Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions the Department is having with relevant stakeholders on improving local bus services in Northumberland.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to helping local leaders improve local bus services and grow usage across England, including the North East, Northumberland and Hexham constituency. The Department for Transport regularly engages with local authority representatives from the North East Combined Authority, including as part of our continued support to local transport authorities pursuing bus franchising.
We are taking action to give local leaders the powers they need to deliver better bus services for passengers, including through the Bus Services Act 2025, and investing over £1 billion in 2025/26 to support and improve bus services in England outside London, of which £23.8 million has been allocated to the North East Combined Authority. This funding can be used to expand services and improve reliability, which are currently massive obstacles for too many people.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions the Department is having with relevant stakeholders on improving local bus services in the Hexham constituency.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to helping local leaders improve local bus services and grow usage across England, including the North East, Northumberland and Hexham constituency. The Department for Transport regularly engages with local authority representatives from the North East Combined Authority, including as part of our continued support to local transport authorities pursuing bus franchising.
We are taking action to give local leaders the powers they need to deliver better bus services for passengers, including through the Bus Services Act 2025, and investing over £1 billion in 2025/26 to support and improve bus services in England outside London, of which £23.8 million has been allocated to the North East Combined Authority. This funding can be used to expand services and improve reliability, which are currently massive obstacles for too many people.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what conversations the Department is having with relevant stakeholders to improve local bus services in the North East.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to helping local leaders improve local bus services and grow usage across England, including the North East, Northumberland and Hexham constituency. The Department for Transport regularly engages with local authority representatives from the North East Combined Authority, including as part of our continued support to local transport authorities pursuing bus franchising.
We are taking action to give local leaders the powers they need to deliver better bus services for passengers, including through the Bus Services Act 2025, and investing over £1 billion in 2025/26 to support and improve bus services in England outside London, of which £23.8 million has been allocated to the North East Combined Authority. This funding can be used to expand services and improve reliability, which are currently massive obstacles for too many people.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions she has had with the Northern Ireland Executive on supporting people to use electric vehicles.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Officials from the Department for Transport regularly engage with the Department for Infrastructure on initiatives to support the use of zero emission vehicles (ZEV). Minister Lightwood met the Northern Ireland Minister for Infrastructure in April during the British Irish Council meeting, and the Secretary of State met with the Northern Ireland Minister for Infrastructure earlier this month [November] as part of the Interministerial Group for Transport. Both meetings included discussions on the ZEV transition.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions her Department has had with relevant stakeholders on improving step- free access at train stations in Hexham constituency.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Several stations in the Hexham constituency have a degree of step free access, but this often involves use of level crossings, steep ramps or long walking routes between platforms and this is far from ideal.
No stations in the constituency were put forward for accessibility upgrades during the latest round of Access for All funding nominations in 2022, meaning they were not considered by the previous Government.
Nominations for future rounds of Access for All funding will benefit from strong industry support and a proportion of third-party match funding, helping to ensure that investment delivers the greatest benefit to passengers. In the meantime, if any passengers are unable to use a particular station train operators are obliged to provide alternative accessible transport at no additional cost.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions her Department has had with relevant stakeholders on improving step- free access at train stations in Northumberland.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department continues to work closely with Network Rail, train operators and local authorities to improve step-free access at stations in Northumberland.
For example all of the Northumberland Line’s new stations have been designed to be fully accessible. A number of stations in Northumberland have also benefitted from funding under the Access for All programme, including Morpeth and Alnmouth railway stations.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions her Department has had with relevant stakeholders on improving step- free access for train stations in the North East.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department continues to work closely with Network Rail, train operators and local authorities to improve step-free access at stations across the North East.
For example, the Transpennine Route Upgrade will provide step free access at 22 stations. A number of stations in the region have been made accessible with funding from the Access for All programme, including Northallerton and Middlesborough railway stations.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what data her Department holds on the number of electric charging points in (a) Hexham constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) Newcastle, (d) the North East and (e) England.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The below table presents the number of public charging devices as of 1st October 2025 in Hexham constituency, Northumberland, Newcastle upon Tyne, the North East, and England.
Area | Number of public charging devices, 1st October 2025 |
Hexham constituency | 237 |
Northumberland | 611 |
Newcastle upon Tyne | 277 |
North East | 2,698 |
England | 74,115 |
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to improve access to electric vehicle charging facilities in the North East.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to accelerating the roll-out of affordable and accessible charging infrastructure so that everyone, no matter where they live or work, can make the transition to an electric vehicle (EV). Public chargepoint numbers are increasing and, as of 1 November 2025, Government and industry have supported the installation of 86,798 publicly available charging devices, up 22% on this time last year.
The North East region was allocated over £25m through the Government’s Local EV Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund to leverage significant private investment and increase the number of local public chargepoints across the region.
The £25 million EV Pavement Channel Grant is also available, which is intended to empower local authorities to adopt pavement channels as part of their local charging solutions. The North East was allocated over £1.6m to support the installation of pavement channels alongside public chargepoints.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what data her Department holds on the number of electric vehicles currently registered in (a) Hexham constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) Newcastle, (d) the North East and (e) England.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
At the end of June 2025, the number of licensed vehicles that were battery electric was 3,313 in Newcastle, 5,220 in Northumberland, 35,438 in the North East and 1,464,860 in England.
We do not readily hold the respective figure for Hexham constituency.
It is important to note, vehicles are allocated to geographic location according to the postcode of the registered keeper. The address does not necessarily reflect where the vehicle is located. This is especially true for large fleets kept by companies involved with vehicle management, leasing or rentals.