter rental trials.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
There are a number of ways in which the Department is making the trials as safe as possible. All trial e-scooters must meet minimum construction standards and have at least third-party insurance provided by the e-scooter operator. Trial areas were required to provide evidence of engagement with the local police before a trial could be approved, to ensure the police were aware of the trials and of their role in enforcement. If an e-scooter is ridden into a no-go zone, it will power down to a safe stop, requiring the rider to push it back to an area in which riding is permitted. It is for the police to take action against rider behaviour for offences including drink driving; riding on the footway; contravening red traffic lights and using a mobile phone. Those who ride private e-scooters on the public highway are liable to be issued with fixed penalty notices for offences including contravening cycle lanes, riding without insurance and riding without a driving licence.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, for what reason Canada was not included alongside the EU and USA for quarantine-free travel to the UK from 28 July 2021; and whether he plans to take steps to implement quarantine-free travel between the UK and Canada.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Canada was added to the UK government’s green list at 4am on Monday 30 August 2021, meaning travellers arriving in the UK from Canada will not have to quarantine regardless of whether they are fully vaccinated.
The government is taking a phased approach to expanding the policy for vaccinated inbound travellers, and in due course, we will explore expanding this approach to other countries, where it is safe to do so. At present, we are unable to give timescales for extending this policy, but we look forward to working with Canada as we progress towards a safe, sustainable and robust return to international travel.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he has taken to reduce the cost of public transport to encourage members of the public to drive and fly less.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The National Bus Strategy, published on the 15 March, will deliver better bus services for passengers across England, through ambitious and far-reaching reform of how services are planned and delivered, to make local bus services more frequent, more reliable, easier to understand and use, better co-ordinated with simpler fares. We expect Local Transport Authorities to produce Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs) by the end of October 2021, setting out an ambitious vision for travel by bus in their area, meeting the goals and expectations in the strategy.
New national rail flexible season tickets were announced as part of the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail, reflecting modern working patterns and saving many passengers hundreds of pounds. The tickets went on sale on 21 June and became available for passengers to use on 28 June.
Great British Railways will use its leadership to simplify the current mass of complicated fares and tickets. Passengers will have simpler digital ticketing, be able to purchase tickets through a single industry website and app. There will be greater convenience for passengers through contactless travel in urban areas using contactless bankcards and smartphones.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what his policy is on introducing grants to members of the public to assist with the (a) purchase and (b) maintenance of electric cars.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Government has put in place various grant funding schemes to assist members of the public to reduce the up-front purchase price of electric vehicles. The Office for Zero Emission Vehicles provides a plug-in car grant of £2,500 towards eligible cars costing less than £35,000 and a plug-in van grant with small vans receiving up to £3,000 and large vans up to £6,000. Alongside cars and vans, the plug-in taxi grant gives licensed taxi drivers up to £7,500 off the price of a new vehicle and eligible zero emission mopeds and motorcycles can receive a grant of up to £1,500. In November 2020, Government announced more funding for the plug in vehicle grants. Including funding committed at Budget 2020, this brings a total of £582m for cars, vans, motorcycles and taxis to 2022/23. The March 2020 Budget included the extension of favourable benefit in kind tax rates for zero emission vehicles out to 2025; company car tax is only 1% for this financial year 2021/22 and 2% in 2022/23 through to 2024/25
The Government does not provide grants to assist with the maintenance of electric vehicles. Electric vehicles already have significantly cheaper running costs than petrol or diesel vehicles and all zero emission cars are exempt from vehicle excise duty (VED).
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make it his policy to introduce recycling centres specifically designed to recycle materials from electric cars.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Government is keen to create a circular economy for all electric vehicle batteries. That is why we are supporting the innovation, infrastructure and regulatory environment for a UK battery recycling industry. The Government’s £330 million Faraday Battery Challenge is playing a leading role in promoting the reuse and recycling of battery components. The 2009 Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations bans the disposal of EV batteries to landfill or incineration. Battery producers are obligated to take back EV batteries free-of-charge and treat them at approved facilities. The Government is providing grant funding support through the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) to a ground-breaking project (RECOVAS) to create a new circular end-of-life supply chain for the electric vehicle industry. RECOVAS will develop the UK’s first commercial scale recycling facility for automotive battery packs.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make it his policy to increase the number of charging points for electric cars to help meet the Climate Change Committee's recommendation of 150,000 such points to be introduced by 2025.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The UK has been a global front-runner in supporting provision of charging infrastructure along with private sector investment. Our vision is to have one of the best infrastructure networks in the world for electric vehicles (EVs), and we want chargepoints to be accessible, affordable and secure.
We will invest £1.3 billion in accelerating the roll out of charging infrastructure over the next four years, targeting support on rapid chargepoints on motorways and major roads, and installing more on-street chargepoints near homes and workplaces, to make charging as easy as refuelling a petrol or diesel car. Later this year, we will introduce new regulations under the Automated Electric Vehicles Act (2018) to improve the consumer experience of public charging. We will also be publishing an EV Infrastructure Strategy to set out the vision and action plan for charging infrastructure rollout needed to achieve the 2030/35 phase out successfully. This will set expected roles for different stakeholders and how government will intervene to address the gaps between the current market status and our vision.
The Government has not set an overall target for the number of chargepoints because doing so risks assuming technology stands still and creating a uniform approach to charging mixes and needs across the country. We keep all our policies under review.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions he is having with Cabinet colleagues on recognising foreign certification of covid-19 vaccination for the purpose of travel to the UK.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
We are working closely with medical and public health experts and international partners and will provide an update in due course on how we will approach vaccinated individuals from other countries.