Transport Committee

Oral evidence: Work of the National Highways, HC 418

Wednesday 24 January 2024

Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 24 January 2024.

Watch the meeting

Members present: Iain Stewart (Chair); Jack Brereton; Fabian Hamilton; Paul Howell; Grahame Morris; Gavin Newlands; Greg Smith.

Questions 1–83

Witnesses

I: Nick Harris, Chief Executive, National Highways; Elliot Shaw, Chief Customer and Strategy Officer, National Highways; and Duncan Smith, Executive Director for Operations, National Highways.

Examination of witnesses

Witnesses: Nick Harris, Elliot Shaw and Duncan Smith.

Q1                Chair: Welcome to today’s session of the Transport Select Committee. Today we are doing one of our regular scrutiny sessions on National Highways. Before we begin, Nick, can you introduce yourself and your colleagues for the purposes of our records?

Nick Harris: Of course. I am Nick Harris. I am the CEO of National Highways.

Duncan Smith: Good morning. My name is Duncan Smith. I am the executive director of operations at National Highways.

Elliot Shaw: Good morning. I am Elliot Shaw. I am the chief customer and strategy officer at National Highways.

Q2                Chair: Welcome, all. We are grateful for your time this morning.

Let me open with a fairly general question. Nick, you have been at the steering wheel for a couple of years now. What would you say are your main achievements in that time? What would you identify as areas where there is still further work to be done?

Nick Harris: In fact, it is nearly three years. Time flies. If I look back over the three years and at RIS2 in total, I think we have made good progress on improving safety, reliability and resilience. Of course, we are making good progress on our purpose, which is to connect the country and support the economy. That is set against a RIS2 that was identified from the start as challenging and complex. It contains some of the most complex road projects that we have seen in decades—iconic schemes like the A303 at Stonehenge and the lower Thames crossing.

We have made good progress on the delivery of our enhancement schemes. So far we have opened 21 schemes to traffic. We have another 17 in construction at the moment. Our renewal and maintenance programmes, our focus on asset management, have been a significant part of what we have done in the last few years. Our renewal and maintenance programmes, looking after the assets that we have, are going to plan. That is important when you consider that we have an ageing set of assets. Something like 72% of our structures—our bridges—are more than 40 years old.

We recognise that there have been challenges. Securing development consent orders, getting the largest schemes through planning, has been challenging. We have experienced a number of legal challenges after the planning decisions were made, and decision making has been slower. We have had smart motorways to deal with, and the significant impact of inflation in the last 12 to 18 months.

Those have been quite challenging. At the beginning of the road period we were set stretching and appropriately demanding targets, measured by a whole series of key performance indicators, that focused on things from safety through to customer service, the environment and efficiency. On most of them, we are delivering well. As we look to the end of this road period in just over a year’s time, we believe that we are on track to deliver against those targets. Some of them are challenging, though. I will pick one or two, starting with safety, as measured by killed and seriously injured. Although we have reduced that by 38% against the 2005-09 baseline, our target is to reduce it by 50%. We are working on additional plans to try to achieve that target by the end of the road period. In other areas, such as efficiency and environment, we are confident that we will achieve the targets.

Q3                Chair: You identified the development consent orders and inflation as your key challenges. That was in evidence that you provided for our strategic roads inquiry about a year ago. Have those challenges been linear? Are they better or worse than at this time last year?

Nick Harris: On planning, we have worked very hard with the DFT on improving the way we take the largest projects through the development consent order process. That has gone well. In the last 12 months, we have seen a number of schemes consented, the most recent of which was the A12. We also saw the A303 reconsented, but in all of them the decision is being legally challenged and that is taking time. Some of them are still in process, so I cannot comment on them specifically, but the work that we are doing in consultation and preparation and on the material that we put into the DCO process is minimising or reducing the time that projects spend in legal challenge. Nevertheless, it is still happening.

Of course, inflation continues to have an impact on the programme. We have had to slow down or move the delivery of some of the enhancement projects in particular, because inflation has increased prices.

Q4                Chair: I want to focus a little on the inflation issue. When we had the executive chair of HS2 in front of us a couple of weeks ago, he reported that what was a project of between £49 billion and £55 billion in 2019 prices was now in the order of £60 billion to £65 billion, a significant increase. The initial analysis of the cost is proving to be significantly out of zone. Are you seeing similar stat changes in the cost of the projects that you manage and plan?

Nick Harris: We are seeing increases in the costs of projects. They are being driven by inflation and the impact that that is having on construction costs. There is also an inflation impact because projects are delayed by the planning process. We are doing them later, so prices will go up, of course. That affects the out-turn costs of the projects. With all of them, we look at value for money. As the budgets change, we re-evaluate the economic benefit of the project. Generally, they are all still giving very good economic benefits.

Q5                Chair: You have not had to reassess the cost-benefit analysis for projects and make a different decision as a result of the inflationary pressures.

Nick Harris: We reassess it and look at the value for money again. Of course, if the value for money becomes poorer, I have to write to the permanent secretary on that, but there are none where the decision has been changed. Elliot, you look after the value-for-money calculation. I think that all of them have maintained either—

Elliot Shaw: Generally, the shifts are driven by a range of things. Inflation has had an impact, but if there is a significant shift, normally it is not just inflation. It could be an issue around capture of benefits and so on. As Nick said, the portfolio has remained pretty stable. Although inflation has had a bit of an impact, it has not vastly changed the decision making.

Nick Harris: No. Of course, inflation changes the other side of the equation. The economic benefits increase as well.

Chair: I will return with some further questions later. I now turn to my colleagues.

Q6                Jack Brereton: I want to ask a couple of questions about Network North initially. Obviously, it is fantastic for my own area that we have junction 15 of the M6 and the A500/A50 corridor in that. How is it going to impact on the upcoming RIS3 programme? Are you going to change anything in that, given what has come out in Network North?

Nick Harris: We are in the middle of discussions about RIS3 at the moment. The seven Network North projects that are part of the network that we look after will be in addition to the RIS3 conversation. They are not new projects to us. One of the seven, the A1 north of Morpeth, was a RIS2 project. We are currently in the planning process on that. We have been asked to provide some additional information to the Planning Inspectorate, which we will do in March or so. Five of them are projects that have been in development consideration, in pipelines or in our route strategies. They are good projects and we will continue to work on them. You mentioned the A50/A500 corridor, which we are now going to look at.

Q7                Jack Brereton: As you say, a lot of those schemes were already in the pipeline for RIS3. Are they all worked up to a similar standard, or is there more work to do on some of the schemes than on others?

Nick Harris: There is more work to be done on those schemes. As I said, they are schemes that were already in the pipeline, so they are good schemes. They solve important issues on the network. We will need to continue to develop the business cases for them and follow that process in due course.

Q8                Jack Brereton: Do you have any concerns about your capacity to deliver the schemes? With RIS1 and RIS2, we saw challenges in delivering the number of schemes that were in both programmes. Given that we have seen those challenges previously, are you not concerned that there will be issues with the capacity and capability to deliver the additional schemes, on top of what was already in RIS3?

Nick Harris: As we progress with the conversation about RIS3 and now look at the Network North projects, we are looking at our resources and the capability that we need for the next five years. As we look at the portfolio and projects finishing—where we are on the 17 that are in construction and the ones that will start in the next 12 months or so—we are confident that we have the capacity to deliver all of those projects.

Q9                Jack Brereton: Obviously, we are still in the final stages of RIS2 at the moment. Has what has been announced as part of Network North had any bearing on the final stages of RIS2?

Nick Harris: The only one that may have a bearing on RIS2, because it was originally a RIS2 project, is the A1 north of Morpeth. Elliot, you have been looking at them in more detail. Do you think there has been an impact there?

