Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department plans to introduce legislative proposals to extend the ban on pavement parking outside of London.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department held a consultation on pavement parking in 2020 and has been considering all the views expressed in response to the consultation and is currently working through the policy options and the possible legislative opportunities for delivering them. We will announce the next steps and publish our formal response as soon as possible. In the meantime, local authorities can make use of existing powers to restrict and enforce pavement parking.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether she has considered the potential merits of a certification scheme for e-bikes to be carried on public transport; and whether she has had discussions with Transport for London on such a scheme.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
It is for transport operators to decide on their conditions of carriage, as safe duty holders, including whether to allow people to bring e-bikes onboard.
While I have therefore not discussed any form of certification scheme with Transport for London, Ministers and officials have regular discussions with TfL on a variety of issues, including on e-bike safety.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking's report entitled Unregulated and unsafe: the threat of illegal e-Bikes, published in June 2025, whether her Department plans to support the introduction of scrappage schemes for unsafe (a) e-bikes and (b) conversion kits.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
While there are no plans to introduce a scrappage scheme, the Government is bringing forward the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill. This will enable the UK product safety framework to keep up with innovative products and technological progress, giving Ministers the power to update relevant product safety laws accordingly to tackle products that pose greater risks.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department plans to include measures to tackle the use of (a) illegal and (b) unregulated e-bikes in its Road Safety Strategy.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Only e-bikes that are fully compliant with the requirements of the Electrically Assisted Pedal Cycle Regulations 1983 are legal to use on the roads, and we recognise the risk to road safety of those e-bikes that are not compliant with regulations.
The Government treats road safety very seriously, and we are committed to reducing the numbers of those killed and injured on our roads. My Department is developing our Road Safety Strategy and will set out more detail in due course.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department is taking steps to encourage bus companies to install cycle racks on their vehicles in (a) rural and (b) other areas.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The government is committed to delivering better bus services that meet passengers’ needs, including in rural areas, and has set out ambitious plans to reform bus services, including through the Bus Services (No.2) Bill and investing over £1 billion to support and improve bus services. The majority of bus services operate on a commercial basis, and decisions about the management and design of their bus fleet are for bus operators to make, including whether to install cycle racks.
The government recognises that bus services are part of a wider transport ecosystem, and it is vital to view them in the context of an integrated transport network designed with passengers as the priority. We have announced plans to develop an Integrated National Transport Strategy to set the long-term vision for transport in England. This will focus on how transport should be designed, built and operated to better serve the people who use it and ensure that the transport network is complementary, including the interaction between different modes of travel.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department (a) is taking and (b) plans to take steps to increase the provision of fast chargers for electric vehicles.
Answered by Anthony Browne
The Government and industry have supported the installation of over 61,000 publicly available charging devices. This is a 44% increase on last year. There are now more than 10,000 rapid charge points available.
ChargeUK members have committed to investing more than £6 billion in developing and operating charging infrastructure before 2030.
Going forward, the Government’s £381 million Local EV Infrastructure Fund is already supporting local authorities to deliver tens of thousands of local chargepoints and the £70 million Rapid Charging Fund pilot will future-proof electrical capacity at strategic locations
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department plans to take to help sustainable aviation fuel producers meet levels of demand from airlines.
Answered by Anthony Browne
The Government is supporting the development of a UK SAF industry to increase the supply of SAF in the UK.
We will introduce our SAF Mandate from 2025, which will secure demand, supporting investor confidence in UK SAF projects. It will incentivise the supply of SAF through the provision of tradable certificates with a cash value.
Thirteen projects have been awarded a share of £135m through the Advanced Fuels Fund, supporting them to reach commercial scale. Once at operational scale, funded projects could produce over 700,000 tonnes of SAF yearly. We have established a UK SAF Clearing House, which helps to remove barriers to new fuels coming to market.
We are also consulting on options to provide UK SAF producers with a revenue certainty mechanism, which will help provide greater certainty of future revenue and attract investment in commercial scale SAF plants within the UK.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies of the report by the Centre for Economic Business Research entitled The pothole crisis is costing £14.4 billion a year in economic damage in England alone, published on 29 April 2024.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Government agrees that, whilst local road maintenance is the responsibility of individual local authorities, more that needs to be done to improve the condition of roads across the country.
That is why we’ve committed £8.3 billion extra from savings as a result of cancelling HS2 Phase 2 to help local councils fill potholes and resurface roads.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the safety of smart motorways; and what evidence was used to make that assessment.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The latest published safety data and assessment can be found in National Highways’ ‘Third year progress report 2023’.
Since then, massive investment of millions of pounds has been spent to upgrade and improve the safety of all motorways. Ongoing assessment is being made.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of recent reports that flights to and from the UK may have been affected by alleged Russian jamming of GPS systems.
Answered by Anthony Browne
Aviation remains among the safest forms of travel. There are several safety protocols in place to protect aircraft navigation and loss or denial of global positioning should not directly affect the safety of an aircraft. Nonetheless we continue to work with the Civil Aviation Authority and industry to mitigate any risks posed to aviation.