We are currently developing appropriate guidance for the new Duty to Consult and will be seeking to commence the measure later this year.

HM Government is committed to ensuring that noise is managed effectively to promote good health and minimise disruption to people's quality of life.

My department is required to produce strategic noise maps and subsequent action planning for transport noise, including noise from road sources, under the terms of the Environmental Noise (England) Regulations 2006, every five years to help manage noise.

The Regulations also require that Noise Action Plans for roads identify Important Areas, where the 1% of the population affected by the highest noise levels is located. This approach has been taken in order to target mitigation efforts towards those at greatest risk of experiencing a significant adverse impact to health and quality of life as a result of their exposure to noise.

The latest Noise Action Plan for roads was published in 2019 and is available at: Noise Action Plan (2019): Roads (publishing.service.GOV.UK). It shows a number of Important Areas around Romford including Rush Green; Chadwell Heath; Elm Park; and the Romford Ring Road that should be prioritised for investigation and, where appropriate, mitigation action by the highways authorities. The Noise Action Plan for roads will be updated following the next Round of mapping which is due to be completed in 2023.

Defra has funded or co-funded national and international assessments of drivers of change on insects and wider biodiversity such as the global IPBES Assessment Report on Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production. This report notes the effects of artificial light in general on nocturnal insects may be growing.

HM Government has not made any assessment of the impacts of LED streetlights or changes in spectrum on insect population trends. We will continue to work closely with researchers, NGOs and across HM Government to improve our understanding of the impacts of light pollution, from LEDs or otherwise.

HM Government is taking action to ensure that light pollution is managed for wildlife and for people, through controls in the planning system, the statutory nuisance regime and improvements in street lighting. The National Planning Policy Framework is clear that policies and decisions should limit the impact of light pollution on local amenity, dark landscapes and nature conservation.

Protecting insects is a priority, and we are taking action to support them and the wider natural environment of which they are a vital component. Our commitment to setting a legally binding target to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030, underlines our ambition.

The Government believes that any form of dangerous or inconsiderate driving behaviour is a serious road safety issue. All available research shows a link between excessive speed and the risk of collisions.

We expect all drivers to observe the speed limit, and enforcement is a matter for the police. Policing of our roads, and how available resources are deployed, is the responsibility of individual chief officers, taking into account the specific local issues.

Responsibility for making decisions, and prioritising works, about the roads under their care rests with local traffic authorities based on their knowledge of local needs. This includes introducing measures to tackle dangerous roads and reduce speeding.

The Department for Transport provides guidance to support local councils on the implementation of various traffic management issues.

In addition, the Department for Transport provides funds directly to local authorities which may be used for road safety purposes.

This includes the £170 million the Department is providing in 22/23 to local highways authorities in England, outside London and City Region areas, through the Integrated Transport Block for small scale transport schemes, including road safety measures. The Integrated Transport Block is not ring-fenced, allowing authorities to spend their allocations according to their own priorities. It is therefore for each authority to decide how it allocates its resources and which transport improvement projects to support.

It also includes the £5.7 billion City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements (CRSTS) provide consolidated, long-term capital funding to improve the local transport networks of eight city regions across England through five-year settlements from 2022/23. This funding combines new and existing funds, including Highways Maintenance, Integrated Transport Block, Potholes fund and final year Transforming Cities Fund.

The Safer Roads Fund was established to treat the 50 highest risk local A road sections in England with remedial road safety engineering interventions. As a result, £100 million has been committed by the Department for Transport across 48 schemes.

The Government believes that any form of dangerous or inconsiderate driving behaviour is a serious road safety issue. All available research shows a link between excessive speed and the risk of collisions.

We expect all drivers to observe the speed limit, and enforcement is a matter for the police. Policing of our roads, and how available resources are deployed, is the responsibility of individual chief officers, taking into account the specific local issues.

Responsibility for making decisions, and prioritising works, about the roads under their care rests with local traffic authorities based on their knowledge of local needs. This includes introducing measures to tackle dangerous roads and reduce speeding.

The Department for Transport provides guidance to support local councils on the implementation of various traffic management issues.

In addition, the Department for Transport provides funds directly to local authorities which may be used for road safety purposes.

This includes the £170 million the Department is providing in 22/23 to local highways authorities in England, outside London and City Region areas, through the Integrated Transport Block for small scale transport schemes, including road safety measures. The Integrated Transport Block is not ring-fenced, allowing authorities to spend their allocations according to their own priorities. It is therefore for each authority to decide how it allocates its resources and which transport improvement projects to support.

It also includes the £5.7 billion City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements (CRSTS) provide consolidated, long-term capital funding to improve the local transport networks of eight city regions across England through five-year settlements from 2022/23. This funding combines new and existing funds, including Highways Maintenance, Integrated Transport Block, Potholes fund and final year Transforming Cities Fund.

The Safer Roads Fund was established to treat the 50 highest risk local A road sections in England with remedial road safety engineering interventions. As a result, £100 million has been committed by the Department for Transport across 48 schemes.

The Government believes that any form of dangerous or inconsiderate driving behaviour is a serious road safety issue. All available research shows a link between excessive speed and the risk of collisions.

We expect all drivers to observe the speed limit, and enforcement is a matter for the police. Policing of our roads, and how available resources are deployed, is the responsibility of individual chief officers, taking into account the specific local issues.

Responsibility for making decisions, and prioritising works, about the roads under their care rests with local traffic authorities based on their knowledge of local needs. This includes introducing measures to tackle dangerous roads and reduce speeding.

The Department for Transport provides guidance to support local councils on the implementation of various traffic management issues.

In addition, the Department for Transport provides funds directly to local authorities which may be used for road safety purposes.

