Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department plans to take steps to ensure that new tramway schemes use domestically produced tramway rails.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The responsibility for light rail and tramways is devolved, where each local authority owns and is responsible for the development and delivery of their own system. Therefore, it would be for local authorities to specify criteria for any future tram scheme, or tram extension, ensuring to adhere to the relevant procurement regulations when running their procurement competitions.
In addition, under the Government’s Social Value policy, public contracting authorities, such as local authorities, can set rigorous environmental and social standards, and other criteria that play to the strengths of local supply chains who can meet those standards. This is also subject to the requirement not to discriminate directly or indirectly against tenderers on grounds of nationality.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much her Department has spent on consultancy fees in each year since 2021.
Answered by Mike Kane - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The table shows the total departmental spend on consultancy for financial years 2020/2021 to 2023/2024. The total includes the central department (DfTc), Executive Agencies and Arm Length Bodies (ALBs).
Departmental total spend (£)
2020/21 175,720,840
2021/22 198,001,723
2022/23 225,477,742
2023/24 165,372,920
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of delays to planned rail reforms.
Answered by Huw Merriman
The Department has actively managed rail reform costs in response to delays to original plans. A recent National Audit Office report noted that the Department estimates it will spend £0.4bn on rail reform up to the end of March 2024, compared to initial planned spending of £1.2bn.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of trends in the level of seafarer (a) recruitment and (b) retention in the merchant shipping industry.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Department for Transport does not hold data specifically on the number of seafarers recruited or the level of retention in the merchant shipping industry.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of bus service levels in England.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Government is investing significant levels of funding to drive improvements to services and make them cheaper, including over £1 billion allocated in 2022 to help LTAs deliver their Bus Service Improvement Plans, a further £1 billion redirected from HS2 to improve bus services in the North and the Midlands as part of Network North, and nearly £600 million to cap single bus fares at £2 from 1 January 2023 until the end of 2024.
Bus service provision in England outside London remained at over 85% of pre-COVID levels in 2022/23, despite patronage dropping to 10% of pre-pandemic levels during the height of the pandemic. This is due to the Government providing unprecedented levels of funding to protect vital bus routes following the pandemic, totalling £2 billion between March 2020 and June 2023. The Government is also currently providing over £300 million to local transport authorities (LTAs) and bus operators to support and improve bus services until April 2025, on top of the nearly £260 million the Department for Transport makes available every year through the Bus Service Operators Grant to help run services that might otherwise be unprofitable and could lead to cancellation
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to monitor the effectiveness of local taxi licensing authorities.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Government provides guidance to taxi and private hire vehicle licensing authorities in England to assist them in exercising their licensing function https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/licensing-of-taxis-and-phvs-for-local-authorities-in-england
The Department for Transport uses its annual statistical survey of licensing authorities to help monitor uptake of the guidance.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of Avanti West Coast's performance against its contractual service obligations.
Answered by Huw Merriman
Like all operators currently on a National Rail Contract, Avanti West Coast’s operational performance is assessed against agreed Quantified Targets. This component is evaluated annually against set criteria and considers all elements within the operator’s control.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of increases in rail fares on trends in the level of passenger numbers.
Answered by Huw Merriman
The Department considers a range of factors when determining rail fare changes, including the impact on passenger demand. The Government intervened to cap regulated rail fares increases at 4.9%, 4.1 percentage points lower than the July RPI figure on which fare changes are usually based. This strikes a balance between offering lower fares to encourage passengers to use our rail network and supporting the rail industry while it gets back on good financial footing as it continues to deal with a revenue shortfall after the pandemic.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent discussions he has had with the Leader of the House on the timetable for legislating on national minimum standards for taxi and private hire vehicle licensing.
Answered by Guy Opperman
There was insufficient parliamentary time to bring forward legislation on national minimum standards for taxi and private hire vehicle licensing during this Parliament, but the Government remains committed to doing so in due course.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to increase public awareness of the January 2022 changes to The Highway Code.
Answered by Anthony Browne
The January 2022 changes to The Highway Code to help improve road safety for people walking, cycling and horse riding have been communicated via:
As a result, the percentage of road users reporting to know either a little or a lot about the Highway Code changes increased from 36% in January 2022 to 58% in August 2022, with 83% of road users having heard of the changes by August 2022.