I absolutely recognise the hon. Gentleman’s point. The incident in his constituency was indeed a tragic one. We look closely at the issue and will continue to do so.

As the House will know, I issued a written statement to Parliament last June that reported very good progress on the actions from the road safety statement. Those actions included £100 million for our safer roads fund to improve 50 of the most dangerous stretches of A roads in England, a refreshed road safety statement and a two-year action plan to address priority groups including young people, rural road users, cyclists and older vulnerable users.

The Department is undertaking a comprehensive and wide ranging programme of work to ensure we are prepared for numerous scenarios including, as a responsible Government, the UK leaving the EU without an agreement. The EU Commission has put forward a proposal on basic reciprocal market access for EU and UK hauliers which we have welcomed. If this was not secured then we are confident we would secure market access for hauliers through a combination of ECMT permits, bilateral agreements and unilateral arrangements. Such arrangements could also be used to supplement any EU-wide proposals on market access. We have also put in place plans on driver licensing, insurance, trailer registration and permit allocation to ensure UK hauliers can continue to operate in the event of a no deal.

Coventry City Council is a member of the West Midlands Combined Authority. Between 2010/11 and 2017/18 the Department for Transport provided the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) with over £386 million to upgrade and improve local highways within the West Midlands area. It has been for the WMCA to distribute this funding to its constituent members such as Coventry City Council.

The Department for Transport has also directly allocated Coventry City Council over £10 million to upgrade and improve local highways within the City between 2010/11 and 2017/18, in addition to funding for roads which fall within the strategic road network and are managed by Highways England.

In England, outside London, between 2010/11 and 2014/15 the Department for Transport provided local highway authorities with £4.7 billion for highway maintenance. In 2015 the Department announced a six year funding package for highway maintenance. Between 2015/16 and 2021/22 it is providing local highway authorities in England, outside London, with £6.2 billion for highway maintenance. This includes £296 million for a Pothole Action Fund.

Horse riders are already protected in law with applicable offences for drivers such as driving dangerously, driving without due care and attention and driving without reasonable consideration for other road users.

This is set out in the Highway Code along with advice on being aware of horse riders and allowing adequate distance when passing them. The Department is aware that not all road users follow the rules on safe overtaking and so on 12 August 2018 I announced that the Department would be reviewing the advice in the Highway Code in relation to overtaking vulnerable road users, including horse riders.

The Department does not collect data on the cause of road accidents, or on potholes in road accidents specifically.

Contributory factors assigned by police officers do not assign blame for the accident to any specific road user, however they do provide some insight into why and how road accidents occur. They give an indication of which factors the attending officer thought contributed to the accident. Officers do not need to carry out a full investigation of the incident before allocating contributory factors; they usually use professional judgement about what they can see at the scene.

For each year where contributory factors data is available (2005 to 2017), the number of reported pedal cyclist fatalities in England where a contributory factor of ‘poor or defective road surface’ was reported in the accident is provided in the table. There were no pedal cyclist fatalities in Coventry in accidents where this contributory factor was recorded for the years 2005 to 2017.

Not all accidents are included in the contributory factor data; only accidents where the police attended the scene and reported at least one contributory factor are included. A total of 72 per cent of accidents reported to the police in 2017 in Great Britain met these criteria

Advice about potholes is available to local highway authorities through the UK Roads Liaison Group Code of Practice, “Well Managed Highway Infrastructure”. This Code provides guidance to highway authorities on maintaining and managing their highways for all road users.

The Code refers to other advice, including the Pothole Review report published in 2012, which provides guidance on areas including preventative maintenance and delivering “right first time” pothole repairs. This Report was endorsed by a number of organisations, including the Cyclists’ Touring Club, now Cycling UK and refers to the needs of cyclists when considering maintenance requirements. The Review report recommends that authorities consider the guidance provided in the ADEPT report, “Potholes and Repair Techniques for Local Highways” and adopt as appropriate to their local circumstances using a risk based approach which should take account of the need of cyclists.

Local traffic authorities such as Coventry are free to make their own decisions about the design of the streets under their care, provided they take account of the relevant legislation. They also have the powers to set local 20 mph speed limits or traffic calming measures in line with their local conditions and requirements, in areas heavily used by bicycles. We continue to seek to make cycling safer. That is why we launched our Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS) Safety Review Call for Evidence. This closed on 1 June 2018. Over 13,000 responses were submitted and are being considered. The Department will continue to consider the evidence submitted and issue a response in due course.

The number of reported accidents where a ‘road sign or traffic signal’ or ‘telegraph or electricity pole’ was recorded as the first object hit off carriageway for a vehicle involved in the accident in Coventry for years 2010 to 2017 is given in the table.

The Department for Transport has allocated over £1.6 billion to upgrade and improve local highways in the West Midlands between 2010/11 and 2017/18.

However, secondly, this figure excludes funding for strategic roads that pass through the West Midlands, which are managed by Highways England. However, it is not possible to cost work exclusively within the West Midlands fully, as Highways England does not hold data on the allocated spend for schemes within the boundary.

Thirdly, Birmingham City Council has a Highways Maintenance Private Finance Initiative contract from 2010 to 2035, towards which the Department for Transport is providing over £1.1 billion over that period. The Department pays annual PFI credits of about £50 million, and payments to date total £392 million. Birmingham City Council provides further investment from its own resources.

Fourth, the Government provides Growth Deal funding to Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) covering the West Midlands metropolitan area up to 2020/21, these are:

• Black Country £218m

• Greater Birmingham and Solihull £433m

• Coventry and Warwickshire £132m

This funding is provided for infrastructure to support growth, including new roads and road improvement schemes.

Data for the allocation of Government funding to roads in Coventry South constituency is not available as the information is not disaggregated to constituency level.

England’s motorways are among the safest roads in the world and each smart motorway scheme should be at least as safe as the traditional motorway it replaces.

Over the last three years, Highways England have focused their assessment of the effect of the installation of smart motorways on the level of road traffic accidents through a detailed review of the operational M25 schemes, which has demonstrated that the safety objectives set for these all lane running smart motorways have been met, as set out in the following table:

M25 Smart Motorway Monitoring reports

Further detail of the M25 evaluation reports can be found here:

M25 J23-27 Smart Motorway - 1 year evaluation report

http://assets.highways.gov.uk/specialist-information/knowledge-compendium/2014-2015/M25+J23-27+SM-ALR+Monitoring+12+Month+Evaluation+Report.pdf

M25 J23-27 Smart Motorway - 2 year evaluation report

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/601565/M25_J23-27_SM-ALR_Monitoring_Yr2_Evaluation_v2.0.pdf

M25 J5-7 Smart Motorway - 1 year evaluation report

http://assets.highways.gov.uk/specialist-information/knowledge-compendium/2014-2015/M25+J5-7+SM+ALR+Monitoring+12+Month+Evaluation+Report_v2.0_Final.pdf

M25 J5-7 Smart Motorway – 2 year evaluation report

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/601568/M25_J5-7_SM-ALR_Monitoring_Yr2_Evaluation_v2.0.pdf

There is no robust academic evidence to indicate that the setting of any targets in the UK would contribute to progress in road casualty reduction. In fact there has been a stalling of progress in road casualty reductions across many economically advanced countries, affecting countries with targets (e.g. Sweden and the Netherlands).

The British Road Safety statement sets out the Department for Transport’s overall principles and priorities in relation to British road safety. Local authorities, the police and other bodies are free to set their own road safety targets if they wish.