The Great British Rail Sale was run on a commercial basis by the rail industry. The Government worked with industry to develop and deliver the sale.

The Government Car Service (GCS) contracts in this financial year have already been let for cars due for replacement.

Contracts were let and delivered by Jaguar Land Rover leaving one outstanding contract with Ford Motor Co. for vehicles needed to fulfil special operational requirements.

GCS recognise the merits of awarding contracts to a UK based manufacturer and the positive effect it has on the supply chain. It is also a great promotion of British manufacturing when Ministers are seen in UK manufacturers products.

Under the contracts with rail operators, the Department receives revenue collected and pays most operating costs incurred by the train operating companies through a regular franchise payment, made roughly every four weeks. This payment is to fund the ongoing provision of passenger rail services by these operators. For more information on these Departmental payments to passenger rail operators, please see the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dft-payments-to-passenger-rail-operators-under-emergency-agreements

In March 2021 the Government launched the Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) scheme which was open to local transport authorities who were able to bid for funding to introduce zero emission buses (ZEBs) and the infrastructure needed to support them. The Government has announced nearly £270 million funding from the ZEBRA scheme to support 1,278 ZEBs in 17 areas.

Orders for ZEBs will be placed by local transport authorities or bus operators. A number of UK bus manufacturers are well placed to benefit from funding from the ZEBRA scheme supporting jobs and a green recovery for the sector.

On 31 August 2022 First Bus announced that they had placed an order for 193 electric ZEBs as a result of funding from the ZEBRA scheme. This is the largest electric bus order in the UK outside of London. The order has been placed with UK bus manufacturer Wrightbus, securing high value green jobs in the country. The remaining successful areas are conducting procurement processes and we expect further orders to be placed in the coming months.

The Department has noted the Guide Dogs Scoot Aware report and officials met with Guide Dogs on 18 August 2022 to discuss the recommendations further. Reducing the impact of e-scooters on people with visual impairments, including their safe use and perceptions of safety, is a priority for the Department as we consider regulations for e-scooters. The Scoot Aware report is a useful guide and we will continue to engage with a range of stakeholders representing the needs of blind and visually impaired people, including through a public consultation, before any new arrangements come into force.

21,218 grants have been awarded for small vans and 11,315 grants for large vans since 2019. A further 5,070 vans were awarded grants between 2012 and 2018.

Data collected on the category of van when applying for a grant has changed over time owing to grant eligibility, and we are only able to differentiate between small and large vans from 2019 onwards.

The Eastern Leg of HS2 as previously planned would have gone from the West Midlands to Leeds via the East Midlands. Given the geography of the line, the impact of changes to the route upon commuters in North Wales will be minimal as the new proposed route will go from the West to East Midlands with upgrades to the existing rail network to allow high speed services to reach Nottingham and Sheffield (via Derby and Chesterfield) and a further study of how best HS2 services could reach Leeds.

We will build the Western Leg of HS2 as previously planned, which will allow the Crewe Hub to be realised,helping enhance connectivity to much of the West Midlands, Cheshire and North Wales not directly served by HS2.

The Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline will be published in due course.

The Department for Transport has plans in place to adapt to and mitigate the risks of climate change, including risks from extreme heat. The Road Investment Strategy includes a commitment to enhance all-weather resilience of the Strategic Road Network, to minimise the risk of incidents and their impact for road users. Similarly, the Williams-Shapps Rail Plan includes a priority for long-term investment in climate resilience supported by smarter forecasting, planning and technology.

The third National Adaptation Programme is due in 2023. It will showcase the government’s strategy and plans to tackle the effects of climate change, including how to protect people, infrastructure and the environment in heatwaves. For transport, this means working closely with transport infrastructure operators to take meaningful and measurable action to address risks posed by our changing climate.

The Government is committed to increasing walking and cycling, with £2 billion of funding available for active travel up to 2024/25. Local authorities will shortly be invited to bid for the next round of active travel capital funding, which will be administered by Active Travel England on behalf of the Department. Deciding which measures to put forward in their bids is a matter for individual authorities.

The most recent assurance review of the Transpennine Route Upgrade programme was conducted by the National Audit Office, which included the assessment of all previous IPA action plan reviews. The full report was published on the 20th July 2022 and is available on the NAO website.

Of the 12 data breaches that required notification to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) during 2021-22, a total of 1,738 people were affected.

Most of that number is attributable to a single breach involving 1,684 individuals, whose records were incorrectly changed following outdated information from a third-party. Eight of the 12 breaches involved information about a single individual.

It is our intention that the Transport Bill will create a Low-speed Zero Emission Vehicle category that is independent from the cycle and motor vehicle categories. New powers in the Bill would subsequently allow the Department to decide which vehicles will fall into this category, and how they should be regulated to ensure safe use. We intend to use these powers to legalise private and rental e-scooter use in the future, with robust technical requirements and clear expectations on users.

The Investment, Portfolio, and Delivery Committee has a role in overseeing those twenty-three Department for Transport projects that are on the Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP). These, alongside the rest of the Government’s most complex, high risk, and strategically significant projects, were included in the recent Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) Annual Report 2021-22. A copy of this report, which includes delivery confidence assessments, was published on 20 July 2022 has been provided with this response.

We regularly review measures promoting low carbon fuels to ensure that they deliver cost effective carbon reductions. Under the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, we promote waste-derived biofuels and reduce the volume of crop-based biofuels that can count towards supplier targets.

Following the departure of Allan Cook in July 2021 we introduced interim arrangements to ensure that the high levels of accountability already in place for the HS2 programme are maintained. These arrangements include appointing Sir Jonathan Thompson as the Deputy Chair to provide effective leadership of the HS2 Ltd Board until a permanent replacement is in place.

I am also pleased to confirm that I have taken over ministerial responsibility for HS2 as of 7 July, following the Minister Stephenson’s change in role on the same date.

We completed our assessment of the Full Business Case submitted by Sheffield City Council and Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council on their joint plan to address nitrogen dioxide exceedances in their area. Both local authorities will now implement their plans to achieve compliance with legal nitrogen dioxide limits.

Industry forums and working groups have been set up and meet regularly to plan and optimise the delivery of what is the largest enhancement programme on Network Rail’s (NR) infrastructure, the Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU). NR work closely with industry partners, including operators, to plan access to the route and ensure that disruption is managed as effectively as possible.

The Department’s published figures in the Department’s Annual Report and Accounts includes the total consultancy expenditure figures covering the core Department and its Executive Agencies. These numbers are available online at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dft-annual-reports-and-accounts.

The table below also provides the total spend on consultants for DVSA, covering financial years 2018-19 to 2020-21, as these figures for those years are not included in the total Departmental consultancy expenditure available online:

Details of all Government contracts awarded from 2016 above £10,000 and £25,000 in the wider public sector are published on Contracts Finder. Each award notice provides information on the name of the supplier, value of the contract, its purpose and information on the type of awarding procedure used. Government departments, their individual agencies and Arms Length Bodies are required to publish all spend against individual suppliers above £25,000 on GOV.UK.

All Government Departments and their individual ALBs and agencies are required to follow the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 in awarding contracts.

The Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU) is the largest enhancement on Network Rail’s (NR) infrastructure. NR’s delivery on the ground is being optimised and carefully planned with the affected train operators and industry stakeholders to minimise disruptions to passengers and other rail users. It is inevitable though, with the scale of the upgrade, that some journeys will be disrupted and NR are taking measures to ensure that disruption is managed as effectively as possible. These include working across industry to develop customer handling plans, committing to provide as much notice as possible of disruption and following the principle of aiming to keep passengers on a train as much as possible for example via the use of diversionary routes.