Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to improve the electric vehicle charging infrastructure on motorways; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by George Freeman
In July 2019 work commenced to determine a vision for a core rapid charger network on England’s strategic road network. This will report in Spring 2020. Government and industry have supported the installation of over 17,000 devices providing over 24,000 publicly available chargepoints. This includes over 2,400 rapid chargepoints – one of the largest networks in Europe. We want all new public rapid chargepoints to offer ‘pay as you go’ card payments from spring 2020.
Highways England has committed £15m to ensure there are chargepoints rapid where possible every 20 miles on 95% of the Strategic Road Network by 2020.
Alongside the private sector, the Government plans to invest £1 billion in charging infrastructure – making sure that everyone is within 30 miles of a rapid charging station for electric vehicles.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what employee incentives are included in the work contracts of Highways England employees to help ensure timely completion of those works.
Answered by Michael Ellis
Highways England provides a Performance Related Pay (PRP) incentive scheme for its employees. Payments made under the scheme are directly aligned to Highways England’s performance against eleven Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), which include timely completion of works.
The KPI’s provide equal focus across a range of areas that are considered integral to the success of Highways England, encouraging collaborative behaviours in achieving successful delivery. The KPI’s include targets related to areas such as major project delivery, safety, road user satisfaction and road incident management.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, for what (a) reasons and (b) duration pay increases for staff at Highways England are at one per cent.
Answered by Jesse Norman
For many employees in grades below the senior group the 2018-19 pay review was based on a 1% increase. The actual increase for each individual was then determined by the application of a performance multiplier, informed by annual performance reviews, which resulted in a range of awards from 0.75% to 2%. These awards were made in line with the Department for Transport’s Remuneration Framework for Highways England. Highways England also made pay awards to Traffic Officers (3%) and Regional Control Centre operators (9.8%) to address market pay issues. Overall, the average pay award made by Highways England for all grades below the senior group was an increase of over 4.5%.
Highways England determines the annual pay review each year based on factors including affordability within its budget.
Asked by: Lord Lucas (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Sugg on 11 March (HL14007), what investigations they make into the reasons why the Dart Charge payment has not been made when communicating with those who have defaulted on such a payment; and what options they are considering to improve compliance with the payment of that charge.
Answered by Baroness Sugg
Highways England is able to consider reasons for non-compliance when customers opt to challenge their Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) through the relevant representations process. Highways England considers the reasons presented on a case by case basis. If the representation is rejected, the customer may appeal that decision through the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.
The current compliance rate is 95 per cent, demonstrating that the vast majority of customers are using the scheme successfully. Highways England undertakes a variety of measures to enable and encourage compliance, providing a range of payment options, including pre-pay accounts; allowing for payment up to midnight the day after a crossing is made; and allowing an additional 14 days for payment for first time offences. In addition, it also has a comprehensive signage strategy which includes the use of advance directional signs, variable message signs and safety signs. This is reinforced by public communications campaigns to inform drivers, both in the UK and overseas, about the payment arrangements and the road layout.
Asked by: Lord Lucas (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many penalty notices have been issued for non-payment of the Dart Charge; and what steps they intend to take, if any, to (1) inform motorists about how to pay, and (2) encourage compliance.
Answered by Baroness Sugg
During the period of 30 November 2014 to 31 December 2018, the total number of penalty charge notices issued for non-payment of the Dart Charge was 11,058,152. Highways England have a comprehensive signage strategy for road users, including use of advance directional signs, variable message signs and safety signs. This is reinforced by public information campaigns to inform drivers, both in the UK and overseas, about the payment arrangements and the road layout.
Asked by: Michael Fallon (Conservative - Sevenoaks)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many Dart Charge payments were (a) late and (b) not paid since 2010.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Dart Charge free flow system is a prepayment system, but with users given until midnight the day after the crossing was made to make a payment without penalty. 95% of users of the Dartford Crossing pay in compliance with these charging rules and the 5% who do not are sent a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN). There is no category of ‘late payment’.
The number of UK PCNs issued since the introduction of the free flow charging scheme is as follows:
2015 - 2,106,748
2016 - 2,051,013
2017 - 1,869,800
2018 (up until 30/11/2018) - 2,014,737
Highways England pursue PCN cases vigorously, with 75 per cent of these paid following enforcement processes.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 21 November 2018 to Question 191428 on Highways England: Pay, if he will publish the review by EY into executive pay in Highways England.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The review will inform pay policy development by Government and the company. There are no plans to publish the EY review into remuneration arrangements across Highways England.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what external organisations he has asked to review executive pay in Highways England.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
The Department has commissioned EY to review remuneration arrangements across Highways England.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the potential effect on the (a) affordability and (b) efficiency of the work for which Highways England is responsible of its decision to in-source more of that work; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Highways England assessed the potential effect on affordability and efficiency when designing the recently introduced model for management of the Strategic Road Network, which involves in-sourcing the decision-making for investment planning, routine maintenance and operational management.
Taking question (b) on efficiency first, Highways England expects to deliver cost efficiencies of about 12% when compared to the previous approach. The largest saving is from no longer needing to pay fees to the lead suppliers for management of their supply chain. The second largest saving is from staff headcount reductions by integrating the former Service Provider staff into Highway England’s structure. This is through the removal of duplicated roles and a layer of management.
Turning to question (a) on affordability, Highways England expects the cost savings described in the answer to question (b) will begin to exceed the upfront transition costs within the first 4 years of operating the new model. Once the upfront transition costs have passed and with cost savings from efficiencies, the new model is expected to be more affordable than the previous approach.
Asked by: Andrew Lewer (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department plans to take to use updated technology to reduce the evasion of tolls and penalty charge notices by foreign registered commercial vehicles; and whether he has plans to refuse entry to the UK to those who have evaded such charges.
Answered by Jesse Norman
In regards to the Dartford Crossing Highways England confirm that the vast majority of foreign drivers pay the charges and are not issued with fines.
Highways England also advise that Penalty Charge Notices issued overseas are issued with a warning letter to those using the Dartford Crossing for the first time. This offers a further opportunity to pay the original charge without accruing a fine. This avoids penalising road users that are unaware of the payment arrangements, and raises awareness so that advanced payments can be made in the future. Highways England uses a private collection agency called EPC plc to chase those foreign drivers who do not pay tolls and penalty charges.
Regarding the HGV Levy, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) note that enforcement of non-GB HGVs is a major priority for them. In 2016-17, it checked just over 88,000 non-GB HGVs at the roadside, which accounts for more than 62% of all HGV vehicles stopped for enforcement checks.
From those checks, DVSA issued just under 17,000 penalty notices. These covered offences including the non-payment of the HGV Levy, mechanical offences and drivers hours. In the last year, a number of vehicles were directed out of the country and many were immobilised until the problems identified had been rectified. There are no plans to change the rules on entry for this issue.