Elliot Shaw: Obviously, we are developing all of those projects. The main thing is to make sure that we develop them so that they are as mature as they can be to feed into the RIS3 process. We have made sure that we are focusing appropriate development resources on that.

To your point, some of them are at different stages. I am particularly conscious that junction 15 of the M6, in your constituency, had an interaction with HS2. We now need to go back and look at that again, given the replanning of HS2. They are in slightly different phases, but we are focusing on developing them through the next couple of years.

Q10            Jack Brereton: In terms of the spread across the country, with RIS1 in particular, there was some criticism that a lot of the schemes were in and around the south-east. Do you feel that Network North has allowed a much broader and more representative spread of projects right across the country?

Nick Harris: As we look at RIS3 and further, there is a reasonable spread of projects. There are some large projects in the north, such as the A66. We have done a lot of work on the A19 and the A1. Of course, we look at it as a network. Even a large project such as the lower Thames crossing, although it is in the south-east, is an important project for the north as well because it provides much-needed improvement in connectivity.

Q11            Jack Brereton: As I mentioned, there were concerns that both RIS1 and RIS2 were over-specified and that there were too many projects in those schemes. Can you give a bit of an update on how things have been progressing with RIS2? Are we more back on schedule now in delivering the schemes that were in RIS2 originally?

Nick Harris: I was here a year ago talking about RIS2. We have gone through two spending reviews in that timeframe. The plan that we have now for RIS2 and into RIS3 is the one that we are executing. That is the one we are tracking ourselves against. If we measure the projects in terms of open for traffic and start of works, 95% of them are on target or ahead of target. We are generally on target.

Q12            Jack Brereton: But quite a lot of them have slipped into RIS3.

Nick Harris: The note of caution is that we come back to the planning process. With a few projects, although we have had the planning decision, they are going through a legal challenge, which will have an impact on the delivery schedule.

Q13            Jack Brereton: Is legal challenge the only issue that has caused delays, or are there other issues at play that have meant that we have seen under-delivery against what was originally anticipated?

Nick Harris: The planning is the main decision. There have been a couple—

Q14            Jack Brereton: What are the other issues?

Nick Harris: There have been a couple of other projects—I am trying to think of the project in the north—where we didn’t have a deliverable solution, so we had to do some more work on that. In 95% of cases, it has been the planning challenges that have affected the delivery.

Q15            Jack Brereton: In terms of learning those lessons for RIS3, what actions are being taken to make sure that in RIS3 we can deliver the schemes that were not possible in RIS2?

Nick Harris: What we learned through RIS1 is that the risk or contingency fund that we have needs to be larger. When RIS2 was developed, inflation at the level that we have seen was not contemplated, and we had been very successful at getting projects through the development consent order planning process. We had had 14 projects go through, to time, with no legal challenges. That was something that came up in the second year of this road period. As I said earlier, we have had to work very hard to improve that position. Ultimately, we are getting projects through the planning process, but it is taking longer because of the legal challenges. As we go into RIS3, we have that in mind.

Q16            Jack Brereton: Surely more should have been done to anticipate some of that.

Nick Harris: That was thought about, but it is a question of degree. It had not been seen before. Certainly, as we look at RIS3, we are putting those thoughts into determining the size of any risk or contingency pot.

Another important thing as we look at RIS3 is the number of projects that are in development, planning or construction. More of the programme in RIS3 will already be in construction or have gone through the planning stages, so that changes the risk profile as well.

Q17            Jack Brereton: As a Committee, we have put a lot of focus on renewals and said that more needs to be done around the fact that we have quite an ageing network. In terms of the challenges that you have with that, do you feel that there is sufficient focus on renewals, rather than just enhancements? This is something that is of real concern to people who travel on the strategic road network on a daily basis. There is an ageing network that has some major issues with it.

Nick Harris: With an ageing network and ageing assets, looking after what we have is incredibly important. It is the renewal and maintenance of the roads we look after that provides the service every day, so that is vital work.

We saw a very welcome shift from RIS1 into RIS2, with more focus on maintenance and renewal compared with enhancement, although enhancement remains important. As we look forward to RIS3, we expect to see more of that trend—it is a balance—not only because we have more ageing assets but because we have more complex assets. We have a lot more technology assets that need to be integrated and looked after. Perhaps I could bring Duncan in at this point. He looks after the network and is responsible for the maintenance and renewal of all the assets.

Jack Brereton: Yes.

Duncan Smith: We recognise exactly the point that you have made and our proposals for RIS3 echo that. There is a strong emphasis on maintenance and renewals. We are looking in the order of doubling the amount of money spent on those assets, because we know the disruption that would be caused if they were to fail and we needed to put in restrictions, with lane closures and the like. That is not tolerable for the general public. We are pleased to see that, as Nick described, the emphasis is shifting towards maintaining and renewing what we already have.

Q18            Jack Brereton: Where you have assets that you have identified as being life expired, do you have plans in place for a renewal programme for every one of those to deliver against those issues?

Duncan Smith: Absolutely. Our intention is to renew those assets before there are any unplanned failures.

Q19            Jack Brereton: There are no holes or gaps, in terms of assets that are about to fall over.

Duncan Smith: Absolutely not. Clearly, things like the road pavement condition are an ongoing challenge. You can mitigate with pothole repairs. We would far rather resurface the construction of the road than have customers having to deal with potholes. There are degrees of managing those assets. On things like structures, it is absolutely the case that we are inspecting those regularly. The RIS3 plan is that we intervene before any sort of restriction is necessary on those, particularly on bridges.

Q20            Chair: You referenced the need to replace and renew a lot of the technology on the infrastructure. Leaving aside smart motorways, which we want to cover separately, can you give us a better idea of the scale of that work? The understanding that we have had from previous evidence is that a lot of technology that went in, particularly in the ’80s and ’90s, is now at or near the end of its working life. What is the scale of that in terms of the overall renewal budget?

Nick Harris: We have about 100,000 technology assets out on the network. That number is increasing all the time. There are the physical assets; cameras, sensors and, now, the stopped vehicle radar system that we have out on smart motorways, and the systems that support those and all of the service. Some of those are more than 40 years old, so we have a very significant programme of renewal. We have added another £100 million this year and next year to the renewal of those assets. In our conversations around RIS3, we are looking for the right amount of money to renew those assets when they become life expired and to support the systems that integrate the data behind them. We have introduced supervisory systems. We are monitoring in real time what is working and its performance so that we can understand much better the performance of our assets and can intervene ahead of time, but it is a large and increasing challenge.

Q21            Chair: Does that have the potential to take away from the resurfacing work—the regular day to day? Are you having to cut back on other maintenance programmes to finance the electronic infrastructure?

Nick Harris: No. It goes more to what I was talking about earlier. There is a shift, a rebalancing, between enhancement work and maintenance of our existing assets. In the development of RIS3, we are looking to be able to challenge ourselves in terms of efficiency and delivery, making sure that we intervene at the right economic point, but that we can look after all of our asset types.

Q22            Grahame Morris: Mr Shaw, is there anything that you can do to make our job a little easier? The reason I am asking is that when the Committee did its report on strategic road investment, we found that it was quite difficult to scrutinise the progress of the RIS schemes because any analysis involved a lot of cross-referencing from a number of documents. Is there anything that you could do to make our lives easier, maybe by implementing a dashboard or traffic light scheme?

Elliot Shaw: The programme that we run is complex. There are both a lot of enhancement schemes in it and a lot of renewals, maintenance and operational activity. A number of public reports, such as our delivery plan update and our annual report, are out there and are intended to provide a view at a moment in time. The ORR annual report also intends to give an overview of our performance and where things are.

Q23            Grahame Morris: Could you say that again? How would we check? Apart from the annual reports, is there some kind of—

Elliot Shaw: There is. On schemes specifically, what we have is the “Our roads” section of our website. On our website, there is, effectively, a section that goes into each of the roads and programmes that we are doing and gives their current status. Since the previous report, we have been working on trying to make sure that that is up to date. We are also working with the Department to agree on some sort of dashboard that brings all of that together. That is still work in progress. I am happy to report back to the Committee on that.

