High Speed Rail (Crewe - Manchester) Bill (Instruction) (No. 3)

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

We have committed to delivering a faster route between Leeds and Bradford that will bring the journey time down to 13 minutes; that commitment is there. Look, it comes down to choices, and we have been quite clear with our choice, which is to repurpose the moneys from HS2. I believe that Labour’s position is to do likewise, because the Leader of the Opposition went to Manchester and made the same point that the line would not be recommitted. The key point is this: is the Labour party committed to repurposing for those Bradford projects? I am sure that we will hear from its Front Bench spokesperson.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Huw Merriman]

I will not give way again; I will finish so that others can speak.

We will be upgrading the connections between Manchester and Sheffield, between Leeds and Sheffield, between Leeds and Hull, and between Hull and Sheffield. We will reopen several of the lines closed more than 60 years ago by Dr Beeching, reconnecting areas such as County Durham, Burton, Stocksbridge and Waverley. We will halve the time that it takes to travel between Nottingham and Leeds by upgrading the track between Newark and Nottingham. We will increase our investment in the midlands rail hub to £1.75 billion, better connecting more than 50 stations, and we will improve journey times from north Wales to England, bringing parts of north Wales within an hour of Manchester by electrifying the north Wales main line. Network North is vital to our plans to level up the economy. It will connect labour markets across the north, expanding where people can work and where companies can recruit from. It will make it easier to deliver goods to markets and shorten supply chains in regions, growing the local economy. Instead of dragging investment towards London, we will contribute towards growth everywhere in the country.

As I said, although the motion is technical, this is still an exciting day for the north. We are taking a step towards providing the kind of infrastructure that people really want, connecting the great cities of Manchester and Liverpool, and making it easier to move around, work and invest in the region. I commend the motion to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the debate so we can reflect on the importance of high-speed rail, the Northern Powerhouse Rail project, and connecting our towns and cities.

When we talk about connectivity, we always talk about the great powerhouses that are our cities, but our towns matter too. In many cases, towns have been the first to see cuts and the last to see investment. We need to use this opportunity to talk about our communities in the round. Generations to come will look back at this period in our history with regret at a missed opportunity to invest in the future of our country. When previous generations planned the infrastructure we see today, and in many ways take for granted, whether that is the canal, railway or motorway network that we enjoy, people had foresight. They planned well ahead, understood that in order to create a connected country they had to plan for a connected country, and took decisions for future generations, not only the current one. In that spirit, the cancellation of HS2 from the midlands to the north is a matter of serious regret.

The proposals have been pitched to say, “Well, the north of England can now have Northern Powerhouse Rail. Isn’t that good news?” Of course the £12 million investment connecting Manchester and Liverpool is welcome, but London did not have to choose between HS2 and the Elizabeth line, which cost £19 billion. If London does not have to choose, why on earth should the north of England have to choose on the same basis? Again, it is because the north of England has been shortchanged when it comes to investment.

Local leaders and Mayors across the midlands and the north have been working hard to try to rescue this decision and make some sense of what it can mean for future investment. We owe a significant debt of gratitude to our great council leaders, our Mayors and our transport authorities—particularly the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, Transport for the North and the local transport bodies—for the work they have done.

None the less, there are serious questions about the proposal on the table. Why do the Government seem to want to close the door completely on the idea that a midlands to Manchester link of HS2, funded by private finance, might be an option in the future? If the Government do not want to fund it today, why close the door for a funding model tomorrow?

Why has Manchester Piccadilly been told that it cannot have tunnelling that would take the platforms underground instead of overground, when the whole of the south of England is more or less tunnelled from the centre of London outwards? Why is a tunnel good enough for a field in the south of England, but not for one of our major cities in the north of England?

Manchester Airport station is a significant hub not just for Greater Manchester, but for the whole of the north of England, so why is Greater Manchester and its taxpayers being asked to make a local contribution to that scheme, when it is essentially a national project?

Why not use this as an opportunity to look at transport in the round? Heavy rail is important, and all the benefits of HS2 were well-rehearsed: they were about capacity, passenger transport, taking freight off the congested motorways, increased frequency and reducing costs. The whole project was also an opportunity to look at transport in the round—multi-modal transport, including bus, trams, trains and other airports. Why not use this as an opportunity to look beyond the cities to our towns? It is a significant frustration in Greater Manchester that most of our transport relies on the centre of Manchester to go in and out, because the cross-borough connectivity is so poor. Why not use this as an opportunity to bring forward plans to have an orbital tram for Greater Manchester—for the north-east of the conurbation—connecting the Bury line to Middleton and on to Chadderton and Oldham and through to the Ashton line, which, under these plans, faces a two-year closure during engineering works at Manchester Piccadilly. Why not use this as an opportunity for that?

Why not use this scheme as an opportunity to reinvigorate plans for reopening some of the lines closed by Beeching? It would be fantastic to reopen the Middleton Junction station on the Rochdale to Manchester Victoria line, serving new communities that have been rebuilt around the Foxdenton Lane area in Chadderton. Why not use it as an opportunity to have a joined-up transport system? FirstGroup, through the Lumo brand, has suggested a potential 2027 connection from Rochdale to London Euston. It will pass through Mills Hill in Chadderton and Moston, which serves Chadderton, without stopping to say hello. Why not look at that in the round and say that, since the light rail system was introduced in Oldham, there is no longer a heavy rail station for Oldham town centre. The nearest that we have is Mills Hill, so why not have that national connectivity at Mills Hill, joining up to Victoria and on to London Euston?

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman is making an incredibly powerful argument, but he is also making an argument as to why this should be a wider discussion; it should not just be shunted upstairs. Does he agree that we need to open up this debate so that we can have bespoke, clear legislation to make this happen?

[Jim McMahon]

The problem is that there was no debate or legislation when the Prime Minister woke up one morning and decided to cancel HS2; it was done on a whim. All those manifesto commitments, all those promises to the business community and to the public that we would see this through, because we had a generational responsibility to plan for the future, were scrapped overnight. I have no faith that any further parliamentary process will ultimately deliver better transport in the north of England. In the end, it will be used by people who have another interest, which is to stop it entirely.

[Jack Brereton]

If we had a Labour Government—I hope that we will not—does the hon. Gentleman think that they would bring phase 2 back?

