The Government recognise the urgency and importance of tackling the use of illegal number plates designed to evade enforcement cameras. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is working hard with the police, other enforcement agencies and the industry to address the manufacture and misuse of such plates. This includes tightening application, inspection and audit processes for number plate suppliers. In the recently published Road Safety Strategy, the Government have set out proposals for reviewing standards, tougher enforcement, tougher penalties and the potential use of AI to help stamp out illegal plates.

My Lords, it is important that there is a full investigation into the three separate incidents which disrupted tens of thousands of passengers’ journeys on 30 and 31 December last and saw some passengers stranded throughout the night, which is clearly unacceptable. I am therefore commissioning the relevant authorities—the binational Intergovernmental Commission, the IGC, which oversees the Channel Tunnel, and the Office of Rail and Road—to review last week’s incidents and also the implementation of recommendations from previous reviews of similar incidents, to ensure that urgent lessons are learned for good.

My Lords, in the right circumstances, open access operations can provide benefits such as improved connectivity and choice for passengers, but they can also increase costs to taxpayers and create additional performance pressures on an already constrained network. Large areas of the network are already operating at full capacity, and additional open access services can exacerbate constraints along the busiest corridors of the network and impact operators’ abilities to operate revenue-generative services that would reduce taxpayer subsidy.

Once Great British Railways (GBR) is established, it will retail online by consolidating individual train operators’ ticket websites. This will take place alongside a thriving private sector retail market, which will continue to play a key role in driving innovation and investment and encouraging more people to choose rail.

The Railways Bill consultation took place in the spring. As part of this process, the Government consulted closely with industry, the private sector, and wider stakeholders including in relation to the future of the rail retail market. A formal update will be provided in due course, and we will work closely with stakeholders to ensure transition plans are as smooth as possible.

Once Great British Railways (GBR) is established, it will retail online by consolidating individual train operators’ ticket websites. This will take place alongside a thriving private sector retail market, which will continue to play a key role in driving innovation and investment and encouraging more people to choose rail.

The Railways Bill consultation took place in the spring. As part of this process, the Government consulted closely with industry, the private sector, and wider stakeholders including in relation to the future of the rail retail market. A formal update will be provided in due course, and we will work closely with stakeholders to ensure transition plans are as smooth as possible.

Benefit Cost Ratios (BCRs) within the economic case are only one element of decision-making on schemes and should be considered alongside the other cases in the five case business model used in Government (strategic, economic, financial, commercial and management cases). BCRs evolve as a project is developed through different levels of maturity as well as with changing scope, costs and benefits profiles. Definitive BCRs are not available for these schemes as they are either at an early stage of development or for which existing analysis is not up to date and therefore not representative of current scheme assumptions.

(1) Detailed information on Strategic Road Network (SRN) schemes is available in the applications for planning consent, available on the Planning Inspectorate’s website. Benefit-cost ratio information for Major Road Network/Large Local Majors (MRN/LLM) schemes is part of the business case evidence and analysis which is provided by Local Authorities. This information is therefore available directly from them, once a scheme is approved at the Full Business Case (FBC) stage.

(2) Scheme costs for the SRN schemes will be confirmed as part of the setting of the third Road Investment Strategy, planned to be published by the end of March 2026. For MRN/LLM schemes, individual financial details cannot be provided ahead of assessing the Full Business Case, as doing so would jeopardise procurement exercises and contract negotiations.

(3) The Capital Review provided strategic advice to the Secretary of State. It did not appraise any specific projects, programmes or portfolios.

Once Great British Railways (GBR) is established, it will retail online by consolidating individual train operators’ ticket websites. This will take place alongside a thriving private sector retail market, which will continue to play a key role in driving innovation and investment and encouraging more people to choose rail.

The Railways Bill consultation took place in the Spring. As part of this process, the Government consulted closely with the industry, the private sector, and wider stakeholders, including in relation to the future of the rail retail market. A formal update will be provided in due course.

