Asked by: Lord Redwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent estimate he has made of the total amount that the Government will pay in railway subsidies in 2022-3.
Answered by Huw Merriman
The Department’s Spending Review settlement and Main Estimate for net spend (subsidy) on rail passenger services in 2022/23 is around £2.7 billion.
Asked by: Lord Redwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has made an estimate of the expected cost to the (a) railway industry and (b) public purse of offering discounted tickets on certain railway journeys from 25 April to 27 May 2022.
Answered by Wendy Morton - Shadow Minister (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Government has supported industry to develop and deliver the sale; the scheme is run on a commercial basis.
Asked by: Lord Redwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the number of commuter miles that will be travelled on the railways in 2022-23 compared with pre-covid levels.
Answered by Wendy Morton - Shadow Minister (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
In line with our published guidance, the Department has developed a number of scenarios of possible rail demand to reflect uncertainty including how passengers respond post-Covid-19. The Department considers a wide range of evidence for our project appraisals and policy decisions.
Asked by: Lord Redwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the projected reduction in rail losses and rail subsidy is for the 2022-23 compared to 2021-22.
Answered by Wendy Morton - Shadow Minister (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Department’s Main Estimate in 2022/23, for both support for rail passenger services and to deliver reforms, is £3bn. This is a reduction from an estimated outturn of c.£5bn in 2021/22, primarily due to an increase in revenue. Actual 2021/22 outturn will be published in due course as part of the Department’s Annual Report and Accounts.
Asked by: Lord Redwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to promote more rail freight during a period of shortage of HGV drivers.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris
The Government remains fully committed to unlocking the benefits rail freight can deliver, including its role in supporting resilient supply chains. We are incentivising modal shift from road to rail through the Mode Shift Revenue Support Scheme. In 2021/22, the Department allocated up to £20m to freight grants, removing the equivalent of around 900,000 HGV journeys off the road.
We are working closely with the rail freight industry to ensure they are doing all they can to move more goods during this period, with Freight Operating Companies (FOCs) transporting additional containers from ports to inland terminals to reduce congestion, where possible. We are exploring with Network Rail (NR) and FOCs whether there is scope to run longer freight trains, to ensure that capacity is maximised, and help increase the flow of rail freight on key routes from major ports.
Asked by: Lord Redwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the amount of diesel that is used by the railway network and train companies each year.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris
The Office Rail and Road produces annual data on rail energy consumption and emissions per financial year since 2005. The latest published data can be found here: https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/infrastructure-and-emissions/rail-emissions/table-6105-estimates-of-passenger-and-freight-energy-consumption-and-carbon-dioxide-equivalent-co2e-emissions/.
In our Transport Decarbonisation Plan the government commits to net zero by 2050, with the ambition of removing all diesel only trains by 2040.
Asked by: Lord Redwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, by what date his Department expects the backlog of HGV licence applications to be cleared.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) is prioritising applications for vocational driving licences, including those for HGV entitlement. There is no backlog for provisional vocational licences and these are being processed within the normal turnaround time of five working days.
The DVLA has significantly increased the processing of vocational licence renewals and has moved more staff into this area. Given this, the DVLA expects to be processing applications for both provisional vocational licences and renewals within normal turnaround times by early November. The large majority of those applying to renew an HGV licence can continue driving while their application is being processed.
Asked by: Lord Redwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many HGV driver tests can be carried out each week; and what comparative assessment he has made of that number and the weekly number of those tests undertaken before the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
A vocational test slot is a slot that could be used for either a heavy goods vehicle (HGV) or passenger carrying vehicle (PCV) test. It would be for the trainer to book the slot and determine the category of test he/she wants to use that slot for.
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency has been making an average of 3,000 practical vocational test slots available each week; this compares to 2,000 test slots available pre-pandemic, and there is currently spare capacity. It is not possible to know how many of the 3,000 vocational test slots will be used for HGV or PCV tests.