I would like to start by placing on record my deep gratitude to the brave railway staff and emergency responders who dealt so heroically with the appalling attack in Huntingdon a few weeks ago. I am relieved that LNER staff member Sam Zitouni is now continuing his recovery at home. I am sure the whole House will want to join me in sending our best wishes to him and his family. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]
We are getting on with the job of improving our transport system, with a record £1.6 billion of funding in our roads, by investing in our country’s economic future with the approval of 50 road and rail upgrades, and by turning our railways around with growing passenger numbers and legislation introduced to create Great British Railways. Better journeys are turning into cleaner journeys, with one in four new cars now an electric vehicle. With the Bus Services Act 2025 passed, backed by £1 billion of funding, we are improving our bus network, too.
This is only the start. Transport is at the heart of rising living standards, greater opportunity and national renewal—all things that this Government promised and are now delivering.
Ghost number plates are a scourge on our roads and must be tackled. Part of the problem is the thousands of rogue traders who are very happy to sell ghost and cloned number plates to criminals with no questions asked. Despite this number plate wild west, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has removed from its register only five businesses for the illegal sale of number plates in the past year. Can the Secretary of State reassure me that she is taking action to control the sale of number plates in Britain and crack down on the explosion of ghost plates on our streets?
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her dogged campaigning on road safety, and thank her for talking to me about this issue and others when I visited West Bromwich earlier this year. We are determined to tackle illegal ghost plates and will publish our road safety strategy before the end of the year. We are working with the DVLA to consider options for strengthening the regime governing the supply of number plates.
T3. Yesterday, I met Volkswagen. It stressed that to meet our electric vehicle targets the Government must provide long-term support and certainty through to 2030 and beyond, with sensible incentives, a supportive tax framework and more robust infrastructure. What steps is the Department taking to ensure that consumers and manufacturers have confidence in the long-term value of EVs?
The electric car grant is designed to ensure that consumers have confidence in their ability to buy an electric vehicle over the long term, benefiting from £3,750 off the cost of some models. Importantly, we are undertaking work to increase the number of electric charge points across the country, with an extra 100,000 on top of the over 80,000 that are already in use.
T2. In June this year, the average wait time for a driving test in the UK was over 22 weeks. That backlog is holding back learners in my constituency. Can the Secretary of State outline what action she is taking to deliver extra tests and remove those barriers for young people in West Dunbartonshire?
Driving test wait times remain too high, and this Government are committed to getting them down. Last week, the Secretary of State announced further actions to do so, including measures to prevent tests being booked up and resold by bots, and bringing in the Army to bolster examiner numbers. We continue to develop and assess further measures to tackle this serious issue.
Snuck out on a Government website, we learn that narrower roads are coming to make driving more miserable. Is it not the case that such a move will cause even more friction between motorists and cyclists, and slow our roads down so much that it costs the economy billions?
Claims that Government guidance mandates a certain road width are false and misrepresent guidance from Active Travel England. There have never been legally binding standards for road widths, and that remains the case. It is obviously right that each road should be designed to meet the needs of local use, and that includes road width. Those decisions are for local traffic engineers. If the hon. Member is saying that we should not design roads to help avoid fatalities, I suggest that he is out of step with most people across the country.
Mr Speaker, it is on their own website. But I will turn to another Government blunder: taxpayer-funded schemes to bribe the public into buying something that they do not want, which, we now learn, will financially hammer people for doing what the Government told them to do in the first place. Is it not time to let people choose what they want to drive, before electric becomes the new diesel?
If the electric car grant scheme is so unpopular, why have 30,000 people availed themselves of it since its launch in the summer? I am clear that the transition to electric vehicles is a key plank of this Government’s agenda, because of the good jobs it can create and the need to clean up the way we travel.
T7. At a recent church hall meeting in Elmswell—yet another quintessential Suffolk village—a number of my constituents raised concerns about the local railway crossing. This rapidly growing village relies on an outdated level crossing, creating enormous hold-ups that are inconvenient at best and dangerous at worst. In nearby Thurston, passengers can only access the platform by walking across the tracks. Although I welcome Mid Suffolk district council’s recent decision to invest, what action are the Government taking to improve safety and reduce disruption at rural railway crossings?
I am enjoying the tour of village halls this morning. Level crossings can be a significant safety risk. Network Rail, the owner of that level crossing, has legal responsibility to reduce risk so that it is as low as practically possible. The Rail Minister would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the specifics of the crossing.
The new railway between Oxford, Bicester and Milton Keynes has been open for more than a year, successfully running freight and charter trains, but passenger trains have yet to start. When will passenger services begin, and what does the Secretary of State feel are the lessons for her Department as to what has gone wrong?
There were significant delays under the previous Government—14 months between their intention to move to procurement in March 2023 and any action on it, which was not until the general election last year. Within a couple of months of my being in post, we appointed Chiltern Railways as the operator. There are ongoing discussions locally, and I hope that services are up and running as soon as possible in the new year.