This includes the £170 million the Department is providing in 22/23 to local highways authorities in England, outside London and City Region areas, through the Integrated Transport Block for small scale transport schemes, including road safety measures. The Integrated Transport Block is not ring-fenced, allowing authorities to spend their allocations according to their own priorities. It is therefore for each authority to decide how it allocates its resources and which transport improvement projects to support.

It also includes the £5.7 billion City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements (CRSTS) provide consolidated, long-term capital funding to improve the local transport networks of eight city regions across England through five-year settlements from 2022/23. This funding combines new and existing funds, including Highways Maintenance, Integrated Transport Block, Potholes fund and final year Transforming Cities Fund.

The Safer Roads Fund was established to treat the 50 highest risk local A road sections in England with remedial road safety engineering interventions. As a result, £100 million has been committed by the Department for Transport across 48 schemes.

T2

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Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab):

Transport remains the UK’s biggest generator of climate-wrecking carbon dioxide emissions. Road construction and the traffic that those roads support represents a large proportion of that. Does the Secretary of State agree, therefore, that rather than pursuing an outdated, destructive road project such as the Rimrose Valley Port of Liverpool access scheme in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), a complete rethink is needed and that imaginative, innovative and sustainable infrastructure is the only credible way forward in the face of a climate emergency?

As motor vehicles having fewer than 4 wheels and weighing less than 410 kg unladen, e-scooters are classed as motorcycles as defined in Section 185 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 and, because of their low speed, within the subclass of moped. This means that e-scooters have to abide by the same road traffic legislation as mopeds and motorcycles.

The Electric Scooter Trials and Traffic Signs (Coronavirus) Regulations and General Directions 2020 (SI 2020/663) ​were introduced to allow the ​e-scooter trials to take place. The regulations remove or relax requirements for ​rental e-scooters being used in a ​permitted trial area, in a way which is proportionate to the vehicle type, to enable trials to take place on public roads.

The Traffic Signs (Coronavirus) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2021 (SI 2021/75) further refined the application of the TSRGD to e-scooters being used in a trial to clarify where e-scooters are permitted for use within defined trial areas.

Well-planned maintenance to prevent potholes and other defects from forming in the first place is vital, and the Department advocates a risk-based, whole life-cycle asset management approach to all aspects of the local highway network.

To assist local authorities in treating potholes and other road defects, the Department worked with the Association of Directors, for Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (ADEPT) to publish Potholes: a repair guide.

The Government takes very seriously the safety of horse riders and other vulnerable road users and is committed to reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured on England’s roads.

Following Parliamentary approval, The Highway Code was updated on 29 January 2022 to include changes to improve safety for all road issues - including horse riders.

Key changes include the introduction of a Hierarchy of Road Users, which ensures that those who do the greatest harm have the greatest responsibility to reduce the danger or threat that they pose to others, along with the strengthening of guidance on safe passing distances and speeds when overtaking horse-riders.

My Department ran a public consultation on creating a Road Collision Investigation Branch between 28 October and 9 December 2021. The consultation has now closed, and the Department is currently conducting a full analysis of the feedback. We expect to publish the response to the consultation in due course.

The RSSF will set out the vision over the longer term for road safety. This will be followed by action plans against the specific Safe System pillar areas next year. These will be developed in conjunction with the sector and road safety experts. It is at this stage we will consider wider public consultation.

The responsibility for the management of unadopted roads rests with the owner, or more usually the frontagers, those who own property that fronts, or abuts, the road concerned. Neither the Government nor the local authority has any obligation over works on unadopted roads.

Section 230 of the 1980 Act empowers the ‘street works authority’ (i.e. the local authority) to order the frontagers to repair an unadopted or private road in the event that said repairs are needed to “obviate danger to traffic”.

The Government has made no assessment of the potential merits of introducing a legal requirement for drivers to stop and report collisions with cats. A focus for this Government is to make roads safer for all users, which will in turn reduce the risk to all animals.

Under section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, a driver is required to stop and report an accident involving specified animals including horses, cattle, asses, mules, sheep, pigs, goats or dogs, but not cats or wild animals. This requirement arises from their status as working animals rather than as domestic pets. To introduce such a measure within the provision of section 170, would require primary legislation.

We are currently working on our Road Safety Strategic Framework (RSSF) which will be based upon the Safe System approach. This will include a new cross departmental governance structure to explore key issues with actions plans being developed at a later date.

We plan to publish the later in the RSSF as soon as possible.

The Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning & Transport (ADEPT) SMART Places Live Labs Programme was a two-year, £22.9m project funded by the Department for Transport that ran until the end of 2021.

The Live Labs Final Programme Review & Project Evaluations report, published in April 2022, is available on the ADEPT website.

The Cumbria Live Lab remains open beyond the end of the first Live Labs programme for further, longer-term monitoring of the plastic roads trial. There is a five-year monitoring and inspection programme in place to enable the Council to continue to feed into the overall SMART Places research programme, also run through ADEPT.

The responsibility for the management of unadopted roads rests with the owner, or more usually the frontagers, those who own property that fronts, or abuts, the road concerned. Neither the Government nor the local highway authority has any obligation over works on unadopted roads.

Statutory provision does exist for unadopted roads to be adopted and thus become highways maintainable at public expense. This requires a formal adoption by a resolution of the local authority. It is typically the case that any local highway authority considering adopting a road will require that it is elevated to an acceptable standard before doing so.

Warm mix asphalt is National Highways preferred choice of asphalt for all its road schemes and it is accelerating its use as standard across its supply chain as part of a drive toward net zero carbon emissions. More information can be found on National Highways’ website on Net zero highways: https://nationalhighways.co.uk/netzerohighways/.

For local roads, it is for each individual local highway authority to assess which parts of its network need repair and what standards and materials, including warm-mix asphalts, should be applied, based upon their local knowledge and circumstances.