Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he is taking steps to help reduce hedgehog casualties on roads.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department recently delivered an authorisation to all local authorities to make it easier for them to install small animal warning signs. The purpose of this sign is primarily to improve road safety, but it may also help to reduce hedgehog and other small animal casualties on the road.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many railway stations in England have tactile paving on platforms to help visually impaired people.
Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
In England, 1,825 main line stations have full or partial tactile paving at platform edges. We have made £75m available to Network Rail to install platform edge tactiles at all main line stations across Great Britain that do not already have them, or where they are not due to be installed by another workstream. When the programme started in July 2021, 710 stations in England did not have tactiles installed on some or all platforms. Since July 2021, tactiles have been installed at more than 550 stations, with the remainder within the programme due to complete by 2025.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many and what proportion of direct trains from Peterborough to London Kings Cross have been cancelled in the last six months.
Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
London North Eastern Railway cancelled a total of 1,501 services between Peterborough and London between 23 July 2023 and 6 January 2024. This equates to 6.1 per cent of their services between these stations. In the past six months Govia Thameslink Railway had 1,673 direct services scheduled to run from Peterborough to King’s Cross, 126 (7.5 per cent) of them were cancelled. A significant proportion of cancellations were due to flooding from named storms and infrastructure failures.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking with Cabinet collagues to help reduce the number of hedgehogs killed on roads.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Secretary of State discusses many issues with Cabinet colleagues.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
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 pro-Palestine protests at train stations on commuters.
Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
Ministers have been closely involved in discussions between the Department and the British Transport Police (BTP) on the impact of and approach to managing protests at railway stations.
We support the right to protest, but abuse, intimidation or violence – especially that which is religiously motivated - will never be tolerated on the railway. BTP officers will not hesitate to take robust action against those who seek to cause harm or hate.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of reopening Littleworth railway station in Deeping St Nicholas.
Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The Network North announcement reiterated the Government’s commitment to support local devolution and local leaders to prioritise transport initiatives that best support their communities. This included funding for Local Transport Authorities (LTAs) in the North and Midlands for Local Integrated Transport Settlements (LITS) from 2025/26-2031/32.
This provides them with greater flexibility to consider more proposals such as any to reopen Littleworth Station. It is for the local authority to bring forward such proposals.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to address skills shortages (a) among HGV drivers and (b) in the road transport sector.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government has a multi-pronged approach to tackling this problem. It has invested in skills bootcamps to train up to 11,000 more people to become HGV drivers to help tackle the HGV driver shortage. These are free, short, intensive courses to train drivers to be road ready and gain a Category C or Category C&E licence.
The Government is also supporting lorry driver training through apprenticeships. The Large Goods Vehicle Driver apprenticeship, which trains drivers to gain their Cat C&E licence, has recently had its funding level increased to £8,000. The Urban Driver apprenticeship which trains drivers to Cat C standard is also available with up to £5,000 of funding.
The Department for Transport has also supported the non-profit initiative Road to Logistics to train military service leavers, ex-offenders and the long term unemployed to move into jobs in the logistics sector, including lorry driving.
These measures are working with industry reporting that the acute driver shortage has eased. We continue to work with the sector to monitor the availability of drivers and tackle the issues affecting both the recruitment and retention of HGV drivers.
Following the actions raised during the driver shortages (buses and coaches) summit held in November 2022, the Department plans to consult on removing the regulatory 50km restriction on 18- to 20-year-old bus and coach drivers driving a regular service, and allowing prospective drivers to undertake the theory and off-road manoeuvre tests prior to being granted a provisional bus license. Since the summit, figures from the Confederation of Passenger Transport show that the vacancy rate for bus drivers in Great Britain fell from a high of 9.3% in September 2022 to 6.5% in May 2023.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he plans to include improvements in Lincolnshire as part of the funding allocated through Network North.
Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
Lincolnshire will receive additional funding through a number of different funding streams and projects as part of Network North. Please some examples of funding below:
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department held discussions with the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership before announcing Network North funding.
Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
Following the announcement of Network North, we are working closely with our local delivery partners to progress projects plans including funding. Consultations and further discussions will be conducted, as appropriate, as the plans for projects are developed and finalised.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many full time equivalent staff in his Department were working on the response to the Managing pavement parking consultation on 1 November 2023.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This subject is the responsibility of the Civil Parking and Traffic Enforcement team. In that team there were three members of staff whose responsibilities on 1 November included the subject of pavement parking, including the public consultation process.