Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of East West Rail on the journey time between Oxford and Cambridge.
Answered by Huw Merriman
Modelling conducted by the East West Rail Company and released as part of their Route Update Announcement in 2023 shows an estimated journey time of 89 minutes between Oxford and Cambridge by rail once East West Rail is completed, compared to a current journey time of 167 minutes by road during peak times.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to encourage innovation in (a) the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, (b) the DVLA, (c) HS2 Ltd. and (d) National Highways.
Answered by Anthony Browne
The UK Government has an overarching goal of making the UK a global hub for innovation, placing innovation at the centre of everything the nation does. We can see this within our Public Bodies:
The MCA is committed to supporting innovation in maritime. This includes:
- Taking an enabling approach to regulation of innovative future maritime technologies,
- Implementation of the UK Concierge Service and the My MCA technology platform supporting customers and the UK economy, and
- Empowering and supporting staff to explore innovative ways of working, including digital technology, to make best use of resources.
The DVLA builds its new software and services using the very latest methodologies and technologies. Examples include:
- It is a fast adopter of cutting edge features offered by public cloud infrastructure so it can deliver quicker, safer and serve greater numbers of customers than ever before.
- The DVLA’s in-house TechLab research emerging technologies, including how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can assist in building software to support motorists though their interactions with DVLA.
- The DVLA has used these innovations most recently in the development of its driver and vehicles account. When fully rolled out, the account will fundamentally change how the DVLA operates, allowing individuals to authenticate, register and return to DVLA services, view and manage their details, set notification preferences (including reminders) and seamlessly link to the services they need.
HS2 Ltd is at the forefront of innovation within the construction industry and has an obligation to incentivise innovation across the supply chain under the Development Agreement.
Innovation across the programme has made HS2 more efficient with hundreds of millions saved through an accelerator programme to fast-track technology and ideas into the supply chain. Since its launch in September 2020, the accelerator has supported 25 SMEs, raised £220 million in investment, funding and contracts, and helped to create 418 new STEM jobs. Two of the SMEs supported through the accelerator have recently been through an acquisition on the basis of their success.
D. National Highways
National Highways have an innovation and modernisation fund. The Department has provided £216m to NH for this fund during RIS2 (covering the period 2020-2025).
They will use it to research and develop emerging technologies which have the potential to revolutionise what it means to travel on our roads. They will also use this fund to produce new requirements and guidance for proven concepts, enabling the widespread adoption of innovations to modernise the road network. The fund is split across 5 themes:
- Design, construction, and maintenance
- Connected and autonomous vehicles
- Customer mobility
- Energy and environment
- Operations
The Department expect a similar approach to be continued in RIS3 (covering the period 2025-30) which is currently in development.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department is taking steps to improve signalling on the Tyne and Wear Metro.
Answered by Huw Merriman
The Department is currently working with Nexus (operator of the Tyne and Wear Metro) across a range of proposals and live projects. We are awaiting a business case submission from Nexus to address any future signalling proposals. We look forward to receiving this and considering Nexus’s submission through the department's project governance process.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has had discussions with Nissan following its decision to withdraw app support for older Nissan Leaf and e-NV200 vehicles.
Answered by Anthony Browne
DfT Ministers regularly discuss a range of issues with automotive manufacturers, including Nissan. However, the Government is not able to comment on individual business matters.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has uplifted the Government contribution for the Tyne Bridge and Central Motorway A167 (M) road works from 85% to 100%.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Prime Minister’s ‘Network North’ announcement in early October included the Tyne Bridge and Central Motorway A167 (M) scheme. The Department for Transport are finalising plans for this scheme’s uplift, and the Council will be contacted in due course. All schemes will continue to be subject to the Department's standard business case rules.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department provides support for rail fares for school trips.
