Asked by: Pat Glass (Labour - North West Durham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate his Department has made of the number of additional road vehicle movements per year resulting from the decision to reduce the budget for rail freight mode shift revenue support grants.
Answered by John Hayes
Following the final bid round of 2016/17, the maximum number of lorry journeys that Mode Shift Revenue Grant (MSRS) support would help to remove from Britain’s roads is 983,162 for that year. Funding allocated at the first bid round for 2017/18 and 2018/19 will help to remove up to 796,854 and 776,497 lorry journeys respectively.
These are estimates not definitive figures. This is because awards may not be delivered in full. There are also some further bid rounds to come for 2017/18 and 2018/19, which may increase the figures or alter what is covered by this grant and the parallel Waterborne Freight Grant scheme.
Asked by: Pat Glass (Labour - North West Durham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the evaluation of the longer semi-trailer trial: annual report 2015, published in August 2016, whether the information supplied by haulage operators on minor injuries and damage to street furniture arising from longer semi-trailers has been independently verified.
Answered by John Hayes
The entire trial evaluation is being carried out by an independent consultant, Risk Solutions which collects the data, liaise with the operators and analyse the results before reporting to the Department for Transport. The annual reports produced by Risk Solutions are published by the Department without further editing. Risk Solutions maintains its independence strongly, reviews major departmental statements regarding the trial and results and challenges wording or claims strongly if they are not fully supported by the evidence.
All injuries reported by the operators, including minor/slight injuries, are checked against the national STATS19 data, which is collated from submissions by police forces. Risk Solutions has details of a very small number of incidents involving very minor injuries reported by the operator or by the injured party, but where the police did not attend and the injured party did not attend hospital. These are incidents which, had they involved standard trailers, would not have been reported or counted in any official data, but have been included in the LST trial injury statistics.
Studying incidents where there is no injury (and hence no police report) is challenging since there is no national standard process or format for recording such events. Any study of such incidents for longer semi-trailers (LSTs) requires that there also be a comparative dataset for non-injury incidents involving other long, articulated HGVs. Risk Solutions engaged with a small sample of operators to analyse their in-house data on all incidents to see whether LSTs were over or under-represented in the data. The results from that exercise are explained in the latest annual report. Risk Solutions are currently engaging with a larger sample of operators to expand this dataset and anticipate publishing those results in the next annual report.
Asked by: Pat Glass (Labour - North West Durham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the evaluation of the longer semi-trailer trial: annual report 2015, published in August 2016, what roads are being used by longer semi-trailers; and what the mileage is of such trailers on minor and urban roads.
Answered by John Hayes
The original trial terms of reference and operator undertaking issued in 2011 did not place a requirement on participating companies to track the exact movements of each Longer Semi Trailer (LST) or to log routes taken. When the trial started in 2012 GPS tracking was a new technology and to have placed such a tracking requirement on the operators would have been considered an unreasonable burden on the industry and would probably have excluded smaller operators from participating, limiting the coverage and value of the trial.
The expectation across the industry has always been that compared with other long articulated HGVs, LSTs would be likely to operate a greater proportion of their journeys on major roads, performing trunking duties. This is supported by the leg type use charts in the Annual Report, but is not ‘proven’.
During 2015, DfT and Risk Solutions looked into the options for studying LST routing by road types including sampling of the part of the fleet that is fitted with trailer GPS, backfitting the entire fleet (or those not currently fitted) with trailer GPS, or modelling the ‘likely’ routing of LSTs using the origin and destination data already provided in the trial data submissions. Modelling the likely route was chosen because it would effectively provide an insight into the balance of road types used by LSTs at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer, while minimising the additional burden on the industry.
After a feasibility study in late 2015, the trial data requirement was adjusted to make journey start/end postcodes a requested item for 2016-P1 (Jan-May) and mandatory thereafter. Operators have responded well to this requirement and Risk Solutions have start/end postcode data for more than 90% of all LST journeys) to date in 2016.
Asked by: Pat Glass (Labour - North West Durham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the evaluation of the longer semi-trailer trial; annual report 2015, published in August 2016, what independent research has been carried out on the crashes and incidents affecting longer semi-trailers that were logged in the September 2016 trial report.