Once Great British Railways (GBR) is established, it will retail online by consolidating individual train operators’ ticket websites. This will take place alongside a thriving private sector retail market, which will continue to play a key role in driving innovation and investment and encouraging more people to choose rail.

The Railways Bill consultation took place in the Spring. As part of this process, the Government consulted closely with the industry, the private sector, and wider stakeholders, including in relation to the future of the rail retail market. A formal update will be provided in due course.

The Block Grant Transparency publication breaks down all changes in the devolved governments’ block grant funding from the 2015 Spending Review up to and including Main Estimates 2023-24. Where funding for the Lower Thames Crossing has been allocated at a fiscal event or Estimates, the publication will confirm the total Barnett consequentials received by the devolved governments. The most recent report was published in July 2023 [1]. An updated report will be published in due course.

At spending reviews, the Barnett formula is applied to the overall change in a department’s settlement using the department’s comparability factor. This means Barnett consequentials generated at spending reviews in relation to the Lower Thames Crossing specifically cannot be determined.

For any future spending on the Lower Thames Crossing, Barnett consequentials will be confirmed when UK Government departmental budgets change.

[1] You can access this report via the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/block-grant-transparency-july-2023

The Ely Area Capacity Enhancement was assessed as having a Benefit Cost Ratio of 4.89 against a cost estimate of £489m at Outline Business Case stage, at the point the programme was paused in 2022.

We are focused on prioritising the schemes that will make the greatest difference for passengers and support economic growth as quickly as possible. The previous government had committed to a number of projects that were unfunded, including the EACE scheme.

My Lords, the Government are committed to supporting rail freight growth, recognising its significant economic and environmental potential and its critical role in the UK’s resilience. In the last year, rail freight volumes have increased by 5%. We will support further growth through a statutory duty on Great British Railways to promote the use of rail freight, and the Secretary of State will set a rail freight growth target. My officials are working through the details of the design of that target.

This Government has set out its ambition to simplify the ticketing system and drive innovation across the network. Affordability is one of our key objectives – so that prices are kept, wherever possible, at a point that works for both passengers and taxpayers.

Once established, I expect Great British Railways to consider the potential for loyalty schemes, as part of our intention to encourage the highest number of passengers to use our railways.

Fares, ticketing, and retail will continue to be the responsibility of train operators until Great British Railways is established. Through future legislation, we will set out the role we expect Great British Railways to play in relation to operational aspects of the railway.

Fares, ticketing, and retail will continue to be the responsibility of train operators until Great British Railways is established. Through future legislation, we will set out the role we expect Great British Railways to play in relation to operational aspects of the railway.

Fares, ticketing, and retail will continue to be the responsibility of train operators until Great British Railways is established. Through future legislation, we will set out the role we expect Great British Railways to play in relation to operational aspects of the railway.

My Lords, the second road investment strategy is being delivered by National Highways and runs until 31 March 2025. The strategy covers the day-to-day running of the network, continuing operations, maintenance and renewals and the delivery of schemes and construction. Our plans for the future of the road network will be informed by the spending review and by the review of the department’s capital spend portfolio commissioned by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport.

We are fully committed to supporting rail freight growth, recognising significant economic and environmental potential. Following our plans to overhaul the railways, Great British Railways will have a duty and targets to grow rail freight. I have discussed the decision regarding its trains with Royal Mail. As it is now a private company not owned or controlled by the Government, the mode used to move mail is a commercial decision for the business.

My Lords, officials regularly meet Avanti to discuss its performance against service quality regime targets and how it will make improvements for passengers and to the customer experience. To date, no payments have been made to Avanti under the service quality regime. The evaluation to determine the first service quality regime performance fee for April to October 2023 is currently under way.

My Lords, the Government are currently considering the business case for a revised contract for Birmingham highways maintenance following the failure of Birmingham’s original PFI deal. Highways maintenance is a critical and statutory function for all local authorities and the Government will continue to support them to fulfil this function. A decision is expected imminently.