Answered by Huw Merriman
All children under 16 receive 50 per cent off most adult fares and, in 2019, we introduced the 16-17 Saver railcard extending this to 16 and 17 year-olds, meaning that a 50 per cent discount is available to children throughout their period of compulsory education and training. Some operators also have dedicated discounts for group travel with some offering substantial savings for groups of 10 or more people.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he is taking steps to help increase access to public transport for people who (a) unemployed, (b) have a low household income and (c) cannot drive.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The government has taken many steps to ensure that public transport is affordable for people across the country. These include the recent announcement of a further £1 billion, redirected from HS2 by reason of the Prime Minister’s Network North announcement, to deliver better bus services in the North and the Midlands. This funding will make services more frequent, more reliable, cheaper, and easier to use. This is part of over £4.5 billion announced by the government to support and improve bus services since 2020.
In addition, in January 2023 the Department introduced the £2 cap on single bus fares in England outside of London, since extended until the end of 2024, taking total government funding to deliver the cap to nearly £600 million.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he is taking steps to increase access to affordable public transport options for people aged between 16 and 24 in Newcastle.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Government introduced a £2 cap on single bus fares in England outside London on 1 January 2023 to help all passengers save on their regular travel costs. The Government is investing nearly £600 million to deliver the scheme, including additional funding redirected from HS2 to keep the cap in place until the end of 2024. There are currently over 140 bus operators and more than 5,000 routes in the scheme, including routes in Newcastle.
The Government is also providing over £2 billion to help local transport authorities (LTAs) deliver their Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIP). This includes the announcement by the Prime Minister in October 2023 that a further £1 billion would be redirected from HS2 to deliver better bus services in the North and the Midlands.
The North East has so far been allocated £175 million to deliver their BSIP, which can be used to support any bus service improvements that the local authority – working with local bus operators – know their community needs, including introducing local fares initiatives in addition to the Government’s £2 bus fare cap. Thanks to this funding, Transport North East has launched a £1 fare for the under 22s and a £3 daily ticket for under 22s offering unlimited travel on bus, Metro and Ferry throughout the region.
More widely, the North East is now eligible for the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement following their Devolution Deal and, upon election of a Mayor, we will work with them on their delivery plans to support local transport within the region. Up to £563m is available from their CRSTS 1 funding settlement (from 2022 – 2027). CRSTS 2 allocations were announced as part of Network North in October, with the North East indicatively allocated a further £1,849 billion from 2027/28 -2031/32.
Additionally, there are a range of discounts available to 16 to 24-year-olds to help with the cost of rail travel - in 2019 we introduced the 16-17 Saver, meaning that a 50% discount is available to children throughout their period of compulsory education and training. For those aged 16-25, the 16-25 Railcard offers a third off most rail travel.
In England, the majority of bus services outside London operate on a commercial basis, and decisions about offering reduced or discounted fares for commercial bus services are predominantly for operators to take. Many bus operators currently offer discounted travel cards for younger people. Our most recent set of statistics shows that at least one commercial operator in 71 out of 84 travel concession authority areas in England, outside London, offered some form of discounted travel for young people.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has commissioned research into the potential impact of transport poverty among 16 to 24 year olds on (a) unemployment and (b) productivity in Newcastle.
Answered by Huw Merriman
In England, the majority of bus services outside London operate on a commercial basis, and decisions about offering reduced or discounted fares for commercial bus services are predominantly for operators to take.
Many bus operators currently offer discounted fares for younger people.
The Government introduced a £2 cap on single bus fares in England outside London from 1 January 2023 until the end of 2024 to help passengers save on their regular travel costs. The Government has provided almost £600 million to support the scheme.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 16 November 2023 to Question 800 on East Coast Main Line: Weather, how many signalling failures there were on the East Coast Main Line in (a) 2021 and (b) 2022; and what assessment he has made of trends in the (i) number and (ii) frequency of signalling failures on the East Coast Main Line since 2010.
Answered by Huw Merriman
The average time between Service Affecting Failures on the ECML has become less frequent since 2010 and is trending downwards. I can confirm there were 312 signalling failures in 2021/22, and 247 in 2022/23.