Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will conduct a strategic review of road construction, renewal and repair to identify the most economic approach to reduce potholes and costs to road users caused by potholes.

Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)

It is the responsibility of individual highway authorities to maintain and improve their networks, based upon their local knowledge, circumstances, and priorities. This includes decisions on how best to prevent road surfaces from deteriorating in the most economic way. The Government is committed to updating its guidance to local highway authorities on how to manage their networks, which will include advice on matters of this sort.

For 2025/26, the Government is providing almost £1.6 billion for local highway maintenance, an increase of £500 million compared to 2024/25. Funding is not ring-fenced, and it is a matter for local authorities to determine how the money is best spent. The Department for Transport has written to all local highway authorities asking them to demonstrate that they are complying with certain criteria aimed at driving best practice and continual improvement. The Department will assess the information provided by local highway authorities in due course.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of trains on Network Rail are (1) cancelled, and (2) arrive more than five minutes later than timetabled, and what proportion of these cancellations and delays are caused by (a) signal failure, (b) lack of crew availability, and (c) other reasons.

Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)

(1) The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) reported that in the 12 months up to December 2024 the cancellation measure was 4.0%.

(2) The ORR publish train punctuality on a quarterly basis. They report trains arriving within 59 seconds, within 3 minutes or within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival time. These are reported in Table 1.

Table 1. Train punctuality in the year ending December 2024, Great Britain

Source: ORR Table 3133: Delay minutes by operator and cause

The proportion of cancellations by the available causes is report in Table 2.

Table 2. Train Cancellations by cause and responsibility in the year ending December 2024, Great Britain

Source: DfT analysis of ORR Table 3123: Trains planned and cancellations by operator and cause

Information on the cause of delays is published by Rail Period by the ORR. This information is reported in delay minutes. The latest data (covering 3 March 2024 – 2 March 2025) on the proportion of delays minutes attributed by the available causes is reported in Table 3.

Table 3. Share of delay minutes by cause in the year ending 2 March 2025, Great Britain

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is the relative cost of installing National Grid electricity cables that are (1) suspended from pylons and (2) buried underground.

Answered by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The relative costs of overhead lines and burying underground electricity cables are assessed by National Grid at a project-specific level, with costs varying depending on factors such as the terrain and other site conditions. The Institute of Engineering and Technology Study, 2012, found that the lifetime costs for overhead lines range from £2.2m to £4.2m per kilometre, while direct burial underground cables range from £10.2m to £24.1m per kilometre, meaning that undergrounding can cost between 5-10 times more than overhead lines.

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what representations they have made to the government of Turkey about the detention and deportation of BBC journalist Mark Lowen.

Answered by Baroness Chapman of Darlington - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The Government provided consular assistance to Mark Lowen, a British journalist detained and subsequently deported from Turkey. The Foreign Secretary spoke with Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan on Saturday 29 March. The UK expects Turkey to uphold its international commitments and the rule of law, including the protection of the fundamental rights to free speech, peaceful assembly and media freedom.

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