Q24            Grahame Morris: Yesterday, we had a session with the ORR to seek their views. Are you having any discussions with the ORR and the DFT about simplifying the reporting process?

Elliot Shaw: We are. As I said, reflecting on the findings of the last report, there have been discussions on the “Our roads” bit of the website and, potentially, the creation of the dashboard. We continue to have discussions more widely with ORR and DFT about reporting, to try to make sure, particularly from both the ORR’s and the DFT’s perspective in holding us to account, that they get the information that they need to do that. We are trying to make sure that we have one set of good, granular information that can be used across the parties. That is an ongoing discussion with them.

Q25            Grahame Morris: Mr Harris, you touched on this in an earlier answer to my colleague Jack Brereton. In March last year, there were 22 schemes promised in the RIS2 programme that were in development. You gave some examples. How many do you expect to be completed and open to traffic by the end of the RIS2 period?

Nick Harris: I think you are referring to the development pipeline that we had. They were mainly schemes that we were developing for delivery in future RIS periods, in RIS3 or RIS4. We are continuing to work on that pipeline. As part of the negotiations and the conversation that we are having about RIS3, we will be agreeing in due course what will start to be delivered in RIS3 or in future RIS periods.

Q26            Grahame Morris: I want to ask about slippage, but can you clarify something? Is it correct that in RIS2 there were 22 schemes?

Nick Harris: We had a pipeline of 30 schemes we were looking at. I think that’s correct, Elliot.

Elliot Shaw: Can I check whether you are talking about the pipeline, which was development schemes—schemes not committed for delivery—or schemes within RIS2? Our plans overall for RIS2 are that we will open 36 schemes and start 31. Our current plans are that there are 36 schemes opening and 31 on which we will start work. I think we are currently at 21 schemes that we have opened and 17 schemes in construction. As Nick said, we are continuing to drive forward the programme. The big uncertainty around some of the schemes is planning.

Q27            Grahame Morris: Is it anticipated that the 17 schemes that are still under construction will be carried over into the subsequent RIS programme?

Nick Harris: Some of them will, and some will finish. The RIS is funding for a five-year period. Some projects will continue to be built. Some will start. Some will finish. Some will carry on into the next period. It is a funding period. Not everything that is started has to finish in that period.

Q28            Grahame Morris: I want to clarify an issue you touched on earlier. We raised it with the ORR yesterday. It is to do with the factors that cause delays. Mr Smith mentioned construction inflation and so on. Mr Harris, you mentioned planning delays—the planning process. The ORR suggested to us yesterday that there is an issue of scope creep. I presume that means changing the specification or amending it in some way. Are those fair criticisms of the reasons for delays and slippage in a programme?

Nick Harris: Scope creep isn’t creating delays or increases in costs. As time goes by, we are of course constantly revising the design menu for roads and bridges. Our standards change as we learn new things. We are always trying to focus on how we can improve safety, resilience and reliability, but we do that within the timetable that we set for the delivery of projects.

Elliot Shaw: Often on scope, effectively, as we take a project forward, we consult with the local community. It is often things that come out of things that are raised through the consultation. It is about creating a better scheme that works better for the community. Scope creep can sound quite negative, but often you end up with a better product as a result.

Q29            Grahame Morris: It is useful that you clarify that because it was not something I was familiar with. I want to ask about some specific schemes. Obviously, I am from the north of England. I am sure that my colleagues will be interested in this as well. There are schemes like the A1 north of Newcastle in Morpeth, and so on. Others that were given as an example in March last year were the A27 from Arundel and the A5036 Princess Way schemes, when the Government or the DFT announced that they would be deferred to RIS3. Are there any further major schemes that were promised in RIS2 that have not been identified that are going to be pushed back into RIS3 or RIS4?

Nick Harris: Touching on the specific schemes that you have—

Q30            Grahame Morris: Specifically the A1 north of Morpeth.

Nick Harris: The A1 north of Morpeth is a project dear to my heart. I owned a house in Felton, which is in the middle of that bit, for many years. I think we were talking in 1990 about the dualling of that piece.

Q31            Grahame Morris: The former Transport Secretary was involved in it.

Nick Harris: It is a scheme I know well. That was a RIS2 scheme and it is still going through planning. If you remember, last year the Government recommitted to that scheme. As I said earlier, we are providing some additional information for the Planning Inspectorate. That planning process is ongoing.

The other schemes were deferred to RIS3. We are having the conversation and negotiation about RIS3. As that concludes, the delivery plan for RIS3 will become clear.

Q32            Grahame Morris: I am slightly perplexed about the further information. You mentioned development consent orders and so on. You are probably familiar with that particular scheme, but I really don’t know what further information is required.

Nick Harris: I can probably explain that. It is environmental information. Because of the length of time, we go through consultation with the communities there. We do a lot of environmental work to understand the impact that the scheme will have on them. You have the River Coquet there so, as you can imagine, the impact on water courses and important natural environments is significant in that scheme. We do a lot of work baselining that and understanding how we will mitigate against any harm, to achieve net zero loss of biodiversity as we develop the scheme. Because that happened a while ago, we have had to update some of the environmental data. That is what we are providing at the moment to the Planning Inspectorate.

Q33            Paul Howell: I would like to look at your efficiency. I spent a number of years as a manufacturing accountant. My focus was on looking at business efficiencies and the like. It seems to me that, whatever I am talking about or reading about here, there is complexity in communicating what your efficiency is. If you are going to understand it, you have to have clear metrics. Do you think you have clear metrics?

Nick Harris: Efficiency is an incredibly important target that we have been set, both for RIS1 and RIS2. We will deliver over £2 billion-worth of efficiency within—

Q34            Paul Howell: What is efficiency for you?

Nick Harris: Efficiency for us, at its simplest, is either delivering the same outputs for less money or delivering more output for the amount of money. First of all, I should say that there is a very clear methodology for measuring efficiency. The Office of Rail and Road has published a document that sets out exactly how they monitor us on the delivery of efficiency.

There are two approaches. One is for the larger enhancement projects, and another is for our day-to-day operation and maintenance. To give a few examples of that—

Q35            Paul Howell: Can I throw in a couple of points?

Nick Harris: Of course.

Q36            Paul Howell: I would not class a cost impact as an efficiency impact. It is a cost pressure. It is not about getting things done. If I were to differentiate the two, one is about the actual work you are getting done and the speed you are getting it done at, and the other one is what it’s costing. Personally, I would say that the impact of inflation is a cost pressure; it is impacting your cost but not necessarily your efficiency at work. It is differentiating those two approaches to things.

Nick Harris: Absolutely. Inflation is a cost pressure which we then have to address. I will ask Duncan to come in. He is running the efficiency programme in operations. Perhaps he can explain how we are measured on that.

Duncan Smith: Thank you, Nick. To give some basic examples, when you multiply it by the vast amount of work that we are doing, I guess you can get the sense of how those numbers add up. Traditionally, we did our interventions or our work on the roads in isolation. Over the last two or three years, we have focused on the planning of those activities, so that we do all the things that we need to do at once. Rather than close the road for resurfacing one month and, the following month, doing litter picking or vegetation clearance, we try to bundle those works together. The big advantage of that is that customers have less disruption. The road is closed or restricted less often. There is also a big efficiency benefit.

Somewhere between 30% and 40% of the cost of delivering work on our network is in traffic management: the cones and the signs. That might seem high, but if you think about the amount of work that needs to go into closing a lane on the motorway—

Paul Howell: We all drive past and see the number of cones.

