The Bishop of St Albans received the following written answer on 11th May 2023:
The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of their ability to combat piracy once fully automated ships have been brought into service, and of how fully automated ships and their cargo can be protected from illegal boarding in the absence of a crew.
Continue reading “Bishop of St Albans asks about piracy in relation to automated ships”The Bishop of Exeter received the following written answers on 10th May 2023:
The Lord Bishop of Exeter asked His Majesty’s Government how many passengers on the Dartmoor Line used the re-opened Exeter to Okehampton railway in each month for the past year.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con): Below is a table that shows how many passengers on the Dartmoor Line used the re-opened Exeter to Okehampton railway in each rail period from April 2022 onwards.
Continue reading “Bishop of Exeter asks about restoring railways in South West England”The Bishop of St Albans spoke in a debate on transport network investment on 30th March 2023, emphasising the need for better public transport routes in rural communities, particularly relating to funding for bus routes:
The Lord Bishop of St Albans: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for securing this debate. It is a vital area for us. Those of us who live in the south-east of England are aware of the huge strains that are being put on ordinary people’s lives day by day, and on our businesses, through the problems with our transport system, not least with public transport.
I am also aware that this matter touches so many other areas of concern at the moment, such as our desire to work for a net-zero carbon future and the question of how we can get people off the roads as much as possible and on to good, fast, efficient public transport. I am aware that this means having a long-term policy on active transport; we need to work out how to get a sea change in what we expect and what we can offer. I was therefore pleased to hear the announcement by His Majesty’s Government of the provision of additional funding for transport in the recently published Statement. However, as has already been pointed out, it raises an awful lot of questions, not just about what was in it but what was not in it.
I declare my interest as president of the Rural Coalition. I want to focus my comments mainly on the rural dimension of public transport policy. Nearly 10 million of this country’s 67 million people live in rural areas—one in six of us. Sadly, there was little in the Government’s announcement to bring cheer to rural inhabitants. I and others who care about rurality and the long-term sustainability of the countryside entirely accept that we cannot expect anything like the levels of public transport and roads that our urban colleagues take for granted.
Continue reading “Bishop of St Albans supports improved public transport for rural communities”The Bishop of St Albans received the following written answers on 28th March 2023:
The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of how many people used public transportation supported by the Rural Mobility Fund in (1) 2018, (2) 2019, (3) 2020, (4) 2021, and (5) 2022.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con): Our £20 million Rural Mobility Fund (RMF) was awarded via a competitive process in 2021. It is supporting 16 innovative, demand-led minibus trials in rural and suburban areas across 15 local authorities in England. The majority of these pilot Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) schemes have now launched, with most launching in late 2021 and over the course of 2022.
Continue reading “Bishop of St Albans asks about homelessness and public transport in rural areas”The Bishop of Manchester asked a question on issues with services on Avanti West Coast trains, during a debate on ongoing problems with the train service in the region on 23rd March 2023:
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, as a fellow traveller on Avanti, often in the same coach as the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, I agree entirely with his comments. It is not only that trains are delayed or cancelled; sometimes the services on those trains are not provided, particularly food. These are long journeys and often at the very last moment, when you are sitting on the train and have been told that there will be food, you are then told, “We haven’t been able to load the food; there are no refreshments on the journey”. Can we please bear in mind that it is a whole service? The staff are wonderful, but they are labouring against impossible circumstances at the moment.
Continue reading “Bishop of Manchester asks about problems with Avanti West Coast train services”The Bishop of St Albans received the following written answers on 31st January 2023:
The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to prevent the closure of rural bus routes.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con): The Government has provided nearly £2 billion of support since March 2020 through emergency and recovery grants to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic on the bus sector. This includes a six-month extension to the Bus Recovery Grant to provide up to £130 million to continue supporting bus services in England outside London until the end of March of this year.
Continue reading “Bishop of St Albans asks about provision of services to rural areas”On Tuesday 17th January 2023, the House of Lords debated the Levelling Up Bill in its second reading. The Bishop of Leeds made a speech on the importance of good transport links and amending discrepancies in education:
The Lord Bishop of Leeds: My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble and right reverend Lord, who has already stolen some of what I was going to say—great minds and all of that, maybe. When I first heard the phrase “levelling up”, I thought, “Here we go again—another slogan in search of substance”. Yet what we have heard today so far is that there is a great deal of potential substance to this Bill. I applaud the motivation and ambition behind it, and the attempt in the 12 missions to have a holistic approach rather than simply to pick off bits of our society. But I do think we need to take seriously, after the honest analysis that we had from the Minister, the argument that it gives the lie to the opening assertion of the White Paper that the UK is an unparalleled success story. If it was, we would not need the detail that we have before us. This sort of language of hubris can very easily militate against us taking seriously the scale of the task.
Continue reading “Levelling Up Bill: Bishop of Leeds highlights the importance of transport and education”On 9th June 2022, the House of Lords debated the issue of travel disruption at UK airports and ferry ports. The Bishop of Chichester spoke in the debate:
The Lord Bishop of Chichester: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for initiating this important debate. I speak from the experience of working to support the chaplaincy of Gatwick Airport—I was glad to hear the Minister speak so positively of her experience of coming through it recently. However, like so many other parts of the aviation industry, the airport was dealt a harsh blow by the Covid pandemic. Many staff who were foreign nationals, though receiving furlough payments, went back to their home countries and have not returned to work in the UK. This affected the security department, hospitality industry and the hotels especially, and it has had a devastating effect on the economic life of the town of Crawley, which was already in receipt of investment from the towns fund as part of the Government’s levelling-up programme.
Continue reading “Bishop of Chichester speaks in a debate on travel disruption”
The Bishop of Chichester asked a question on 6th June 2022, during a debate on supporting access to electric vehicles:
The Lord Bishop of Chichester: My Lords, can the Minister indicate whether the Government will pay particular attention to promoting access to electric vehicles in rural areas, which are already disadvantaged by a lack of adequate public transport?
Continue reading “Bishop of Chichester asks about access to electric vehicles in rural areas”On 22nd March 2022 the Archbishop of Canterbury responded to a statement by the Government on the behaviour of P&O Ferries towards its workers. The Archbishop raised three points relating to reporting to Parliament on progress of talks, the wages of P&O staff, and the security of services in British waters.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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