[Jim McMahon]

In the end, it would be for the Labour Government to assess what they inherit at that point, but does that not make the case for not having a scorched-earth policy of completely derailing what could have been HS2 by selling off the lands and the assets that were purchased to free up that route in the way this Government are currently proposing?

[James Grundy (Leigh) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon]

I will, although I am conscious of time, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[James Grundy]

The hon. Gentleman calls it a scorched-earth policy. I declare my interest as somebody whose family farm is affected by the proposed route of HS2 phase 2b, but ultimately people such my own family and the community I live in have been suffering for over a decade with uncertainty about whether the project would go ahead. He calls it scorched earth, but is it not only fair that people get their life back after having that uncertainty for so long?

[Jim McMahon]

Any functioning Government should be able to balance the need to involve local people in decisions that affect their day-to-day lives, providing certainty about the future and being able to get vital infrastructure investments for the country off the ground. It should not be a trade-off between one or the other, where people’s livelihoods and lives are left in the air for years and years, only for the project to be taken away. In the end, nobody wins, do they? People cannot get the time back that they wasted being stressed about the impact because they were not properly consulted and engaged, only to have it scrapped overnight—and for what? It is about involving people in the right time in the right decisions, so that they have agency in the process.

I will bring my remarks to a conclusion with this: if London did not have to choose between its sub-regional investment and its national investment, why on earth should the north of England?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

In order to get the last two speakers in, I need to put on a time limit of six minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Grahame Morris]

As well as having served on the hybrid Bill Committee, I serve on the Transport Committee, and part of that Committee’s duties is to scrutinise HS2 and hold the Rail Minister, who is responsible for the delivery of HS2, to account. Certainly, concerns were expressed to the Transport Committee that statutory undertakings and assurances were not honoured—at least not in the form in which they were presented to the Committee.

[Jim McMahon]

Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Grahame Morris]

I will give way one more time, very briefly.

[Jim McMahon]

This was only separated out because, as in this debate, some tried to make out that residents were opposed to the project overall. However, my hon. Friend must have seen in the hybrid Bill Committee process that quite a lot of the opposition was about the operational performance of HS2 Ltd and the considerations for local people in construction traffic, delays and the rest of it, which probably could have been done much better.

[Grahame Morris]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that perfectly reasonable point. Indeed, it is certainly true of requests for variations to traffic in locations of construction sites and so forth. However, I only have a couple of minutes, so I do not want to be tempted on to the wrong track, as it were, and will just share a couple of thoughts.

I am a bit of a buff. I might be an anti-node, but I am familiar with the locations on the route.

This afternoon, those of us on the Transport Committee have been involved in the pre-legislative scrutiny of the rail reform Bill, and have been listening to representations from representatives of the Welsh Government and the sub-national transport bodies. They were commenting on the new structure and the new draft Bill, and there is general recognition—not just from Transport for the North in my region; we had witnesses from Midlands Connect and Transport East, as well as the Welsh Government—that there is a major transport infrastructure issue. For many decades, we have concentrated on north-south connectivity—principally on connectivity with the capital city. We have done that for sound economic reasons, but the case for east-west connections is supported vociferously by the metro Mayors of Manchester, Liverpool and West Yorkshire, and there are sound economic and connectivity arguments for addressing the need for those connections.

This mechanism is far from perfect. As a separate matter, the House should look at whether the pre-legislative scrutiny process can be truncated in some way to speed it up, but we must give petitioners—Members of Parliament, individuals and businesses—the opportunity to raise their concerns. Imperfect though the mechanism may be, and imperfect though I may be in advocating for it, it does have its merits when it comes to scrutinising major infrastructure schemes such as this one, so I will support today’s motion.

Transport for the North

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

My hon. Friend, a former rail Minister himself, makes an important point. We must ensure there is clear accountability to Ministers for delivery of these projects, in the same way that there is already clear accountability for projects being delivered through the rail network enhancement pipeline and other schemes across the country. I completely endorse what he says. Transport for the North will remain an important partner for us to work with, and we look forward to receiving further advice from it, but the delivery model is best done with the Department for Transport as the sole client.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

How dare the Minister stand there and talk down my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) for her question? She knows exactly what this means for people in Hull and for people in the north of England. The funding that was promised has not been delivered. The powers that were promised to the north of England, so that our metro Mayors, our council leaders and people in the north would finally get control, are being snatched away by this centralising Government, and we know exactly what it means—so let us have no patronising from the Government Front Bench on that.

We all know exactly what this is. We have seen it with the Electoral Commission: when it comes up with an answer the Government do not like, it is attacked. When parliamentary standards bodies come up with an answer the Government do not like, they are attacked. When Transport for the North comes up with a plan the Government do not agree to, it is to all intents and purposes scrapped.

I begin by asking the Minister to point now to where the money will come from and where the plans will be developed for new transport projects, bearing in mind that the integrated rail plan is a plan for 29 years. If no new schemes come forward in that period, residents in Hull will see very little investment. What are the practical implications for the staff? How many people who currently work for Transport for the North will be TUPE-ed across to the new organisation?

We know this is a Whitehall power grab, and we also know what it will mean in practice: no new projects, just more smoke and mirrors. Last week, the Transport Secretary said he was spending £96 billion in the north. That is not true. It is around half of that coming to the north of England, and that is over 29 years. What does that mean in practice? It is actually £100 per person a year, when the transport spending gap between the north and London is £400 per person a year. That is not levelling up. To be clear, we are not demanding that London gets levelled down. We are asking for the same.

We want to know that this is not a centralising power grab, because, if it is, we will not stand for it. What will the Minister do now, while he has a final chance to put the record straight, to convince us that this is not about robbing people in the north of the investment they deserve or a centralising Whitehall ministerial power grab, and finally to promise that the 29-year plan will not be the last word on transport investment in the north of England? If it is, the Government will have failed again.

[Andrew Stephenson]

Dear oh dear. It is clear once again from what the shadow Secretary of State has said that Labour want to stick to the outdated plans that would give the east midlands and the north nothing for 10 years. Our plan delivers the same, similar or better journey times to almost everywhere, with eight of the top 10 busiest rail corridors in the north and midlands benefiting, and it starts delivering those improvements 10 years sooner.

