Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many blood samples were requested by DVLA as part of a fitness to drive medical in each of the last five years.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
The number of blood tests requested by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency as part of a medical fitness to drive investigation in the last five years is shown in the table below:
Year | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 |
Total requests | 35,524 | 36,792 | 35,040 | 36,125 | 43,332 | 34,216 |
Information on the number of blood tests that needed to be retaken or the reason why is not readily available. Retrieving this information would require the interrogation of each individual case to identify the reason for which the blood test needed to be re-taken.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans he has to work with the Scottish Government to encourage an increase in bus services in the Highlands as part of a UK wide environmental strategy ahead of COP26.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
Responsibility for bus services is a devolved matter. The Department engages with the devolved administrations, including Scotland, on issues such as bus services.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to (a) encourage and (b) support the use of electric vehicles among lower wage earners resident in rural and semi-rural settings.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
The Government has announced £2.8 billion to support industry and drivers to make the switch to zero emission vehicles. Reforms to our home and workplace charging schemes will focus support on those that need it most, including those living in flats, rental and leasehold accommodation, SMEs and charities. We will publish an electric vehicle Infrastructure Strategy in 2021 to set out the vision and action plan for charging infrastructure rollout needed to achieve the 2030/35 phase out successfully, this will consider and address both urban and rural charging needs. Electric vehicles can also be cheaper to run: It costs from as little as 1p/mile to run a new electric vehicle, compared to around 10p per mile for new diesel/petrol vehicles. This will be valuable for rural drivers who travel longer distances than average. Electric vehicle drivers also benefit from a favourable tax regime that rewards cleaner vehicles. As manufacturers produce more electric vehicles, we expect their cost to come down over the coming years and for more vehicles to become available on the second hand market.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that electric vehicle infrastructure is accessible for disabled people.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
The Government understands the importance of car ownership to many people with disabilities, with research indicating that nearly three in five disabled people use a private car three or more times per week. We recently conducted a call for evidence on accessibility in our consumer experience at public chargepoints consultation.
The consultation gathered evidence for any interventions needed for consumers using the public charging infrastructure. This closed on 10 April and we are intending to publish the government response to this consultation in the autumn and lay legislation relating to open data, payment methods and reliability, later this year.
The responses provided for the call to evidence on accessibility are being reviewed. We are working closely with Motability to develop clear accessibility standards for public EV chargepoints to ensure that consumers can find the right chargepoints for their needs, for electric vehicle drivers with visible and non-visible disabilities. Drivers who lease a vehicle through the Motability Scheme are able to apply the OZEV Plug-in Car Grant of up to £2,500, or Plug-in Van Grant of up to £3,000, to an eligible vehicle and also apply for the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme (EVHS) which provides a grant of up to £350 towards the purchase and installation of a home chargepoint.
The Government will continue to monitor market developments to determine whether any significant gaps in charging infrastructure provision emerge in the medium term and whether there may be a case for direct central government support in areas of market failure, which may include accessibility.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much and what proportion of the plug-in vehicle grant has been allocated to Caithness, Sutherland, and Easter Ross.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
The Department holds data on plug-in vehicle grants but this database does not provide the geographic breakdown required.
Up to the end of September 2020, an estimated £0.2m was provided to new plug-in car grant eligible models that were registered for the first time to an address in Caithness, Sutherland, and Easter Ross, which was 0.03% of the estimated total for the UK.
Note that the plug-in car grant provides a discount on the price of brand new low-emission vehicles through a grant the government gives to vehicle dealerships and manufacturers when consumers purchase an eligible vehicle model – the grant is therefore allocated based on consumer demand rather than through any geographic formula.
Grants for vehicles other than cars have been excluded here because we do not have an equivalent estimation method readily available.
The financial value has been estimated from car registration data by applying the amount of available grant for eligible models at the time of registration. This estimate does not mean that every car registered received the grant nor that other cars did not receive the grant before the end of September 2020 but had not registered the car yet.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Transport:
What assessment he has made of the potential merits of requiring long-distance road transport companies using heavy vehicles to contribute towards the maintenance of rural roads.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) Levy, paid by vehicles weighing over 12 tonnes for the use of any UK road since 2014, raised £204.4 million in 2019/20. The Levy is suspended for 12 months to 1 August 2021.