Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of re-introducing the hard shoulder on all motorways.

The latest set of safety data published by National Highways continues to show that, overall, smart motorways are safer than conventional motorways for deaths or serious injuries. However, the risk of a collision between a moving and a stopped vehicle is greater on smart motorways without a permanent hard shoulder than on other motorway types, which is why National Highways continues to take action aimed at reducing this risk, rolling out over 150 additional emergency areas and improving operational technology performance. We will continue to assess the safety of these roads as well as evaluating the effectiveness of the additional investment in safety measures.

It should also be noted that whilst hard shoulders offer a place of relative safety, they are not a safe place to stop, with one out of every 20 fatal casualties on motorways occurring on a hard shoulder.