Labour wants to focus solely on the biggest cities in the north, ignoring smaller towns and communities that link them. Under the original plans, which Labour is so determined to stick to, places on the existing line such as Doncaster, Huddersfield, Wakefield and Leicester would have seen little improvement to, or even a worsening of, their services. Our plan means that those great northern places will receive the infrastructure projects they need to link them up with local, regional and national services that run alongside them.

In Government, Labour failed to upgrade our railways. Our infrastructure tumbled down the world rankings. On top of that, the Leader of the Opposition cannot even decide whether he supports HS2. Labour does not have a plan to deliver for the midlands and the north; we do.

Integrated Rail Plan: North and Midlands

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. We will be going out shortly to collect the plan and scrutinise it. I am frankly staggered by how this statement started, with the Secretary of State saying he was “proud” to present it to the House—proud of what? Is he proud of the betrayal of trust, the betrayal of promises and the betrayal of the investment that the north of England and the midlands deserve?

We have all seen the reports over the weekend, each one setting out the betrayal being put forward today. There is no amount of gloss or spin that can be put on it. The Secretary of State promised HS2 to Leeds. He promised Northern Powerhouse Rail. He promised that the north would not be forgotten, but he has not just forgotten us; he has completely sold us out.

As someone who lives in Greater Manchester, I am not going to take lectures on what Northern Powerhouse Rail means. We know exactly what it means. We were committing to a new line connecting Manchester and Leeds, and within a month of becoming Prime Minister, Boris Johnson said:

“I am going to deliver on my commitment with a pledge to fund the Leeds to Manchester route.”

We were promised a new line. He has broken that promise, and he has not even got the decency to admit it.

Let us be clear: the scaling back of Northern Powerhouse Rail, coupled with the scrapping of the eastern leg of HS2, is a massive blow for our regions. The schemes would have created 150,000 new jobs, connecting 13 million people in our major towns and cities in our industrial heartlands. The then-Chancellor George Osborne first announced plans for Northern Powerhouse Rail in 2014. Since then, the Conservatives, including the Prime Minister and the Transport Secretary, have recommitted and re-promised 60 times.

This is a once-in-a-generation chance to transform opportunity across the whole country, to rebalance the economy and make it work for working people, but that opportunity now looks set to be lost. They are the very same working people who will likely face a record increase when rail fares go up next year. They will be paying 50% more to get to work than they did a decade ago, relying on a crumbling, unreliable and overcrowded system that prioritises profit above passengers. It is the same with buses, with fares up 70%, use down and not a single one of the 4,000 zero-emission buses promised by the Prime Minister three years ago having been delivered.

What is on offer? Some £96 billion that we should be grateful for, but let us unpack that £96 billion, £40 billion of which has already been committed from London to Crewe, but is being labelled as investment across the north of England. Of the £56 billion that remains, if we compare that with what the north of England would have got over the past decade had it had the same investment as London and the south-east, we are still £10 billion short. We are not going to accept crumbs off the table.

Labour would reform our transport networks so that they work for working people, with investment spread more evenly across the country so that parents are not forced to see their children leave the places where they were raised to find opportunity that is denied on their doorstep. Most importantly, Labour would put working people first, using the power of Government and the skill of business to ensure good-quality jobs are created here and in every single region of Britain.

The Prime Minister was elected on a promise to level the playing field and make things better for households across the country. We were promised a northern powerhouse. We were promised a midlands engine. We were promised that we would be levelled up, but what we have been given today is the great train robbery—robbing the north of its chance to realise its full potential, robbing the next generation of the hope and opportunity they are due and robbing 15 million people across the north of the investment they have been denied for 11 years under this rotten Government.

[Grant Shapps]

I just want to make sure I understand the hon. Gentleman’s approach—his lines, as it were. This is £96 billion of expenditure, the single biggest investment ever. We have made no secret of the fact that some of that money is already the Birmingham to Crewe line, the Crewe to Manchester line; last time I checked, that benefits the midlands and north, does it not? That does help.

I realise the hon. Gentleman either wrote his response before hearing what was in the statement, or decided to ignore it, because this is a brand-new high-speed line—I just want to check the geography—from Warrington to Manchester to Marsden in the west of Yorkshire. To judge by his response, he does not think that exists.

What confuses me the most overall is that the Leader of the Opposition seems to be in a completely separate place. He said:

“I oppose HS2 on cost and on merit: it will not achieve its stated objectives.”—[Official Report, 15 September 2015; Vol. 599, c. 1006.]

So he opposes HS2. For transparency, he said that in 2015. What has he said more recently?

“The government should take this opportunity to cancel HS2”.

That is the Leader of the Opposition speaking. Before the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) gets carried away, why does he not have a word with the leader of his party and work out whether they agree on his position?

This is an enormous investment. It will create three new high-speed lines. It electrifies track; just today, nearly 400 miles of track electrification was announced within these programmes. What a contrast with the 63 miles of track the Labour Government managed to electrify in 13 years in office.

I will finish by talking about the importance of the overall transport approach. This is not just about rail, as the hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, but about other means of getting around. We cannot get around without a roads programme, and we have a £20 billion-plus road building programme. Labour opposes it. They do not want to build any roads, so I am not sure where he wants to run those buses he keeps talking about.

I have already written to the hon. Gentleman, and I think I am right in saying I sent the letter to the Library of the House, because he will continue to go around saying that of these 4,000 buses, none are on the road. That is factually untrue. I have written to him with the detail: 900 of those buses are ordered, many of them already on the road. I know it is the Opposition’s job to oppose, but if he is already opposing his own leader, no wonder they do not have a cohesive transport policy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

You will not be surprised, Mr Speaker, to hear me say that my hon. Friend is absolutely on the nail. She has listed a litany of problems that the Mayor has created; I shall add to it. She did not mention the 31% increase in council tax for her constituents through the mayoral precept. Also, the Mayor is now considering bringing in checkpoints for anybody driving into London: it would cost £1,000 a year for non-Londoners at checkpoint Chigwell and elsewhere around the capital. It is completely unacceptable and we will fight it all the way.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I begin by sending my thoughts and prayers to those injured in Sunday’s train crash, particularly the badly injured train driver, and, of course, I pay tribute to the emergency responders.

