Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to her Department's Answer of 3 November 2026 to Question 38327 on Freight: Schengen Agreement, which of the monitoring and evaluation options set out in the report entitled Great Britain's commercial road transport and the European Union's Entry/Exit System her Department has commissioned for the further phase of research, (b) what the cost is of that phase and (c) when she expects its findings to be published.

On 30 July 2026, the department published two reports relating to research on Great Britain's (GB) commercial goods and passenger transport operators’ exposure, awareness and preparedness for the European Union’s (EU) Entry/Exit System (EES). The first sets out the methodological options for gathering evidence from GB road transport operators. The second established a robust baseline before EES implementation, intended to provide an evidence-based picture of the extent to and the ways in which GB operators are exposed to EES and the 90-in-180-day Schengen immigration limit.

The department has since commissioned a further phase of research intended to assess the realised impacts of EES on GB road transport operators. This phase builds on the previously published reports by collecting quantitative and qualitative evidence from operators now that EES is in operation. This research provides monitoring information only. As EES is an EU policy, it is not for the UK government to evaluate the policy.

The department’s budget for the latest phase of research is £180,000. The findings are expected to be published in 2027.