Asked by: Gareth Johnson (Conservative - Dartford)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions he has had with (a) Cabinet colleagues and (b) international counterparts on the viability of establishing covid-tested, resort based package holidays with British holiday companies.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
We are committed to tackling this virus while enabling a sustainable and responsible return to international travel, and keep our approach to border measures under regular review to ensure that they remain effective and practical. To that effect, the Transport Secretary discusses a range of topics relating to COVID-19 with Cabinet colleagues and international counterparts.
On 7 October 2020, the Government announced the new Global Travel Taskforce, to support the travel industry and support the safe recovery of international travel. The Taskforce will accelerate work to inform proposals on a future testing regime, and develop options for how this could be introduced.
Asked by: Gareth Johnson (Conservative - Dartford)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of removing the Dartford toll charges for owners of wholly electric vehicles.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Dartford Thurrock Crossing was designed to handle up to 135,000 vehicle movements each day, but it is not uncommon for over 180,000 vehicles to use the Crossing.
The Dartford Road User Charge was introduced in 2003 to manage user demand which currently exceeds the capacity of the Crossing. Given that low or zero emission vehicles also use scarce road capacity, there is a rationale for continuing to charge them to use the Crossing. The Department currently has no plans to remove charges for owners of wholly electric vehicles using the Crossing.
Asked by: Gareth Johnson (Conservative - Dartford)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the number of unofficial Dartcharge websites.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Dart Charge estimates that there are at least nine unofficial web sites in operation. This is subject to change as websites are added, removed, changed or temporarily unavailable.
Asked by: Gareth Johnson (Conservative - Dartford)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent estimate he has made of passenger numbers using Ebbsfleet station.
Answered by Andrew Jones
The Office of Rail and Road publishes annual Estimates of Station Usage, which provides the total number of entries & exits and interchanges for each station on Great Britain’s national rail network.
The latest publication for 2017-18 shows that there were estimated to be 1,961,528 entries & exits and 57,476 interchanges at Ebbsfleet International. This does not include passengers using the Eurostar services.
The full publication including more historic data can be found at:
https://orr.gov.uk/statistics/published-stats/station-usage-estimates