18:58 - The House divided: - Ayes: 181 / Noes: 311 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
I welcome this opportunity to debate transport and climate change. Despite some of the less well-thought-out jibes across the Dispatch Box, we are all pretty much in agreement on the need to address this issue; after all, we have all legislated to reach zero carbon by 2050. That may be where the agreement ends, but it is only right, in that spirit of co-operation, also to agree that this country has made remarkable, world-beating progress towards the targets in recent years, particularly in the past decade or so.
We have already heard mention from the Dispatch Box today of all the solar installations, 99% of which have been installed since 2010. We have seen a huge increase in the amount of renewable energy, particularly from offshore wind—53% of the power now produced comes from wind, solar and nuclear. That means we are getting much more renewable in our energy. That is a good thing and we ought to be celebrating it, but clearly many greater challenges are coming down the line. That is why decarbonisation is so important, but also why we should recognise that we have decarbonised faster than any other G20 country; last year, we led by passing that legislation. Across the House, we clearly agree on reaching zero emissions by 2050 and making that legally binding, which is essential. We are consulting on bringing forward the date for ending the sale of fossil-fuel diesel and petrol cars earlier than 2040, which was previously highlighted.
When I hear us being lectured about the electrification of our railway lines, it is worth remembering that in 13 years of power the Labour party electrified one mile of lines per year. We have done 10 times better, having electrified hundreds of miles. I was grateful to hear the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) welcoming the new line that I helped launch yesterday. Indeed, I helped work on getting the treaty signed. He described it as London to Amsterdam, but in fact trains were already running from London to Amsterdam and this was about the journey the other way around; the launch means that people no longer need to decant at Brussels, which was a 50-minute process, to go through passport control. From April, people will be able to come straight back, without getting off. He is absolutely right to say that that is an enormous benefit in terms of efficiency and saving carbon dioxide when travelling from Europe.
The new line is the not the end: we are looking to develop further routes, including Frankfurt, and, in the summer, Lille, Lyon, Bordeaux as well as many others. This is an excellent example of how, although we have left the EU, we have most certainly not left Europe and we are able to strengthen our ties in a meaningful way.
John Redwood
Does my right hon. Friend agree that a lot of our public want us to bust congestion and get people on the move, so that they can get to school and work more easily? That requires short-term measures to improve junctions, change light arrangements and so forth, and medium-term measures to put in bypasses and additional capacity. That is a very green thing to do, because then we stop people churning out emissions in traffic jams.
Grant Shapps
I agree with my right hon. Friend on the importance of stopping those pinch points, where traffic just idles, pumps out all this CO2 and creates pollution. That clearly is not sensible, so we have a big programme in place; we are putting £28 billion into our roads. We will shortly be announcing more developments on our road investment strategy, RIS2, and getting rid of more of those pinch points. It is also important to get the traffic that runs on those roads to be greener and to get greener quicker, with electric and other forms of lower carbon and zero carbon production. I will talk a little more about that shortly, but I am clear that simply saying that we will not build any roads anywhere will increase pollution and the toxins in our atmosphere, not reduce them.
The targets have to be tough, and they have to be challenging. That will help to focus the minds not just of the consumer and business but of Government, and that is absolutely right. Targets also have to be viable and practical. That goes to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood). It will not be easy to meet these goals if we simply try to do it by destroying industry along the way. That point is easily forgotten, but if we do forget it, we will not get the miracle that we have had of a 42% reduction in the amount of CO2 at the same time as a 73% increase in the size of the economy.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State agree that actually the best way to tackle congestion is to get people off the roads and on to bicycles, walking, and indeed using public transport? I want to come back to his point about electrification of the railways. It is good to hear that he is now committed to, and an advocate for, electrification. We are getting electrification of the midland main line to Kettering and Corby. The only way to decarbonise an intensively used railway like that is to electrify it. Is he willing to look at electrifying it all the way through to Sheffield and Nottingham?
Grant Shapps
I can absolutely reassure the hon. Lady that under this Government we are seeing, and will be seeing, a lot more electrification. I do take slight issue with the idea that the only way to get to a decarbonised railway is to electrify it. There are other possibilities, including, in particular, hydrogen, which we are starting to experiment with on the railways right now—an excellent plan going forward. On her point about roads, bicycles and other forms of transport need roads, so we still have to have them built in this country. I simply do not believe that there is a way round that.
Grant Shapps
I will make a little progress, if the hon. Lady does not mind.