Duncan Smith: —you can understand. Our aspiration is to deliver smooth and more reliable journeys for customers, but it is also to achieve the efficiency targets that we have been set by the DFT and the ORR. It makes perfect sense for us to bundle those activities together and do multiple tasks all at the same time.

Q37            Paul Howell: I get that, but in terms of the efficiency of a project over a period—you’ve got the litter picking and the road surfacing done and so on—the cost pressure of X that came with it would not be part of my efficiency measure. It would be a cost measurement. Reading some of the stuff we have from the ORR, it seems as though they conflate the two. That does not seem to me to be the right way of understanding it.

Nick Harris: As Duncan said, we are looking at planning giving us those efficiencies by bundling. We are also looking at the unit prices we are paying for materials and services, and reducing that where we can. There is a big focus on quality, so we do it once. That can, of course, save us some money.

Q38            Paul Howell: That is long-term efficiency.

Nick Harris: Absolutely. It will add to long-term productivity and efficiency. It is looking at working windows and the way in which we are working, so that we can get the maximum amount of productivity out of the very expensive machinery that is often deployed on road schemes.

There is a lot of standardisation. A great example is that the other week I went to see junction 10 on the M25 near Wisley, where we are rebuilding that junction. I think there are at least seven new bridges that we have to build. There, they are using pre-cast concrete formers for the bridge piers. That means that you do not have to build wooden shuttering to pour concrete. You can decrease the working area because you do not need scaffolding and so on. It is quicker, higher quality and lower cost. It is cheaper traffic management. When we come up with great ideas like that, it is a matter of, “How can we do that on all projects?” You can imagine that there are many other examples like that.

Q39            Paul Howell: You are answering a different part of the question that I was going to ask in terms of how you are trying to improve your efficiency. I want to ask a little bit more about the actual monitoring of said efficiency. I know that there are different terms. Pavement is road surfaces as well as paths, which is the more common terminology.

If I understand it, some of the data that we have seen in terms of over-delivery is when you have done lots of kerbs that were associated to pavements. The kerbs were not in the plan, so it looks like you have done more from a delivery point of view. Why wouldn’t the kerbs be in the plan in the first place? It seems like you have not put that bit into the plan, and therefore when it comes in as the actual result it looks like you have over-delivered, when in fact you haven’t because you always need kerbs when you are doing pavements.

Nick Harris: For efficiency, we have monitoring tracks on all work we do. Duncan’s renewal plan is monitored by the ORR on five key renewal activities. They are pavement surfacing—go on, Duncan.

Duncan Smith: The five key asset types are two types of road surface, so flexible asphalt pavement and concrete roads. Then we have two types of what we call vehicle restraint systems, the central reserve barriers. Those are either concrete or steel. Then we are measured on delivery of our significant structures programme.

To go to your specific question about kerbing, we have an annual plan for the number of units of each of those, along with other asset types such as drainage, geo-techniques and technology. We set ourselves a plan, and are monitored against that plan, for how many units of each of those we are going to deliver. In some cases, we resurface the road without replacing the kerb line. It may just be that the surface has deteriorated but the kerb is still sound. If, in removing the surface of the road, we can efficiently replace the kerbstone as well, which may not have been in the original plan but it is efficient to do it at the same time, we do it. That is where we claim out-performance on that metric.

Q40            Paul Howell: Looking at the numbers, there was a significant variation in terms of the kerbs you were doing compared to the pavements. It therefore raises a question of how good your assessment is of the work going into it. If there is a 10% variance and you just had a few more kerbs to do, that flows with what your explanation is. If, however, you have huge increases in kerbs, the question is: how good is the estimate going in? Clearly, you help your efficiency by delivering the same things at the same time, as you said a couple of minutes ago, but if you didn’t know what you were doing in the first place, that can frustrate the actual delivery supply chain situation and you can’t do certain things. How comfortable do you feel that your information is going into a project where you actually are aware of what needs to be done?

Nick Harris: Perhaps the best way of answering is to look back to the ORR’s annual assessment from last year. They looked in particular at our approach to asset management. It is absolutely that point. How much do we understand about our asset? Is our plan the right one? Are we making the right interventions at the right time? It varies across the asset classes. For structures, as Duncan said earlier, there is a very rigorous inspection regime and good capture of data. Similarly for road pavement, kerbs and drainage. That is the basis for our plan. Perhaps Duncan could talk a bit about the tools we have in place that can demonstrate that we are doing that.

Duncan Smith: It is important to recognise the difference between our renewals programme and the enhancements programme. We only renew the roads, or the constituent elements of the road, to ensure that drivers have fast, reliable and uninterrupted journeys. Unlike a major scheme, where we will be much more precise about what constitutes elements of the scheme, as Elliot described, we only intervene on renewals to ensure that customers have a safe and reliable journey. We have a whole range of ways—asset management models and deterioration models—and we work very closely with the Office of Rail and Road to give them assurance that we are managing those assets in the most efficient way to deliver that service to customers.

Q41            Paul Howell: Coming back round the circle, we talked earlier about the differentiation of cost and efficiency. At the end of the day, you have a cost envelope that you can work in. If, because of pressures from inflation or whatever, the cost envelope reduces your capacity to do things, does that mean the changes in your workplan, in terms of what you are doing, are reflected so that your efficiency is measured against what you are now doing as opposed to what you thought you were going to do pre-inflation?

Duncan Smith: Yes.

Nick Harris: It reflects that, yes.

Q42            Paul Howell: It picks that up. That seemed a concern. It is a complex area. One of the things I would push you on is more clarity as to your metrics, and the ability for us to understand them. One of the things we heard from the ORR yesterday was the complexity of some of the formulae in terms of arriving at the measurement. If a formula is that complex, it’s not measuring.

Nick Harris: That is very helpful. How we measure efficiency is something we are discussing at the moment for RIS3. There is quite a bit of work that we have to do to demonstrate how we are being efficient in this road period. Elliot, how we are going to improve that?

Elliot Shaw: Exactly that. I think we recognise that the simpler we can make it, the better we can communicate it internally and externally. Again, we are working with colleagues at the DFT and the ORR on that. To reassure you, we differentiate the cost side and the efficiency side. There is an annual process, effectively, with the ORR of really going through and almost logging the changes that have happened and what should be factored into the efficiency target and expectations.

Paul Howell: Maybe this is for another day, Chair, but I would quite like to understand that a bit more.

Q43            Grahame Morris: Mr Smith, a little earlier you mentioned the pavement condition KPI. Last year, National Highways came close to missing its KPI pavement targets. Could you tell us something about severe weather conditions? Is it partially because of an unusual frequency of severe weather events?

Duncan Smith: Our pavement condition measure is very technical. It probably falls into the category that we have just described. It is quite a technical assessment of a couple of characteristics of the road, such as rutting and skid resistance. They are important factors, but it isn’t all-encompassing. Things like potholes are not included. It is more about smoothness and skid resistance, which are important factors for safety.

Q44            Grahame Morris: Potholes are a safety issue.

Duncan Smith: Absolutely. There are separate measures to assure ourselves, and for the ORR to assure themselves, on our performance against those.

On your question about severe weather, those factors can be affected by the weather, particularly on some of our older roads. A characteristic of our RIS2 programme and in our RIS3 proposals is around our concrete roads. In the ’60s and ’70s, concrete was seen as perhaps a novel innovation in how to construct roads quickly, particularly in the east of England. Time has shown that they are not the most reliable. They are noisy, so they are not massively popular with residents living nearby. The joints between the concrete sections are very prone to breaking up, both in wet and cold weather and in extremely hot weather. What we saw in the very high temperatures two summers ago was an acceleration of the deterioration rates that we had historically seen. The pavement condition measure that you would have been discussing with the ORR yesterday has been impacted by the acceleration of deterioration that perhaps some of those severe weather events caused our road surfaces.

