Smart Motorways

Richard Holden Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Richard Holden)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. Because your constituency neighbours that of the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), I know you also have an interest in this issue. I thank the hon. Member for Rotherham for securing this debate about smart motorways. I will make some general points before I address the ones that she and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made.

The strategic road network—our major motorways and A roads—is the safest part of the country’s road network. Data shows that there are far fewer incidents and casualties per mile on the strategic road network than on the rest of the network. However, that does not detract from the fact that every death on our roads is a tragedy and one death too many.

The M1 is a route that I use regularly to go to and from my constituency of North West Durham. Recently, I visited junction 28 to see the issue with traffic backing on to the motorway, which hon. Members from the region raised recently in Westminster Hall. I have every sympathy for those who have lost loved ones in road accidents and particularly Jason’s widow, Claire, who is here today. I promise to listen as they and others continue to press for greater improvements in road safety.

Hon. Members will be aware that in 2021 the Transport Committee conducted an inquiry into the roll-out and safety of smart motorways. We have agreed to take forward all the Committee’s recommendations. Most significantly, we have paused all new schemes that are yet to start construction until we have built up further safety and economic data. That pause continues and the data continues to be gathered.

[Sarah Champion]

I am listening acutely to what the Minister is saying. He must be aware that the pause is not impacting the schemes that have already left the drawing board, so smart motorways continue apace. If the Government are concerned enough to pause the new ones, why are they not pausing all of them?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Holden]

The hon. Lady is right that several schemes are well under construction. National Highways felt that it would be more detrimental to stop construction, because doing so would perhaps cause more incidents than continuing with construction as planned.

[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts, and I thank the Minister for giving way. I also thank the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for securing this debate.

On that point, Baroness Vere, the roads Minister from the Department for Transport, came to the Transport Committee—I am a member of that Committee and was involved in both its reports on smart motorways, in 2016 and 2021—and said that all schemes would be paused. Why has National Highways changed the remit?

[Mr Holden]

My understanding of the commitment made is that any new scheme would be paused. To stop an ongoing scheme would potentially be more detrimental than to finish it.

I want to address the statistic that the hon. Member for Rotherham raised about deaths on smart motorways. The 78 fatalities she mentioned are across all smart motorways—that is all-lane running, dynamic hard shoulder and controlled. Removing the controlled element, that figure is 47; even on controlled motorways, there will be issues. However, the motorway network per mile is far safer than dual carriageway or A road options, or anything that is not a controlled environment. I just wanted to put that on the record as a clarification.

The hon. Lady made important points about breaking down on the motorway and stopped vehicle collisions. Although collisions involving a stopped vehicle are rare, I recognise that they are a major concern for drivers, and that there is a higher number of such collisions on smart motorways without a permanent hard shoulder. We have therefore committed £900 million to bolster safety features across smart motorways, including rolling out additional technology to help to spot stopped vehicles— I have been at the control centres and seen that in action myself—and putting in an additional 150 emergency location stops. In 2020, we changed the design stats on spacing to a maximum of 1 mile, and three quarters of a mile where feasible. In our response to the Transport Committee’s 2021 report, the Government committed in January 2022 to an extra 150 emergency areas by March 2025, on which work has already started.

I will turn to a few of the hon. Lady’s questions. Road users expect high standards for response times on the motorway network. It is worth remembering that the interrelated system of features on smart motorways are not present on conventional motorways, such as stopped vehicle detection radar technology. This new feature has been rolled out across the entire all-lane-running network to improve the detection of stopped vehicles and reduce the duration of live lane stops. As the hon. Lady said, National Highways detects around two thirds of stopped vehicles within 20 seconds, and almost 90% within 60 seconds, allowing it to quickly set signs and signals, such as the red X, to keep drivers safe. That feature is not available on conventional motorways.

National Highways does recognise that stopped vehicle detection can perform better, which is something I have been pushing it on, and it is working hard to deliver further improvements by the end of June this year. Right now, I can report that we have made further strides in attendance: the time it takes a traffic officer to attend has fallen from an average of 17 minutes to under 10 minutes in December 2022. As with any technology, there are occasions when something does not work as expected or improvements need to be made. National Highways is fully aware of that. It is investing £105 million over the next two years to improve CCTV and other technology, not only enhancing the management of the network, but improving drivers’ day-to-day experience with other issues on the motorway network. However, when the availability of technology on smart motorways is reduced, we need to find the root cause and plan ahead.

National Highways has well-rehearsed mitigation measures to deal with operational challenges, including those relating to technology, whether that is increasing the number of traffic officers on the network or reducing speed limits on certain sections and enhanced monitoring of CCTV. We will continue to expedite every effort to ensure that technology on the network is as reliable as possible. I recognise that drivers need to feel confident on smart motorways, and we are using all the evidence we can to act to ensure that those concerns are addressed. We have listened and will continue to listen to concerns. We will make as many mitigations as possible. We are hugely enhancing stopped vehicle technology and the pull-in areas. We are absolutely committed to making our busy motorways as safe as possible for everyone who uses them across the country.

Question put and agreed to.