Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment his Department has made of the effect of cycling on (a) physical health, (b) mental health and (c) the environment.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris
Cycling and walking deliver a range of health, economic and environmental benefits. These are detailed in the Prime Minister’s Plan for cycling and walking (www.gov.uk/government/publications/cycling-and-walking-plan-for-england) published on 28 July which sets an ambition for half of all journeys in towns and cities to be cycled or walked by 2030. The plan includes a £2 billion package of funding for active travel over the next 5 years, which is the largest ever boost for cycling and walking, and which will deliver transformational change.
A more detailed consideration of the effects of cycling and walking informed the development of the Department’s Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy Model, the technical reports and annexes of which were published on gov.uk on 7 February (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cycling-and-walking-investment-strategy-active-travel-investment-models)
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to improve road safety for cyclists.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris
On 28 July the Prime Minister launched ambitious plans to boost cycling and walking, with the aim that half of all journeys in towns and cities are cycled or walked by 2030. This includes a £2 billion package of funding for active travel over the next 5 years, which is the largest ever boost for cycling and walking, and will deliver transformational change. The plan includes a number of commitments which will deliver increased safety for cyclists, including the roll-out of segregated cycle lanes in towns and cities, a big increase in cycle training, higher safety standards for lorries and improved Cycle Infrastructure Design Guidance.
The Department continues to deliver the commitments contained in the Government’s response to the 2018 Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy Safety Review including a consultation on the review of the guidance in the Highway Code to improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians which closes on the 27th October.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of electric vehicle charging points in towns and cities in England.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
The Government is providing £500 million over the next five years to support the rollout of infrastructure for electric vehicles through a range of grant schemes which are available for both urban and rural areas. Part of this is our On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS), which assists local authorities with the cost of installing chargepoints on residential streets. Government funding has been doubled to £20 million for the ORCS in 2020/21. This could help fund up to 7,200 chargepoints and make charging at home and overnight easier for those without an off-street parking space. The Government has also provided £40m of funding, via our Go Ultra Low city scheme, to 8 cities across the UK to support the uptake of ultra-low emission vehicles in those cities. To date, over 300 chargepoints have been installed as part of this scheme. Additional charging hubs will be installed across the country later this year such as a new hub in York. We have also consulted on proposals for chargepoint infrastructure to be installed in all newly built homes and non-residential buildings in England, where appropriate.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the rules on refunding rail season tickets as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris
Following the introduction of COVID-19 travel restrictions in March, the Department introduced a number of temporary process changes to make it easier for passengers to claim refunds, including allowing season ticket holders to backdate their refund claim by up to 56 days, or the date their ticket was last used, whichever was later. In addition, new arrangements were put in place to enable season ticket holders to claim refunds remotely, and a season ticket refund calculator was added to National Rail and all train operator websites. The Department agreed with train operators that they would revert to the standard refund terms and conditions from 7 September 2020, but passengers can continue to claim refunds on unused portions of season tickets.
Train operators allocated additional resources to process the unprecedented number of refund requests as quickly as possible. Since 17 March over 220,000 season ticket holders have claimed season ticket refunds totalling over £340 million in response to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to improve the resilience of rail infrastructure to bad weather conditions to prevent delays and cancellations to rail services.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris
Network Rail is undertaking a range of measures to improve the resilience to extremes of weather from active monitoring of rails at potential risk of buckling during hot weather to enable contingency plans to be enacted; to Emergency Weather Action Teams being stood up proactively in readiness to respond in advance of any extreme weather. Furthermore, in light of the tragic events at Stonehaven, NR were commissioned to produce a report in to improving the resilience of the network in response to extreme weather events. The interim report was published on 10 September and contained a range of short term and longer term actions which are being taken forward, including the creation of two task forces to look specifically the management of earthworks and the other to make best use of weather data. A full report will be published in due course.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the average timescale is for his Department to respond to their consultations; and whether his Department has a target timescale for responding.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris
All consultations are conducted in line with the Cabinet Office Consultation Principles. We aim to publish responses within 12 weeks of the consultation, however this is not always possible, especially for complex policies requiring significant additional analysis and stakeholder engagement.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to alleviate passenger overcrowding on trains.
Answered by Claire Perry
Increased capacity is being delivered through our record investment in the railway and programmes such as Intercity Express, Crossrail and Thameslink which add more, longer and newer trains to the railway network which will help in reducing overcrowding. The franchising system is also delivering capacity increases across the country, including 150 new carriages on South West Trains and 68 new carriages on c2c. The new Northern and TransPennine Express franchises will deliver an increase in peak capacity into the major northern cities by more than a third.
In addition, operators such as First Great Western are taking steps to reduce overcrowding by removing some first class carriages and installing additional standard seats. With record passenger numbers across the country we expect operators to keep putting forward innovative proposals to reduce overcrowding.