Q45            Grahame Morris: Is there anything that can be done by the organisation to improve resilience? We tend to think of the frequency of floods, but in comparison with the railways, high winds are a particular issue for bridges and so on. My train journey down was delayed because some plastic was entangled in the overhead power lines on the east coast main line. Is there anything that can be done to try to anticipate some of these severe weather events?

Duncan Smith: We are very well experienced at dealing with severe weather, whether that is snow, wind or indeed rain. We have very well-rehearsed operational procedures to deal with those. In the case of the high winds recently, we prepared and worked with local partner organisations. There is a safety factor when the wind is very strong; HGVs on our high bridges cannot safely operate. Over the last five years we have worked to try to improve those.

The Orwell bridge in Ipswich is a good example. Previously, when gusts were over certain miles per hour, we would close the bridge. We have worked on getting some additional speed monitors on the bridge and have proved to ourselves that that road can be safely operated at a higher wind speed. The recent winds exceeded that, and we needed to close the bridge, but that was done in a planned way and in consultation. It is not something we take lightly because we understand the disruption it causes to journeys. Particularly in Ipswich there aren’t many alternatives, but we always take that decision in the interests of safety.

Q46            Grahame Morris: Some years ago, when I used to travel up and down by car, when I was driving, there was a particular period when, on a stretch of the A19, a number of HGVs were blown over. It wasn’t bridges, but a long stretch of open moorland. The answer is better monitoring of wind conditions and forecasting, enclosing roads or stretches of roads, or restricting speed limits.

Duncan Smith: Yes. We are very reluctant to close roads because, obviously, of the impact it has on users. We have a number of strategic signs on the network that carry messages, planning for those sorts of events. The issue with unladen HGVs is that there is a very high surface area and low load. That is why we put messages up on the network, to try to encourage safer journeys by those vehicles, so that we do not see the blow-overs that you have just described.

Q47            Jack Brereton: I want to ask a bit more about general maintenance. As you know, I have a whole long list of issues that I have been raising because constituents are raising these issues on a very regular basis, whether it is vegetation management, street lighting or drainage. I could go on. There are lots of these sorts of issues that are being raised, on a daily basis in some cases, when I am speaking to my constituents. What more is being done to address the very poor standards of maintenance that we see on some parts of the network?

Nick Harris: I can answer that in a number of ways. We have a high standard of maintenance across the network. Some of the challenges that you are seeing are where what is largely a rural network meets urban areas. The way we deal with vegetation out in the countryside, where we cut it maybe twice a year, is because our focus is on safety and sightlines, and on promoting biodiversity. Cutting vegetation too much is not good if you want to promote improvements in biodiversity. When you come into the urban environment, there are different expectations. It is something we are working on, and something we work on very closely with local authorities. Sometimes it is our responsibility and sometimes it is theirs, but we need to collaborate and co-ordinate.

I was going to touch on drainage and perhaps bring together the two points. We are seeing the impact of climate change. Resilience of our assets and how we adapt to that is very important.

Q48            Jack Brereton: National Highways only addressed 62.5% of drainage issues on the network in the last year. That performance is pretty poor.

Nick Harris: The way we address drainage is that we have an annual inspection and maintenance plan, which we monitor. Our adherence to that is much higher than 62%. As we do renewal projects or new projects, we take the opportunity to upgrade or renew the drainage. Our design menu for roads and bridges contemplates the impacts of climate change. We build to new standards that will deal with that.

The other thing I was quickly going to mention, thinking about assets like asphalt, is that we use mixes of asphalt that can cope with high and low temperatures. Our roads are much more resilient nowadays. Concrete roads remain a challenge, which is why we have an extensive programme of concrete road replacement. We are spending more than £300 million in this road period, and that will continue into future road periods.

I will bring Duncan in, because he looks after the maintenance of drainage. How are we performing on drainage maintenance, Duncan?

Duncan Smith: Thank you, Nick. As Nick described, we have routine tasks to inspect our drainage assets. We also respond proactively and reactively when we have issues. The challenge that we have as a network operator is that the frequency and severity of rainfall events that we have seen is increasing—

Q49            Jack Brereton: The thing is though that some of these issues are not new. I have been reporting the issues in my constituency for several years. We have these drainage issues in the same locations year on year. They are not being addressed. Why is it that we are continuing to see these drainage issues not being addressed? Nothing is being done about them. They are going on and on, year after year. Why are there no plans in place to actually fix these issues?

Duncan Smith: I know that my team is working with you and your team on the specific issues you are referring to. At national level, we have an extensive programme. We are well funded and the performance we are seeing is keeping our roads open and operating safely. Clearly, the safety of our network is our No. 1 priority. Both our maintenance and renewals programmes are focused on ensuring that those issues are fixed. I know that you have some specific issues, and my team is working with yours on those.

Q50            Jack Brereton: You mentioned that in urban areas there are higher expectations in terms of vegetation management particularly, and some other maintenance issues. In terms of your budget, are you looking to ensure that in those sorts of areas, where we are coming much closer to where people actually live, maintenance is given more funding to increase the standard of maintenance that is being carried out in those areas?

Nick Harris: We have a particular maintenance budget. It is opex or RDEL, so there are constraints on that. Through the work we are doing on efficiency, we are trying to maximise what we can do for it. We are working with communities to understand priorities. Safety comes first, of course. There is concern and care for the environment, but also the amenity value of what we do matters. That is why, in your constituency and in others, we have memorandums of understanding or ways of working in collaboration with local authorities to try to achieve acceptable standards.

Q51            Jack Brereton: As I think you acknowledge, there have been issues in certain parts of the country with contractors not meeting acceptable levels of standards. There have also been changes in contractual arrangements that have affected standards of work. What is being done to monitor better the contractors you use? Are you looking in some cases to remove contracts from organisations that are not meeting an acceptable standard?

Nick Harris: From time to time, of course, contracts are renewed. We need to maintain a competitive environment and new players are brought in. Getting the right performance and quality of work out of them matters. Duncan can perhaps talk about how he performance-manages the maintenance contractors to achieve that, and what he does when they fall below our standards.

Duncan Smith: We have a very rigorous set of KPIs which we hold our contractors to account on. You are aware that we recently changed the contractors in your constituency.

Q52            Jack Brereton: Was that due to performance issues?

Duncan Smith: No, it was the end of a term contract. We are limited by public procurement rules.

Q53            Jack Brereton: There was no action taken on the very poor performance—

Duncan Smith: Action is being taken. We are working with that contractor on improving the measures, particularly around the speed of delivery of some of the maintenance activities. It is through performance management that we are aware of the challenges and are working through that with them. On the whole, they are delivering a good service but there are areas for improvement. That is true of most contracts.

Q54            Jack Brereton: Nationally, how many contracts have actually been removed due to poor performance?

Duncan Smith: In the space of the maintenance that you are talking about, none.

Nick Harris: In my tenure, seven or eight years, I have removed one of the M&R—maintenance and response—contractors due to performance in that period. It happens, but we like to work with them to improve performance because it is disruptive when you have to remove a contractor.

Q55            Jack Brereton: The final issue I want to ask you about is managing roadworks. We had a situation on the A50, literally, with utility works where the whole A50 was closed for several weeks. It caused absolute mayhem and chaos in the areas near Blyth Bridge in my constituency. Literally, the whole A50 was shut. How can we manage those sorts of utility works better? It is not such an issue on the motorways, but it is on the strategic A-road network. When we are having utility works undertaken, what can be done to ensure that they are done in a much more sensitive way to avoid serious disruption to communities?

Nick Harris: I will come to Duncan on the specifics of the A50. To talk in general, we work closely with utility providers, Network Rail and others because either we need them to do diversions when we are doing schemes or, of course, they need access to our network when they are doing improvements to their networks. We are very conscious of the importance of the relationship that we have with them, and the impact that we have collectively on folk using our roads. Planning is the key. It is looking at when we can do similar things at similar times. There was an example recently around Oxford, when Network Rail was replacing a bridge on the A34. We also had some work to be done there. But sometimes it is difficult to co-ordinate. On the specific point about the A50, I will ask Duncan to comment.

