Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an assessment of the profitability of the east coast main line train service under its new publicly owned operating body compared with its profitability under Stagecoach and Virgin Trains.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
As outlined in the “Short-term Intercity East Coast train operator 2018 Options Report” the introduction of the new Intercity Express Programme (IEP) train fleet will see a new cost and revenue base for London North Eastern Railway (LNER) and subsequently direct comparisons to Virgin Trains profitability prior to 24 June 2018 will be limited. This would also have been the case had the contract stayed with Virgin Trains and Stagecoach. The East Coast franchise is a fundamentally good business which continues to deliver strong revenues to the government.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the timeframe is for Northern Rail to resume its standard timetable.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
Northern continues to work towards reintroduction of its standard timetable on 29 July.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what criteria his Department uses to determine the value of railway lines.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The Department uses the Transport Appraisal Guidance (available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/transport-analysis-guidance-webtag) to determine the value-for-money of railway lines. This guidance is consistent with the HM Treasury guidance for use across central Government on the appraisal of policies, projects and programmes: the Green Book (available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-green-book-appraisal-and-evaluation-in-central-governent).
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he plans to announce the successful applications for the new station funding scheme.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Assessment of the New Stations Fund bids is complete and I hope to announce the successful projects shortly.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to support regional airports.
Answered by John Hayes
The Government is committed to developing a new Aviation Strategy and we will be setting out our proposed approach in due course.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to his Department's announcement of 26 August 2016, for what additional reasons the decision to award new station funding has been delayed.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The deadline for bidders for this round of funding was 25 November 2016. We received 19 applications for funding from industry and local authority promoters and we then evaluated each bid against the qualifying and assessment criteria. We could not announce the winning bidders during the pre-election period but now that the General Election period is over, I hope to be able to announce the successful projects shortly.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he plans to take to address the fact that Network Rail did not deliver the Great Western electrification scheme on time.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
In 2015, in response to cost increases and schedule delays on aspects of Network Rail’s investment programme, Sir Peter Hendy was asked to replan the programme in a way that was both affordable and deliverable.
In response to the recommendations of the Bowe Review into the planning of the current rail investment period, Network Rail have undertaken an Enhancements Improvement Plan which has strengthened, among other things, cost estimation, project and portfolio monitoring, project delivery, and project governance.
Four electrification projects were deferred on the Great Western Programme in autumn 2016 in order to address cost pressures within the current rail investment period covering 2014-2019 and to bring forward delivery of infrastructure that will allow passengers to benefit from further service improvements. We will continue to assess all elements of the Programme to ensure they remain deliverable and affordable.
Network Rail are delivering the Great Western electrification programme to the revised schedule set out in the Hendy Review.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent progress has been made on his Department's rail electrification programme.
Answered by Andrew Jones
Since 2010, the Department has overseen the successful delivery of 50 miles of electrified track as compared to the ten miles which were delivered in the 13 years from 1997 to 2010. Electrification between Liverpool and Manchester, and Liverpool and Wigan, was completed earlier this year.
The work to electrify and upgrade the North TransPennine has resumed, as announced on 30 September 2015 by the Secretary of State. When the North of England electrification programme is finished, the whole route from Liverpool to Newcastle (via Manchester, Leeds and York) will be fully electrified.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make it his policy to reintroduce National Road Safety targets.
Answered by Andrew Jones
The Conservative Manifesto 2015 had a commitment to reduce the number of cyclists and other road users killed or injured on our roads every year. We are working closely with road safety groups to consider what more can be done and we believe that every death is a tragedy and is one too many.
The Government has not set road safety targets for local authorities or the police, and is not considering reinstating them. We do not believe that further persuasion is needed on the importance of road safety through “Whitehall knows best” diktats. However, local authorities and the police are free to set their own targets if they find this useful.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many accidents were reported involving mobility scooters in 2014.
Answered by Andrew Jones
The Department introduced the collection of data on personal injury road accidents involving motorised mobility scooters in 2011. A total of 29 out of 44 police forces supplied data in 2014. Across these forces, the number of reported personal injury road accidents involving mobility scooters in 2014 is given in the table below.
Number of reported personal injury road accidents involving mobility scooters: GB, 2014
Severity | 2014 (1) |
Fatal | 9 |
Serious | 46 |
Slight | 153 |
All severities | 208 |
(1) Date from 29 out of 44 police forces
The Department expects that all forces will supply data by the end of 2016.