Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an estimate of the (a) number of vacancies and (b) level of skill shortages in each occupation within the logistics industry.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The latest ONS data estimates vacancies in the Transport and Storage sector to be 47,000 between October-December 2022, down 15.3% on the previous quarter. We are taking forward initiatives to ensure the sector has the skills it needs, including the introduction of HGV skills bootcamps.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of financial incentives provided by the electric car grant before its withdrawal.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Government’s approach to supporting the uptake of electric cars is clearly working – while the Government slowly reduced the grant over time, the sale of electric vehicles soared. The sales of fully electric cars grew from less than 1,000 in 2011 to almost 100,000 in the first 5 months of 2022 alone.
An independent report commissioned by the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles to assess the impact of the grant scheme, found that the grant has had a material impact on demand for new EVs, but also that the importance of it has reduced as the market has matured and price has become less of a barrier to vehicle uptake.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the cessation of the electrical vehicle grant, what additional steps his Department is taking to help encourage the public to purchase electric vehicles.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
This Government has committed £2.5 billion since 2020 to support the transition to zero emission vehicles, with funding to offset their higher upfront cost, and to accelerate the rollout of chargepoint infrastructure.
Although Government has recently closed the plug-in car grant to new orders, Plug-in Grants will continue until at least financial year 2023/24 for taxis and motorcycles, and 2024/25 for vans, trucks and wheelchair accessible vehicles.
Plug-in Grants are just one way in which Government supports electric vehicle uptake. We have put in place favourable benefit in kind tax rates for zero emission vehicles out to 2025: company car tax was 1% in 2021/22 and 2% in 2022/23 through to 2024/25. Further, all zero emission cars are exempt from vehicle excise duty (VED) and zero emissions vans pay a nil rate of tax on the van benefit charge.
In addition, we announced in the Net Zero Strategy that we will introduce a zero-emission vehicle mandate, setting targets for a percentage of manufacturers' new car and van sales to be zero emission each year from 2024.
In March we published our ambitious electric vehicle infrastructure strategy, backed by £1.6 billion of funding, setting out our vision and commitments to make electric vehicle charging cheaper and more convenient than refueling at a petrol station, supporting drivers across the whole country to make the transition to a cleaner, greener vehicle.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress his Department has made on the introduction of audio-visual announcements on bus services in (a) Derbyshire and (b) the UK.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We remain committed to making Accessible Information Regulations to require operators of local services in Great Britain to provide onboard audible and visible next stop and route and direction information to support disabled passengers.
We intend to lay Accessible Information Regulations by the end of 2022 and to publish guidance for operators to support them to comply.
These Regulations will apply across Great Britain, including in Derbyshire. Bus policy in Northern Ireland is generally a devolved matter.
Additionally, Derbyshire County Council has been allocated indicative funding of up to £47 million to deliver on their Bus Service Improvement Plan. This will be based on their submission and implementation of an Enhanced Partnership that delivers a package of improvements to bus services.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the Government holds statistics for accidents that have occurred on unadopted roads.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Statistics for accidents on unadopted roads are not held by the Department. The Department’s published road accident statistics are based on the STATS19 system of accidents reported by police forces, which covers accidents occurring on the publicly maintained highway.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many new roads have been built in each of the last ten years; and of those how many are unadopted by local authorities.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The number of road enhancement schemes funded by the Department and completed in each of the last ten years is as follows:
| Local Road Network | Strategic Road Network |
2012/13 | 7 | n/a |
2013/14 | 6 | n/a |
2014/15 | 5 | n/a |
2015/16 | 7 | 5 |
2016/17 | 7 | 6 |
2017/18 | 3 | 10 |
2018/19 | 3 | 7 |
2019/20 | 0 | 7 |
2020/21 | 4 | 3 |
This includes all road enhancement schemes funded by the Local Major Scheme Grant or those on the Strategic Road Network (SRN) from 2015/16. It includes capacity enhancement schemes as well as new roads.
In addition, the Department has funded a number of schemes over the past 10 years from targeted funding programmes. These programmes include the Local Pinch Point Fund and National Productivity Investment Fund and these include new roads and road improvements.
The Department does not hold information on schemes that may have been funded from Local Authorities’ own budgets (including those provided through formula funding allocations such as Integrated Transport Block funding). The Department does not hold information on new roads built by third party organisations, such as private developers.
All Department-funded road schemes will have been adopted by the relevant local highway authority.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the Government plans to review legislation on new housing developments and the adoption of new roads by local authorities.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Department for Transport does not keep a list, nor is routinely informed, of how many roads are built on housing developments.
The legislation covering the process for local highway authority adoption of private roads into the public road network is set out in the Highways Act 1980. The Department has no plans to review this legislation since it continues to ensure that any new roads that are adopted and then maintained at public expense are built to the required standard.
The Department does provide advice to developers and highway authorities on the road adoption process. The 2017 Advice Note can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/adoption-of-roads-by-highway-authorities. An update of this advice note is planned to be published shortly.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many and what proportion of unadopted roads on developments built in the last ten years do not have street lighting.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Department for Transport does not keep a list, nor is routinely informed, of how many roads are built on housing developments.
The legislation covering the process for local highway authority adoption of private roads into the public road network is set out in the Highways Act 1980. The Department has no plans to review this legislation since it continues to ensure that any new roads that are adopted and then maintained at public expense are built to the required standard.
The Department does provide advice to developers and highway authorities on the road adoption process. The 2017 Advice Note can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/adoption-of-roads-by-highway-authorities. An update of this advice note is planned to be published shortly.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, where the Infrastructure Maintenance Depot for the Eastern Leg of HS2 will be located.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Following the announcements in the Integrated Rail Plan, the need for, and optimal location of, any Infrastructure Maintenance Depot will be considered as part of the further development work on looking at the best way to take HS2 trains to Leeds.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when people will be able to apply for Fix Your Bike vouchers.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
On 23rd May the Secretary of State announced £25 million of funding to provide up to £50 to members of the public wanting to get their old cycles roadworthy again through the Fix Your Bike Voucher Scheme and to help increase the provision of cycle fixing facilities across the country through the Big Bike Revival. We are aiming for applications for vouchers to open to members of the public as soon as possible.
With the help of representatives from the cycle industry, we have designed a scheme that is accessible to a wide range of types and sizes of businesses, including independent shops and SMEs, provided repairs are carried out by competent mechanics.
It is a requirement of the scheme that businesses have appropriate liability insurance to cover the repairs they carry out. This level of cover is an appropriate and standard form of insurance for the sector, and one which is easily accessible to businesses. We therefore expect that the great majority of bicycle repair businesses in England, SME’s included, will be able to achieve this requirement and participate in the scheme
The scheme opened to registration for bicycle shops on the 22nd of June and we have so far received hundreds of applications from businesses of all sizes. A list of participating businesses is available on the scheme website: fixyourbikevoucherscheme.est.org.uk/.