Duncan Smith: Cadent Gas have a strategic gas main in the central reservation of that road, which, in hindsight, is not the ideal place. When it becomes end of life, the only way of replacing it has a disruption on the road. Clearly, that may not have been thought through when the main was placed there originally. It may have been that the road has changed and evolved over time. We understand that our roads, particularly our all-purpose trunk roads, often carry utilities under them. We work very closely with the utility companies to ensure that it is well co-ordinated.

Sometimes, if you have a big scheme like the Cadent Gas scheme, where they were replacing the main, no amount of co-ordination and planning gets around the fact that in order for them to replace that main safely for their road workers, and for the people travelling on the road, unfortunately disruption has to be caused. My hope is that we have worked with Cadent to ensure that that time is as short as possible, that other diversion routes are well signed and available and that information is readily available to customers so that they can plan their journeys accordingly.

Q56            Fabian Hamilton: Good morning, gentlemen. I want to turn to pollution and air quality. What steps is National Highways taking to bring all sections of the strategic road network into compliance with legal NO2 limits?

Nick Harris: Air quality specifically or pollution surface run-off as well?

Q57            Fabian Hamilton: Air quality. I will come on to more detail in a minute, but if you could answer that question.

Nick Harris: Dealing with air quality, we are clear on our responsibility that for any stretch of the strategic road network where nitrous oxide limits are being exceeded, we have to do everything we can to mitigate or reduce that to bring it within compliance, which is what we are doing. We monitor that. The sorts of things we have been doing are putting in speed restrictions or, where that cannot have an impact, removing footpaths or cycleways from proximity to the road. We have looked at environmental barriers and other environmental improvements that we can make.

The biggest improvement that is happening to the stretches where we have exceedances is a change of vehicle fleet. Of all the stretches in the last 12 months—we re-evaluate them periodically—something like 24 have come within the limit, so we are no longer exceeding. If we look at our forecasts, most of them will come within the nitrous oxide limit in the short term.

Q58            Fabian Hamilton: When you say most, can you be more specific?

Nick Harris: There are one or two quite challenging stretches. The example that springs to mind is the A3 at Guildford. There, we are looking at putting an environmental barrier in place. We are providing more support for a number of electric vehicle schemes so that we can encourage changing vehicle fleets and moving from ICE cars to EVs.

Q59            Fabian Hamilton: Mr Harris, can you elaborate a little bit on what an environmental barrier is? Is it just trees?

Nick Harris: It is a very large wall or man-made barrier. At the A3, which  we are currently looking at, the size of barrier that would have an impact on air quality for the adjacent houses is something like 9 metres high.

Q60            Fabian Hamilton: Do you mean the big plastic screens we sometimes see?

Nick Harris: They are metal, plastic or wood.

Q61            Fabian Hamilton: Don’t they just reflect the gas back on to the motorway or the road network itself?

Nick Harris: And then it is dispersed in another way. It disperses linearly rather than transversely. Nitrous oxide reduces quite rapidly over a relatively short distance. You may know that stretch of the A3; there are houses very close to it.

Q62            Fabian Hamilton: I will move on to this question. At the end of 2022 you published your first air quality annual evaluation report. When do you next expect to publish an air quality evaluation report?

Nick Harris: We are working with colleagues in DEFRA on the publication of our air quality data. Elliot, do you know when the next publication will be?

Elliot Shaw: I must admit, I don’t know the exact date for that publication.

Nick Harris: We will check that and let you know.

Q63            Fabian Hamilton: I think we would be interested in that. What indication has the data that you have collected so far, since the covid restrictions were lifted, given you of your progress towards improving air quality on the network?

Nick Harris: As you mentioned, we have had to wait for a period for traffic to return after covid so that we have a representative evaluation of performance. Generally, performance is improving. The stretches that were not in compliance are coming into compliance.

Q64            Fabian Hamilton: Improving at what rate? Is it 1%, 10%?

Nick Harris: Faster than that. They are now under the limits for nitrous oxide.

Q65            Fabian Hamilton: Thank you; that is very helpful. Let me move to another form of pollution, which is litter. In 2022-23, National Highways reported a decrease in performance against DEFRA’s litter code of practice. How do you account for that decline in performance, and what action have you taken since then, in 2023-24 which we are now in, to rectify that situation?

Nick Harris: I will talk in general about that, but I will bring Duncan in to talk about how we are managing that performance operationally. Elliot can talk, more importantly, about what we are doing to try to achieve societal behaviour change. It would be much better if we did not have the litter in the first place.

Q66            Fabian Hamilton: It is obviously not your fault that it is getting worse, but we expect you to make sure that you do everything you can to stop it.

Nick Harris: Yes. It is a dreadful social problem that can cause a safety issue if it blocks drainage. It affects nature, and we have to put people to work in what is a higher-risk environment.

Compliance with the Environment Act and the standard that we keep our roads to is very important. We pick litter but it returns. I am sure that money could be far better used on other things. We are looking at what we can do in terms of behaviour change, and how we can maintain our performance. I will turn to Duncan and he can explain how we are dealing with litter, first of all.

Duncan Smith: Every night of every day of the year I have teams picking litter on the strategic road network. As Nick says, we would far rather spend that money on other things, or indeed give it back to Government to spend on other priorities.

Q67            Fabian Hamilton: Can you give us an idea of what numbers of staff and workers are involved?

Duncan Smith: I will estimate.

Q68            Fabian Hamilton: Roughly.

Duncan Smith: It is in the hundreds every night. On the M25 we have two crews every night picking litter. As we talked about earlier, it is done in conjunction with other schemes so that they are not disrupting traffic. When we close the road or restrict lanes for other works, we do litter picking.

The assessment that you referred to is an annual spot survey of not just the presence of litter but the accumulation as well. Since the end of the covid restrictions, we see greater accumulations of litter at certain locations. As Nick described, the types of vehicles using the network have changed since the pandemic. We are seeing more light goods vehicles and more HGVs. Whether there is a direct relationship, or it is a causal relationship, we are seeing greater accumulations of litter in certain locations, particularly around junctions or near service stations. We are flexing our litter-picking approach to target those areas. I will hand over to Elliot. We would much rather that the litter wasn’t there in the first place or, when it is, that we take a firmer hand.

Elliot Shaw: In driving societal change, we have been focusing on communication campaigns around litter. Over the past year we have had our first social media campaign called “Let’s talk about litter”, which is trying to drive awareness of the issues that litter causes. In the next month or two, we will be launching our first multi-channel litter campaign, focusing on the impact that litter has on wildlife. Millions of animals are killed by litter around our network every year. We want to build awareness of that and make sure that people realise that the impact is not just unsightly but that it does direct harm to wildlife.

We take part in the Great British Spring Clean and publicise that. Beyond that, we are looking at things like signage and how different signage can potentially influence behaviour. We are trialling different heights of bins, particularly around service areas. As Duncan says, that is often where the issues are caused. There are lorry-height bins that people can throw their litter into.

We have had an AI trial over the past year. We have been using AI cameras on a stretch of road in Hertfordshire. We are looking at whether those cameras can automatically detect people dropping litter. It has proved quite successful and we are trying to move it on to a motorway to trial it, particularly in the junction areas, as Duncan said. Hopefully, over the next few months, we will be able to roll out that trial. If it is successful, we can look at how that technology could help in the future as well.

Q69            Fabian Hamilton: Have you looked at how other countries deal with this problem? It is not just restricted to the UK. Other countries, certainly in Europe, deal with it better. Switzerland, for example.

