Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much money has been spent on the Great British Rail Transition Team.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Great British Railways Transition Team (GBRTT) was set up as a temporary organisation under the previous government to design and transition towards Great British Railways, including building cross-industry capability. Total funding provided to GBRTT was: £12.9m in the financial year 2021-22; £52.7m in the financial year 2022-23, £41.3m in the financial year 2023-24; and £27.6m in the financial year 2024-25.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of conclusion one of the Public Account Committee's report entitled HS2: Update following the Northern leg cancellation, HC 357, published 28 February 2025, on the governance of Great British Railways.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Work is underway on the design of Great British Railways, including its governance. We will take learnings from elsewhere, including the Public Account Committee’s recent report on High Speed Two (HS2), to ensure GBR is set up to deliver better services for passengers and freight customers, and better value for money for taxpayers.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an estimate of the amount of funding spent on reforming the train ticketing system in the (a) 2021-22, (b) 2022-23 and (c) 2023-24 financial years.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Fares Ticketing and Retail (FTR) Programme to modernise ticketing and retail systems started at Spending Review 2021. The first year of the programme was 22/23. The Department spend £55.7 million in 22/23 and £66 million in 23/24 on the FTR programme.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much of the funding allocated to reform the train ticketing system has been spent.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The department is committed to reforming the train ticketing system and improving passenger experience. There has been substantial progress in extending Pay As You Go (PAYG) ticketing in the South East and progressing PAYG trials in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands. We will establish Great British Railways, ensuring fares and ticketing are managed in the interests of passengers and taxpayers.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of conclusion one of the Public Account Committee's report entitled HS2: Update following the Northern leg cancellation, HC 357, published 28 February 2025 on the governance of HS2.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
In light of the Public Account Committee’s recent report on High Speed Two (HS2), this government’s priority is to deliver HS2 Phase 1 safely and to the lowest reasonable cost. We have set out urgent measures to get the programme back on track and have tasked Mark Wild, the new CEO of HS2 Ltd, with conducting a reset of the HS2 programme to provide a realistic budget and schedule and to deliver the remaining works.
As part of this reset, the government reinstated ministerial oversight of the project to ensure greater accountability and commissioned an independent review of the oversight of major transport infrastructure projects, which is investigating the effectiveness of forecasting and reporting of cost, schedule and benefits, as well as actions to deliver cost efficiencies.
The Department will update Parliament on the programme reset as it progresses.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the new Great British Railways ticketing system will automatically identify the cheapest combination of fares for each journey.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Once Great British Railways is established, it will retail online by consolidating individual train operators’ ticket websites. It will work alongside a thriving private sector retail market, which will continue to play a key role in driving innovation and investment and encouraging more people to choose rail.
The Railways Bill consultation, which launched on 18 February, will help us develop more detailed plans for GBR’s retail offer. We are consulting closely with industry, the private sector, and wider stakeholders.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to reduce waiting times for resolutions to missed child maintenance payments.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) will do everything it can to address the nonpayment of child maintenance and reduce waiting times for missed payments. We use our enforcement powers fairly and quickly to get cases back into payment.
These powers include deductions from earnings orders, removal of driving licenses, disqualification from holding a passport, and committal to prison. The CMS has also introduced powers to deduct child maintenance directly from a wider range of bank accounts and can apply for a liability order. A liability order legally recognizes the debt and is required before the CMS can take certain enforcement actions against non-compliant parents to enforce those arrears.
Following the Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023 receiving royal assent in July 2023, secondary legislation is required to bring into force existing powers that allow the CMS to make an administrative liability order against a person who has failed to pay child maintenance and is in arrears.
The administrative liability order will replace the current requirement for the CMS to apply to the court for a liability order, which can take up to 22 weeks. Introducing a simpler administrative process will enable the CMS to take faster action against parents who actively avoid their responsibilities and will get money to children more quickly. We expect the new liability order process to take around six to eight weeks, allowing for delays.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to meet its target of 16.5% tree cover by 2050.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are making progress towards the statutory target to reach 16.5% tree and woodland cover in England by 2050. The Government has pledged up to £400 million for tree planting and peatland restoration over the current and next financial year. As part of that we will create new woodland including national forests to bring communities and woodlands closer together and to create new green jobs. The Government has launched a Tree Planting Taskforce to support our plans to plant millions more trees.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps she is taking to plant trees alongside roads.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department is not currently taking any specific steps with regards to tree planting as this a matter for National Highways and local highway authorities (for the strategic road network and local roads respectively).
The Department does, however, encourage local highway authorities to recognise the contribution that trees make to the economic, social and environmental well-being of communities, while National Highways is, as part of its efforts to deliver on environmental goals and achieve Net Zero Targets, aiming to plant at least 3 million trees by 2030 (in addition to the trees planted as ‘essential mitigation’ for projects) to provide landscape and biodiversity benefits and help lock up carbon.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of amending the Highways Act 1980 to increase roadside trees planting.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department does not have plans to amend the Highways Act 1980 on this particular topic. The Department does, however, encourage local highway authorities to recognise the contribution that trees make to the economic, social and environmental well-being of communities, while National Highways is, as part of its efforts to deliver on environmental goals and achieve Net Zero Targets, aiming to plant at least 3 million trees by 2030 (in addition to the trees planted as ‘essential mitigation’ for projects), to provide landscape and biodiversity benefits and help lock up carbon.