Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to help ensure that the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency respond to enquiries in a timely manner.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
Throughout the pandemic the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency’s contact centre has actively managed its operation and flexed the services for customers in line with the available resources. This has included procuring the use of an additional building to increase the number of staff able to take calls within the social distancing guidelines. To help respond to more enquiries, remote working has been increased with staff handling email, webchat, social media and more recently, telephone customer contacts.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent steps have been taken to tackle pavement parking.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Department carried out a public consultation on this which closed on 22 November 2020. We have been carefully considering the 15,000 responses which have been received and will publish the consultation response in the autumn.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to tackle neighbourhood (a) speeding and (b) traffic issues.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Government believes that any form of dangerous or inconsiderate driving behaviour is a serious road safety issue. All available research shows a link between excessive speed and the risk of collisions.
We expect all drivers to observe the speed limit, and enforcement is a matter for the police. Policing of our roads, and how available resources are deployed, is the responsibility of individual chief officers, taking into account the specific local issues.
Last July, the Department for Transport launched a Call for Evidence as part of a wider Roads Policing Review: a thorough examination of roads policing in England and Wales and its relevance to road safety. Responses to the Call for Evidence have been analysed and the Government response is currently being prepared for publication this summer. The response will address the key points raised by respondents, including feedback on speed enforcement.
Tackling neighbourhood traffic issues is the responsibility of local councils, and the Department for Transport publishes guidance to help them. Local Transport Notes summarise the latest and most important ideas about traffic management issues and can be viewed at www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-transport-notes.
Councils, as traffic authorities, have a statutory duty under the Traffic Management Act 2004 to manage their networks with the aim of ‘securing the expeditious movement of traffic’. They are free to make their own decisions about the streets under their care and are responsible for ensuring that their actions are within the law. Councils are accountable to their electorate for their decisions and their performance and councillors are responsible for ensuring that local decisions about street infrastructure take account of the needs and opinions of local people.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what long term investment he is making in community transport infrastructure to support the mobility of elderly and disabled people across the West Midlands.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Government understands that community transport operators provide vital services particularly for older and disabled people, linking them with their communities, helping take them to shops, work, school, and medical appointments.
Bus Service Operator Grant (BSOG) is paid annually to operators of community transport services (as well as eligible bus services), to recover fuel costs. Community Transport operators receive approximately £2.3 million BSOG funding per year to support these vital services.
Since January 2014, around £43 million of BSOG is also paid annually to local authorities to support socially necessary bus services that are not commercially viable. In 2020 – 2021, Transport for West Midlands received £ 1,792,259 and Coventry City Council received £58,686 of BSOG funding.
We also continue to make investment in step-free access to railway stations through our Access for All programme across the country, with £350 million provided for this between 2019 and 2024. In the West Midlands, this includes providing an accessible route at Smethwick Rolfe Street station and tactile safety strips on platforms at Wolverhampton.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what funding his Department has made available from the public purse to support cycle (a) hire and (b) repair programmes in the West Midlands.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
On 7 February 2020, the Department published a detailed breakdown of annual investment in cycling and walking from 2016/17 to 2018/19, which includes information on how much funding has been provided to local and combined authorities in the West Midlands over that period. Copies of the report and other associated information are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investment-schedule-in-cycling-and-walking-interventions.
Under the Active Travel Fund, the Department made available around £17 million to Transport for the West Midlands (TfWM) in 2020/21 for schemes to boost cycling and walking. It is up to TfWM to determine in discussion with its seven constituent authorities where this funding is spent. In the current financial year the Department will be providing both revenue funding and capital funding to local authorities for active travel schemes. TfWM is due to receive £1.9 million of revenue funding to support local capacity building and behaviour change initiatives such as cycle hire and repair schemes.
The Department will make a further announcement in due course about TfWM’s capital funding allocation for 2021/22.
In 2020/21 the Department also made available over £20 million nationally for the Fix Your Bike voucher scheme and for pop-up “Dr Bike” maintenance stations.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans the Government has to enhance the connectivity of the Wolverhampton South West constituency to the rest of the rail network.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
I understand that my Hon. Friend has submitted a bid to round three of the Restoring Your Railway Ideas Fund to reopen a station in the Tettenhall area. Outcomes will be announced this summer.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the Government has provided financial assistance to help support taxi and private hire vehicle drivers who have lost earnings during the covid-19 outbreak with (a) overhead, (b) maintenance and (c) licensing costs.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Government has announced several measures available to UK businesses, including the taxi and private hire sector, to support them through this challenging time. The majority of taxi and private hire vehicle (PHV) drivers are self-employed and can therefore apply for grants through the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS). Over the first three rounds of the scheme, a total of up to £21,570 has been made available. HMRC will announce details of the fourth grant on 3 March 2021.
Owners, operators and drivers of taxis and PHVs may also be eligible for the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) or the coronavirus Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS).
In addition, some local authorities are using discretionary grants to support local businesses, including taxi and PHV businesses. Owners, operators and drivers of taxis and PHVs should contact the relevant local authority regarding these schemes.
The Government has launched a ‘support finder’ tool (https://www.gov.uk/business-coronavirus-support-finder) to help businesses and self-employed workers quickly and easily determine what financial support is available to them.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment has been made of the potential merits of providing compensation to learner drivers whose theory test certificate has expired before the completion of their driving course due to the covid-19 lockdown restrictions.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
There are no plans to make compensation available to those whose theory test certificates have expired. The cost of paying any compensation would fall to the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) and subsequently to other feepayers were the DVSA to put in place arrangements to pay it. This would be unfair to the other fee payers who would not benefit from the arrangement.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to (a) improve road safety for pedestrians and (b) tackle pavement parking.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Department recently consulted on proposed changes to The Highway Code which include clarifying existing rules on pedestrian priority on pavements, and providing more clarity on the need for drivers and riders to give way to pedestrians crossing or waiting to cross the road. The consultation closed on 27 October with over 20,000 responses received and we are currently undertaking a full analysis of all replies.
The Department also carried out a public consultation on possible solutions to the complex pavement parking problem, which closed on the 22 November with over 15,000 responses received. The Department is now carefully analysing the responses and the results will inform future policy decisions.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much funding Wolverhampton has been allocated for active travel options; and what projects the funds are being spent on.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Under the Active Travel Fund, the Department has made available around £17 million to Transport for the West Midlands (TfWM) this financial year for schemes to boost cycling and walking.
It is up to TfWM to determine in discussion with its seven constituent authorities where this funding is spent. The Spending Review last month confirmed that a further £257 million would be made available for cycling and walking schemes in England next financial year. The Department will make a further announcement in due course about how that funding will be split between different schemes and different regions of the country.