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20 Jun 2007 : Column 1796W—continued
Driving Offences: Mobile Phones
Mr. Carmichael: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what estimate he has made of the number of (a) deaths, (b) serious incidents and (c) other accidents caused by persons driving while using hand-held mobile telephones in each police force area in 2006. [144305]
Dr. Ladyman: The information requested for 2006 will be available on 28 June 2007. Details of forthcoming Department for Transport statistical publications’ including “Road Casualties in Great Britain—Main Results” and “Road Casualties in Great Britain—Annual Report”, can be found at:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/recentforthcoming publications/forthcomingstatisticalpublic5470.
East Coast Railway Line
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will discuss the East Coast Main Line franchise with (a) Peterborough City Council and (b) Opportunity Peterborough prior to its award; and if he will make a statement. [144291]
Mr. Tom Harris: The Department for Transport published a Consultation Document for the new East Coast Main Line franchise in December 2006. Peterborough city council was consulted, and submitted a response that was incorporated within a Stakeholder Briefing Document that was issued in March 2007.
Bids for the new franchise are currently under evaluation, and the Department does not intend to undertake further discussions in addition to opportunities that have already been available to stakeholders prior to the announcement of the award, expected later in the summer.
East Coast Railway Line: Franchise
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects to announce the new franchise arrangements for the East Coast Mainline. [143727]
Mr. Tom Harris: The bids for the new franchise were received on 6 June and I expect to be able to make an announcement on the winning bidder later in the summer with the intention that the new franchise commences by the end of this year.
European Geo-Stationary Navigation Overlay System
Graham Stringer: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects the European Geo-Stationary Navigation Overlay System to be fully operational. [141586]
Dr. Ladyman [holding answer 11 June 2007]: The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) is a joint project of the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Commission and Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation. ESA has overall responsibility for the design and development of the EGNOS system.
The integration of EGNOS into the Galileo programme was decided by the Transport Council in its conclusions of June 2003. The failure of the current concession negotiations for Galileo has also affected the EGNOS augmentation programme since the concessionaire was to provide the long-term management and funding structure necessary for the certification of EGNOS.
At 8 June Transport Council, Ministers agreed a Council resolution which invited the Commission to continue with the implementation of a certifiable EGNOS, with initial service availability by 2008. This is to be distinguished from a service agreed for aviation use. There is not yet a timetable for certification of EGNOS for aviation use because it will first be necessary to identify clearly the funding and management structure that will guarantee an operational system in the long-term. These guarantees are dependent on the decisions to be taken in the autumn on the future of the European GNSS Programme.
Galileo Project
Mrs. Dunwoody: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many meetings (a) Ministers and (b) officials in his Department have attended to discuss the Galileo project since its inception; which Ministers attended; on what dates the meetings were held; what the grade was of the civil servants attending meetings to discuss the Galileo project alone and jointly with Ministers; and if he will place in the Library a paper on the proposed future financing, governance and exploitation of Galileo. [141021]
Dr. Ladyman: Ministers have attended all transport councils since 1999, when it was agreed at the Cologne European Council that Galileo ‘should be given careful scrutiny'.
Departmental officials have attended all meetings of the Galileo Joint Undertaking (GJU) Supervisory Board, since November 2002, and all meetings of the European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA), since January 2005. Departmental officials usually attend council working groups where Galileo is discussed, in support of the UK representation. Transport officials have been involved with the meetings of the ESA programme board that deals with EGNOS and Galileo
since its inception in July 1999 and have attended many of them. The British National Space Centre takes the lead on ESA.
Information could be provided at disproportionate cost only on the dates of all the meetings that Transport Ministers and officials have held or attended on Galileo, within the Department, with Government colleagues, or with the GJU, GSA, Commission, ESA, and EU or ESA member states. The grade of the civil servants attending meetings has varied as appropriate. Senior officials, including the permanent secretary, have been involved.
An explanatory memorandum on the Commission's Communication of 16 May 2007 has been submitted to the European Scrutiny Select Committee. The Communication is available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/energy_transport/galileo/doc/com Galileo en_final_16mav2007.pdf
Lorries: Tolls
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport which companies undertook work on the lorry road user charging scheme for his Department. [141856]
John Healey: I have been asked to reply.