Elliot Shaw: There are a couple of elements. A big chunk is the societal issue and the social acceptability of dropping litter. That is definitely why we are trying to step into that space even more.

Q70            Fabian Hamilton: You are doing what used to be called nudging, which is pushing people in a certain direction.

Elliot Shaw: Absolutely.

Nick Harris: To add to that, we work with all road organisations across Europe on this. My wife is Japanese, and I spent part of Christmas and new year there. They just don’t drop litter, which would be fantastic.

Fabian Hamilton: We will see for ourselves, Chair. Thank you very much indeed, gentlemen.

Q71            Chair: In a second, I want to turn to smart motorways, but I have a quick supplementary on pollution issues. You have been trialling a number of reduced speed limits, in particular 60 mph. Can you give us a timeline as to when you will analyse their performance, in particular looking at where you might not need a blanket speed reduction but only at times of the day when there is a particular spike in pollution? Can you give us an update on that, please?

Nick Harris: We have been analysing the results of that, and we are continuing to analyse them because they have only been in place for a relatively short period. I would say two things. They are having some impact. I think the nudge issue is important. Elliot has been looking at that more closely.

Elliot Shaw: Yes, we have. There is analysis going on, and there is a bit more that needs to be done. We are waiting to make sure that we have evidence from a number of different sites and a number of different activities. We are also looking at the impact internationally. I think the plan is to be able to bring that together in the next four to six months and publish it.

Q72            Greg Smith: Good afternoon, gentlemen. I would like to ask a few questions about smart motorways. Off the back of the 2020 action plan there was a £900 million budget for safety improvements. How much of that has been spent? In particular, can you focus in your answers on the additional emergency areas that were part of that plan? It is my understanding that only 13 of a planned 150 are now a thing.

Nick Harris: I can’t answer exactly as to how much of the £900 million has been spent to date. I will come to Elliot in a moment on that. If not, we can provide it.

On progress against the plan, which is perhaps more important, within the plan there was the implementation of the stopped vehicle detection system on all stretches of smart motorway, which we have done. As you may have seen in the ORR report in December, that is operating and is achieving the specification that we set, or better. We have done many of the other things in the plan, such as additional signage and information campaigns.

Turning to the EA programme, our commitment there is to put in 150 or 151 before the end of this road period. I went to visit the site we have on the M6 between junctions 21 and 23 a week ago on Friday, because I am very interested in that question myself. We have only delivered 13 so far. Are we going to get them delivered by the end of the year? Having done a visit and met the alliance of contractors working on the programme, I am confident that we will deliver the 150 by the end of the road period.

There is a lot of planning required, for a number of reasons. We want to make sure that they are going into the most appropriate locations where they will add to safety. They need to be buildable. We need to understand the land and the services. We have to care about money, so we are trying to build them to the budget that we have. Planning is the way in which we get the right solution in the right place. To Duncan’s points earlier, we want to minimise the impact on everyone using our roads while we make these improvements.

Having seen all of that, we now know where we need to build them. Our planning is very advanced, and I am confident that we will hit the target in the timetable that we have committed to. I will turn to Elliot on the delivery.

Elliot Shaw: We would need to come back on the detailed numbers. Obviously, the other big thing is the technology upgrade and the amount that we are investing in that. I am happy to bring all of that together.

Q73            Greg Smith: It would be helpful if you could write with the detail after this session.

There have been a lot of reports, evaluation and data. Sometimes you learn doing scrutiny jobs, like a Select Committee, that the minute you introduce statistics you get two different answers. With smart motorways, we are still in that space. The third-year progress report basically said that there is no difference between conventional motorways and all-lane running motorways on safety grounds. We then found out, when you looked at the data tables and what was actually going on in terms of killed and serious injury rates, that all-lane running motorways were three times more dangerous than the conventional motorways with a hard shoulder. That is analysis that has been done externally; it is not my analysis. The Daily Mail was one newspaper that printed it.

When do you think that we are actually going to get to a point where we can have clarity on what is the safest form of motorway—let’s call it a fast-moving highway road—that the public can have confidence in? As you alluded to in your opening remarks on that, Mr Harris, there is a perception problem. You talked about the awareness campaigns. There is a perception problem around people not feeling confident on smart motorways and not necessarily knowing what to do in a breakdown. There are people who learnt to drive a long time ago before smart motorways were even conceived as an idea. When are we going to get to the point where we have robust data and statements like, “There’s no difference,” or, “They’re safer,” can be made with confidence?

Nick Harris: First of all, it is important to say that our motorways are some of the safest in the world. We are talking about a set of very safe roads by international comparison. I very much recognise that, in terms of public perception or concern, collisions involving stopped vehicles on all-lane running motorways without a hard shoulder remain a key concern for some drivers. That is why, of course, we have continued to work on improving safety and the additional work we are doing for the £900 million.

Overall, they are the safest in terms of KSIs. They are not three times less safe; they are safer. That is because the vast majority of accidents or incidents are moving-vehicle collisions. What has increased is relatively a very small risk involving stationary vehicles. Of course, the risk of collision between a moving vehicle and a stationary vehicle exists on all roads. In fact, there are far more on A-roads, and in numerical terms on conventional motorways, than there are on all-lane running smart motorways. That is where you are getting the rates.

In the third-year report we published all the data. We gave our analysis, which has been assured by the ORR, the DFT and ourselves, so there is an assured dataset to look at. Of course, that dataset relates to more than a year ago, which is prior to many of the improvements that we have made with the £900 million. We will continue to publish that data annually. In particular, concern around collision with a stopped vehicle is where we are addressing a lot of our focus. The challenge is perception and being safe. Statistically they are safe, but there is still a perception challenge.

Q74            Greg Smith: Could I come back on that, briefly? I understand the logic that you are following. However, an analysis of the very data that has been published is that “smart motorways without a hard shoulder are three times more lethal to break down on than those that retain”—a hard shoulder—and that “from 2017-21, there were 0.07 serious injuries or deaths per billion vehicle miles travelled after motorists broke down on ‘controlled’ smart motorways, which permanently retain the hard shoulder.” On all-lane running the data shows that that number goes up to 0.21 serious injuries or deaths per billion vehicle miles travelled.

I understand that there are a million ways that you can cut the data and do that analysis—

Nick Harris: What you are focusing on is a very small risk or occurrence that is higher.

Q75            Greg Smith: That is still real people dying on our roads.

Nick Harris: It doesn’t translate into absolute numbers. Every death is an absolute tragedy on any road. It is still a higher risk on other roads, but compared with conventional motorways, yes, that risk has gone up a bit.

Elliot Shaw: The number you have there is for stopped vehicle KSIs. Of all of the KSI incidents on smart motorways, 96% involved moving vehicles and 4% involved stopped vehicles. That data is for stopped vehicles, so the 4% of all incidents. That is where smart motorways can, overall, be safer in terms of killed and seriously injured. In that stopped vehicle 4%, that is the data, as you said.

Q76            Greg Smith: But for most people considering how they wish to plan their journey and whether they wish to take a smart motorway, go on A-roads or even back roads to get from A to B, even where you have that data, and cars are predominantly more reliable than they have ever been before, you still have tyre blow-outs and you still have things that force you to stop. The only reason I have ever stopped on a hard shoulder is for a tyre going and having to put the spare wheel on. That puts people in a very vulnerable position even on a hard shoulder. If they are in an all-lane running environment, and the data shows that it is statistically more dangerous to be stopped on a smart motorway changing a tyre, that is not going to help persuade people to use smart motorways, is it?

Nick Harris: I would say three things. Collisions between a moving vehicle and a stopped vehicle happen on all roads, and are actually more prevalent on A-roads. On all-lane running smart motorways, if you have a blow-out and you want to change your tyre we have emergency areas, which are vastly safer than the hard shoulder.