It is important to realise that we are very keen not only to reduce CO2 but to grow the economy at the same time. The two things are not incompatible; in fact, they go hand in hand. We can do this more successfully if we grow the economy, because then we can get in front of the technology. One of the measures in the Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday was to consult on ending petrol and diesel car sales in 2035 or earlier rather than 2040, with the aim of ensuring that the British car manufacturing sector gets the advantage of completely clean travel, which they can then exploit by selling it to the rest of the world. That is one reason why we should be so ambitious to do this. The sector can create jobs—millions of jobs. It is already employing very large numbers of people in this country. This Government want to help society and the economy adapt towards the new decarbonised world.
I recognise—I have said this at the Dispatch Box as recently as last week—that transport contributes over a quarter of the UK’s domestic greenhouse gases; it is a big number. It has become the leading source of greenhouse gases, considering that energy, as described before, has become so much less polluting. That is why, as I say, we came out with the target to move forward with the end of petrol and diesel. That is faster, I should say, than any other European market. In a country that does not produce cars, it is easy to say, “You must only buy an electric car”, but we have a dozen different domestic car producers that we have to take with us on this—and we will. That is why we are investing £1.5 billion over six years to make the UK the best place to own and to manufacture electric cars, and why we are delivering a further £1 billion to transform the automotive sector. Schemes like the Faraday battery challenge and the Advanced Propulsion Centre are funding development of the supply chain, and that can be massively important to this transformation.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I completely agree with my right hon. Friend on getting electrification of our cars and support his energy in doing so. Our electric cars obviously do need roads to drive on. May I therefore thank him for the contribution that he has made to making sure that my local ancient flyover is coming down next week? Can he confirm that there is funding for pinch points, for instance to replace that junction, and for ensuring that a new, modern, all-singing, all-dancing option of electric vehicles, buses, bicycles and so on remains available for the whole country?
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to argue that the Army and Navy flyover should be removed now that it has been closed. We want to make sure, whatever happens, that very low carbon—zero carbon—alternatives are available for people commuting in that area.
I have said at the Dispatch Box that some of the speeches I have heard show that the point has been missed. We have more charging locations in this country than petrol stations. I am not talking about charging points in driveways, where people are fortunate enough to park off-road. I am talking about publicly available charging locations. There are more of those than petrol stations, with one of the largest charging networks in Europe. As a driver of electric cars, who has experienced range anxiety once or twice, I am relieved that that network is growing all the time. An electric car is sold every 15 minutes and the number of people registering for electric cars has more than doubled in the past year, so we have reached the point where this is starting to expand massively.
Jessica Morden
Electric vehicles need steel—crucially, electrical steel. Just before Christmas, Tata mothballed the only maker of electrical steel in the UK. Does the Secretary of State agree that the Government have to step in and help the steel industry at this difficult time if we want an end-to-end supply chain in this country?
Grant Shapps
That was worked in well, and there is an important point to make. We want to ensure the supply chain not just of steel and electrical steel but of batteries in a gigafactory. Last October, we announced that we are putting up to £1 billion into supporting a gigafactory in this country. People can also expect us to want to support the supply chain, because it is good business, rather than providing subsidy for the sake of subsidy, to make this country a leading one in Europe. We sell one in five of the electric cars sold in Europe and we build them here, and we want to expand that a lot further.
Several hon. Members rose—
Grant Shapps
I will make progress, as I know that many hon. Members wish to speak.
Last year, we announced investment of £220 million to make buses more efficient and green. I shall say more about that very shortly. Since 2010, we have provided over £240 million to replace and upgrade our bus fleet, resulting in more than 7,000 cleaner buses on our roads. That is on top of £576 million for local authorities to develop innovative plans for buses, and £288 million for the clean air fund to support individual businesses affected by all those things. I agree with the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, who said that we had to move to green buses—he is absolutely right—and that is exactly what we are doing. Everybody should have the opportunity to get on a bus that is reliable, efficient and clean.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
I had a conversation yesterday with some firefighters, and it came to light that if lithium batteries caught fire they would need to be put out with sand. Our firefighters are not equipped with that on their fire engines, so will the Secretary of State respond to that?
Grant Shapps
That is not something that I have come across, and I am happy to look into it with my team of Ministers, because public safety measures need to be investigated properly. If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will write to her with details.
Several hon. Members rose—
Grant Shapps
I have another few minutes, and I want to give other colleagues a chance to contribute, so I will conclude by mentioning a few more things, particularly promoting healthier forms of transport such as cycling and walking. A number of principles will guide our future mobility urban strategy. We are investing £2.5 billion in the Transforming Cities fund, to help cities and regions throughout England tackle congestion with greener forms of transport, particularly cycling and walking. There are brilliant examples in Manchester, for example, with the Bee Network, and in Birmingham, where there is a network to do the same things. We will be going further and faster on cycling and walking.
