Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have for the future of smart motorways.

We welcome the Transport Committee’s report Rollout and safety of smart motorways, published on 2 November 2021. We will start work immediately on considering its recommendations in detail, providing a formal response in due course. This is a serious piece of work which we will engage with closely in the months ahead.

We are pleased that the Transport Committee recognises that reinstating the hard shoulder on all all-lane running motorways could put more drivers and passengers at risk of death and serious injury and that we are right to focus on upgrading their safety, as the Secretary of State committed to doing when he became Transport Secretary.

The Transport Secretary is committed to making smart motorways as safe as possible and has committed £500 million on an 18-point Action Plan which includes the faster rollout of Stopped Vehicle Detection technology.