Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps she is taking to reduce waiting times for driving tests in (a) Preston, (b) Lancashire and (c) England.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) main priority is upholding road safety standards while it works hard to reduce car practical driving test waiting times.
On the 23 April, the Secretary of State for Transport appeared before the Transport Select Committee and announced that DVSA will take further actions to reduce waiting times for all customers across Great Britain.
Further information on these actions and progress of DVSA’s plan to reduce driving test waiting times, which was announced in December 2024, can be found on GOV.UK.
From recent recruitment campaigns for the Preston and Lancashire areas, DVSA has a potential new driving examiner (DE) starting training next month.
DVSA will continue to recruit in the area and has had four successful potential new DEs from the latest campaign. Once background checks have been completed, DVSA will offer these candidates training courses.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much of the funding allocated in the Spending Review 2025 will be spent on (a) public transport and (b) bus services in (i) the North West and (ii) Preston.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The North-West of England will benefit significantly from increased government investment to improve local public transport. Some larger city regions in the North-West will receive long-term funding through the Transport for City Regions (TCR) programme, with a total of over £4 billion allocated for the period 2027/28 to 2031/32. This funding will help local leaders deliver better bus, rail, cycling and walking networks with greater certainty and flexibility. For areas in the North-West not receiving TCR settlements, the Local Transport Grant (LTG) will provide over £413 million from 2026/27 to 2029/30 in simplified, consolidated funding to support improvements in local priorities such as zero-emission buses, public transport upgrades, and safer, more accessible streets. Together, these investments will make everyday journeys quicker, greener, and more reliable across the region.
The Lancashire Combined County Authority is set to receive a £215 million capital allocation through the Local Transport Grant. As a major town within this area, Preston will benefit from the funding through improvements to local transport infrastructure.
At the 2025 Spending Review, the Government also announced a major long-term investment in bus services, committing around £900 million of resource funding each year to maintain and improve services and to extend the £3 fare cap until March 2027. Including capital investment, this represents over £1 billion a year in total support for the bus sector. Individual allocations for the North-West have not yet been confirmed, as the Department for Transport is still carrying out internal business planning. However, this guaranteed funding will support and improve bus services for passengers across the region, helping to grow the economy, boost household incomes and improve access to opportunity.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the impact of pavement parking on individuals that are visually impaired; and if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a ban on pavement parking.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Department carried out a public consultation on possible solutions to the complex pavement parking problem and received over 15,000 responses. The Department has listened carefully to the concerns raised by Guide Dogs and other disability organisations, including via their consultation responses, and those views will help inform our subsequent policy decisions.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has held recent discussions with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on the potential impact of planning regulations on the installation of electronic vehicle charging points.
Answered by Anthony Browne
Officials in the Department for Transport and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) are exploring potential changes to planning to make it easier to install chargepoints.
In 2023, the Government introduced changes to permitted development rights (PDR), enabling chargepoint operators to install through PDR on behalf of local authorities. On 13 February 2024, DLUHC launched a consultation, seeking to make further changes to PDR. The proposed changes aim to make installations at off-street locations easier and quicker. A government response to the consultation will be issued in due course.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he is taking steps to encourage uptake of electronic vehicles among all socioeconomic groups.
Answered by Anthony Browne
The Government is committed to keeping the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) affordable for all consumers. Plug-in vehicle grants have been in place for over a decade to support the transition to EVs, and remain in place for harder to transition vehicles such as vans.
The uptake of EVs continues to be supported through generous tax incentives. The 2022 Autumn Statement extended favourable benefit in kind tax rates for EVs out to April 2028, and EVs are either exempt or pay minimal Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) until 2025. From 2025, EVs will still have preferential first year rates of VED in comparison to the most polluting vehicles.
To transform the availability of charging for drivers without off-street parking, the Government introduced the £381 million Local EV Infrastructure Fund. This will deliver tens of thousands of local chargepoints, ensuring the transition to EVs takes place in every part of the country. The Government also continues to provide funding for domestic and workplace chargepoints. This includes the recently announced grant for eligible households without off-street parking, to install a cross-pavement charging solution.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 levels of train cancellations into Preston; and what plans he has to help reduce such cancellations.
Answered by Huw Merriman
Ministers, DfT and Rail North Partnership Officials regularly meet with the senior management of Network Rail and train operators to review performance, including at Preston. We continue to hold operators to account for matters within their control and will continue to use all contractual levers to drive the best outcomes for passengers. The Department will continue to work collaboratively with train operating companies and Network Rail to ensure a high performing railway contributes to growth and local economies.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the oral contribution of the Prime Minister at Prime Minister's Questions on 24 January 2024, Official Report, column 296, what plans his Department has to improve Preston railway station; and what his planned timeline is for those improvements.
Answered by Huw Merriman
Following the Network North announcement, work is underway to consider potential upgrades to the West Coast Main Line, including improvements to Preston station, to support the introduction of High-Speed Services and improve journeys between London, the West Midlands, the North-West and Scotland. My officials are working with industry partners to review options.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of proposed rail fares for 2024-25; and if he will take steps to ensure fares do not rise further.
Answered by Huw Merriman
The Government is continuing to support passengers with cost-of-living pressures with another significant intervention on rail fares, capping increases at 4.9 per cent, significantly below the July 2023 Retail Prices Index (RPI) figure of 9 per cent, which has historically been used to calculate fares changes.
The lower fare cap comes after the Government delivered its target to halve inflation by the end of the year.
This year’s increase builds on last year’s unprecedented intervention, which saw the Government cap the increase for 2023 at 6.4 percentage points lower than the 2022 July RPI figure. This means the Government will have helped keep ticket prices more than 9 per cent lower than what passengers would have paid if rises matched the RPI benchmark in the last two years.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department is taking steps to help increase the affordability of bus travel for school children.
Answered by Richard Holden - Opposition Whip (Commons)
In England, the majority of bus services outside London operate on a commercial basis, and decisions about offering reduced or discounted fares for commercial bus services are predominantly for operators to take. Many bus operators currently offer discounted travel cards for younger people. Our most recent set of statistics shows that operators in 70 out of 84 travel concession authority areas in England, outside London, offered some form of discounted travel for young people.
The Department for Transport is investing in the bus sector to deliver the ambitions of the National Bus Strategy to make bus services more reliable and cheaper. We are providing over £1 billion of funding for English Local Transport Authorities (LTAs) outside London to support the delivery of Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs), some of which include the introduction of measures to reduce bus fares for young people. On 4 October, the Prime Minister also announced a further £1 billion for LTAs across the North and the Midlands to deliver their BSIPs. We have also announced a further £160 million of BSIP+ funding until April 2025 for LTAs to protect and enhance bus services, and deliver local fares initiatives.
The Government has also allocated nearly £600 million to introduce a £2 fare cap on single bus fares in England outside London from 1 January 2023 to help passengers save on their regular travel costs. The Prime Minister announced on 4 October that this would be extended to 31 December 2024. The cap is available on over 5,000 routes, and services from participating operators that serve schools, are open to members of the public and run all year round are eligible for inclusion in the scheme.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking with airports to ensure that airport operators security staff receive training on searching passengers who are fitted with stoma bags.
Answered by Robert Courts
As part of training in the screening of passengers my department requires security staff to know how to respond to the specific needs of different passengers, including those with medical devices. It is the airport’s responsibility to ensure that their security personnel receive training to conduct security searches appropriately and are trained with a sensitive regard to the person being screened.