Answered by John Hayes
The entire trial evaluation is being carried out by an independent consultant, Risk Solutions which collects the data, liaise with the operators and analyse the results before reporting to the Department for Transport. The annual reports produced by Risk Solutions are published by the Department without further editing. Risk Solutions maintains its independence strongly, reviews major departmental statements regarding the trial and results and challenges wording or claims strongly if they are not fully supported by the evidence.
All injuries reported by the operators, including minor/slight injuries, are checked against the national STATS19 data, which is collated from submissions by police forces. Risk Solutions has details of a very small number of incidents involving very minor injuries reported by the operator or by the injured party, but where the police did not attend and the injured party did not attend hospital. These are incidents which, had they involved standard trailers, would not have been reported or counted in any official data, but have been included in the LST trial injury statistics.
Studying incidents where there is no injury (and hence no police report) is challenging since there is no national standard process or format for recording such events. Any study of such incidents for longer semi-trailers (LSTs) requires that there also be a comparative dataset for non-injury incidents involving other long, articulated HGVs. Risk Solutions engaged with a small sample of operators to analyse their in-house data on all incidents to see whether LSTs were over or under-represented in the data. The results from that exercise are explained in the latest annual report. Risk Solutions are currently engaging with a larger sample of operators to expand this dataset and anticipate publishing those results in the next annual report.
Asked by: Pat Glass (Labour - North West Durham)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what discussions he has had with his Cabinet colleagues on cases in which workers do not receive compensation awarded by an employment tribunal because the companies which were paying them less than the national minimum wage have moved into voluntary liquidation.
Answered by Nick Boles
The Government is committed to the effective enforcement of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and will take tough action where employers are found to have underpaid their staff. BIS Ministers regularly discuss issues of enforcement with colleagues in other relevant Departments to ensure the system is effective.
Ensuring employees get the money they are owed is a priority. Where employees are owed monies but their employer has gone in to liquidation, they are entitled to claim for the difference between their rate of pay and the NMW, through the Insolvency Service’s Redundancy Payments Service (RPS). The RPS will consider these claims and make payments, within certain statutory limits, to employees.
The Government has also taken action to strengthen the enforcement powers available for NMW breaches, including ensuring that every criminal breach of the NMW Act is considered for Director Disqualification.
Asked by: Pat Glass (Labour - North West Durham)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had in the Council of the EU as part of negotiations on the UK's membership of the EU on free movement of people in the EU and access to in-work benefits.
Answered by Lord Hammond of Runnymede
The Government is negotiating reform of the EU and a new relationship for Britain with the EU to fix the aspects of our membership that cause so much frustration in Britain. Following a substantive and constructive discussion at the December European Council, Member States agreed to work toward ‘mutually satisfactory solutions’ at the February European Council.
Asked by: Pat Glass (Labour - North West Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many Academies were rated as requires improvement or worse by Ofsted at their last inspection.
Answered by Nick Gibb
This is a matter for Ofsted. I have asked Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, to write to the Hon Member with the information requested. A copy of his reply will be placed in the House library.
Asked by: Pat Glass (Labour - North West Durham)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will take steps to increase apprenticeship places and support small businesses through greater use of government procurement.
Answered by Vince Cable
Under the industrial strategy, we encourage a long term approach to procurement, including training and apprenticeships.
Asked by: Pat Glass (Labour - North West Durham)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to ensure that families with children are treated as a vulnerable group by energy companies.
Answered by Matt Hancock
A new Strategy and Policy Statement, which Government consulted on last year makes it clear that helping vulnerable households is one of the Government’s strategic priorities to which Ofgem should have regard when carrying out its regulatory functions. The statement will replace the existing Social and Environmental Statutory Guidance to the Gas and Electricity Market Authority, as recommended by the Ofgem Review of 2010-11.
Asked by: Pat Glass (Labour - North West Durham)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps he is taking to support families with children who fall behind on payments to energy companies.
Answered by Matt Hancock
This Government has implemented a range of measures to help vulnerable households reduce their energy bills, including colder weather payments and warm home discount.
For those customers who fall behind on payments, suppliers are obligated to take their ability to pay into account when setting a repayment plan. Some suppliers also provide special grants and services to help families. Further information is available free from the Home Heat Helpline on 0800 33 66 99.