Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will update the delivery plan for Highways England 2020-2025.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
National Highways published its Delivery Plan for the Interim Period, April 2025 to March 2026, on its website on Thursday 17th July 2025.
https://nationalhighways.co.uk/media/2k0f3ya4/interim-period-delivery-plan-2025-26.pdf
The Department will publish the third Road Investment Strategy (RIS3) by the end of March 2026. Following this, National Highways will produce its next Delivery Plan covering 2026-2031.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department plans to issue guidance to local transport authorities on the minimum standards for (a) format, (b) legibility and (c) frequency of updates for printed passenger information at bus stops.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government knows how important it is that passengers have access to high quality and reliable information about their local bus services, including at bus stops. Local authorities are responsible for the bus stops in their area. The Department for Transport’s guidance to local transport authorities and bus operators on developing Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs) makes clear that bus stops should show up-to-date and accurate information about the services stopping there, and that BSIPs should set out the action that will be taken to provide good quality bus information to passengers.
At the Autumn 2024 Budget, the Government confirmed over £1 billion to support and improve bus services, including £712 million allocated to local authorities in England outside London in 2025/26. Central Bedfordshire Council have been allocated £3 million of this funding. Funding allocated to local authorities to deliver better bus services can be used in whichever way they wish to improve services for passengers, including improving the information available to passengers about local bus services.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the performance of guided busways as a type of rapid transit on (a) journey time reliability, (b) passenger growth and (c) modal shift from private vehicles.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government welcomes steps to improve the reliability and frequency of local bus services, including reducing journey times, for example through bus priority and busway schemes. Local transport is devolved, and local transport authorities are responsible for the design and delivery of the optimal mass transit solution for their particular local challenges.
At the Autumn 2024 Budget, the Government confirmed over £1 billion to support and improve bus services, including £712 million allocated to local authorities in England outside London in 2025/26. Central Bedfordshire Council have been allocated £3 million of this funding. Funding allocated to local authorities to deliver better bus services can be used in whichever way they wish to improve services for passengers, including expanding services and improving reliability, or implementing bus priority measures.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the incidence of assaults on bus drivers; and what recent discussions she has had with (a) operators, (b) trade unions and (c) local transport authorities on this matter.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to ensuring the safety of bus drivers and is taking steps to reduce the incidence of assaults.
The Bus Services (No.2) Bill includes measures setting requirements for mandatory training for staff including drivers and those who deal directly with the travelling public or with issues related to the travelling public. This training will be on preventing and/or responding to incidents of violence against women and girls as well as anti-social behaviour incidents that potentially affect the personal safety of any passenger, member of the public, or staff. This measure will also extend requirements for relevant bus staff to undertake training relating to disabled passengers. The Department engages regularly with bus operators, trade unions and Local Transport Authorities across the full range of measures contained in the Bill. This will continue as the guidance around this training is developed.
The Bill also provides Local Transport Authorities with the power to create byelaws and deploy officers who can deal with low level anti-social behaviour and fare evasion on the bus network. Officers will have the power to issue fines, ask people to leave the vehicle, bus station or shelter and, if necessary, to remove them if they refuse to do so.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an estimate of the potential renewable power generation capacity of Network Rail’s estate.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
In May 2020 Network Rail carried out a survey and analysis of its land estate to assess the potential suitability for renewable energy generation. It was determined that there is potential capacity of 188 MWp across 34 potential sites.
Network Rail purchases electricity for the railway and is committed to transitioning to renewable energy for both the electricity it uses for its own operations, and the electricity to power trains. Network Rail already generates some of this electricity on the rail estate and is continuing the roll out of new renewable energy generation assets on the estate.
The government is committed to establishing Great British Energy and significantly increasing the amount of renewable energy generation in the UK by 2030.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the National Infrastructure Service and Transformation Authority's document entitled NISTA Annual Report 2024-2025, published on 11 August 2025, what estimate she has made of the forecast underspend on (a) the TransPennine Route Upgrade and (b) the East-West Rail project in (i) 2025–26, (ii) 2026–27 and (iii) 2027–28.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Spending Review, announced on 11 June 2025, saw an average annual funding increase for improvements to the railway over the next four years, with £10.2bn provided for rail enhancements in the period. This included funding to continue to deliver at pace on East West Rail and the TransPennine Route Upgrade, for which the capital budgets are held and managed at portfolio level. There is no forecast underspend against budget for these projects at this time and information on the projects within the portfolio will continue to be reported to NISTA to support the
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 27 May 2025 to Question 53316 on HGV Parking and Driver Welfare Grant Scheme, what recent progress she has made on the review of the scheme; and when she will publish interim findings.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The HGV Parking Matched Funding Grant Scheme (MFGS) was launched in 2022 to fund investment in: HGV driver welfare facilities, lorry parking provision, site security, and decarbonisation. These priorities were identified through the National Survey of Lorry Parking (2022) and aim to improve the working conditions of HGV drivers.
The scheme has been extended until March 2026 to allow more time for projects to be completed.
My department has commissioned an independent evaluation of the scheme, to consider the application and delivery process, the role of the scheme in improving lorry driver facilities in England and the impact of the site improvements for drivers.
The report is due to be finalised and published by spring 2026.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the costs to her Department of climate-related extreme weather since 1 January 2020.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Climate change projections suggest the UK will experience more frequent and severe weather events which have the potential to disrupt transport. The Department reports on the risks and opportunities from climate change through the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). This was included in DfT’s 2024-25 annual reports and accounts, in which the Department highlighted flooding and sea-level rise as a high-impact, high-cost climate risk.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many miles of the national cycle network are permissive routes.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
In England, approximately 2,720 miles of the National Cycling Network is on a permissive right of way. Of this, over 50% is on land owned by a Local Authority or other public body.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what data her Department holds on the scale of ride sharing car services.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department does not hold any data on the scale of ride sharing car services.
However, to help better understand the scale of usage I have commissioned officials to consider how we can support and promote the use of car club and car-sharing schemes, starting with a roundtable of industry stakeholders.