Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will allocate additional funding to ensure that all modes of public transport are equipped to deal with extreme heat.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Department for Transport has plans in place to adapt to and mitigate the risks of climate change, including risks from extreme heat. The Road Investment Strategy includes a commitment to enhance all-weather resilience of the Strategic Road Network, to minimise the risk of incidents and their impact for road users. Similarly, the Williams-Shapps Rail Plan includes a priority for long-term investment in climate resilience supported by smarter forecasting, planning and technology.
The third National Adaptation Programme is due in 2023. It will showcase the government’s strategy and plans to tackle the effects of climate change, including how to protect people, infrastructure and the environment in heatwaves. For transport, this means working closely with transport infrastructure operators to take meaningful and measurable action to address risks posed by our changing climate.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department is planning to take steps to review of current regulatory standards for private hire drivers.
Answered by Karl McCartney
In February 2019 the Government published its response to the report by the Chair of the Task and Finish Group on Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Licensing - which can be accessed here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/923695/taxi-task-and-finish-gov-response.pdf
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what meetings (a) he and (b) the former Secretary of State for Transport have had with representatives from Uber since 2017.
Answered by Karl McCartney
Ministers meet with a wide range of taxi and private hire vehicle stakeholders, including meetings with Uber. These meetings provide an opportunity to hear the views of the sector. Details of ministerial meetings from 2009 have been published and are available at www.gov.uk/government/collections/dft-ministerial-gifts-hospitality-travel-and-meetings. This information is updated on a quarterly basis.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what meetings (a) Ministers and (b) officials from his Department have held with representatives of Uber since 2017.
Answered by Karl McCartney
Ministers and officials meet with a wide range of taxi and private hire vehicle stakeholders, including meetings with Uber. These meetings provide an opportunity to hear the views of the sector. Details of ministerial meetings from 2009 have been published and are available at www.gov.uk/government/collections/dft-ministerial-gifts-hospitality-travel-and-meetings. This information is updated on a quarterly basis.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the ongoing industrial dispute between ASLEF union and UK train operators, whether his Department has imposed restrictions on those operators' negotiating capacity in that dispute.
Answered by Wendy Morton
Train operators are private sector employers and negotiations must be between those companies and the trade unions. The Government is not party to those negotiations.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions his Department has held with representatives from ASLEF in the last month on the upcoming industrial action planned by that union.
Answered by Wendy Morton
The Government is not the employer here; negotiations would be between ASLEF and the train operating companies.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact on passenger safety in the event that agency workers are brought in to replace striking transport workers.
Answered by Wendy Morton
With the change in the law on 21 July 2022, employment businesses can now provide agency workers to fill staffing gaps caused by industrial action. Any agency worker supplied by an employment business would need to be suitably qualified to perform the role.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much and what proportion of his November 2017 commitment to invest £360 million in UK rail infrastructure has been spent; and what estimate he has made of the date on which all funding will have been spent.
Answered by Wendy Morton
We are interpreting this question as referring to the announcement made on 17 November 2021 about the £360million investment to transform rail ticketing across the country.
In the three months since the beginning of this Spending Review period, the programme focus has been on developing the detailed technical and commercial work to inform business cases and future procurements to transform rail ticketing. We estimate that all this £360million funding will be spent during this Spending Review period.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress his Department has made on delivering contactless pay-as-you-go ticketing commuter networks in the (a) Midlands and (b) north of England.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Recognising the ambition in the National Bus Strategy, Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail and Levelling Up White Paper, we are working to understand the costs, benefits and feasibility of improvements to local public transport ticketing, across local transport markets in England, including those in the Midlands and the North. We have asked representatives from the bus and technology sectors, as well as local authorities to develop an Outline Business Case for investments to support multi-operator bus ticketing. We are also working with the bus industry to expand the provision of contactless pay-as-you-go (PAYG) payment with provision for fares capping.
The Government has committed to expanding contactless PAYG ticketing on rail outside the South East to around 700 stations in regional and urban areas, including around 400 stations in the North. We will announce further details in due course.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to encourage passenger levels to (a) return to and (b) exceed pre-pandemic levels on coaches.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Government recognises the importance of promoting the return of passengers to public transport following the pandemic and is engaging regularly with the bus and coach sector to assess how it can best support the sector’s recovery from the pandemic.
Data for the week commencing 13th June suggests that bus passenger volumes in Great Britain outside London were at around 80% of levels seen in the third week of January 2020 (the pre-Covid reference week).
Passenger volumes for buses in London were also at around 80% of pre-Covid levels. Both of these figures have been relatively stable over the last 6 months, but have increased since the equivalent period in 2021, when passenger volumes were around 60-65% of pre-Covid levels. The full data series going back to March 2020 can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/transport-use-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic.
The Department does not routinely collect data on coach passenger volumes but the Department's National Travel Survey contains information about trends in public transport usage. This includes trends in bus use in London, other local bus use outside London, and non-local bus usage (a proxy for coach usage). The latest data from the survey can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-travel-survey-statistics.
The Government provided around £2bn to support the bus sector during the pandemic. The Government is committed to delivering improvements to bus services around the country and is meeting its commitments set out in the National Bus Strategy, one of which includes supporting the sector to proactively promote the use of buses.