Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has plans to convert more motorways to smart motorways.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Since assuming office, the Secretary of State’s focus has been to ensure that Smart Motorways are safer than conventional motorways, committing an additional £500 million in infrastructure, technology and communications to make these roads safer.
We welcome the Transport Select Committee (TSC) report Rollout and safety of smart motorways, published on 2 November 2021, scrutiny and will now consider its recommendations in detail, providing a formal response in due course. This is a serious piece of work which we will engage with closely in the months ahead. We are pleased that the TSC recognises that reinstating the hard shoulder on all all-lane running motorways could put more drivers and passengers at risk of death and serious injury and that we are right to focus on upgrading their safety.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the Government carried out comparative fuel economy trials for the change from E5 unleaded petrol to E10; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Comparative fuel economy trials were not commissioned by the Department.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the impact on CO2 emissions of the change from E5 unleaded petrol to E10.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
E10 petrol (petrol containing up to 10% bioethanol) was introduced as the standard petrol across Great Britain in September. The impact assessment published alongside the Motor Fuel (Composition and Content) and the Biofuel (Labelling) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2021, which introduced E10, estimates that the change from E5 unleaded petrol to E10 is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by around 0.7 to 0.8 megatonnes per year.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to his Department's publication, Gear change: A bold vision for cycling and walking, published in 2020, whether the target that half of all journeys in towns and cities being walked or cycled by 2030 replaces the target to double cycling and walking by 2025 in the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
It does not: The Gear Change vision and Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy aims are complementary. The second Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS 2) will be published once the Government has agreed its long-term spending plans for active travel at the next multi-year Spending Review. It will give a statutory basis to the vision outlined in the Gear Change plan, as well as setting out the financial resources available for cycling and walking and the other matters required by the Infrastructure Act 2015, including targets for cycling and walking. These plans will be formally set out to Parliament in due course.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) deaths and (b) serious injuries of cyclists that were attributable to poorly-maintained local roads in England in each year since 2007.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The numbers of reported cyclist fatalities and serious injuries that have been recorded on local roads in England for each year since 2007 where poorly maintained roads could be considered to be a contributory factor is provided in the table.
Reported cyclist serious and fatal injuries on local roads in England where poorly maintained roads is reported as a contributory factor1 | ||||
| Poor or defective road surface | Inadequate or masked signs or road markings | ||
Year | Reported Cyclist Fatalities | Reported Cyclist Serious Injuries | Reported Cyclist Fatalities | Reported Cyclist Serious Injuries |
2007 | 2 | 12 | 0 | 5 |
2008 | 0 | 15 | 0 | 6 |
2009 | 1 | 28 | 0 | 5 |
2010 | 6 | 21 | 0 | 6 |
2011 | 2 | 37 | 0 | 4 |
2012 | 1 | 38 | 0 | 3 |
2013 | 1 | 34 | 1 | 10 |
2014 | 0 | 46 | 0 | 10 |
2015 | 1 | 42 | 0 | 9 |
2016 | 4 | 52 | 0 | 7 |
Source: DfT STATS19 reported road casualties | ||||
1 Includes only casualties where a police officer attended the scene and in which a contributory factor was reported. In 2016, this related to 72% of reported accidents that took place on local roads in England.
By way of context, cycling in England has increased over the time period in question, rising from 3.7 billion kilometres in 2007 to 5.0 billion kilometres in 2016.
It should be noted that contributory factors assigned by police officers do not assign blame for the accident to any specific road user, however they do provide some insight into why and how road accidents occur. They give an indication of which factors the attending officer thought contributed to the accident. Officers do not need to carry out a full investigation of the incident before allocating contributory factors; they usually use professional judgement about what they can see at the scene.
Not all accidents are included in the contributory factor data; only accidents where the police attended the scene and reported at least one contributory factor are included. A total of 72% of accidents reported to the police in 2016 on local roads in England met these criteria although each accident can have multiple contributory factors attributed to them.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what records are kept of the concentrations of identified toxic chemicals in a fume event in each of the principal classes of civil aviation airliners operating within the UK; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
In the period 1 June 2013 to 31 May 2014, from over a million passenger and cargo flights the Civil Aviation Authority received 309 reports of 'contaminated air' from UK operators under the Mandatory Occurrence Reporting Scheme. Incidents involving non-UK operators would be reported to the relevant national authority and we do not have data on the number of occurrences involving non-UK operators.
