Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what her policy is on local highways authorities delivering carbon savings by turning off street lighting at night.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The management of street lighting in England is the responsibility of local highway authorities, and it is for each local highway authority to decide the level of service they wish their street lighting network to deliver, and at what times. In reaching their decisions local authorities will take a number of factors into account, including the safety of all road users.
The Department for Transport encourages all local highway authorities to replace their street lighting with LED lighting, which is better for the environment than traditional street lighting.
The Department is also funding a £30 million research programme (“Live Labs 2”) to allow local authorities to pilot innovative ways of reducing the carbon impact of their highways operations. One of the projects is piloting new ways of decarbonising and rationalising street lighting, and testing lower carbon alternatives to it.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the Government ban on the sale of new petrol-fuelled vehicles from 2030 includes sit-on, petrol-fuelled lawnmowers for (a) domestic and (b) non-domestic use.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government’s commitment is for the phase out of new cars that rely solely on an internal combustion engine from 2030. Petrol-fuelled lawnmowers are considered non-road mobile machinery and therefore would not be in scope of the commitment for either domestic or non-domestic use. The Government will set out further details on its proposals in due course.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to paragraph 3.80 of the Autumn Budget 2024, published on 30 October, what proportion of the £120 million is new funding.
Answered by Mike Kane - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The £120m of funding announced in the Budget for 2025/26 is in addition to the existing funding of £120m in 2024/25, and will continue to support the purchase of new electric vans as well as the manufacture of wheelchair accessible electric vehicles (EVs).
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much funding from the Spring Budget 2022 for the purchase of new electric vans via the plug-in vehicle grant remains available.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Over the last two financial years since Spring 2022, the Plug in Van Grant has supported the purchase over 30,000 zero emission vans.
The Government continues to recognise the importance of grants, providing £120 million for next financial year to incentivise the uptake of zero emission vans and wheelchair accessible electric vehicles. All grants remain under review to ensure best value for money for the taxpayer.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent estimate her Department has made of the (a) cost of preparing and (b) length of the environmental impact assessment for the Lower Thames Crossing development consent order application.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Due to the level of interdependency between the large number of different elements of the Lower Thames Crossing Development Consent Order (DCO) application, it is not possible to accurately attribute costs to the production of the individual documents within it. However, the total amount spent on the planning process is £295.1million.
The Environmental Impact Assessment information submitted in 2022 as part of the Lower Thames Crossing DCO application comprised of approximately 12,000 pages.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Better Buses Bill on connectivity in (a) rural and (b) underserved areas; and whether she plans to allow community transport schemes to participate in the enhanced bus services framework under the Bill.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
As announced in the King’s Speech on 17 July 2024, the government will introduce a Buses Bill later this parliamentary session, which will put decision-making into the hands of local leaders, including in rural areas right across England. The Bill will seek to give local areas the choice of pursuing bus franchising, high quality partnerships with the private sector, or local authority owned bus companies. This will allow local areas to determine how best to design their bus services so that they have control over routes and schedules to ensure they reflect the needs of the communities they serve, including considering how community transport services, alongside regular stopping services, can improve the experience for bus passengers. The Bus Services Act 2017 requires that community transport operators are consulted as part of the franchising process.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the effect on levels of investment in the production of non fossil fuels for transport in the UK of removing derogation c from paragraph 6.84 of the 2018 RTFO Carbon and Sustainability Guidance in the updated guidance published in January 2020; what steps he is taking to incentivise the production of non fossil fuels for transport in the UK; and what commitments he has made to the decarbonisation of the public transport network.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Department’s Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation Guidance version 2020, Part One and Part Two, still provides that “derogation c.” applies. The Department has no current plans to remove the derogation, but it is now in Part One, paragraph 3.43, of the guidance.
Non-fossil fuels, including renewable hydrogen, are incentivised under the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), a certificate trading scheme. Renewable hydrogen is categorised as a development fuel, which potentially benefits from a higher tradeable certificate value.
At the end of March, we published a document “Decarbonising Transport: Setting the Challenge”, kicking off our work on preparing a Transport Decarbonisation Plan. This holistic and cross-modal approach to decarbonising the entire transport system, including public transport, will set out a credible and ambitious pathway to delivering transport’s contribution to carbon budgets and meet net zero by 2050.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to increase the number of zero emission buses in rural areas.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
In February, the Government announced a £5 billion funding package for buses and cycling, which includes support for the purchase of at least 4,000 zero-emission buses. The details of these programmes will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward planned improvements to the Northern Rail service between Scarborough and York that are due to take place in 2019.
Answered by Andrew Jones
The possibility of bringing forward the planned improvement to this route was fully explored with Arriva Rail North during the closing phases of the franchising process in late 2015 and was not considered achievable. This position has currently not changed, but should it do so then earlier implementation would then be considered with the franchisee.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make representations to Highways England and Transport for the North on extending the A64 dual carriageway to Barton Hill.
Answered by Andrew Jones
Highways England’s forthcoming work on the next iteration of their Route Strategies is the means of assessing pressures and needs and generating proposals across the entire strategic road network, including the A64. The Route Strategies will inform the preparation of the next Road Investment Strategy. Any specific proposals that require investment will of course need to be underpinned by a strong and clear business case.