Draft Public Service Obligations in Transport Regulations 2023
Anthony Browne Excerpts(1 year ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Anthony Browne)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Public Service Obligations in Transport Regulations 2023.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. I realise that we have two chairmen present, although you are sitting in the Chair today.
The draft regulations relate to arrangements to support the effective and efficient provision of transport services to customers, in particular rail passenger services. They will use the powers provided by the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 to revoke EU regulation 1370/2007 and replace it with these Public Service Obligations in Transport Regulations 2023.
In doing that, we will take advantage of the benefits of Brexit to put in place a regime that is better tailored to the transport sector in Great Britain, supporting the provision of services to customers. The draft regulations will allow us to retain a flexible regime for contracting public transport services separate to the mainstream procurement and subsidy regimes, and to provide greater clarity and certainty to industry by retaining the interpretive effects of relevant European Union case law and underlying principles, when in Great Britain’s interest. In addition, the regulations will streamline the existing regime by removing duplicative and unnecessary provisions.
When the UK was a member of the EU, the 1370/2007 regulation created a bespoke procurement and subsidy regime of public service contracts in the transport sector. That was in recognition of the fact that such contracts are needed in the general interests of the public and cannot always be operated on an entirely commercial basis. The regulation contained some important exemptions from the complex rules on subsidies and procurements. It recognised the special status of public passenger services as “critical national networks”. It also provided contracting authorities with the freedom to let passenger service contracts more efficiently via simpler competitive processes and, where necessary, by direct award. Such flexibility helped to minimise disruption to those important public services.
The intent of the regulation was to encourage competition, so that the default process for the award of a passenger services contract is through competition. The regulation recognises, however, that in certain circumstances it is necessary to award a contract without competition by instead making a direct award to maintain the continuity of essential public services—for example, the emergency measures agreements that were put in place following the pandemic to secure train services.
Discussions with experts from across the transport sector have identified opportunities to remove some of the ambiguities and conflicting provisions in the existing regulation. That will provide greater certainty and clarity to industry and contracting authorities. We are using the opportunity of our post-Brexit flexibilities to revoke and replace regulation 1370/2007 to ensure that a robust and reliable regime for public transport service contracts is maintained independent of the mainstream procurement and subsidy regimes. The draft regulations will also increase efficiency by removing duplicative or unnecessary provisions and by clarifying drafting wherever possible—for example, by defining terms that previously were left undefined in the EU regulation. This statutory instrument will also bring the regime in Great Britain into compliance with the subsidy control chapter of the UK-EU trade and co-operation agreement.
Crucially, the draft instrument will preserve existing powers to make direct awards of rail contracts, which would otherwise sunset on 25 December 2023 due to a sunset clause in regulation 1370/2007. Without this draft instrument, therefore, the Department for Transport and other contracting authorities such as Transport for London would lose important powers on which we rely to award rail franchises. Leaving the EU has given us the opportunity to retain those important powers, and it is in the best interests of the railways and Great Britain that we retain the important flexibilities that they provide.
The private sector has an important role to play to drive innovation and growth, and we remain committed to returning to competition for rail contracts as soon as possible. The draft instrument, however, recognises that in certain circumstances it will be necessary to award a contract by making a direct award.
Lastly, the draft instrument will provide greater clarity and assurance to industry by retaining the interpretive effects of EU case law and underlying principles. Under the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act, EU case law will no longer be binding on UK courts after 31 December 2023. Relevant EU case law relating to procurement notices and in-life change of contracts, which was not codified by the regulation, has been relied on for clarity by authorities and contractors. The case law is therefore being codified by this instrument as it provides helpful clarity.
Likewise, EU principles will no longer apply to underpin public service obligation procurements from the year end. The instrument replaces those with principles based on the new mainstream procurement regime for England and Wales, and with principles based on Scottish procurement law for Scotland. Beyond the changes that I have outlined, this instrument largely maintains the status quo. That will provide certainty, clarity and confidence to contracting authorities, operators and passengers alike.
The Government are using the opportunities provided by the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act to revoke regulation 1370/2007 and replace it with an instrument that optimises the regime for the railways in Great Britain. Without this instrument, important powers to make direct awards of rail public service obligation contracts would fall away, with the potential to cause disruption to vital public transport services.
The instrument will also create a simpler, more effective regime by removing duplicative or unnecessary provisions. Furthermore, it will provide greater certainty by codifying important case law and ensuring consistency with the mainstream procurement and subsidy regimes, as well as with the subsidy control chapter of the trade and co-operation agreement. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Anthony Browne
I thank hon. Members for their consideration of the draft regulations and for their helpful and constructive points. I should note that this regulation has gone through and been supported by the devolved Administrations in both Wales and Scotland and, indeed, been approved by the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Government.
