Smart Motorways

Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

The noble Lord touches on a very sensitive point. The ward in Leeds that I represented had the M1 going right through it, and all the litter on the side of the motorways was the responsibility of National Highways. It is a crucial factor, particularly where safety is involved. Given the new smart technology that so many people have in their cars, their ability to report things as soon as they see them should help with improving the performance.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, we should all congratulate the emergency services that have to attend to accidents on our motorways. Sometimes motorways are closed for quite a long time as a result of accidents, but the emergency services behave admirably.

I want to ask the Minister a question that almost touches on the one we had before. With the increased use of electric vehicles, particularly those powered by lithium batteries, is she happy that our emergency services are sufficiently well educated in dealing with fires from lithium batteries, which I understand are extremely difficult to extinguish?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

The raw facts of the cost of collisions and fatal and serious injuries in this country are staggering. It is estimated that over £3.1 billion was spent on medical and ambulance costs due to collisions on our roads last year alone. That is a crucial issue, and of course the lithium battery issue is an important one for our fire and emergency services. There is a lot of misinformation around this space, and it would be useful to have the latest figures updated to see how the fire and emergency departments are coping with that.