Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of reinstating direct trains from Greenwich and Woolwich to London Charing Cross.
Answered by Richard Holden - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
The train operator Southeastern are responsible for the detailed planning and operation of their timetable. The realignment to Cannon Street, as the terminal station for Woolwich Line services, was required to reduce congestion at the busy Lewisham Junction and delivers the most benefit for the greatest number of passengers by improving punctuality, reducing cancellations, and improving the network’s ability to recover from disruption.
Passengers on the Woolwich Line wishing to travel to Charing Cross now need to change at either Lewisham or London Bridge where there are frequent connecting trains.
I understand that this structural change is fundamental to delivering the operational and performance benefits of Southeastern’s new timetable.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many officials in his Department are allocated to each DfT OLR Holdings contract as of 6 September 2023.
Answered by Huw Merriman
There are four franchises managed by OLR Holdings which have Departmental officials allocated to them. The teams of officials managing OLR TOC contracts are comparable in size to those managing National Rail Contracts. These officials provide a range of a technical, contractual, and financial support to ensure the successful daily operation of the franchise.
London North Eastern Railway | 12 |
Southeastern Trains | 11 |
TransPennine Trains | 8 |
Northern Trains Ltd | 8 |
As with commercial operations, the day-to-day decisions which drive safe delivery and manage to budget and policy are performed by the companies themselves, supported by their owning group. The DfT market teams use the same processes to manage the relationships and deliverables with OLR operators as with commercial operators.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has made an estimate of the level of carbon emission from rail haulage in each year since 2010.
Answered by Huw Merriman
The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) publish emissions data for the rail network each year. The available data for freight emissions between April 2011 to March 2022 is provided below.
Year | Total freight traction CO2 equivalent emissions (kilotonnes) |
April 2011 to March 2012 | 545 |
April 2012 to March 2013 | 636 |
April 2013 to March 2014 | 621 |
April 2014 to March 2015 | 628 |
April 2015 to March 2016 | 559 |
April 2016 to March 2017 | 525 |
April 2017 to March 2018 | 508 |
April 2018 to March 2019 | 476 |
April 2019 to March 2020 | 493 |
April 2020 to March 2021 | 437 |
April 2021 to March 2022 | 457 |
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many officials in his Department have been seconded to Great British Railways.
Answered by Huw Merriman
Six officials from the Department for Transport have been seconded to the Great British Railways Transition Team (GBRTT).
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an estimate of the loss of revenue due to fare evasion on the railways in each of the last five years.
Answered by Huw Merriman
The Rail Delivery Group estimates that in a normal year, approximately £240 million is lost through fare evasion on Great Britain's railways. Fare evasion is a burden on taxpayers which we expect train companies to robustly manage. In January 2023, the Department increased the Penalty Fare to ensure it provides an effective deterrent for train companies to use.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent estimate his Department has made of the number of uncommitted carriages held by rolling stock companies available for use by train operating companies which wish to lease extra carriages.
Answered by Huw Merriman
The Department has not made any such estimate.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what scenarios have been run under the National Transport Model in the last five years.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The National Transport Model (NTM) is used by the Department for Transport to analyse possible future travel behaviour, and so to inform investment and policy decisions. Scenarios are a method used by analysts to understand uncertainty, taking different inputs and assumptions into the modelling.
One use of the NTM is to provide the projections for the Department’s regular publications, most recently the National Road Traffic Projections 2022. The NTM was used to run a Core Scenario and seven Common Analytical Scenarios. These scenarios have been created to explore key drivers of uncertainty on transport demand, including the economy, decarbonisation, behaviour and technology. Full descriptors of these scenarios can be found in DfT’s Uncertainty Toolkit as well as in the National Road Traffic Projections report. The outputs of these runs are also in the report, as well as published data files on the same webpage.
Prior to the National Road Traffic Projections, the Department published the Road Traffic Forecasts in 2018. These included scenarios that have since been superseded by the Common Analytical Scenarios, but were an improvement on previous publications. These scenarios explored GDP, fuel price, migration, behaviour and decarbonisation of vehicles. The full descriptions of these scenarios, as well as the outputs from the modelling, are published in the report and associated data tables.
In addition to the Department’s regular publications, the NTM serves as an invaluable departmental analytical tool. As with many other models, it is used to inform policy decisions, as well as undertaking exploratory analysis to understand possible impacts of in areas the Department know to be significant in travel behaviour (for example, changes in GDP projections).
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much his Department has spent on consultancy fees since 2010.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
Spend on consultancy by the Department is published in the DfT Annual Report and Accounts, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dft-annual-reports-and-accounts
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what information his Department holds on which towns in England with populations of 30,000 or more do not have a railway station.
Answered by Huw Merriman
Latest analysis of Office for National Statistics 2019 Population Estimates Data by Network Rail suggests that there are currently eight towns in England, with a population of 30,000 or more, without an operational railway station and not situated within 5km of one. These are Washington, Swadlincote, Blyth, Aldridge, Coalville, Wisbech, Rushden and Witney.
As part of the levelling-up agenda, and a manifesto commitment, in January 2020 the government launched the Restoring Your Railway (RYR) Fund to reopen lines and stations, including ones closed following the 1963 Reshaping of British Railways (Beeching) Report. The aim is to reconnect smaller communities, regenerate local economies and improve access to jobs, homes and education. The Dartmoor line (between Okehampton and Exeter) marked the first reopening in November 2021, opening two years ahead of schedule, and Marsh Barton station opened in July 2023.
Of the eight towns listed above, seven (Washington, Swadlincote, Blyth, Aldridge, Coalville, Wisbech and Witney) have been considered by the RYR programme and four (Swadlincote, Blyth, Aldridge and Coalville) have been considered within the scope of RYR-funded projects, including the Northumberland Line, Ivanhoe Line and Aldridge Line Upgrade.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much Great British Railways has spent on consultancy fees since its establishment.
Answered by Huw Merriman
Since its establishment in September 2022, the Great British Railways Transition Team (GBRTT) has spent a total of 20.3 million on specialist technical support, including consultancy, for the creation of Great British Railways.