We have briefly touched on rail and our enthusiasm for it. It is worth mentioning the £48 billion being provided just in this particular period—control period 6 of Network Rail’s expenditure. That is without Northern Powerhouse Rail and without whatever decisions we reach on high-speed rail. The amount of money going into rail is a record in this country. I know that many colleagues were in Parliament yesterday when we discussed the £0.5 billion going into the Beeching reversal fund, reopening lines that were closed in those savage cuts in the ’60s and ’70s. As I said before, only the Labour party could think that half a billion pounds is small change. And that is just a down payment—that is where we are starting, folks. Yesterday, we had a fantastic meeting with colleagues from all parties—I have not heard any of them complain—who are interested in the reopening of their local Beeching lines, which were savagely cut, mostly under the Labour Governments of the 1970s. Some 5,000 miles of track and 2,300 stations were closed; now that we are opening them all up, all Labour Members say is that we should have done it sooner. You could not make it up.
We are absolutely to committed to the plan to get railways open, and we also take a much more realistic view when it comes to aviation. Just last night I was with representatives of the aviation sector, which has itself signed a plan to get to zero carbon by 2050. The challenge is straightforward enough with cars, because we already have the technology. It is possible with buses and it is easier with other forms of transport, but it is uniquely complex with aircraft, given their weight and the performance requirements that have until now required aviation fuel. The aviation sector’s commitment to get to zero carbon is one of the most serious challenges for this country’s transport plan. I am impressed by the sector’s ideas and the Government will work closely with it, through carbon offsetting—
Grant Shapps
That is just the start. We will work closely with the aviation sector through reduction schemes, by working with international aviation and by producing fuels that do not emit carbon in the same way that fuels do today. The Future Flight Challenge includes £300 million for greener aviation, to make aviation electric. I was not going to repeat the point, but I will now that I have been challenged: we are working on programmes to produce electric and hybrid planes and to use biofuels and other technologies to cut emissions from fuel. That is extremely important.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has not mentioned the tube as a means of decarbonising our transport infrastructure. In 2015, the Prime Minister claimed that the Bakerloo line extension was firmly on track to open by 2030; where are the Government at on that now? Will the Secretary of State meet Members who represent the communities that that extension would benefit?
Grant Shapps
As the hon. Gentleman will know, that project is led by the Mayor of London and Transport for London, but I meet and speak to them regularly and would be happy to chase up the project on his behalf, because it is in all our interests to see Crossrail and the Victoria line completed. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to point that out.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for coming down to Gloucestershire during the election campaign to see the Air Balloon roundabout which, as he knows, is a pinch point that causes pollution and danger for motorists. He mentioned road investment strategy 2 earlier in his speech and said that it would be announced shortly; can he provide any further detail as to when we can expect to see it?
Grant Shapps
It will arrive before very long. I have seen the problems at the Air Balloon roundabout with very own eyes, along with my hon. Friend and other colleagues, and I am keen to see that pinch point addressed. Although I cannot announce the RIS2 outcome, my hon. Friend will not have to wait long to find it out. I look forward to visiting the area again in the near future.
To sum up, we are well aware of the effort that is required—it is a great national effort. This is not something that will happen in one Department or in one corner of the economy; it has to happen throughout the whole of Government and the whole of society. I fully recognise that transport needs to lead the way when it comes to departmental reductions in the amount of greenhouse gases and toxins in the atmosphere. That is why we are working on our transport decarbonisation plan, which in itself will be world leading, both in its scale of ambition and in what it will produce for this country.
Several hon. Members rose—
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (George Freeman)
It is a great pleasure to close this debate on transport emissions and decarbonisation as the Government’s first ever Minister for the decarbonisation of transport. I want to begin, however, by saying that while we have been in this debate there has been an accident in Turkey. A passenger plane has skidded off a runway and there are reports of injuries. I know the whole House’s thoughts will be with those affected.
There have been many valuable contributions this afternoon. I cannot go through them all in the limited time available, but I want to congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Tahir Ali) on his maiden speech. He talked powerfully about Kashmir and apprenticeships. I know more about one than the other, although I hitch- hiked through Kashmir 30 years ago and I recognise the beauty of the place he described. I also want to highlight the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), and to congratulate him on becoming Chair of the Transport Committee, and the speech by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who has been running a powerful campaign on all-lane running on the M1, on which one of her constituents was killed. I thank her for the comments she made the other day in the Westminster Hall debate, which the Secretary State and I are taking very seriously.
My right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), the former Secretary of State for Education, spoke powerfully about the importance of pursuing the electrification and decarbonisation agenda in a way that goes with the grain of everyday travel to work, families and the realities of getting around our country, particularly in the last mile.
The hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) raised the important issue of Heathrow. Whatever happens at Heathrow, we are committed to making sure that it does not damage our commitment to our climate change obligations. In response to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), the SNP spokesman, I should make it clear that the UK Government want to support Scotland in its decarbonisation agenda. That is one reason why I am looking at hydrogen, which is a particular strength in the Scottish economy.
