Speeches by Alexander.

“No, I am saying that it would be possible to use the mechanisms that will be set up via the Highways (Financing) Bill that we will bring forward in this Session. In theory, it would be possible to use that mechanism to fund new road infrastructure, such as a river crossing. Sitting here today, I cannot point you to a s…”

“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…”

“I repeat what I have previously said: I have no intention of telling people how they should travel. I am not setting an overall traffic reduction target, but I feel that lots of people—including me—suffer from what you might call car dependency. What the Government are doing across their wide range of work, whether it …”

“We need to do a consultation on it. This came up through the Mayors’ right to request arrangements; they said that they wanted to see devolution of consenting powers for Transport and Works Act orders. It is quite a complex legal area because TWAOs are pieces of secondary legislation and so my officials are currently l…”

“You always have to have appropriate signage so that users of the road and individuals who are parking know what regulations they are complying with.”

“You need signage to make it clear to the travelling public. The other thing I would point to is the work I am keen we explore, highlighted in the Better Connected strategy: finding a way to make data available across the country so that private companies in future could, for example, provide an integrated app where you…”

“That is why I say that what we have set out through all the work we are doing, highlighted in the integrated national transport strategy and Better Connected, is to prioritise improvements in sustainable forms of travel, such as public transport. Going back to the former discussion, that is we are investing heavily in …”

“Realistically it is going to take a long time to sort this problem out. By the autumn of next year we should be back down to the seven-week aspiration that we have.”

“If I take the example of the Lower Thames Crossing, which is a strategic freight route with lorries that come over into the port of Dover and need to make a journey up to the Midlands and the north, we need additional capacity there. It is right that we make that investment, working with the private sector to relieve t…”

“In some places, yes.”

“Yes. What we need to do is make sure that we are sharing best practice as well and that is embedded into the Live Labs programme.”

“The three big commitments in Better Connected are very significant and really important. The review the Law Commission is doing—a big piece of work to make recommendations about what the future direction should be for regulations and enforcement—is really significant. We are doing the work on the accessibility charter,…”

“We are also enhancing the road network.”

“The democratic process in our country can actually yield change that people want to see, and if there is an outcry for 20 mph zones in residential areas, I have seen local authorities across the country choose to respond to that because it is the sort of bread and butter issue that gets raised when we go knocking on do…”

“No, there is no mandation or legal obligation. We are setting out the direction of travel from Government. I think back to the previous Government’s second cycling and walking investment strategy. It may have had more granular targets in it but we still fail to get anywhere near them and fail to make progress partly, a…”

“We have not put a target in place, but what we have made clear through our Better Connected strategy is that we want to provide better choices for people to choose sustainable modes of travel. If you look at the reform agenda that we have, whether it is on the railways with the establishment of Great British Railways a…”

“I can come back to you on that.”

“Accessibility is at the heart of our integrated transport strategy. What I do not want is for this to become siloed and someone else’s problem. I want every operator of every transport mode—the local bus service in Wantage through to the operator of one of Europe’s largest hub airports—to understand that accessibility …”

“Again I come back to the point I was making earlier: we can all put warm words down on a piece of paper but you actually need to deliver real change that people are going to feel the impact of. I am struck by what members of our advisory committee in the Department for Transport have said to me, which is that if every …”

“We have set targets in the cycling and walking investment strategy. We have said that we want 55% of short trips taken in towns and cities by 2035 to be made by people walking or cycling. We have set a really ambitious target around enabling more children to walk, cycle and scoot to school, which is a 60% target by 203…”