Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when the department plans to consult on secondary legislation in respect to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act in order to give Transport for London the power to regulate micro mobility.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
We plan to consult on licensing for shared cycles in the coming months. Following this, we will implement licensing through a combination of secondary legislation and guidance to empower local leaders across England, including TfL in London, to regulate these schemes.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if her department will issue guidance for developers to support walking to school.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
On 12 June, the Government published the third Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS3), which will enable more children to walk, wheel and cycle to school.
Active Travel England published its delivery plan on the same day, ‘Worth Every Step’, which sets out how it will support CWIS3. As part of this, Active Travel England will publish the ‘Streets for Schools’ tool and supplementary planning advice to support developers, local authorities and other transport and planning professionals involved in the planning, design and delivery of new and existing schools and the street environment around them.
Both the tool and advice note are designed for a wide range of users and organisations, setting out why active school travel matters and how they can design to maximise opportunities for walking, wheeling and cycling to school.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of implementing additional measures across neighbourhoods to support walking to school.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Over the course of the third Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy we will focus on enabling millions more children to walk, wheel and cycle to school by supporting local authorities to provide safe, coherent networks that connect neighbourhoods which will deliver health benefits for generations to come. This includes providing more than £760 million of devolved funding for walking, wheeling and cycling schemes and £135 million of revenue funding to support schools and community-focused programmes.
Active Travel England’s (ATE) delivery plan, ‘Worth Every Step’, outlines how ATE will help ensure delivery of more safe routes to schools with mayors and local authorities.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent discussions officials in her Department have had with Home Office officials on reducing the level of theft of diesel from HGVs in England.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Department for Transport officials routinely engage with Home Office officials on freight crime. This Government is highly aware of the rising frequency of freight crime including of fuel theft and the significant and damaging impact it can have on businesses and drivers. The Home Office are actively collaborating with Opal, the police’s national intelligence unit for serious organised acquisitive crime, which has a specialised vehicle crime intelligence function encompassing freight crime.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the report entitled Walking and Cycling Index: UK, published by Walk Wheel Cycle Trust on 17 March 2026, what steps she is taking to support councils to lower speed limits.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Local authorities are responsible for managing the roads under their jurisdiction, drawing on their knowledge of local conditions and the needs of their communities. This includes the power to set local speed limits. Authorities may introduce 20mph limits in areas where people and traffic mix, such as outside schools, and they may also apply enforceable part‑time 20mph limits during specific periods, including school drop‑off and pick‑up times.
Authorities will have our full backing when implementing measures that respond to the concerns of local people.
As set out in the Road Safety Strategy the Government will be reviewing and updating its guidance, including ‘Setting Local Speed Limits’ and the ‘guidance on the use of speed and red‑light cameras’, to further support local authorities in making well‑informed decisions about managing speed on their networks.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the report entitled Walking and Cycling Index: UK, published by Walk Wheel Cycle Trust on 17 March 2026, what assessment she has made of the potential economic benefits of increased investment in walking, wheeling and cycling facilities; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Active Travel England published research on the benefits of active travel investment in February this year. This research can be viewed at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/evaluating-the-impact-of-active-travel-investment.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether she plans he has to introduce legislation to block third parties from booking driving tests.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Secretary of State for Transport announced on 12 November 2025 significant changes to the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) driving test booking system following a public consultation. These changes are being introduced incrementally during the Spring.
DVSA announced on 3 February that the first change, which will limit the number of times a test can be moved or swapped, will be introduced on 31 March. Further changes will be brought in later in the Spring. This will include allowing only the learner driver to book a test, at which point approved driving instructors and businesses will no longer have access to the booking system.
These changes are designed to prevent learner drivers being exploited by people who book up tests and sell them at inflated prices.
A full impact assessment of the proposed measures has been carried out and reviewed by the Better Regulation Unit. This assessment will be published once the statutory instrument amending the legislation has been laid before Parliament.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many qualified driving test examiners were available to carry out tests in (a) September, (b) October, (c) November and (d) December 2025.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The table below shows how many full-time equivalent (FTE) driving examiners (DE) employed by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency were available to carry out practical car driving tests in September, October, November and December 2025.
Month | No of FTE DEs available to carry out practical driving tests |
September 2025 | 1,464 |
October 2025 | 1,485 |
November 2025 | 1,539 |
December 2025 | 1,542 |
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many driving tests were carried out in (a) September, (b) October, (c) November and (d) December 2025.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) publishes data on the number of practical driving tests conducted by month on GOV.UK.
This data is updated monthly and currently shows data to December 2025.
The table below shows the number of practical driving tests conducted for September, October, November and December.
Month | Tests Conducted |
Sep-25 | 168,644 |
Oct-25 | 182,414 |
Nov-25 | 173,835 |
Dec-25 | 158,720 |
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of amending Section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 to include cats as an animal that drivers are required to stop and report an incident when they are involved in a collision.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Under section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, a driver is required to stop and report a collision involving specified animals including horses, cattle, asses, mules, sheep, pigs, goats or dogs, but not cats or wild animals. This requirement arises from their status as working animals rather than as domestic pets. To introduce such a measure within the provision of section 170 would require primary legislation
There are no plans to amend section 170 of the Road Traffic Act to make it mandatory for drivers to report road collisions involving cats.
Having a law making it a requirement to report road collisions involving cats would be very difficult to enforce and we have reservations about the difference it would make to the behaviour of drivers, who are aware that they have run over a cat and do not report it.
Although there is no obligation to report all animal deaths on roads, drivers should, if possible, make enquiries to ascertain the owner of domestic animals, such as cats, and advise them of the situation.
Since June 2024, all cats in England over 20 weeks of age must be microchipped and registered on a compliant database, unless exempt or free-living. This will make it easier for National Highways and local authorities to reunite cats with their keeper.