Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress his Department has made on the commitment, in the loneliness strategy to encourage organisations across the transport sector to develop new initiatives to tackle loneliness.

The Department for Transport is actively working with the transport sector to highlight the issue of loneliness and develop solutions.

At the UK Bus Summit in February I announced a partnership with Greener Journeys to encourage bus operators to come together to tackle loneliness. Buses are a vital means of transport for many people and I am pleased to see such a range of initiatives being trialled by bus companies over the course of the year, including Go Ahead Group’s “Chatty Bus” campaign to encourage conversation between passengers. Most recently, in July I marked ‘Catch the Bus’ week, an important event to help raise the profile of all the work that is going on.

My Department has also been working in partnership with the Association of Community Rail Partnerships (ACoRP), which is raising awareness about how activities such as volunteering on our railways can help to tackle loneliness.

Along with our partners, I spoke about the importance of the transport sector supporting the loneliness agenda with a wide range of stakeholders at the Department’s Transport Communications Network on 31 January 2019.

More widely, the Future of Mobility: Urban Strategy, published on 19^th March, sets out clear principles to ensure that our future transport system works to overcome problems like loneliness and social exclusion. The Strategy was developed following extensive engagement with external stakeholders across the transport sector and others, and a public call for evidence, and will help frame our future engagement with the industry.

The transport sector has an important role to play in reducing loneliness, alongside government and other sectors, and we will continue to engage with a range of stakeholders.