To come first to the points from the SNP shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, he asked when the response to the Union connectivity review, the Hendy review, would be published. As he knows, I am not the Rail Minister; I am standing in for the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) for this debate, but I will write to the hon. Gentleman with information about that.
The Labour shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Wakefield, raised quite a few specific points. One was whether the regulations apply to operators. This is not expected to apply to operators; they would be covered by the mainstream procurement regime. He asked a whole series of questions about the impact on public passenger services in terms of cost, improvements to services and holding poor performance to account, and about the impact on workers. As I said in my opening remarks, the point of these regulations is to ensure improved services for passengers and it would be very disruptive not to have the regulations in place. But I am very happy to get the Rail Minister to write to the hon. Gentleman with a more detailed explanation of the different ways this instrument would help with all the points that he raised.
In summary, this instrument will put in place a regime for the award of public service obligation contracts in the rail, light rail, bus and tram sectors that is tailored to the transport sector in Great Britain, while largely enabling contracting authorities and operators to continue operating as they do now, by maintaining the default position of competitively tendering for public service obligation contracts. It will enable the Government to meet their international obligations and will ensure consistency with other domestic legislation. Lastly and crucially, it will retain important flexibilities in the way we award contracts, which would not have been possible had we remained a member of the EU.
I am grateful to hon. Members for considering these regulations today and I hope that they will join me in supporting them.
Question put and agreed to.
East West Rail: Bedford to Cambridge
Anthony Browne Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship in this important debate, Sir Mark, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) on securing it. We have had many discussions about this issue over the years, including with my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner). My constituency is literally in between the constituencies of Cambridge and North East Bedfordshire —they border mine on either side—and both Members’ excellent speeches raised both the pros and the cons of East West Rail, which affects my constituency.
My job is to represent the views of my constituents, which are very split. There are those who are massively in favour. Cambourne, which the hon. Member for Cambridge mentioned, is the only town in my constituency that will be affected by East West Rail, and the people there are very frustrated at how long it takes to get into Cambridge city. A lot of them work there, and it can them an hour to get there on the train. A station is being built at Cambridge South, which the Rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), visited recently. It will take the people of Cambourne 11 minutes to get there, and 14 minutes to get to Cambridge Central, which will be transformative for their lives. The business groups and the university are in favour of the new line, and they regularly write to me about their support for it.
On the other hand, there are villages along the line where it is all downside and no upside, such as Haslingfield, Harston, the Eversdens, Hauxton and so on. They will suffer a railway line going right through them, and probably the worst affected will be Highfields Caldecote, where the rail line will clip the corner of the village. The housing being built there now will presumably have to be knocked down. I had a very impassioned email from Jason Western, who runs the Fortitude Fitness Centre, which is an outdoor assault course. He has built it up over 20 years, and the railway line will go right the way through it, affecting a lot of jobs. I can completely understand the distress that it will cause to people like that.
I want to address whether the East West Rail line is needed at all. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire made so many good points that there is not a huge amount I can add, but I also want to raise some of the main issues. Since being elected as an MP, I have been in discussion with the Government about whether the line is needed, and there have been various wobbles. I was told at one point that it had been cancelled and that we were just awaiting the announcement. I was awaiting the announcement, which did not come, and now it has been re-announced. That was because the calculation at the time was done under the Green Book methodology—the standard transport methodology, which my hon. Friend referred to—which produces benefit-cost ratios of just 0.27. That is astonishingly poor—so poor that we would never build a transport project like that. However, East West Rail has come up with a new methodology—the “theory of change”, which he referred to. It is not from the Green Book but from the Magenta Book, and it talks about the impact of the line on overall growth in the area. The project has certainly mutated from helping people to travel more quickly from Cambourne to Cambridge, to helping to supercharge growth in the area.
I do not know quite where it fits in my hon. Friend’s ranking, but I know that the growth of housing in South Cambs over the last 20 years has been about three times the national average, or maybe even higher. In the district of South Cambs, there are three new towns. I laugh when my colleagues complain about a new town or 500 houses, because I have tens of thousands of new houses in my constituency. There are already plans to build 57,000 new houses over the next 20 years, which is as many as in Cambridge city at the moment. We will be doubling the number over the next 20 years—that is what is planned at the moment.
