Tag: Lord Bradshaw

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradshaw on 2016-06-07.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether the Office of Road and Rail has adequately evaluated the impact of inter-city trains on the East Coast Main Line sharing the tracks approaching London with Thameslink services providing 24 trains per hour through the core section.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

No such assessment has been made by the Government. However, in making its own assessment, the Office of Road and Rail were aware of the requirements of the planned Thameslink service.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradshaw on 2016-10-03.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the capacity of the bus industry to meet the challenges arising from the need to deal with levels of air pollution in cities.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

The Government has introduced several measures to encourage the uptake of environmentally friendly buses.

The Low Emission Bus Scheme (LEBS), announced last year, will provide over £30m to help buy several hundred low emission buses. The winners of LEBS was announced on 25 July, building on the success of the Green Bus Fund, which ran to 2014. Under the Green Bus Fund, £89million of Government funding helped to purchase over 1,200 green buses.

The Government is also encouraging the uptake of greener vehicles through the Bus Service Operators Grant low carbon emission bus incentive.

The Bus Services Bill, which was introduced into the House of Lords on 19^th May, will provide local transport authorities with new powers to specify the emission standards to be met by local bus services – including through franchising and, with sufficient support from bus operators, under enhanced partnership arrangements.

The Government has also invested over £26million since 2011 under the Clean Bus and Clean Vehicle Technology Funds for local authorities in pollution hotspots across England to retrofit 1000’s of buses, and other vehicles, with pollution reducing technology. This includes converting some buses to either natural gas or to electric propulsion.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradshaw on 2016-01-13.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 17 December 2015 (HL4437), whether any independent research has been undertaken recently into the number of town-centre shoppers who use public transport and the relative value of shopping trips made by public transport users and shoppers who travel by other means.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

The Department of Transport is aware of three recent reports. Greener Journeys released “Buses and Economic Growth” (2012), which was funded by Greener Journeys members, and “Buses and the Economy II” (2014), which was part-funded by the Department for Transport. These reports consider the number of people who travel on shopping trips by different means of transport, including buses, and the value of their spending. Passenger Transport Executive Group (PTEG), now Urban Transport Group, released “The Case for the Urban Bus” (2013), which considers the extent to which people use buses for shopping trips in metropolitan areas.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradshaw on 2016-06-07.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether the Office of Road and Rail’s recent proposals for the East Coast Main Line services take fully into account the needs and expectations of passengers using stations south of Doncaster, in particular Newark, Grantham and Lincoln.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

The Office of Road and Rail (ORR) has granted Virgin Trains East Coast’s application to run additional services on the East Coast Mainline.

It will be for Network Rail and the relevant train operators to work together through the normal industry processes, under the oversight of the ORR, to ensure that the future mix of services provides an effective level of connectivity to meet the needs of passengers from these and other stations on the route.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradshaw on 2016-10-03.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 20 September (HL1612), why their estimates of the financial impact of the Office of Road and Rail’s decision on the East Coast Main Line and other associated franchises are considered commercially sensitive” information when they will need to be disclosed to any bidders for future franchises.”

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

The information is considered commercially sensitive because of the impact it could have on a listed company if released at this time. This information would only be disclosed to franchise bidders on a confidential basis at the time a franchise is re-let. However, under the normal process we would expect bidders to make their own revenue forecasts.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradshaw on 2016-01-13.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 16 December 2015 (HL4139), what assessment they have made of whether the police have sufficient officers to undertake enforcement action to deal with moving traffic offences outside London.

Lord Bates

The Government has not made any assessment of this nature. It is a matter for chief officers, working with their Police and Crime Commissioners to decide the size and makeup of their workforce, taking into account local priorities.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradshaw on 2016-06-07.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether the East Coast Main Line infrastructure is adequate to provide a robust and reliable inter-city service, and of any modifications required in order for it to do so.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

Her Majesty’s Government has not undertaken an assessment of the adequacy of the infrastructure to operate the planned service. It will be for Network Rail and the relevant train operators to work together to ensure that the East Coast Main Line infrastructure is adequate to provide a robust and reliable inter-city service, making use of the normal industry processes.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradshaw on 2016-10-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 19 October (HL2257), how much has been spent by departments other than the Department for Transport.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

There has been no further expenditure made by any other ministerial department into the Competition and Markets Authority inquiry regarding the overlap between Arriva buses and Arriva Trains.

As an independent non-ministerial department, the CMA is responsible for merger inquiries. In this role, it has spent approximately £480k (including staff time, legal fees and consulting fees) investigating the acquisition of the Northern rail franchise by Arriva Rail North Ltd. It is not possible to establish what proportion of this figure was spent on the assessment of the overlap between Arriva Buses and Arriva Trains.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradshaw on 2016-01-27.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of any correlation between the non-enforcement of low-level road user penalties and the rate of serious offences.

Lord Bates

No assessment has been made of any correlation between the non-enforcement of low-level road user penalties and the rate of serious offences. It is an operational matter for the police to decide how they enforce road traffic legislation and what action may be appropriate in any particular case.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradshaw on 2016-06-06.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the financial impact that the decision by the Office of Road and Rail to allow competition on the East Coast Main Line will have on the existing Virgin Trains East Coast franchise.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

The Government is currently working to establish a robust estimate of the financial impact, taking full account of the specific details of the Office of Rail and Road’s decision. At this stage, that process is incomplete.