The majority of incidents of contaminated air are brief, lasting for periods of a few seconds to a few minutes. No records of chemical concentrations are kept as there is no equipment currently available which could be installed on aircraft and capture this information.
The Department has completed four research studies into cabin air, which involved close cooperation with airlines to facilitate the research. The main study was published by Cranfield University in May 2011, and concluded there was no evidence for pollutants occurring in cabin air at levels exceeding available health and safety standards and guidelines.
The Department has also engaged with the Committee on Toxicity, which considered the Department's four published reports during 2013. The Committee concluded that there is no evidence that fume events are causing ill health in passengers or crew and, as a result, there are no plans to change the monitoring of air quality in UK carriers.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether any UK agencies or Departments conduct or have conducted research into the long-term consequences of repeated exposure of air crews to low levels of toxic fumes within civil aviation aircraft; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
In the period 1 June 2013 to 31 May 2014, from over a million passenger and cargo flights the Civil Aviation Authority received 309 reports of 'contaminated air' from UK operators under the Mandatory Occurrence Reporting Scheme. Incidents involving non-UK operators would be reported to the relevant national authority and we do not have data on the number of occurrences involving non-UK operators.
The majority of incidents of contaminated air are brief, lasting for periods of a few seconds to a few minutes. No records of chemical concentrations are kept as there is no equipment currently available which could be installed on aircraft and capture this information.
The Department has completed four research studies into cabin air, which involved close cooperation with airlines to facilitate the research. The main study was published by Cranfield University in May 2011, and concluded there was no evidence for pollutants occurring in cabin air at levels exceeding available health and safety standards and guidelines.
The Department has also engaged with the Committee on Toxicity, which considered the Department's four published reports during 2013. The Committee concluded that there is no evidence that fume events are causing ill health in passengers or crew and, as a result, there are no plans to change the monitoring of air quality in UK carriers.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions he or Ministers in his Department have had with (a) airlines and (b) organisations about fume events in UK airlines; and if he will take steps to improve the monitoring of the air quality in UK airliners.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
In the period 1 June 2013 to 31 May 2014, from over a million passenger and cargo flights the Civil Aviation Authority received 309 reports of 'contaminated air' from UK operators under the Mandatory Occurrence Reporting Scheme. Incidents involving non-UK operators would be reported to the relevant national authority and we do not have data on the number of occurrences involving non-UK operators.
The majority of incidents of contaminated air are brief, lasting for periods of a few seconds to a few minutes. No records of chemical concentrations are kept as there is no equipment currently available which could be installed on aircraft and capture this information.
The Department has completed four research studies into cabin air, which involved close cooperation with airlines to facilitate the research. The main study was published by Cranfield University in May 2011, and concluded there was no evidence for pollutants occurring in cabin air at levels exceeding available health and safety standards and guidelines.
The Department has also engaged with the Committee on Toxicity, which considered the Department's four published reports during 2013. The Committee concluded that there is no evidence that fume events are causing ill health in passengers or crew and, as a result, there are no plans to change the monitoring of air quality in UK carriers.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many fume events were recorded in (a) UK civil aviation aircraft and (b) other aircraft using UK airports operating within the UK in the last 12 months; and which agency is responsible for recording these events.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
In the period 1 June 2013 to 31 May 2014, from over a million passenger and cargo flights the Civil Aviation Authority received 309 reports of 'contaminated air' from UK operators under the Mandatory Occurrence Reporting Scheme. Incidents involving non-UK operators would be reported to the relevant national authority and we do not have data on the number of occurrences involving non-UK operators.
The majority of incidents of contaminated air are brief, lasting for periods of a few seconds to a few minutes. No records of chemical concentrations are kept as there is no equipment currently available which could be installed on aircraft and capture this information.
The Department has completed four research studies into cabin air, which involved close cooperation with airlines to facilitate the research. The main study was published by Cranfield University in May 2011, and concluded there was no evidence for pollutants occurring in cabin air at levels exceeding available health and safety standards and guidelines.
The Department has also engaged with the Committee on Toxicity, which considered the Department's four published reports during 2013. The Committee concluded that there is no evidence that fume events are causing ill health in passengers or crew and, as a result, there are no plans to change the monitoring of air quality in UK carriers.