Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to put in place a new Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy, before the current strategy period ends at the beginning of April 2021.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The second Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS 2) will be published after the Government has agreed and set out its long-term spending plans for active travel at the next multi-year Spending Review. It will reflect and build on the commitments outlined in the Prime Minister’s Cycling and Walking Plan of July 2020, as well as setting out the financial resources available for cycling and walking and the other matters required by the Infrastructure Act 2015, including targets for cycling and walking.
These plans will be formally set out to Parliament in due course, as is required by the Infrastructure Act 2015.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the extent to which the objectives of the 2017 Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy to (a) increase cycling and walking activity and (b) reduce the rate of cycling casualties by 2020 have been met; and if he will publish comparative data on those matters for each year since 2017.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Government will report in detail on this matter in due course once the relevant statistics for 2020 are available.
In the meantime, the Government published its first report on the progress towards meeting the objectives of the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS) in February 2020. The report highlights the delivery of actions, outputs and outcomes since 2016/17 with accompanying statistical analysis.
In 2019 people in England made an average of 332 walking stages, which is an 11% increase since 2015. This follows a reweighting of the data due to a methodological change to the National Travel Survey in 2016. In 2019, people in England cycled an estimated total of 964 million stages, an increase of 17% since 2013 (the CWIS baseline).
Adjusting for changes in severity reporting, total pedal cyclists killed or seriously injured per billion miles cycled in 2019 was 1,280 with levels falling since 2012.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many zero-emission buses his Department plans to provide funding for in the financial years (a) 2021-22, (b) 2022-23 and (c) 2023-24.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
As set out in the Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution and the Spending Review 2020, the Government will invest £120 million in 2021-22 to start the delivery of the 4,000 zero emission buses announced by the Prime Minister last year.
Together with existing funding for the All Electric Bus Town or City, Government funding for 2021/22 could support the purchase of 800 zero emission buses and the infrastructure needed to support them.
Further details on how funding in 2021-22 will be distributed will be announced in the spring.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he estimates the 800 zero-emission buses, for which funding was announced in the 2020 Spending Review, will be (a) ordered and (b) in use.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
As set out in the Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution and the Spending Review 2020, the Government will invest £120 million in 2021-22 to start the delivery of the 4,000 zero emission buses announced by the Prime Minister last year.
Together with existing funding for the All Electric Bus Town or City, Government funding for 2021/22 could support the purchase of 800 zero emission buses and the infrastructure needed to support them.
Further details on how funding in 2021-22 will be distributed will be announced in the spring.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment was made of the circumstances of UK-based private hire drivers who give tours to the EU as part of negotiations on the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
During UK-EU negotiations, market access provisions for passenger transport operators were discussed at length. Prior to these negotiations, the Government also discussed provisions with relevant passenger transport stakeholders.
Following the conclusion of the Trade Cooperation Agreement between the UK and EU, the GOV.UK page https://www.gov.uk/guidance/run-international-bus-or-coach-services-and-tours has been updated to reflect the current rules for passenger transport services that operate to Europe and other countries. We have also been working with the industry to provide bespoke guidance.
The UK also acceded to the Interbus Agreement in its own right on 1 January 2021. This provides reciprocal rights for UK and EU operators to provide ‘occasional services’ (holiday tours and private trips) to and from respective territories.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if private hire drivers giving tours to customers can enter the EU without an International Driving Permit.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Government is committed to establishing arrangements with EU countries that facilitate motoring with the minimum of bureaucracy. In 2020, all EU countries, as well as Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein have confirmed recognition of UK driving licences which means that International Driving Permits will not be required by UK visitors with photocard driving licences from 1 January 2021.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will publish guidance on the rules for UK private hire drivers who enter the EU while giving tours to customers.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
Following the conclusion of the Trade Cooperation Agreement between the UK and EU, the GOV.UK page https://www.gov.uk/guidance/run-international-bus-or-coach-services-and-tours has been updated to reflect the current rules for passenger transport services that operate to Europe and other countries.
The UK also acceded to the Interbus Agreement in its own right on 1 January 2021. This provides reciprocal rights for UK and EU operators to provide ‘occasional services’ (holiday tours and private trips) to and from respective territories.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he plans to include in his Transport Decarbonisation Plan (a) targets to halt and reverse the growth of traffic in line with the Government’s aim to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and (b) corresponding targets and spending plans to increase cycling, walking and public transport usage.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Government is developing a Transport Decarbonisation Plan (TDP) that puts transport on a path to delivering its contributions to carbon budgets and net zero by 2050. The plan will take a holistic and cross-modal approach to decarbonising the entire transport system for the first time, setting out a credible and ambitious pathway to cut emissions. The Plan is will be published in Spring 2021.
We are investing £2bn in cycling and walking over the next 5 years. In July 2020 the Prime Minister launched ambitious plans to boost cycling and walking in England, with a vision for half of all journeys in towns and cities to be cycled or walked by 2030.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he is planning for the publication of reported road casualties in Great Britain for the year ending June 2020 to be delayed until March 2021.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The publication date for Reported road casualties in Great Britain, provisional estimates for the year ending June 2020 has now been confirmed as 28 January 2021 and pre-announced via Department’s forthcoming publications schedule: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-transport/about/statistics#forthcoming-publications
This publication has been delayed from the initially scheduled date of November 2020 in response to delays in the submission of data to DfT from some police forces whose ability to process their respective records has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In November 2020, at least one month of data was missing for the following forces, none of which has adopted the CRASH system: Avon and Somerset, Derbyshire, Dyfed-Powys, Gwent, Lincolnshire, North Wales, Northamptonshire, South Wales, Thames Valley and Wiltshire.
CRASH is provided free to police forces in England and Wales who wish to use it. We continue to engage with the forces not using CRASH to understand the barriers to adopting the system. We anticipate new forces will be moving to using CRASH in 2021. However, this is a decision for Chief Constables as the Home Office does not mandate the use of specific police IT systems.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, which 10 police forces were unable to provide casualty data to his Department leading to the delay in the planned publication of that data in November 2020.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The publication date for Reported road casualties in Great Britain, provisional estimates for the year ending June 2020 has now been confirmed as 28 January 2021 and pre-announced via Department’s forthcoming publications schedule: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-transport/about/statistics#forthcoming-publications
This publication has been delayed from the initially scheduled date of November 2020 in response to delays in the submission of data to DfT from some police forces whose ability to process their respective records has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In November 2020, at least one month of data was missing for the following forces, none of which has adopted the CRASH system: Avon and Somerset, Derbyshire, Dyfed-Powys, Gwent, Lincolnshire, North Wales, Northamptonshire, South Wales, Thames Valley and Wiltshire.
CRASH is provided free to police forces in England and Wales who wish to use it. We continue to engage with the forces not using CRASH to understand the barriers to adopting the system. We anticipate new forces will be moving to using CRASH in 2021. However, this is a decision for Chief Constables as the Home Office does not mandate the use of specific police IT systems.