East West Rail’s business case is clearly predicated on massive housing growth. That growth—this is all hidden in the small print, which is so small that I cannot read it but have to interpret it—is based on 23,500 new houses in Cambourne and 19,000 in Tempsford, just south of St Neots. I do not know whether that is in addition to the housing that has already been planned or whether it is included in the previous figures, which makes a huge difference. Such growth has a huge impact on neighbouring villages, such as the gorgeous little village of Knapwell, with only 45 houses. Knapwell is very remote, and its residents are quite understandably worried about being completely swallowed up. As various Members have mentioned, we also have to worry about all the soft infrastructure when building on that extraordinary scale.
One binding constraint is not mentioned at all in the 2,000 pages of East West Rail documentation. Although we have not read it all, we have done word searches. I entered the word “water” to find that it only appears in the name Waterbeach, which is one of the new towns. This is not some sort of made-up environmental issue, whereby we are worried about things in 20 or 50 years’ time; we do not have enough water in South Cambridge to serve the current housing and agriculture. We have an aquifer, so all the water comes in locally and is not piped in from the rest of the country, but we use more each year than is replenished naturally by rainfall, so the water level drops. The ponds, rivers and streams get completely dried out in the summer, which is terrible for wildlife. We are already building all these houses, and the Environment Agency is very concerned that we just do not have enough water, even for the houses on existing projections. I hate to think what those toilets and showers will be like without water.
East West Rail and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs really need to be joined up on water supply. There is a plan at some point to build a reservoir in the Fens and pipe the water down, but the existing planning structure means that it will probably not be for 20 years or more. Will that provide enough water for all this housing? Will we need two new reservoirs? How will it fit in? It really needs to be joined up, because we simply cannot build the housing envisaged in this document without the water supply. We need to think about that.
I would love to see the proper business case. We keep being told that it will come at some point, but who is responsible for its delivery? Is it the Department for Transport, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, or DEFRA? Who will oversee it? Who will be responsible for the spatial plan? Will it be the local authority? There has previously been discussion of development corporations, about which I made my views incredibly clear. I am not opposed to development corporations in all situations, but if they are not about press releases, they are about solving a problem that we cannot solve in any other way. In this case, development corporations should only be used as a solution to an existing problem. I cannot see that that would be the case, so I see no case for development corporations.
As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire mentioned, one of the main concerns locally is the exact design. The 2,000 pages contain no detail about what the railway line will look like: no schematics, no visions, and no drawings or visualisations. It is difficult for the villagers impacted by the line to appreciate how it will affect them. For people living right by this thing, that is incredibly important to know, and makes all the difference. I will come to some of the issues for the individual villages in a minute.
My final main point is about the property blight. I mentioned my constituent who has a fitness centre, but there are lots of people whose properties have been quite severely blighted by the plan, including those who had just moved in when they found that the railway would be built next to them and they could not move away again.
My hon. Friend mentioned that East West Rail had been quite proactive. I have been strongly pushing it to address the blight issue way ahead of the statutory requirement, because the law operates far too much in favour of the infrastructure and not householders. It has introduced a scheme to help people buy properties beforehand if they want to move, but they have to prove they have a reason to move and go through a whole load of hurdles. It should at least be geographically defined, so that if people live within a certain distance of the railway, they can automatically sell their house.
The other issue is the need for additional compensation. Our compensation for compulsory purchase in the UK is not generous enough. The value of a house is not just its market value. My constituent has built up his business over 20 years—who knows the value of that piece of land? I do not know whether he has planning permission, but he will have to end up moving his business, and that is a huge disruption. I know of many homeowners who have built up their houses over 20 years and made it a forever home but will suddenly have to sell it. I urge the Department for Transport to look at giving people 10% or 20% above the value of those houses, because it is not fair on them to say, “You’ve got to move. We’re just going to give you the market rate.”
I want to put on record some of the impacts along the route, because these are questions that my constituents and their various campaign groups are asking. There are lots of campaign groups in my constituency, such as Cambridge Approaches, that are doing valuable and important work on this. I mentioned Highfields Caldecote, where the railway line is literally going through the top end of the village. Is it going under the A428 at that point, which is what East West Rail says? I cannot see how it can do that, because the A428 is pretty sunken underground already. At one point, there was going to be a huge embankment 30 feet in the air. Will it be at that level, or will there be a cutting? If it is under the A428, which is right next to it, there would have to be a cutting. This makes a huge difference to people, but there is no information about it.
In the villages of Great and Little Eversden, will there be an embankment at ground level or a cutting? Again, there is no information about that. The line goes through Chapel Hill, which is an iconic local hill where we get fantastic views across South Cambridgeshire, and it is called Chapel Hill because of its historic significance. Will that be fully cut into, which was the original plan, or will it be tunnelled? I hear lots of suggestions that it will be tunnelled, but without any concrete commitment. If it is tunnelled, would it be cut and covered or bored?
