Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what environmental assessments they made prior to the allocation of £27 billion funding for road-building programmes; and what assessment they have made of the impact of those programmes on achieving the net zero carbon emissions target.

The current Road Investment Strategy (RIS2) will invest £24bn in the operation, maintenance, renewal and enhancement of England’s strategic roads between 2020 and 2025 to secure safer and more reliable journeys that impact more positively on communities and places.

The Department published its Transport Decarbonisation Plan in July 2021, setting transport on the path to net zero by 2050. National Highways supports this through its own Net Zero Highways Plan which sets out how it will achieve net zero for its own operations by 2030, for road maintenance and construction by 2040, and net zero carbon travel on our roads by 2050.

A net zero Britain will still travel by road in 2050, motorways and trunk roads will continue to carry the majority of long-distance traffic, and investment in Britain’s roads supports a thriving future net zero economy.