The British people are looking for leadership on climate change. The Budget was the clearest indication yet that the Government lack ambition, urgency and commitment after a wearying 11 years in power. The Government saw cuts to domestic aviation taxes, yet baked in inflation-busting rail fare increases and did nothing to reverse the rapid decline in bus use. Of the 4,000 new zero-carbon buses promised by the Prime Minister two years ago, not a single one is yet on the road. The roll-out of electric charging points is sluggish, and, today, there are 1 million more diesel vans on the road than when the Government came to power. So, next week, when Transport Day meets at COP26, what will change?

[Grant Shapps]

I note that the hon. Gentleman is not listening to the Committee on Climate Change. I will not repeat its quote, but it did say that the transport sector and our plans are particularly world leading. We have actually reduced greenhouse gas by a quarter since we came to power. We are the first country in the world, as he well knows, to legislate for net zero by 2050. In the Budget, we announced another £620 million for that transition to zero-emission vehicles and £180 million for sustainable aviation fuel. The plan that Labour is proposing—and I notice that the GMB union that supports it is proposing—is to stop people from flying, or to allow them to go on holiday only once every five years, and to prevent them from using their cars.[Official Report, 16 November 2021, Vol. 703, c. 4MC.]

[Jim McMahon]

With respect, our position on aviation and decarbonisation is absolutely clear. I want to stop the Transport Secretary not from flying, but perhaps from flying his own private plane.

Turning to smart motorways, it has been 10 months since I asked the Secretary of State to reinstate the hard shoulder immediately. No action followed. Instead, he ploughed ahead on smart motorway roll-out. Since then, whistleblowers have come forward confirming our worst fears: broken equipment; a lack of monitoring; and, ultimately, lives being placed at risk. This failure has had a devastating impact on people’s lives. Now that the Transport Committee has published its damning report and the families of those who lost loved ones on smart motorways were forced into Parliament Square this week to protest, will he do the right thing and immediately insist that the hard shoulder is reinstated today?

[Grant Shapps]

We all share the passion and desire to make sure that our roads are as safe as they can possibly be. Sadly, 1,700 people die a year on our roads. It is important that we do everything possible. The Transport Committee that the hon. Gentleman quotes did not say quite what he said. It actually said:

“The evidence suggests that doing so”—

in other words simply putting the hard shoulder back in—

“could put more drivers and passengers at risk of death and serious injury.”

It was the noble Lord Prescott who started to introduce smart motorways. As far as I am aware, I am the first Secretary of State—there have been 12 since—who has been working consistently with an 18-point plan and £500 million to get them sorted out.

International Travel

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Monday 20th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate you, Mr Speaker, on putting the historic county of Lancashire, and particularly Chorley, on the international map over the past week.

I thank the Transport Secretary for advance sight of his statement. Following the Government reshuffle, I look forward to continuing to work with him as he stays in post.

Labour called for this simplified international travel system back in May, but even after this announcement, no one should believe that the travel industry is back to normal, or that our borders are any safer from new variants coming into the country. Although we support scrapping the confused traffic-light system, we still have not seen the country-by-country assessment that would give us confidence that the decision to allow travel is based on sound science and not politics. It is disappointing, after making repeated representations at this Dispatch Box, that the Government have still only published assessments relating to 15 countries. Will the Secretary of State now finally publish the full list of every country, including a clear direction of travel, rather than just those that are changing from one category to another?

The requirement to carry out pre-testing and testing on arrival to the UK for Brits returning has put a heavy financial burden on families, with the UK overseeing the most expensive testing regime in the whole of Europe. Over the summer it was estimated that tests had cost British travellers £1.1 billion. Yet about 300,000 people did not adhere to the quarantine rules, and only a fraction of those coming from green and amber list countries were actually checked on arrival, as border staff were clearly overwhelmed. We have a serious concern that of the 11,000 positive cases tested over the summer of international travellers returning, just 3,000 were sent for genomic sequencing, leaving us potentially open to new variants. Can the Transport Secretary confirm, as his statement seems to indicate, that now all positive PCR tests will be sent for that testing for new variants?

In addition, it appears that from the end of October travellers will have to pay for a lateral flow test when returning to the UK. How will that work in practice? How much will travellers be expected to pay for those tests, and, importantly, will they be in place for the October half term?

We have long called on the Government to work with international partners to introduce an international vaccine passport. Although we hear reports that progress is being made, as we have heard today too, the truth is that it has been very slow in coming and many plans still have not come to fruition. Can I ask why it has taken so long to make the progress set out so far?

Importantly, when Eurostar and the aviation and tourism sector needed financial support from Government, the promised sectoral deal never came. There was a stand-out omission from the statement: it beggars belief that there was no mention whatever for the 81,000 workers on furlough. They face a cliff edge in just 10 days’ time, but there was not a single mention of them in the statement. In the absence of a clear plan, clear communication and sustained industry support, jobs have been lost that could well have been saved. We now hear that the next review will not take place until the new year. Some of those people will be lucky if they have a job at the end of October. What will the Secretary of State do to ensure that those jobs are safeguarded and that we give those workers the respect and dignity they deserve?

[Grant Shapps]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but I was somewhat surprised not to hear him refer to the stand-out announcement in my statement, which is that the world’s busiest, most profitable and most important airline route—the transatlantic route—is about to be reopened. I would have thought he would welcome that from the Front Bench.

It is hard to know exactly what the Opposition think on this subject. Last year, they backed our self-isolation measures. By last summer, the hon. Gentleman was calling for quarantine to be lessened. Come February, they changed their mind again and wanted every single traveller to go into hotel quarantine. By March, they were back saying that it should be done on a case-by-case basis. Fast-forward to May, and the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), called for a complete pause on international travel—I am curious how that would help the aviation sector restart—only to be contradicted a month later by the hon. Gentleman, saying that more countries should go on to the green list. In June, he called for the amber list to be scrapped, and by August he was back to saying that there should be no loosening of international travel whatever. What he seems to be saying is basically what a stopped clock says. It is right at least twice a day—in his case, at least twice a year—but I am not clear how his approach would help in any way, shape or form.

The hon. Gentleman asked about Joint Biosecurity Centre assessments. They will be published in the normal way for the additional countries. He asked about the cost of testing. I thought he was calling for PCR tests for everyone—at least, he was at one of those points in the past year and a half. The cost of a lateral flow test will obviously be much less and provided by the private sector, with the PCR provided by the NHS.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the vaccine passport. Again, I reiterate that there are 50 countries where we will recognise their vaccination progress. I described in my statement how we are introducing a system so that we can onboard and add other countries who meet our level of requirements. As I say, the most important country of all in terms of international aviation, the USA, has confirmed today that we will be added to the vaccine passport approach as well. We are making progress. If we had listened to the Labour party—I do not know, perhaps we would have closed down the whole of aviation by now.

