Buses: Funding

Debate between Richard Holden and Jack Brereton

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Holden]

I would like to thank the hon. Lady for her question, and we will be able to go into this in greater detail later. As she knows, hers was the first ever Adjournment debate I did, and I am looking forward to doing one with her again tonight. [Interruption.] Well, what has changed, despite the comments of the shadow Secretary of State, is that the north-east has already received £117 million of its £163 million of BSIP funding, and in addition it will also be benefiting today. I spoke to the leader of the hon. Lady’s council, Councillor Gannon, earlier today, before I came to the House, and talked him through the BSIP funding for the future. I would say that we obviously cannot protect every route—some routes will need to change—but the funding being delivered today will be hugely important to her and my constituents. Gateshead has had the levelling-up fund bid for more than 50 electric buses, with £100 million already and more to come with the bus service improvement plan across the north-east. Only last week, £1 bus fares were rolled out across the north-east for under-22s, thanks to the funding from the Government. That was never delivered under the last Labour Government, and I would have thought she would welcome more cash being available.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

I very much welcome the much-needed investment in buses. As the Minister has said, we have developed excellent plans to improve bus services, supported by the £31 million that the Government have committed to improve bus services in Stoke-on-Trent. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital that Stoke-on-Trent City Council now gets on and delivers on these plans?

[Mr Holden]

I thank my hon. Friend, who raises a vital point. Some £31.6 million—one of the highest per capita amounts anywhere in the country—was given to Stoke-on-Trent City Council, which now needs to deliver on its plans. My Department stands ready and willing to work with it, including on any flexibilities, as it sees the situation change. His constituents will also benefit from the £2 bus fare cap this year and the £2.50 bus cap next year, and his operators will benefit from the extra financial support over the next two years, providing long-term sustainability for those local bus services.

Motorways: Litter

Debate between Richard Holden and Jack Brereton

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jack Brereton]

I want to ask the Minister about the accuracy of that data. As we heard earlier, we have serious issues with grass and other vegetation disguising litter. Once it is cut, it reveals huge amounts of litter. I therefore question the accuracy of the data, and I wonder what the Minister’s view is on that.

[Mr Holden]

As I said, I will write to my hon. Friend about that, because it is an important point. If there is not proper monitoring, we cannot know what is going on. I want to get to the bottom of policies on grass cutting and other things.

National Highways and the Highways Monitor will report litter performance to the public in their annual reports, providing increased transparency. That happened only in road investment strategy 2. That is the era we are in now—between 2020 and 2025.

As hon. Members know, in 2021-22 National Highways reported that 61% of the network was graded A, which is no litter, or B, which is a small amount of litter. That means that a large proportion of the national highways—39%—has a significant amount. Although that is an improvement on 2020-21, which was about 49%, there is clearly still a lot of work to do. I do not underestimate that. Those grades are alongside DEFRA’s litter code of practice. The data for 2022-23 will be published this summer, so I ask hon. Members to keep an eye out for that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Holden]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. This is about local authorities working together at TfL level in London and with National Highways, and I will ensure that his views regarding key performance indicators are taken into consideration.

I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead that the performance indicator is there. There is not a target; this is about monitoring at the moment. That is for RIS2, but KPIs might be exactly where we want to go at the next stage—I want to make that clear to him. We are working to ensure that there are targeted metrics in RIS3 and that the KPIs focus on the things that are most important to road users, and it is quite clear from today’s debate that keeping the highways litter-free is one of them. The current situation is not tenable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford said, and I will speak to National Highways about the specifics as we look at its KPIs for RIS3. Progress will involve considering responses to the forthcoming public consultation on the National Highways strategic road network initial report, and I urge right hon. and hon. Members, and interested parties, to feed into that. As I said earlier, there are discussions about introducing an awareness campaign going forward.

Regarding enforcement and the use of technology, I have spoken about using education and awareness to influence littering behaviours, and about the work and performance of National Highways in clearing litter from the SRN. I want to cover enforcement and penalties, because right hon. and hon. Members also mentioned them. The Government understand that enforcement plays a key role in this regard, especially for litter thrown from vehicles. The enforcement of penalties for littering is owned by DEFRA, and we work closely with it and National Highways to improve enforcement options. Local authorities may issue fixed penalty notices for littering offences committed in their areas where it can be proven that litter was thrown from a vehicle.

The Littering from Vehicles Outside London (Keepers: Civil Penalties) Regulations 2018 make provision about reporting littering from vehicles in England. In recent years, the Government have bolstered local authority enforcement powers by raising the upper limit on fixed penalty notices for littering and by introducing powers to issue the keeper of a vehicle from which litter is thrown with a civil penalty. As I said, I recently spoke to National Highways and visited its site at South Mimms, where I saw some of the cameras in action. National Highways passes on evidence of the most egregious cases of littering and fly-tipping, but more could be done to co-ordinate its work with local authorities. I will come on to some of that work, on which we are doing a pilot at the moment. In the end, though, it is for local authorities to decide whether to pass on that information and whether they believe they have sufficient evidence to take enforcement action in any given case.

[Jack Brereton]

I was going to ask the Minister about enforcement powers. As he has alluded to, National Highways does not have such powers. Is there no possibility that we could consider giving National Highways some of those powers? I have previously had discussions with the organisation about other offences being committed on its network that it is totally powerless to deal with.

[Mr Holden]

That is a broader debate, and it is up to Parliament to decide where these powers lie.

I would like to give a shout-out to a few local authorities. I will mention a couple of other examples later, but North Lincolnshire Council, Newark and Sherwood District Council and North West Leicestershire Council are three that National Highways has said it works very closely with. In the majority of cases, they do prosecute when information is passed on. National Highways is also working closely with Brighton and Hove City Council and East Hampshire District Council too, and I will come on to East Hampshire again.