Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Vere of Norbiton on 24 February (HL1569) and prior to their decision to conduct “an evidence stocktake to gather the facts about the safety of smart motorways”, what assessment they gave to the reintroduction of hard shoulders on smart motorways.

Smart motorways increase capacity by around a third and help tackle congestion on some of our most busy roads. They help people get from A to B as well as keep our freight moving. They enable us to increase capacity while minimising the amount of additional land required. This has environmental benefits and it means that capacity can be added more quickly.

It is worth noting that the hard shoulder on a traditional motorway is not a safe place to stop. One in 12 fatalities on a motorway happens on the hard shoulder.