Written questions by Blundell.

What steps she is taking to improve the (a) reliability of Northern Trains and (b) communications on the impacts of delays and cancellations on passengers.

Ministers have made very clear to Northern’s management and the Department for Transport Operator that its current performance is not acceptable, and that is why we issued it with a notice of breach of contract, requiring it to produce a detailed plan to improve its services, including moving to 90 per cent of all its trains arriving within 3 minutes of timetable and cancellations below 3 per cent. One significant issue is a continuing dispute with conductors in the North West, which has been going for seven years and which the last Government did nothing to resolve. We are supporting Northern to step up its discussions with RMT about bringing Sundays into the working week and other reforms. We will be watching this closely to make sure this work continues at pace.

What steps her Department is taking to help improve transport connectivity in (a) Heywood and (b) Middleton.

We are committed to maximising transport investment benefits for housing and regeneration across Greater Manchester, including in Middleton and Heywood. Working with Mayors and local leaders, we are developing local plans for new housing and jobs through better transport connectivity. We are providing substantial transport funding for the Greater Manchester region, including over £1bn from the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS) for 2022/23 – 2026/27. Additionally, an extra £200m for CRSTS was announced in October to further support transport in major city regions, including Greater Manchester. This supports tram, bus, and active travel improvements, such as tram-train infrastructure between Oldham, Rochdale, Heywood, and Bury. We're also backing Greater Manchester’s Bee Network with £66.3m for buses in 2025/26, protecting and supporting services, and delivering Bus Service Improvement Plans. Additionally, £15.8m will go towards highways maintenance in Greater Manchester in 2025/26.

What steps her Department is taking to increase road safety for vulnerable road users.

The Government treats road safety with the utmost seriousness, and we are committed to reducing the numbers of those killed and injured on our roads. My department is developing our road safety strategy and will set out more details in due course.

Whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of a reciprocal agreement between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to accept pensioners' bus passes.

Concessionary travel is a devolved policy area so the administrative arrangements in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland differ from those in England. There are no plans at present to introduce such an arrangement.