Speeches by Alexander.

“Thank you to you and the Committee for all the work you have done to support the many changes we are making to the transport system, particularly on the Railways Bill. Your recommendations were very helpful in that respect. We are making good progress on improving public transport, investing in our roads, and enabling …”

“What is different about me being before you today compared with six months ago is obviously the impact of the conflict in the Middle East and the pressure that has put on prices associated with fuel. If I was not focused on what that meant for drivers and operators of public transport—buses, rail and the airlines—then …”

“One of the reasons we have committed to keeping the ZEV mandate under review is so that we can take account of how purchasing patterns are evolving. I have set out the work that we will be doing in the next six months on that, looking at that relative balance between the sales of pure EVs and hybrids. One of the other …”

“Historically, we have agreed to tolls on things such as new river crossings and that has been the case with the Silvertown Tunnel, for example. Through the Highways (Financing) Bill we need to set up a system whereby we can have an economic regulator, which will be the ORR in this case, and set up the Regulated Asset B…”

“We need to see how it goes over the next couple of months and we need to be reassured that the planning for the summer period is rigorous, so that people travelling for their summer holidays are able to start that holiday as soon as possible. I would be happy to consider what more we could do with our European counterp…”

“The 2030 phase-out date for banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars remains. There are no proposals to change that, and there are no proposals to change the 2035 phase-out date for hybrid vehicles. The way the ZEV mandate operates is pretty straightforward when it comes to customers and consumers, but it is more…”

“I might have to write to you about the detail of the investment decision.”

“That is a really good question, and it is exactly why we have set up the mass transit taskforce, chaired by Bridget Rosewell. We have been told that there are a lot of barriers that promoting authorities experience; sometimes they are to do with planning, sometimes it is regulatory. We need to make sure that whichever …”

“There are really three aspects to it when it comes to how we approach devolution. I have always believed that decisions should be taken at a level where the best knowledge resides about the impacts of those decisions and where the ability to implement decisions sits. I am just conscious that when I am sitting at my des…”

“It will be for a promoter of a scheme, the applicant of the DCO, to set out what their proposals are to meet the obligations that we will define in the Heathrow expansion national policy statement. It will be for the applicant to make the calculation about how much those mitigations will cost. As the Secretary of State…”

“Jo may know more detail.”

“It is all too early to say, and I do not want to get into the world of conjecture on this. When you do business planning, you need to look at what revenue you are getting in. The fact that we have still seen good growth in passenger numbers is a positive thing. The consideration about the £3 bus fare cap was a very liv…”

“Clear tests will need to be met in what we will call the Heathrow expansion national policy statement because it is specific to Heathrow, not the Airports National Policy Statement we have now.”

“The economic costs of congestion are a consideration for the Treasury.”

“No, there is not a contradiction. We are in danger of confusing two separate things. You use the example of not setting a passenger growth target on the railways and somehow suggest that that is in contradiction to an estimate of where traffic may go in the future. The reason we have not set a passenger growth target i…”

“We have not set out to measure modal shift. We are working on the way in which we monitor progress towards achieving those 40 commitments that are set out there. If we make good progress towards achieving those 40 commitments, then the result will be more people using public transport and more people choosing to walk o…”

“Investing in the public transport network, which is what we are doing, is actually more likely to yield outcomes. If you take what the previous Government did on their cycling and walking investment strategy, for example, they had targets galore but did not hit them. The reason they did not hit them was that they took …”

“Yes. National Highways is responsible for the strategic road network. It is really important that what it is doing integrates properly with other modes of travel, whether that is mass transit in particular areas or rail. In the third road investment strategy, we have also introduced a dedicated fund to enable progress …”

“It was the right thing to do to extend the 5p cut for another three months to the end of this year, given what has happened to petrol and diesel prices following the crisis in the Middle East. When people are going to the petrol station to fill up, and the vast majority of cars that are on our roads at the moment—rough…”

“Jo, I do not know whether you have detail on that? No. I might have to write to you on that, Alex, to be honest.”