HGV Driver Shortages

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the Government’s plans to address heavy goods vehicle driver shortages.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)]

I welcome this opportunity to update the House on the actions that my Department and others have been taking to address the shortage in HGV drivers. This is, of course, a global issue, with our supply chains adjusting to the impact of the pandemic and working incredibly hard to make sure that consumers get whatever they need. We have been working with the industry for many months, unlocking testing capacity so that UK workers can join the driving sector.

My Department has already increased the number of vocational driving tests from 2,000 a week pre-pandemic to 3,000 a week—that is a 50% increase—and last Friday I announced to Parliament additional measures that will significantly increase the number of HGV driving tests, by up to 50,000 per year. First, we will eliminate the need for some car drivers who want to tow a trailer to take an additional test. Some 16 million drivers who took their test before 1997 already have that right, and we are going to allow everybody to enjoy the same privilege of the licence, allowing around 30,000 more HGV tests every single year.

Secondly, tests will be made more efficient by the removal of the reversing exercise element and, for vehicles with trailers, the uncoupling and recoupling exercise. That test will be carried out separately by a third party, so it will still be done.

Thirdly, we are making it quicker to get a licence to drive an articulated vehicle without first having to get a licence for a smaller vehicle. That will make around 20,000 more HGV tests available every year and mean that drivers can gain their licence and enter the industry more quickly, without the removal of any testing. I have instructed the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to prioritise the processing of licence applications, and we are supporting the industry to get UK workers into training.

This is not the only action that we have taken. Over recent months, we have made apprenticeships in the sector much more generous; offered incentive payments to employers to take on apprenticeships in the sector; worked with Jobcentre Plus with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to direct more people towards this brilliant career; and provided funding of £1 million for the Roads to Logistics scheme, encouraging ex-military leavers, ex-offenders and the long-term unemployed to move into jobs in this sector. This is not just a transport problem or effort, but ultimately many of the solutions will come from standing challenges, which the industry itself will want to take on.

This Government welcome the prospect of better remunerated drivers, with better conditions and a more diverse HGV workforce.

[Jim McMahon]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question.

We have heard the words, but they offer far too little far too late. We have all seen constant examples of businesses impacted by supply change disruption from McDonald’s to Nando’s and Wetherspoons. We have all seen supermarket shelves empty, and now the delivery of vital medical supplies is being affected. We have already seen the number of people wanting to do their HGV driving test literally fall off a cliff, with only 9,000 being completed in 2019. That was before Brexit and it was well before covid. Industry has been warning of this crisis for years, but the Secretary of State has been asleep at the wheel. Just months ago, one of his own Ministers accused the road haulage industry of crying wolf over shortages despite the evidence that the crisis was getting bigger and bigger and that it was grinding our economy to a halt.

Last week, I challenged the Transport Secretary to lay out his plan. Not only did it fall short, but it contained some worrying news. One of the measures would see the reversing element of the assessment removed completely, despite the Health and Safety Executive reporting that 25% of all deaths involving a vehicle are the result of a reversing strike. Was he aware of that? If he was, what assessment has been made of the increased risk made by lowering standards even further?

We urgently need to see Ministers bring forward a road freight recovery plan, bringing together all interested parties, with training providers, examiners, businesses, industry bodies and trade unions all working behind a single plan. Will the Secretary of State do so and finally get a grip before it is too late?

[Grant Shapps]

Once again, I must stress to the hon. Gentleman that this is a global problem. The chief executive of eastern Europe’s largest hauliers, Waberer’s, said:

“It is a global driver shortage across Europe, not an isolated problem of one country”.

He points out that the shortages are in Romania, Poland, Germany and many other countries. It is not just a European problem, but a global one. In the words not of a UK haulier, but of the chief executive of US Xpress, telling of the problems in the American trucking market:

“The driver situation is about as bad as I’ve seen in my career.”

This is a global problem that we will try to resolve.

The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood one of the three key measures that we introduced on Friday, so I am grateful to him for giving me the opportunity to set it out. The reversing manoeuvre that he refers to is not being removed from testing; it is the testing that is being handed to the training organisation rather than having the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency carry it out. That was widely supported. In the 9,000 consultation responses, it was one of the most strongly supported moves and measures, and it makes a lot of sense.

I have not heard the hon. Gentleman tell us what he thinks the solution is. All I hear from him is that we need to undercut British workers by expanding visa system and letting more people in. He may be right that we have to look at all different options, but I have to say to him, given that he is chair of the Labour and Co-operative parliamentary party, that it is a shame that his solution seems to be to undercut British workers by keeping their wages low.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I absolutely join my hon. Friend in that. This sector literally works day and night to provide goods, medicines and vital services around the country, for which we are hugely grateful. It has done that throughout the pandemic in very difficult circumstances. We on the Government side are pleased to see salaries for haulage drivers going up. If they are paid 20% more, or something like that, that would be good for British workers, and I thoroughly support it.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

This has been a summer where Ministers have shown an abject failure of duty, whether on the exam fiasco, Afghanistan or the HGV driver shortage. We have seen high-profile examples of businesses impacted by supply-chain disruption and suppliers with stock that they could not get out the door, yet Ministers seem to do nothing. Will the Government finally accept that when it comes to a crisis such as this, it is their job to solve it, not just to sit on the sidelines and hope that it all works out? If they do accept that, what action is the Secretary of State taking to bring forward a road freight recovery plan to tackle head on the long-standing warnings of truck driver shortages that have been compounded by Brexit and covid?

[Grant Shapps]

First, we have introduced a temporary relaxation on drivers’ hours. Secondly, we have introduced £7,000 funding for the large goods vehicle driver apprenticeship programme. Thirdly, there is an additional incentive payment of £3,000 and, as I mentioned, we have been working hard to free up space at the Driver and Vehicle Standards Authority—the testing authority—so we are now testing 50% more drivers than we did before the pandemic. Yes, we have been acting, but we are going to go further. I mentioned removing the need for car drivers to take additional tests for a trailer—a move we can make only because we are outside the EU—removing the requirement for staged licence acquisition to obtain a lorry licence and authorising third parties to assess off-road manoeuvring for the lorry practical test.

