Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the Government Property Agency’s total expenditure was in 2024–25 on measuring, collecting, reporting or validating greenhouse gas emissions across the Government estate; and what the Agency’s projected annual expenditure is for each of the next five financial years on those activities.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
This information is not available. GPA do not manage the greenhouse gas emissions data across all of the government estate.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 22 January 2026 to Question 104858 on Roads: Biodiversity, what information her Department holds on the (a) estimated cost, (b) estimated cost range and (c) modelling of the biodiversity net gain for (i) existing and (ii) planned projects related to the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project on the Strategic Road Network.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
DEFRA’s forthcoming biodiversity net gain impact assessment, which is expected to be published shortly, will set out the impact of applying biodiversity net gain to Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 6 January 2026 to Question 99801, what the estimated annual amount (a) accrued in interest and (b) repaid by British citizens with students loans was in each of the last five financial years.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Department for Education and the Student Loans Company (SLC) are undertaking work to improve the quality and consistency of demographic data held across their systems, to support the timely answering of parliamentary questions. Changes in the application process over time, including the transition to electronic applications, mean that demographic data held for earlier cohorts can be held differently across multiple SLC systems and repayment and interest calculations continue to include these early borrowers.
As a result, it is not currently possible to produce robust repayment figures broken down by British citizen status within the required timescales. Once this work is complete, the department expects to be able to provide more detailed information in response to such questions.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 27 October 2025 to Question 82998, whether the Department plans to extend the HGV Parking and Driver Welfare Grant Scheme beyond March 2026; and what assessment has been made of the impact of project withdrawals, scope reductions and planning refusals on the delivery of additional HGV parking capacity.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
There are no plans for further windows of the HGV Parking and Driver Welfare Matched Funding Scheme (MFGS).
To date 16 projects have been withdrawn by the operators. It is estimated that this is a reduction of up to 177 proposed additional HGV parking spaces.
There are no significant impacts on the number of parking spaces where projects have undergone scope reduction.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the Royal Train will be treated as a Great British Railways service for the purposes of network access, charging and operational control once Great British Railways is established.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The 2024-2025 Sovereign Grant and Sovereign Grant Reserve Annual Reports and Accounts, published by the Royal Household, confirmed that the Royal Train will be decommissioned ahead of the current contract expiring in 2027, following a thorough review into its use and value for money. As such it will not become part of Great British Railways (GBR).
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to her Department's report entitled Rail customer experience survey pilot report, published on 25 April 2024, what plans she has to use the survey findings to inform performance standards for public sector rail operators.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department uses customer insight data, including emerging findings from the newly introduced Rail Customer Experience Survey, to inform performance management of all train operating companies, including those which are publicly-owned. The Services Agreement for publicly owned operators also states that performance will be measured using the new survey when data allows.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 6 January 2026 to Question 101484 on Electric Vehicles: Charging Points, what estimate she has made of the average amount of public funding provided per chargepoint.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Information on the average amount of public funding per public chargepoint is not available. Most public chargepoints have not received any public subsidy.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what the cost to UK Export Finance was in 2024–25 of expanding its climate stress testing models and scenarios using Network for Greening the Financial System scenarios; what the estimated cost of this work was to the public purse; and whether an estimate has been made of the resulting compliance or financing costs on UK exporters and suppliers.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The work to update UKEF’s climate stress testing models in 2024-25 is in line with industry good practice on financial risk management and uses tools at no extra cost. This work is part of our ongoing responsibilities to meet government risk management requirements and was carried out by UKEF staff within existing resources. As this is an internal risk management exercise, it does not create compliance obligations or financing costs for UK exporters or suppliers.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many practical car driving tests were conducted in (a) July 2024 and (b) each subsequent month up to the most recent month for which data is available.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) publishes data on the number of practical driving tests conducted on GOV.UK.
The number of practical driving tests conducted by month, including from July 2024, is available on report DRT121G This data is updated monthly and currently shows data to January 2026.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether her Department has conducted a comparative assessment of Air Passenger Duty rates in the UK with aviation passenger taxes and equivalent charges in other European countries; and whether such analysis is used to inform decisions on Air Passenger Duty policy.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Air Passenger Duty (APD) applies to airlines, not individual passengers, and is the principal tax on the aviation sector. It is expected to raise £4.7 billion in 2025-26.
The Government is clear that APD is an appropriate tax that ensures airlines make a fair contribution to the public finances, particularly given that tickets are VAT free and aviation fuel incurs no duty. Other countries also have different forms of aviation taxes.