There is a possible road closure between Harlton and Haslingfield. Would that be cut and severed? Would the villages be separated? In Harston, will it go over the A10—the main road into the south of Cambridge—or under it? We have no information about that. Would the junction with the King’s Cross line at Harston be a grade separated junction? Would the railway be taken right up into the air and back down again, or could it be done at grade level, which would have far less impact?
What about the road between Harston and Newton? That is not just a road between the villages; they share shops and a school. The people of the village of Newton—which is next to the village I grew up in and has a fantastic pub, the Queen’s Head—would not be able to go directly to Harston. It would be incredibly disruptive to their lives, and the last plans published said that the road would be severed.
The railway line goes between the villages of Hauxton and Little Shelford, and there is currently a level crossing. Department for Transport guidance now is that there should not be any new level crossings, so how will it be done? There is housing right by it. Will it be tunnelled? Will it be bridged? The people there are really worried that the road will be cut in two.
In Great Shelford, as we get into Cambridge, will four-tracking be required? Will the Long Road bridge have to be taken apart? Will Shepreth branch junction at Great Shelford be grade separated? Again, if it is, that will have a dramatic impact on the village, because the railway line will have to be taken right up into the air and back down. If it is grade separated, how would that be done?
There are so many questions about this, and I wanted to put them on the record. I have been trying to get answers out of East West Rail. It needs to do a lot more work on mitigation; I know that it has done quite a bit already, and I commend it on that, but clearly it has not got there yet. Where full mitigation is not possible, I urge the Government to look at how properly to compensate people for the loss of their homes and businesses, not just at the market rate before the railway was proposed but for the damage, loss of amenity and so on.
Finally, the Government need to review the whole issue of housing. Whatever the arguments for East West Rail in terms of making it easier for people to travel from Cambourne to Cambridge, it cannot be used as an excuse to increase the amount of house building, which is already one of the highest rates in the country, and there is absolutely no water. I urge the Government to address all these topics.
Oral Answers to Questions
Anthony Browne Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Mr Harper
I am happy to confirm that bus funding has never been linked to road charging. A disagreeable pattern seems to be emerging where Labour politicians, backed by the Liberal Democrats, are not being entirely straightforward with the people they represent about road pricing schemes. I am pleased that my hon. Friend is holding them to account, even on his birthday.
Luton Flightpaths
Anthony Browne Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I am glad that we are saving the best until last. I am also grateful for the opportunity to discuss changes to flightpaths into Luton airport or, to use the technical name, the Swanwick airspace improvement programme—airspace deployment 6.
There are good arguments in favour of changing flightpaths in some way and I welcome the overarching ambition of the programme. Prior to the implementation of the new flightpaths last February, Luton and Stansted airports shared the same holding stacks for arrivals. For the UK’s fifth and third largest airports, that was a problem, because delays at one airport could lead to delays at the other. Separate arrival routes, combined with a dedicated holding stack for each airport, will be less prone to delays and will be safer, especially in the light of potential expansion at both airports, but the implementation of those changes is a major cause of local concern.
Behind the rather bland, technical-sounding name—airspace deployment 6—is a tale of deep distress for local residents in my constituency and neighbouring ones. South Cambridgeshire is quintessential English countryside, scattered with tranquil villages where many residents have lived their entire lives. Others moved there precisely because they wanted the peace and quiet. They wanted to escape the hustle and bustle of urban life.
All that changed in February, when the area became the new home of Luton airport’s holding stack. These once serene villages now have their tranquillity shattered by the roar of jet engines flying overhead. Rather than the soporific sounds of songbirds, residents are awoken by the sound of air brakes screeching overhead as aeroplanes prepare to land. Unsurprisingly, I and fellow MPs have received a huge number of anguished complaints from our constituents about this. They have told me about the distressing impact it has had on their mental and physical wellbeing. A few accounts particularly stick in mind.
Gareth Squance is a former Metropolitan police officer, who sought solace in the village of Gamlingay in my constituency. During his time in the Met, he was intentionally run over and left for dead while promoting safe cycle week. That incident left him suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, for which noise is the primary trigger. Immersing himself in nature and recording the ambient noises provided a coping mechanism, but now the new plane noise forces him to leave the house with noise-cancelling headphones to avoid triggering a state of panic.
Suzie Smith is the third generation of her family to farm in the area. The aeroplane noise is keeping her up at night, which is affecting her ability to perform her duties around the farm in the early hours of the morning. She does not know what to do. This is the area she grew up in and loves, but the plane noise is making farm life unbearable. It has driven her to make countless complaints, which have only received generic, automated responses from Luton airport.
