Asked by: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of (a) legal and (b) industry standards for emerging technologies for autonomous vehicles.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Government paper “Connected & Automated Mobility 2025: realising the benefits of self-driving vehicles in the UK” sets out the Government’s plans to support the development and deployment of safe self-driving vehicles in the UK. This includes proposals for a comprehensive regulatory, legislative and safety framework. The Department remains committed to these plans will bring forward primary legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Alongside developing legal and regulatory frameworks, the government has committed £100 million of new Research and Development funding following the Government’s Spending Review for the period 2022/23 to 2024/25, which is allocated to the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) through two Departments:
Asked by: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what his Department’s latest plans are to support the rollout of autonomous vehicles.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Government paper “Connected & Automated Mobility 2025: realising the benefits of self-driving vehicles in the UK” sets out the Government’s plans to support the development and deployment of safe self-driving vehicles in the UK. This includes proposals for a comprehensive regulatory, legislative and safety framework. The Department remains committed to these plans will bring forward primary legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Alongside developing legal and regulatory frameworks, the government has committed £100 million of new Research and Development funding following the Government’s Spending Review for the period 2022/23 to 2024/25, which is allocated to the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) through two Departments:
Asked by: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the track gradient was for each new train station built in the last 10 years.
Answered by Wendy Morton - Shadow Minister (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The location of new stations must satisfy safety regulations and performance and not be located on gradients greater than 1 in 500. Network Rail holds gradient information for each station built in the last 10 years.
Asked by: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions he has had with the Home Secretary on providing guidance to the police on tackling (a) illegal or (b) unsafe usage of E-scooters.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Department has in place a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation programme for the trials. The interim report should be published shortly, and we expect to publish the final report in spring 2022.
Officials have been in regular contact with the National Police Chiefs’ Council who are developing a national strategy for tacking the illegal use of e-scooters (both private use and illegal use in trial areas – pavement and twin riding) to ensure a more uniform approach, but it is not our intention to provide guidance to the police. Enforcement of offences relating to unlawful use of e-scooters is an operational matter for individual Chief Officers of police in conjunction with local policing plans.
Officials have also been in contact with their counterparts at the Home Office to provide briefing for Ministers on the e-scooter trials.
Asked by: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he will publish the findings of the trials conducted by the Government on E-scooters.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Department has in place a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation programme for the trials. The interim report should be published shortly, and we expect to publish the final report in spring 2022.
Officials have been in regular contact with the National Police Chiefs’ Council who are developing a national strategy for tacking the illegal use of e-scooters (both private use and illegal use in trial areas – pavement and twin riding) to ensure a more uniform approach, but it is not our intention to provide guidance to the police. Enforcement of offences relating to unlawful use of e-scooters is an operational matter for individual Chief Officers of police in conjunction with local policing plans.
Officials have also been in contact with their counterparts at the Home Office to provide briefing for Ministers on the e-scooter trials.
Asked by: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) accidents and (b) breakdowns on each stretch of smart motorway in each of the last 5 years.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
The number of accidents has been taken to mean the number of injury casualties. The tables in Annexes B, C and D of the Smart Motorways Evidence Stocktake and Action Plan show the number of reported casualties by road class on England's Strategic Road Network (SRN) for slight, serious and fatal casualties. These tables show the casualty split on different types of motorway. These tables are attached for ease of reference. Highways England is currently analysing the 2019 data and, when available, will analyse the 2020 data, which is expected to be in Autumn 2021.
The last full year of data available is for 2019, the statistic for which are set out in the table 1, note that ‘motorway’ refers to ‘conventional motorways’ excluding all other types set out in the table.
As outlined in the published STATS19 data, the number of incidents increased across the network in 2019, and the amount of All Lane Running (ALR) sections of the network also increased over this period. In the time available, it has not been possible to provide data on accidents and breakdowns for each stretch of motorway.
Highways England does not hold data for the attendance of incidents by vehicle recovery companies or the emergency services.
Asked by: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate his Department has made of the (a) longest and (b) shortest amount of time taken for rescue vehicles to reach vehicles that have broken down on smart motorways in each of the last 5 years.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
The number of accidents has been taken to mean the number of injury casualties. The tables in Annexes B, C and D of the Smart Motorways Evidence Stocktake and Action Plan show the number of reported casualties by road class on England's Strategic Road Network (SRN) for slight, serious and fatal casualties. These tables show the casualty split on different types of motorway. These tables are attached for ease of reference. Highways England is currently analysing the 2019 data and, when available, will analyse the 2020 data, which is expected to be in Autumn 2021.
The last full year of data available is for 2019, the statistic for which are set out in the table 1, note that ‘motorway’ refers to ‘conventional motorways’ excluding all other types set out in the table.
As outlined in the published STATS19 data, the number of incidents increased across the network in 2019, and the amount of All Lane Running (ALR) sections of the network also increased over this period. In the time available, it has not been possible to provide data on accidents and breakdowns for each stretch of motorway.
Highways England does not hold data for the attendance of incidents by vehicle recovery companies or the emergency services.