[Jim McMahon]

If that is the best the Government have got, I am afraid that the crisis will not be sorted. They talk about solutions and interventions, but the long-term problems in the haulage industry will not be resolved by those measures outlined, such as making drivers work longer hours. It is only by training more that we can help to fill the long-reported 90,000 vacancies.

This problem has been a long time coming. The Secretary of State will know that well before covid, and a year before Brexit, 24,000 would-be truck drivers passed their theory test, but only 9,000 went on to complete their practical test, and yet even with that knowledge and the industry pleading for intervention, nothing has been done. This is a live crisis that is only getting worse. Without real action, he will be left standing alone as the Transport Secretary who stole Christmas, leaving shelves empty, gifts absent from under the tree and restaurants and bars without the stock they need to trade. Will he immediately take action and set up a taskforce to resolve this crisis once and for all?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I say to Front Benchers that these are meant to be questions—statements come at a different time—and, please, we have to shorten them. Those on each side complain to me afterwards that they have not got in, so let us help the rest of the Members of this Parliament.

International Travel Rules

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

(Urgent question): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make a statement on changes to international travel rules.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Robert Courts)]

After a hugely challenging 16 months for the aviation industry, I am delighted that new rules allowing fully vaccinated people to travel to nearly all amber list countries, without isolating upon return, came into effect this morning, although people will still need to comply with necessary testing requirements. This coincides with a change in our advice, meaning that the do-not-travel rules for amber countries have now been relaxed, which will be a huge boost to our aviation and travel sectors ahead of the vital summer season.

Also from today, children under the age of 18 will not have to self-isolate when returning to England, making family reunions and holidays far more accessible. Children aged four and under will continue to be exempt from any travel testing, while children aged five to 10 will only need to do a day two PCR. Eleven to 18-year-olds will need to take both a pre-departure test and a day two PCR, as is the case for arrivals from green list countries.

I must reiterate that public health remains our priority, and with our measures on international travel we are safeguarding the gains made by our successful domestic vaccine programme. That is why, on Friday, the Government took the decision to exempt France from the new arrangements for fully vaccinated people returning to England. This decision was taken after concerns were raised by the Joint Biosecurity Centre over the persistent presence of cases in France of the beta variant, which was first identified in South Africa. I understand that the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), will be able to answer questions on the data and the concerns raised by the JBC in a statement shortly.

I can also confirm to the House that, since 4 am this morning, there have been changes to the countries in the traffic-light system. Bulgaria, Croatia, Hong Kong and Taiwan have been added to the Government’s green list; Croatia and Taiwan have also been added to the green watchlist, signalling to passengers that these countries are potentially at risk of moving from green to amber at short notice should swift action be required to protect public health in England.

The Balearic islands and the British Virgin Islands have been added to the amber list and, unfortunately, Cuba, Indonesia, Myanmar and Sierra Leone have been added to the red list.

We keep all these measures under constant review to ensure that they remain necessary and proportionate. The system we have designed is adaptable to the evolving epidemiological picture, and the UK Government are prepared to take action at any time to protect public health.

[Jim McMahon]

I would like to know whether the Transport Secretary, as a genuine pilot, has been forced to self-isolate today. He should be here, he should have made the statement to the House, but that courtesy was not provided.

Again, the Government’s travel rules have been thrown into chaos and confusion. The British people, the travel industry and Members of this House are running out of patience. The Government have been all over the place from the start. Let us remember that the UK was one of the last countries in the world to introduce restrictions on incoming passengers. By the time such restrictions were introduced, 22 million passengers had arrived in the UK. Then, came a blunt intervention with a total lockdown, but without the financial support for aviation.

When the traffic light system was introduced, we were promised full publication of the data and the criteria. That did not happen. It is little wonder—it is as clear as day—that the delay in adding India to the red list was all about the Prime Minister’s vanity and not about the national interest or public health.

We now see even more confusion, with changes being made for travellers coming in from France, but we have also seen reports that the high rates of the beta variant are in fact not in mainland France, but on the Indian ocean island of Réunion, 6,000 miles away. Will the Minister confirm whether that is the case?

Why have a traffic light system, if there are different rules for countries that happen to be in the same category? The Transport Secretary told this House that a country-by-country assessment was published: Mr Speaker, that was not the case. Even the most recent update has only 10 countries listed, and France does not even get a mention. When will the Secretary of State ensure that the full data for every country being assessed is published?

Will the Minister comment on reports over the weekend that travellers from Spain and Greece may well be subjected to the same restrictions as travellers from France? It is remarkable that a major airline CEO commented over the weekend that the Government are

“making it up as they go along and causing confusion and uncertainty”.

The travel industry was promised a rescue deal, but it never arrived. It was promised air corridors and air bridges, but they did not happen either. Now, it is vital that the Government take the action needed, get their house in order and give this important industry the support that it needs.

[Robert Courts]

I will take no lectures from the hon. Gentleman on confusion and uncertainty. The irony of the Labour party calling our position uncertain and confusing will not, I am sure, be lost on the House.

This is the party that supported hotel quarantine, but then said that quarantine should be on a case-by-case basis. This is the party that said no one should be travelling, but then called for more places to be added to the green list. This is the party that supports using covid certification, while at the same time saying that all amber countries should be red and off limits to everyone.

If the hon. Gentleman wants to talk about confusion, before coming to the House maybe he should sit down with the shadow Home Secretary and decide what their position is first. The Opposition party tells us to be cautious and to follow the evidence—that is precisely what we have done with France. That may explain why the hon. Gentleman’s Labour colleagues in the Welsh Government have followed our action precisely.

Through our approach, we are helping to get international travel back on its feet. Fully vaccinated people are now able to travel without isolation to the vast majority of countries in the world. However, we will never hesitate to take action quickly where it is necessary to protect our vaccine roll-out.

Transport Decarbonisation

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving me advance sight of his statement. We have not yet had the joy of reading the plan, although I look forward to seeing it later in the Library when I get pointed towards the fiction section, as with most of the strategies produced by the Government recently.

