Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he plans to publish an update to the national road traffic projections.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The National Road Traffic Projections were last published in December 2022. The Department regularly reviews evidence and data on the drivers of travel demand and will publish an update in due course.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many home EV charging points have been installed in each of the last two years.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Government is working across Departments on methods to estimate the number of domestic chargepoints and will publish in the usual way once confirmed.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much funding his Department plans to allocate to active travel in the 2024-25 financial year.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
In the business planning process last year, the Department provisionally allocated a total of £146m to Active Travel England in the 2024-25 financial year. This comprises £54m capital and £92m revenue funding. The Department’s business planning process for the 2024/25 financial year is ongoing and final plans will be published in due course.
This is only one element of over £3 billion that is being invested in active travel over the course of this Parliament, from a wide range of funding streams from across Government. This includes funding from the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements and the Levelling Up Fund.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress his Department has made implementing stopped vehicle detection technology on motorways.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
National Highways delivered their commitment to install stopped vehicle detection (SVD) technology on all existing all lane running smart motorway schemes by the end of September 2022. The Office for Rail and Road has confirmed that targets for SVD detection rates are now being met.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether DVLA services will be available at post offices after 31 March 2024.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency awarded Post Office Ltd a contract to provide some services. The contract starts on 1 April 2024 and is for one year, with an option to extend for a further two one year periods.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he plans to extend e-scooter rental trials to more areas.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Ministers are considering further options for trials after May 2024 and if any changes are agreed these will be announced in the usual way.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has made an assessment of the implications for his policies of the decision by BA to increase the minimum connection time at Heathrow Airport to 75 minutes.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government continues to work with ground handlers, airlines and airports to ensure they are doing all they can to minimise disruption for passengers. The aviation industry operates in the private sector therefore it is the responsibility of the sector to determine their operational plans.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the number of EV charging points there will be at the end of (a) 2024 and (b) 2030.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government outlined in its 2022 Electric Vehicle (EV) Infrastructure Strategy that around 300,000 publicly available charging devices are expected to be needed to meet 2030 charging demand.
The number of public charging devices is rapidly increasing. A total of 53,677 public chargepoints have been installed, as of 1 Jan 2024. Of these, 16,622 were installed in in 2023 alone.
The Government is focused on addressing future charging requirements rather than short-term demand. The current annual growth rate in charging devices is consistent with installing over 300,000 public charging devices by 2030.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 11 January 2024 to Question 8344 on Blue Badge Scheme, for what reason he has not provided information on the Blue Badge Scheme in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Blue Badge scheme is devolved in Northern Ireland. The Department for Infrastructure collects and publishes its own statistics.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the Answer of 26 October 2023 to Question 203762 on Buses: Driving, what (a) actions are required by his Department and (b) the planned timeline is for the delivery of those actions.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Transport received requests from industry to remove the regulatory 50 km restriction on regular services for 18 – 20-year old bus and coach drivers and explore whether a person is able to undertake the theory and off-road manoeuvre elements of the Driver Certificate of Professional Competency test prior to being granted a provisional licence. The Department has been considering these requests and we are actively working on next steps.
The Department will continue to work closely with the Department for Work and Pensions and industry to identify job centre customers who would like to become bus and coach drivers and support them to achieve that aim. Part of our work on this has involved setting up a pilot scheme with an operator that is designed to recruit and train job centre customers into coach driving roles. This pilot has been successful and we are looking at rolling out a similar pilot to areas of the country that have the greatest bus and coach driver shortage.