As Minister for the decarbonisation of transport, my brief, which has been worked through with the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State, is to dramatically accelerate the pace of progress on decarbonisation in transport, but I also look after disconnection and digitalisation. The two are connected. We must do more to tackle the disconnection of people and places left behind, the clusters held back, and the disconnection between agencies, not least those with responsibility for decarbonisation. The digitalisation of our transport networks—particularly the railways, but also the buses—can play a huge part in decarbonising our transport system and making it easier for passengers to make that modal shift.
The Prime Minister yesterday set out our groundbreaking commitment to be the first nation to ban diesel and hybrid cars after 2035, as recommended by the Committee on Climate Change. I am surprised we have not had more of a response and welcome for that from Opposition Members. They asked us to do it, and we have done it. It is a key step in tackling transport emissions and builds on our £1.5 billion investment in ultra low emission vehicles and our £400 million investment in charging infrastructure announced since the new Prime Minister and the Government took office.
We are looking across all modes of transport. On aviation, we have already committed to producing an aviation strategy looking to 2050 and beyond. We have made it clear that Heathrow expansion must meet strict criteria on air quality and noise and will not be allowed to materially affect the Government’s ability to meet our climate change obligations. On shipping, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Maritime Minister for launching our first clean maritime plan. The UK is one of the first countries to publish a domestic strategy to reduce shipping emissions—invisible to many but none the less hugely significant globally, particularly for this maritime nation. This followed the UK’s crucial role in the agreement of the International Maritime Organisation’s first strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from ships. On rail, we have committed to getting rid of all diesel trains on the rail network by 2040, and we are looking at electrification and at hydrogen trains in the peripheral areas not likely to be electrified.
We will, however, go much further and faster than even this. I am clear that we want to make Brexit the moment when we step up to our global responsibilities to lead in the decarbonisation of transport and the growth of a green economy. That is why I am working with the Secretary of State on our first ever comprehensive transport decarbonisation plan, which Opposition Members might be interested to hear about, and which we will publish shortly. It will set out a groundbreaking approach to all modes, explaining how road, rail, shipping and aviation can reach net zero.
We will take a place-based approach, looking at the dirtiest motorway junctions, railway stations, ports and airports, and ensuring that everyone has a target that can be met. We want to establish the first ever digital metric for emissions per passenger per kilometre, and, using that metric, to drive “red, amber, green” digital mapping of emissions around the country. We are significantly increasing our research and development science budget, particularly in relation to hydrogen, biofuels and electric planes, to ensure that we have the technology that will help us in carbon budgets 5 and 6.
I also want to highlight the power of data and digital, which has traditionally been overlooked in this sector, but which I believe has a powerful role to play in harnessing our digital economy to ensure that we map and measure properly and empower consumers, through their phones and their local communities, to make the choices that will contribute to the driving down of emissions. I ask Members to imagine their Citymapper as a green carbon route-mapper, giving them points and allowing them to make informed choices about routes and how they can reduce carbon emissions. We can lead the digitalisation, as well as the place-based choices, that will drive modal shift.
I understand that behavioural change alone is not enough, which is why we are significantly increasing our R&D and technology spending. I am launching the first ever Department of Transport research strategy, and a list of priorities for the budget period is being prepared at this moment. We shall be considering hydrogen, biofuels and electric planes.
My aim in this decarb plan is to ensure that this country leads in both the policies and the science and technology to drive the decarbonisation of transport. Our new future transport strategy sets out a comprehensive plan to do two key things. The first is to make the UK a world leader in the testing, development and financing of innovation in transport, because it is an industrial strategy for global UK leadership. Secondly, it is a strategy for local, healthy, place-based neighbourhood choice to make it easier for households, families, communities and councils to drive the modal shift that we need. We believe that by doing both, we can get on track to hit carbon budgets 5 and 6.
I know that time is short: I have no more than 40 seconds left. Let me end by saying this. A number of colleagues have spoken about cycling, and we have committed £2.5 billion in this investment round and in this Parliament to double it. We have invested a further £200 million in buses, we have a £2 billion programme for decarbonisation, and there is £400 million for electric vehicle charging and another £400 million for hydrogen.
We are acting fast to repair decades of neglect. It is all very well for Opposition Members to laugh, but I do not remember their being able to set out such a record after 13 years in office. We have a grip on this issue. In view of the United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow later this year, COP26, let me make very clear that this Government get it. We are also absolutely committed to making clear at that conference that we will make Brexit the moment at which we inspire a new generation, lead globally, and do that most Conservative thing of all, which is to leave our environment in a better condition than the one in which we found it.
Question put.