We are, I hope, coming through the covid-19 pandemic, but we cannot forget that we are still in this climate emergency, and nor can we miss the opportunity to kick-start a new green economy built on decent, well-paid, highly skilled jobs. With transport now the largest contributor to UK emissions, this should have been the chance for Ministers to set out an ambitious plan that would really lead the way, ahead of COP26—not warm words or reannouncements but a real plan to support aviation, maritime, rail, freight and local public transport alongside active travel.

This climate emergency required urgent action many years ago, but after a decade in office, I am afraid this Government have been found wanting. In the time they have been in office, the number of petrol and diesel vans has rocketed by 1 million. That means more polluting vans on our roads, and much of that increase can be attributed to last-mile courier delivery vehicles. The Government have been silent on an approach to dealing with that. Under these plans, the Government will treat the likes of Amazon, which has boomed during the pandemic, no differently from the self-employed builder who will take their van at the start of the job and often leave it parked outside the house until the job is finished. There will be no differentiation at all between those different uses.

Today the average age of a van on the road is the oldest since records began. Nearly 1 million vehicles on the road are more than 13 years old, yet there is no van scrappage scheme, let alone one for cars. All we have on offer is that the Government have committed to do what they should be doing already, which is to electrify the entire fleet of Government cars and vans by 2027, but how can we trust them to deliver on that promise when their Department for Transport has managed to fully electrify just 2% of its fleet? There is nothing to support backing Britain in the future and the economy by making and buying more vehicles here, as championed by the shadow Chancellor, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves).

The Secretary of State knows that smart electric vehicle charging points are important, but he also knows that there is a woeful lack of them across the country. The Government must be ambitious, but they must also genuinely make sure that the investment reaches all parts of the country. Westminster has 390 charging points per 100,000 population, compared with just 5.1 per 100,000 for people in Wigan. There are more charging points in London than in the whole of the north of England and the whole of the midlands combined, so the investment is not being levelled out in an equal way. Where is the plan to accelerate that and to make sure that every part of the country gets its fair share? Although the Secretary of State mentions the zero-emission vehicle mandate, it is only nodded to. There is no strong commitment and no firm plan in place to achieve that.

Aside from the environmental emergency, there is also a clear health emergency. Forty thousand people a year die from air pollution-related illnesses, so we must be leaders in modal shift away from private cars and ambitious on investment in active travel, yet the Government have overseen a reduction of thousands of bus routes. At the same time, ticket prices have rocketed on buses and trains. The Government have not delivered even a single one of the 4,000 green buses that they have repeatedly promised, and even if they were to deliver on that promise, it is a drop in the ocean and would not address the remaining 20,000 buses that will not be replaced under that scheme.

Beyond the bus, the Secretary of State talks about long-promised money for cycling, but when will that money be spent? Will we be here next year hearing the same re-announcement? Unless would-be cyclists feel safe, they will not make that shift. The Government’s own survey reported that 66% of those who responded said that the roads were too dangerous for them to consider cycling on.

Moving on to aviation, the Secretary of State wants to get to net zero international aviation emissions by 2050 and 2040 for domestic flights. Why, then, is his Department planning to cut air passenger duty on those same flights rather than having a targeted sectoral deal to have very firm commitments to decarbonisation built in? As usual, we will get more Jet Zero Council consultations and more meetings will come through the pipeline, but where is the action?

The list goes on and on and on, including the failure to deliver on a genuinely flexible season ticket to get commuters back on our trains. Instead, we see a £1 billion cut from Network Rail’s infrastructure budget and, at the same time, fares for passengers are increasing all the time.

We were promised an ambitious plan to lead the world ahead of COP26. If that was the test, I am afraid the Government have failed.

[Grant Shapps]

I am afraid that we have been here before a couple of times of late, and I understand the difficulty for the hon. Gentleman. He freely acknowledges that he has not actually seen or read this document, yet he has a stream of criticism for what is inside it, which I find extraordinary. Rather than taking in what I thought was a quite detailed statement, so that he could hear all the various different points, instead he read from the pre-ordained script, which claimed that none of the things that we were doing was really happening.

Let me remind the House, therefore, what has actually happened. The hon. Gentleman says he does not think we have been moving fast enough. Let us just check the record. While Labour was in power, it delivered 63 miles of electrified track. In just the last three years, under this Government, we have done 700 miles. He points to a lack of charging, although I announced at the Dispatch Box a couple of weeks ago—and I commented on this in my speech—that there are 25,000 public chargers.

I should also say that there are a couple of hundred thousand private chargers on top of that. I am sorry to hear that Wigan’s Labour council does not have enough charging points; I will ensure that I contact the council this afternoon, on the hon. Gentleman’s behalf, to make sure that it applies for the grants that are available so that we can sort that out for residents in Labour Wigan forthwith.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned zero emission vehicle mandates; I am pleased that it sounds as though there is some agreement on them. The decarbonisation plan discusses mandates and we have launched a consultation today. I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree that we cannot simply spring something as important as a zero emission mandate on the entire sector; we have to consult the sector first, so that consultation is being launched today.

Another nine consultations, technical documents or outcomes from consultations are being launched today alongside the plan, which I again invite the hon. Gentleman to read. I accept that he will not have done so at this time, but I think he will find that a lot of his concerns and criticisms are covered. For example, he asked where the 4,000 buses are; I have some good news for him, and it is not just that when one comes along there are three: there are 900 buses in production right now, and 50 are already on the road.[Official Report, 20 July 2021, Vol. 699, c. 5MC.] That puts us easily on track to meet our target to have 4,000 in production by the end of this Parliament. That is good news for the hon. Gentleman.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Jet Zero Council, and he is absolutely right. I make no apology for the Government meeting with academia and the sector. We have had our third main Jet Zero Council meeting and there have been dozens of sub-meetings of the technical working groups. What I hear is that the Opposition do not understand. Thanks to our Jet Zero Council work, we have already flown the world’s first hydrogen aircraft in this country. But it is not good enough for them; they still think we are not doing anything. I have some good news for the hon. Gentleman: that aircraft is being upsized to a 19 or 20-seater aircraft that will be flown shortly, so he will not have to wait long for more news on that front, along with the electrification of aircraft with the likes of Rolls-Royce and others.

