Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to encourage more people to become bus drivers.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
DfT are monitoring bus driver shortage data through surveys to bus and coach operators, and to Local Transport Authorities. The purpose of this is to gather information about the extent of the shortages across the country, so that this can be monitored as the situation develops and, to see if there is more that DfT can do to ensure the supply of drivers is sufficient.
Individual bus operators are required to ensure they have sufficient staff in order to run their scheduled services. To this end, we expect the bus sector to pursue all opportunities to encourage job seekers into the industry.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the (a) scale and (b) potential impact of the shortage in bus drivers.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
My Department is working closely with the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (ADEPT) and the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) to gather information to gain an understanding of, and assess, the current staffing levels and recruitment pipeline in the bus sector. This will inform the Department about the extent of the shortages across the country.
The Government is committed to maintaining high service levels for bus users to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 and has announced £226.5 million in Bus Recovery Funding to support this.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the impact of the shortfall of bus and coach drivers in Britain on that industry.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
My Department is working closely with the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (ADEPT) and the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) to gather information to gain an understanding of the current staffing levels and recruitment pipeline in the bus sector.
The Government remains committed to maintaining high service levels for bus users to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 and has announced £226.5 million in Bus Recovery Funding to support this.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on promoting careers in the bus and coach industry via (a) job centres and (b) materials provided to people in receipt of jobseekers allowance.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
To date, there have not been any meetings with the SoS for Work and Pensions on this topic.
Individual bus operators are required to ensure they have sufficient staff in order to run their scheduled services. To this end, we expect the bus sector to pursue all opportunities to encourage job seekers into the industry, including working with local job centres
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he plans to prioritise funding bids that propose to purchase buses from UK-based manufacturers under the Zero Emission Buses Regional Areas scheme.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
As set out in the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 £355 million of new funding has been made available for zero emission buses. £150 million of this funding has been made available for 2021-22. The Department intends to allocate this funding to support to the Zero Emission Bus Region Areas (ZEBRA) scheme, taking the total funding available for the scheme to up to £270 million in the financial year 2021 to 2022. UK bus manufacturers are well placed to benefit from funding from the ZEBRA scheme.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of processing times for PSV-specific provisional licenses at the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has focused extra resource on vocational driving licence applications and routine applications for vocational driving licences, including for passenger carrying vehicles, are being processed within normal turnaround times of five working days. Applications where medical investigations are needed will take longer.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans he has to support local bus networks to maintain service levels beyond April 2022 in the event that a Bus Service Improvement Plan has not secured funding.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Bus Recovery Grant (BRG) will provide £226.5 million in funding to bus operators and Local Transport Authorities between August 2021 and April 2022. This funding succeeds over £1.5 billion in support provided to the sector during the pandemic through the Coronavirus Bus Service Support Grant (CBSSG).
The Government is committed to seeing the bus sector return to financial sustainability. However, we recognise the ongoing challenges faced by operators and Local Transport Authorities to maintain services and are currently working with the sector to understand how these might impact services after BRG ends and what further action might be needed.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will remove the requirement for a PSV-specific provisional license for trainee bus drivers to tackle the shortfall of bus drivers in Britain.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
There are no current plans to change the provisional licensing requirements for Passenger Carrying Vehicle (PCV) operators.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021, page 110, if he will publish the forecast relating to the recovery of rail revenues.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Department has developed a number of scenarios of possible rail demand, but there is a huge range of uncertainty given the pandemic is ongoing. The Department considers a wide range of evidence in determining its budget requirements.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to paragraph 4.65 of the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021, how much and what proportion of the £3 billion for bus investment comprises bus recovery funding.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Bus Recovery Grant (BRG) is a £226.5 million funding scheme for the bus sector, which will support the recovery of the sector following the lifting of restrictions. The Spending Review confirmed that recovery funding will be included within the £3 billion sector funding pledge.