The Department for Transport needs to get on with revising these guidelines. The Labour government in Wales now concedes they have introduced too many. There need to be some through roads that allow people to get to work or the shops at a reasonable speed, whilst  ensuring there  are safe paths, crossings and pedestrian areas for those walking. 

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has issued recent guidance on challenging the imposition of 20 mph zones by local authorities. (15526)

Tabled on: 26 February 2024

Answer:
Guy Opperman:

The Department is finalising the details to the guidance update on setting local speed limits and in respect of 20mph speed limits, as announced in the Plan for Drivers. This will be published in due course.

The answer was submitted on 04 Mar 2024 at 14:15.

The Department for Transport has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (15523):

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent estimate he has made of the level of funding his Department will provide to the rail industry in the 2023-24 financial year. (15523)

Tabled on: 26 February 2024

Answer:
Huw Merriman:

The Central Government Supply Estimates 2023-24, presented to the House of Commons and published on 27 February 2024 (see link below), details the funding provided to the Department for Transport across a large number of different areas. The value associated with all rail and rail related lines is £33.029 billion, across both Departmental Expenditure Limit and Annually Managed Expenditure. More than half of the total value is associated with Network Rail, with other areas including but not limited to High Speed 2, Crossrail and support for passenger rail services. The numbers in the Central Government Supply Estimates take account of technical accounting adjustments and are not necessarily reflective of cash that will be required.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65dcb981b8da630011c86233/E03059123_CG_Supp_Estimates_2023-24_Bookmarked.pdf

The latest figures for battery car sales in the EU show them down 11% in March, with a market share down at 13%. The fall in Germany was particularly steep. This follows news of price cuts and poor sales at Tesla.The Tesla share price is 62% down from the peak. Tesla announced 14,000 redundancies.

This should  be a salutary warning to governments and car companies. It is no good ploughing on with new products that too few people want to buy or can afford. Governments need to do more to deliver enough affordable renewable electricity before trying to force the pace on adoption of battery cars. Why try to sell more EVs when they need to be recharged with electricity from a gas power station?

Governments and international conferences have not been straight with the public. It is not green to scrap a petrol or diesel car early and make a new battery car to replace it. It is not  green to run a battery car recharging it with fossil fuel electricity. If many people do get EVs governments  will impose taxes on using them to replace lost petrol taxes. Using a battery  car will not be easy until there are many more fast recharging points. Going electric requires a huge expansion of the grid and cable systems that serve us.

Car companies spend plenty of money on EV car ads trying to make them look the thing to have .They never talk about running costs. How much does it cost to recharge? What happens to insurance costs? What is the true range? How long will the battery last? How quickly does battery performance deteriorate? How easy is it to repair a damaged battery car? The ads need to be more informative. Many people have many good reasons not to buy a battery electric car. The rich can afford them and often have a petrol car as well for long journeys. Most people think they are too dear, difficult to recharge away from home and no use if you do not have a driveway or garage of your own.

John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con):

Many people share the Government’s ambition to stop the boats. Would these Lords amendments not muddle the legislation in a way that, once again, would leave us open to an unnecessary court challenge? Can he reassure us that, unamended, the Bill will do the job?

Michael Tomlinson:
I know my right hon. Friend has taken a close interest in the Bill since the outset, and he is right. The amendments fall into two categories: those that are simply unnecessary and those that are worse than unnecessary. The second group are wrecking amendments deliberately designed to prevent the very things that the Bill was designed to do—namely, stopping the boats and getting the planes off the ground.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) has previously accused me of repeating myself from time to time—heaven forfend—but he is right, because our approach is justified as a matter of parliamentary sovereignty and constitutional propriety. Indeed, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) has even said that it is not unprecedented, and he is right. It also meets our international obligations.