Q77            Greg Smith: But if you cannot get to one?

Nick Harris: That is why, of course, we are building the additional emergency areas. If it does happen, we now have the stopped vehicle detection system. Duncan’s team see something like 2,200 stopped vehicles a month. Because of the technology we have in place, we can do something about that and protect those stopped vehicles that we cannot do on other roads. You have to look at all of those features and what they deliver in the round.

Q78            Greg Smith: Notwithstanding the comment you made earlier about the amount of money you are putting into technology and stopped vehicle detection systems, it is accurate to say that in recent years it has not been entirely robust. It has not been functional 100% of the time and catching every single stopped vehicle. At what point will you be able to say that the technology works and that 100% of stopped vehicles every single day of the week will be picked up, and there will then be rapid action by deploying lane closure and red Xs, but equally getting a highways officer to the scene where appropriate to put in human intervention to help that motorist in distress?

Nick Harris: The stopped vehicle detection system that we have put in now performs at specification. I am going to bring in Duncan to talk about our response, which picks up some of your points.

It is very difficult to achieve 100% because of other traffic. There are reasons why that is not such an issue. Of course, spotting the 2,200 stopped vehicles gives our control rooms the ability to do much more than they can on conventional motorways. Duncan will talk about how we are responding and what our future plans are.

Duncan Smith: Thank you, Nick. First, motorways are hazardous places. I encourage anyone listening to this to get to an emergency area. In most breakdowns, the car is capable of limping the half-mile to the nearest emergency area. That would be my strong encouragement in that case. It is not safe to change a tyre on a live motorway. Get to an emergency area or a hard shoulder, if there is one.

To Nick’s point, the stopped vehicle detection is there. It is a great tool, but it is not the only way that we are aware of vehicles stopping. To widen it beyond smart motorways, we see stopped vehicles on conventional roads as well. The way that we are informed about that is by people in the vehicle themselves or in passing traffic ringing us. Police officers contact us. In fact, our own staff, our traffic officers, report them.

The beauty of a smart motorway is that, as soon as we are aware, we can identify those vehicles on our cameras. We can set the appropriate lane closures, as you described. As a result of our stocktake, we committed to this Committee to attending to those stopped vehicles within 10 minutes. I am pleased to say that we have now achieved that target every month for the last 13 months. It has now become business as usual for us to achieve that level of performance. Ten minutes is a long time, but if you are in those situations, the cameras will pick it up. Signs behind the vehicle will be automatically set to alert drivers who encounter it. Speed limits will be set automatically. There is a range of measures in place to protect those vehicles.

Q79            Greg Smith: That is reassuring. My final question on this, mindful of the time, is on what you said about most vehicles being able to limp on for half a mile. That is probably true of a mechanical breakdown when modern cars can go into limp mode. With a tyre going, yes, maybe on a big 4x4 with air suspension you probably can do that on three wheels, but if you are in a relatively low car that is running very low-profile tyres, even limping on half a mile is going to do massive damage to the rim and potentially the suspension. If it is very low, on a very high performance car, there may be floor damage. It is not a reality for everyone to limp on for half a mile, is it?

Duncan Smith: What I would say is that, irrespective of the damage that might be caused to your alloy wheels by limping that half-mile, it is the safest thing to do. That is what we encourage people to do, rather than stopping their vehicle in a live lane. That is true whether it is a smart motorway, a conventional motorway or an A-road. These are risky environments. Getting to a place of safety above damage to your vehicle is our advice.

Greg Smith: Thank you.

Chair: I am conscious of the time. We still have two or three areas we have questions on, so quick questions and answers if we may. I include myself in that instruction.

Q80            Fabian Hamilton: Do you have plans in the forthcoming road period for supporting the widespread provision of EV charging facilities on the strategic road network? I ask this with particular personal experience. My daughter lives in London and we live in Leeds. She has an electric Golf. Driving up the motorway took 10 hours because she couldn’t find a charging point. Leicester Forest East was broken. It is really problematic. What plans do you have to rectify it?

Nick Harris: I am trying to be brief. Encouraging the switch to electric vehicles is important in terms of decarbonisation, so we are very supportive of that. Elliot manages the rapid charging fund.

Elliot Shaw: We are working very closely with Government and the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles to support the provision of high-quality rapid charging across the network. In the short term, we are helping by rolling out some big battery packs, shipping container-sized battery packs. We are spending about £11 million rolling out nine installations of those across service areas. That should help them to ramp up their EV charging. We have plans for nine and I think we have installed four so far. We are hoping to get seven or eight by the end of the financial year.

Q81            Fabian Hamilton: What sort of locations are they installed in?

Elliot Shaw: I can come back to you. I think Tebay was one of the four that we have done, but I am happy to come back with the others. The more medium-term plan, as Nick said, is Project Rapid, the billion-pound fund that the Government have put aside to upgrade the grid connections to motorway service areas. What often prevents motorway service areas from upgrading and providing more chargers is grid capacity. We are the delivery body for that and we are working with OZEV on it. I am pleased to say that we launched the pilot for that in December. It is a £70 million pilot. We are going to work with probably five or 10 sites. They will go through the application process, which I think closes in February.

Q82            Fabian Hamilton: Timescale?

Elliot Shaw: The process for us actually allocating the money so that they can upgrade is probably going to take most of this year. We need to get to a negotiated position. They need to get plans and quotes from the DNOs. Then they will need to work with the DNOs actually to do the digging and the upgrade, so it will be a little bit of time after that. OZEV is consulting on the main fund at the moment. That is the pilot to test the process. Once that consultation has ended, it will provide clarity on the timescales for the main fund.

Q83            Greg Smith: I want to ask about facilities, particularly for HGV drivers on the strategic network. It comes up from industry time and time again. For transparency, in addition to this Committee I am chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on road haulage and logistics.

I accept that the private sector are the providers of the facilities. The Government have put in a not insignificant amount of money to support improving road facilities. What is National Highways doing to work with the Department and with the private sector, to make not just incremental changes to roadside facilities but a step change to ensure that we have the facilities that our HGV drivers deserve?

Nick Harris: I think the Government, or the Department, have put in £32.5 million. We are putting in £20 million. Elliot can touch on that, and on what we are looking at on it for RIS3.

Elliot Shaw: As you say, we don’t have a formal role, but we are very keen to see better facilities, from both a customer perspective and a safety perspective. We want good facilities for drivers to rest. Alongside the DFT’s fund, we set up a £20 million fund to improve freight facilities. That gets match-funded from the actual facility operator. It should leverage at least twice that in value of improvements. We have received applications for about 130 sites and have approved improvements at over 100. A truck stop in York was the first one before Christmas, where we upgraded a lot of their shower and washing facilities. We expect to roll that out over the next couple of years.

More widely, we are working closely with both Government and the likes of Logistics UK and the RHA on the planning and needs analysis. We have looked at where we think there are gaps on the network in terms of facilities. We try to work to support local authorities in approving facilities. We have looked at our own land as well. We have looked at bits of our network that could potentially be converted into truck stops. More broadly, we are working very closely with the likes of the RHA. To be honest, we have a freight forum which I chair and which brings together the RHA and Logistics UK, as well as some of the big freight operators, to look at the range of issues and how we can provide a better service. That could be facilities, but also information. There is a range of ways in which we are trying to improve the facilities.

Greg Smith: Thank you. Please carry on.

Chair: Thank you very much. I wanted to ask some questions with regard to a current inquiry that we are doing on the use of data and AI. We have touched on a number of areas, but in the interests of time and to do the subject justice we will write to you with questions on that to help inform what role you envisage for it in improving the efficiency of your programmes. I fear the clock is against us, and we still have to hear from the Minister.

I conclude this panel by thanking the three of you for your time this morning. It has been very helpful. We look forward to receiving the further information that you have undertaken to provide. For now, thank you very much.