I heard what the hon. Gentleman had to say about increasing rail usage, particularly coming out of the pandemic—it is a carbon-friendly way to travel—and I heard his party’s previous criticisms of the flexible season ticket. His stats, I am sure inadvertently, are completely dodgy. They failed to take into account the fact that anybody travelling two or three days a week would be at least 20% better off by comparison than if they bought a regular ticket or indeed a season ticket. I saw the hon. Gentleman’s YouTube video on the subject— I invite Members to watch it—and will write to him to explain chapter and verse why he was misquoting stats and information. I am pleased he reminded me of that because it gives me the opportunity to write back to him. For the purposes of clarity, I will ensure that I publish that letter for the whole House so that Members are able to judge the stats for themselves.

Lastly—I know that a lot of Members wish to speak—we are very proud of the transport decarbonisation plan, and I have mentioned the nine or 10 documents that back it up. An incredible level of detail has gone into that work. I ask: where is Labour’s plan? Where are its detailed plans? Where is the technical analysis? Labour has not read our plan and does not have one of its own, but all I ever hear is that Labour is still up for criticising ours.

International Travel

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of the statement.

When I questioned the Secretary of State on publishing the data, he said:

“The JCVI and Public Health England do indeed publish their methodology and the data behind it for each of these countries. It is already published.”—[Official Report, 29 June 2021; Vol. 698, c. 141.]

However, the assessment of 15 June has only published limited data on 22 countries and even that very limited data shows absolutely no data on incoming passenger testing and no data for new variant testing for some of the countries that were moved to the green list, including the Balearics.

The debate last time focused on India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, yet none of those countries has had the data published; nor have the countries that are critical to our economy, including the US, Canada and the vast majority of the EU. When the full data is published, will the Secretary of State ensure that it shows a very clear direction of travel for each and every country to instil travel confidence once more? Will he finally allow a full review of the delay in adding India to the red list, alongside Pakistan and Bangladesh, which led to the rapid spread of the Johnson variant, which he knows has delayed the easing of restrictions in the UK?

I also note that, in just a week, the Government have effectively taken our suggestion to scrap the confused amber list, but it is not clear whether some of the countries that are currently on the amber list should be moved to the red list. Can the Secretary of State confirm that a country-by-country assessment was carried out ahead of today’s statement?



As the Secretary of State will know, Labour has been calling for the introduction of an international vaccine passport. He states that an agreement has been reached with 30 countries to accept UK vaccination status. So far, that list has not been published and it is not clear what pre-testing and arrival testing will be needed.

I welcome a common-sense approach that will allow children to travel with their vaccinated parents and carers. Will he confirm that every single one of the 30 countries that he says will now accept NHS vaccination status will allow children to travel without additional restrictions?

The Secretary of State will know that, in addition to the uncertainty around the travel list, the cost of testing is turning away would-be travellers. PCR tests often cost more than £100 a person. The Government could stop the rip-off we are seeing from private testing companies by instead using spare capacity in the NHS testing sites, supported by an updated NHS app, which would confirm testing status alongside vaccination status. We know that testing is a critical element of limiting the spread of covid. Will the Secretary of State take forward these suggestions and finally make meaningful progress?

When I asked the Secretary of State what action was being taken to open up transatlantic routes, he said that a US-UK working group had met the week before “for the first time”, yet no update has been provided on that today. How many more times has the group met since then? What progress has been made?

The international travel community and the tourism sector needed the Government to really step up, but I am afraid that Ministers have found themselves wanting. Labour is clear that the Government must follow the example of other countries by intervening and bringing forward a sectoral deal to protect jobs. Why have the Government still not brought forward such a deal, when the Chancellor promised it nearly a year ago?

When I visited Heathrow last month, it pointed out that more than a quarter of its cost base goes in fees and levies to Government. If Ministers do not want a holistic support package, can they at least look at the fees that are paid directly to the Government? On Eurostar, why has it not had the same business rates support as aviation, as an international travel operator? There should be a level playing field.

The announcement did not cover mask wearing. It is pretty clear that the Government have been all over the place on mask wearing, despite masks reducing the risk of passing on the virus to other people, especially and critically on public transport. Why does the Secretary of State believe that they should now be the subject of personal choice? Like me, will he commit to continuing to wear his mask on public transport?

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Gentleman mentions the JBC data. The methodology is on the website, as I have mentioned before. I am sure it will continue to publish a full range of analysis as more countries are moved about and we have the next review of the green, red and amber lists on 15 July.

The hon. Gentleman brings up India every time we speak. It does not matter how many times that we explain the fact that we put India on the red list two weeks before it became a variant of concern, and a week ahead of it being a variant of interest, he continues to come to the House and make that point time and again.

He mentions the list of 30 locations that are accepting either the NHS app or an NHS letter. That is already published and available on the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office website, which gives me the opportunity to stress that when somebody travels to any location, they will want to use the FCDO website as the bible on the requirements on entry and departure from that country.

I want to update the hon. Gentleman and the House on one late change. Not just children travelling with adults, but all children will be exempt in the same way as somebody who is double-vaccinated.

He mentions the cost of tests. I have come to the Dispatch Box before and agreed that the cost of tests was too high. I am very pleased that, since May, costs have continued to be driven down as more than 400 providers have stepped up to the plate to produce tests. I was looking at the detail this morning. There are tests as inexpensive as a tenner, albeit that those tests are in person, but there are quite a number of tests now for much lower prices than previously.

He asks for an update on the US-UK working group that Biden and the Prime Minister announced. That work is ongoing. Those meetings are taking place each and every week. As I have explained to the House before, there are quite a lot of technicalities to overcome, not least an executive order from the previous US Administration—212(f)—which actually bans travel for anyone who has been in the UK or Europe for the 14 days previous. We are working through those issues with them. They are currently being held at official level.

On support for the industry, it is a pity that the hon. Gentleman did not reflect what the industry itself is saying. I noticed that the Airport Operators Association is saying that this is a significant step forward that it widely welcomes, and that people will be able to get away on a “well-deserved break”. Airlines UK, which represents the airlines, says:

“This is a positive move towards the genuine reopening”

of the sector. Once again, it warmly welcomes this move.

The hon. Gentleman says, “Labour have been clear”, but I have to say that it is anything but clear. What is clear is that there is a division between him and the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds). First, the Opposition wanted quarantine lessened; then they wanted everyone in a hotel; then they wanted it to be done on a case-by-case basis; then they wanted to shut down travel, open up travel, put everyone on the red list and put more countries on the green list. This is not a policy. It is just plain politics.