Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to his Department's Circular 01/2013, whether it remains Government policy that a 30 mph speed limit should be the norm in villages.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
30mph remains the default speed limit in built-up areas. Unless an order has been made and the road is signed to the contrary, a 30 mph speed limit applies where there is a system of street lighting furnished by means of lamps placed not more than 200 yards apart.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to ensure sufficient pavement grit is available for winter 2023-24 in the City of Durham constituency.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Pavement grit is a matter for Durham County Council.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to help increase the safety of pedestrians in (a) City of Durham constituency and (b) County Durham.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The Department for Transport updated The Highway Code on 29 January 2022 to include changes to improve safety for cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders.
The local council has responsibility for making decisions about local roads, based on its local knowledge and taking into account local needs.
Durham City Council was also awarded £528,000 from the Safer Roads Fund in 2016/17 for improvements to the A67. Pedestrian related improvements funded included pedestrian crossing points at various locations along the A67 in Barnard castle and Startforth Park.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what information the Government holds on the number of electric vehicle charging points in City of Durham constituency.
Answered by Jesse Norman
For the City of Durham constituency, the table below details the number of: ,
i. publicly available electric vehicle charging devices as at 1st July 2023 according to Zapmap;
ii. domestic electric vehicle charging devices funded by the Domestic Recharge Scheme (DRS) as at the scheme end in 2014;
iii. domestic electric vehicle charging devices funded through the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme (EVHS) at 1st July 2023 and;
iv. workplace electric vehicle charging sockets funded through the Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS) at 1st July 2023.
| i.) Public charging devices | ii.) DRS charging devices | iii.) EVHS charging devices | iv.) WCS charging sockets |
City of Durham constituency | 93 | 393 | 640 | 113 |
Data on electric vehicle charging devices in the UK, held by the Department for Transport, is sourced from those installed or funded under Government approved grant schemes, operated by the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) and from the electric vehicle charging platform Zapmap. Charging devices not supplied via these schemes or recorded on Zapmap are not included and the actualnumber of charging devices may be higher than recorded in these figures.
The data across columns should not be summed to create a total as public charging devices, DRS and EVHS statistics count charging devices, whereas WCS counts charging sockets, making them incompatible to sum together.
A geographic breakdown of data from the Electric Vehicle Chargepoint Grant (EVCG) scheme has not yet been published,and so has been excluded from this table. Data for charging devices installed through the On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) is not available at parliamentary constituency level.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when Bus Service Improvement Plan funding will be delivered to Transport North East.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Department has been clear that Bus Service improvement Plan funding is conditional on the submission and implementation of a transformational Enhanced Partnership or franchising arrangement.
We are currently working with Transport North East on developing their EP with a view to delivering funding once we are satisfied that this is in place.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of exercising the powers in the Harbours Act 1964 to issue Harbour Revision Orders in response to the actions against UK seafarers taken by P&O Ferries on 17 March 2022.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The use of Harbour Revision Orders was considered as part of the overall response to actions undertaken by P&O ferries. The use of Harbour Revision Orders, which as a process is primarily operated by the Marine Management Organisation, was judged not to be suitable as a response to this situation. As a harbour revision order applies only to a single harbour, and so for any unified response a Harbour Revision Order would need to be drafted for every port, this was deemed a less than ideal method for any potential government action.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will list the maritime ports his Department classifies as nationally significant.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The Department for Transport does not designate ports as nationally significant or otherwise, and in general expects them to compete freely with each other irrespective of size. However, 52 ports are designated (based on handling more than 1M tonnes of cargo in a year) as "major ports" for statistical purposes. A list may be found at Annex A to the publication Port Freight Statistics 2020: Notes and Definitions.
Nationally significant port infrastructure projects are defined at s.24 Planning Act 2008.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many people are directly employed by Statutory Harbour Authorities in (a) England, (b) Scotland, (c) Wales and (d) Northern Ireland.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
This is not data that is directly collected or held by the Department.The most recent publicly available estimates suggests that the sector directly employs around 100,000 people around the UK.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the Harbours (Seafarers’ Remuneration) Bill will apply equally to statutory harbour authorities (a) within and (b) outside maritime Freeports.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The intention is for the Bill to introduce a requirement for in-scope service operators to provide declarations of compliance to Statutory Harbour Authorities (SHAs) with powers of inspection and investigation provided to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Additionally, the intention is for the Secretary of State to be able to direct SHAs to suspend access to non-compliant operators. The duties placed on ports will apply equally to all UK SHAs, regardless of whether they will be within a Freeport zone or not.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the Harbours (Seafarers’ Remuneration) Bill will apply equally to (a) private, (b) municipal and (c) trust ports.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The intention is for the Bill to introduce a requirement for in-scope service operators to provide declarations of compliance to Statutory Harbour Authorities (SHAs) with powers of inspection and investigation provided to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Additionally, the intention is for the Secretary of State to be able to direct SHAs to suspend access to non-compliant operators. The duties placed on ports will apply equally to all UK SHAs, regardless of whether the SHA is under Trust, municipal or private ownership.