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 potential effect of reducing the number of HS2 platforms planned at Euston Station from 11 to 10 on the (a) overall capacity on (i) HS2 and (ii) the HS2 Eastern route and (c) reliability and resilience of HS2 services.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Work is ongoing to develop an optimised design and delivery strategy for Euston Station, including consideration of opportunities, efficiencies and scope reductions to address identified cost pressures. As part of this work, the Department and HS2 Ltd have, with the involvement of other partners, been investigating whether building the HS2 station in a single phase would speed up delivery and reduce the overall cost. This work is currently indicating that moving to a slightly smaller, simpler HS2 station at Euston would have some benefits in terms of terms of reducing costs and risks. This work will help inform the way forward, with a final decision expected in Spring 2021.
Initial HS2 Ltd analysis indicates that moving to a slightly smaller HS2 station at Euston maintains the station infrastructure capacity to run all of the services in the planned HS2 Phase 2b Train Service Specification. The future development of the final HS2 timetable, in due course, will have close regard to optimising resilience and capacity.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to increase rail connectivity between Nottingham and the rest of the UK.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
We are always looking to improve rail connectivity and am pleased to say that the new Midland Mainline timetable in May will reduce journey times for peak trains between Nottingham and London St. Pancras by up to 10 minutes.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the Eastern leg of HS2 goes ahead.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ensuring the East Midlands, Yorkshire, and the North East reap the benefits of high-speed services. The Integrated Rail Plan (IRP), will consider the sequencing and delivery of HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail and other rail investment projects to ensure the benefits of these investments are delivered to passengers and communities more quickly. We will publish the IRP this Spring.
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 revise his Department’s Road Traffic Forecasts to take account of the Government’s commitment to increase cycling and walking to 50 per cent of short journeys in towns and cities by 2030.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Department regularly updates its Road Traffic Forecasts to provide a strategic view of how road travel demand may develop in future, with a focus on exploring the uncertainty around key drivers of demand. In planning future forecasts, consideration is given to relevant transport policies that may impact on road travel demand. The impact of the government’s walking and cycling commitments on motorised road traffic will be considered when the forecasts are next updated.
The forecasts are produced using the Department’s National Transport Model (NTM). To produce the forecasts, the NTM takes account of the travel choice between walking, cycling, rail and bus as well as car. However, the NTM is not designed to forecast cycling levels, which will be influenced by a range of factors not included in the model.
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 implications for road and public transport use of his target to increase cycling and walking to 50 per cent of short journeys in towns and cities by 2030; and what assessment he has made of the potential effect of that target on (a) carbon dioxide emissions, (b) pollutant emissions, (c) urban congestion, (d) road safety and (e) ill-health due to physical inactivity.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Department has not yet made a detailed assessment of the wider impacts of meeting the 2030 vision set out in Gear Change. These and other matters will be considered as part of the development of the next Cycling & Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS) in due course. The impacts will depend on what journeys are replaced by cycling and walking journeys, which is likely to vary from one place to another. The Department’s existing CWIS active travel investment models explore different scenarios for increasing cycling and walking and their impacts, including those related to carbon dioxide emissions, urban congestion, road safety and health. These are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cycling-and-walking-investment-strategy-active-travel-investment-models .
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an estimate of the potential annual gross income stream across all train operating companies after the covid-19 lockdown from (a) weekly seasons tickets and (b) 3-day or part time period tickets and (c) season tickets for travel on specific days of the week.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Passenger demand has fallen dramatically over the last year in response to COVID-19. Due to this and a potential future shift in passenger behaviours, future rail income is also uncertain. Any new flexible season ticket products will aim to encourage and support passengers returning to the railway when it is safe to do so.
We are working closely with industry to develop a solution that offers better value and convenience for those who commute flexibly and will provide further details in due course.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he plans for the successor scheme to the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy to (a) retain the existing targets to double cycling trips and to increase walking trips to school journeys, (b) include a strengthened target to boost overall walking and (c) include and clarify the target from the Government’s Gear Change vision document, for half of all journeys in towns and cities being cycled or walked by 2030.
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 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.