The following companies undertook preliminary development work on the principal elements of the lorry road user charge project, as part of the bidding stage of the procurement process:
T Systems International
Serco plc
Siemens plc
Capita Group plc
IBM
Autostrade SPA
Tracs Consortium
A number of other companies also provided ancillary consultancy, technical and administrative support to HMRC policy officials, as part of the day-to-day running of the lorry road user charge project.
Motorcycles: Rural Areas
Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what estimate he has made of the number of quad bikes used in the agricultural and rural sectors. [144341]
Dr. Ladyman: No estimate has been made of the number of quad bikes used in these circumstances.
Motorways: Driving Offences
Mr. Greg Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport under what circumstances and to what extent highways officers who patrol motorways are expected or encouraged to report the commission of traffic offences; what guidance and training they get on this issue; and if he will make a statement. [144137]
Dr. Ladyman: Traffic Officers have the power to:
Stop and direct traffic and pedestrians
Place temporary traffic signs
They do not have an enforcement role. This responsibility remains with the police. Both the Highways Agency and the police support this position.
Traffic Officers support the police where there are fatalities or suspected criminality at an incident. The Traffic Officers’ role is to manage traffic in the vicinity of an incident, and in doing this they may liaise with the police on matters of compliance with road-traffic law.
Highways Agency Traffic Officers have a general instruction to report acts of a criminal nature to their control office for reporting to the Police for possible prosecution. This is fully covered in our procedures and in the initial training that Traffic Officers receive.
Railways: Death
Norman Lamb: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many fatalities there were on railway lines in the UK in each of the last 20 years, broken down by rail line. [144174]
Mr. Tom Harris: This information is not held by the Department for Transport but by the British Transport Police, who can be contacted at: British Transport Police, 25 Camden Road, London NW1 9LN, E-mail:
general.enquiries@btp.pnn.police.uk.
Railways: Portsmouth
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what research has been carried out by his Department on (a) the health and safety of passengers and (b) the medical effects of using the class 450 carriages for journeys on the Portsmouth line; and if he will make a statement. [144608]
Mr. Tom Harris: The Department has not undertaken any such research.
Roads: Cambridgeshire
Mr. Vara: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport which roads in (a) North West Cambridgeshire and (b) Cambridgeshire have received funding for improvements from his Department in each year since 1997; and what the value of such funding was in each case. [143508]
Gillian Merron: Cambridgeshire county council, which includes North West Cambridgeshire, is the local highway authority for local road schemes. Since 1997 Cambridgeshire county council has been allocated funding via the Local Transport Plan programme for the following major road schemes that cost over £5 million:
| £ million | |
| (1) Completed 2005 (2) Completed 2007 (3) Not yet received. | |
In Cambridgeshire the Highways Agency have recently completed the following major scheme:
| A428 Caxton Common to Hardwick Improvement scheme | |
| £ million | |
In addition, the following major road scheme on the trunk road network in North West Cambridgeshire is currently under preparation by the highways agency for future delivery:
A14 Ellington to Fen Ditton Improvement
Mr. Vara: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how much was spent on road improvements in (a) North West Cambridgeshire, (b) Cambridgeshire, (c) the East of England and (d) England in each year since 1997. [143513]
Gillian Merron: For the strategic road network information on expenditure on improvement schemes is only available from 2000-01 and is as follows:
| (a) North West Cambridge | |
| Expenditure (£ million) | |
| (b) Cambridgeshire | |
| Expenditure (£ million) | |
For improvements on the local road network, tables providing a summary of actual, estimated and projected capital expenditure in (a) North West Cambridgeshire and (b) Cambridgeshire county council are set out in the finance forms produced by
Cambridgeshire county council. These are available from the local transport section of their website:
Data on expenditure on roads in (c) East of England and (d) England can be found in the following tables from the publication “Transport Statistics Great Britain (TSGB) 2006”, which is available from the House Library:
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