Maddy McKenzie suffers from complex health issues and struggles immensely with hypersensitivity. She finds the plane noise a relentless torment, and she is powerless to escape it. The noise is taking a toll on her physical and mental health. If she could move, she would, but instead she is trapped by the endless plane noise when all she wanted was a quiet life.
I have heard myriad similar tales from my constituents. Many residents are suffering sleepless nights as they are awoken every time a plane goes overhead, which can be up to every two minutes in busy periods. Other residents say they feel like prisoners in their homes, unable to use the gardens that were once their pride and joy, but are now echo chambers for the all-consuming plane noise. It has led some to conclude that enough is enough. After decades of living in these villages, the noise pollution has forced them to move. These people are valued members of their local community, and they are being forced out. Some people feel those that can move are the lucky ones. Others must accept their lot for a range of reasons from financial to health-related concerns. They are demoralised and cannot see any way out of this predicament.
The strength of emotion and the explosion of local outrage have led to a number of new campaign groups determined to end the noise. There are three groups I am aware of that are working tirelessly for a better solution: Reject Luton Airport Stacking, or RELAS; Community Alternatives to Luton’s Flight Path, or CALF; and Against Luton Airport Stack, or ALAS—my favourite acronym. We must ensure that their grievances are given a fair hearing, and that is the point of this Adjournment debate tonight.
I acknowledge that this is only one side of the coin. Air travel plays a vital role in our increasingly globalised world. Just recently, I was speaking about the business opportunities that new routes from Stansted to other life science hubs such as Boston and San Francisco could bring to Cambridgeshire and to the country as a whole. Like many others, I enjoy the opportunity to go on holiday, often travelling by plane. We must accept that some people will be affected by noise pollution from planes. Often people are aware of the impact and make calculated decisions about where they are going to live based on their tolerance levels. For example, many Londoners can cope with plane noise every day, and it blends into the cacophony of other city noises.
Anthony Browne
I am very happy to give way to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour.
Mr Djanogly
I congratulate my hon. Friend and Cambridgeshire neighbour on securing this debate, which is very important to many of those in both our constituencies, especially in the villages surrounding St Neots, and in my case in Great Gransden and Abbotsley in particular. My hon. Friend is making a very good case on noise levels, with which I totally agree—namely, that acceptable ambient noise levels are based on levels in urban areas, and are therefore inherently prejudicial to rural people. Does he not agree that this should be changed?
Anthony Browne
I thank my hon. Friend for that insightful intervention and I fully agree; I was going to make exactly the same point, but he beat me to it.
The people who chose to live in South Cambridgeshire did so because of the quiet rural life. They moved there for this reason and chose to bring their children up there for this reason. Very few, if any, ever foresaw the radical change that flightpaths could have on the area. It must have been quite a shock to hear that first plane soar noisily overhead.
Of course, there was a consultation beforehand, conducted by Luton airport and NATS. That consultation lasted five months and received over 2,000 responses. However, it took place in unusual circumstances, due to the ravages of covid. Engagement was virtual rather than the usual town hall meetings, and many people seemed unaware that the consultation was going on.
Since society has rebounded to some sense of normality, it is easy to forget the extraordinary times that prevailed during the pandemic. Air travel was down 90% on its pre-covid peak at certain points and people’s concern over flightpaths were crowded out by their more immediate health concerns about the pandemic. It is not for me to judge the adequacy of the consultation, although others may have their views, but I can say that I am disappointed that, as a key stakeholder, South Cambridgeshire District Council was not engaged more during the process. For many residents, the idea of planes above 5,000 feet sounded quite abstract and distant and of little consequence to their daily lives, but in reality they can often see the logos on each plane as it flies past, and the disruptive noise has permeated their daily lives.
Mr Djanogly
My hon. Friend is very kind to allow me to intervene again. He makes an important point, and this unintelligible consultation has worked only to the benefit of those in the flying industry who understood it. When we secured an increase of height for flying above the stack over my constituency, from 8,000 to 9,000 feet, there was no intimation at that point that planes would fly so low coming out of that stack and so quickly, to the prejudice of our constituents. Does he agree that the consultation should be rerun and the whole system should be revised?
Anthony Browne
The idea of rerunning the consultation is very interesting; I had not thought of it but will do so, as it sounds like a good idea.
It is clear from what my hon. Friend says and the correspondence from my constituents that the impact and disturbance has been much greater than people were led to believe when the consultation was taking place—they thought it would be very mild. I would argue that this was inevitable, given the current guidelines provided to NATS and Luton airport for the creation of the new flightpath. The guidance states that noise pollution below 51 decibels will not unduly impact the quality of life of those affected. As my hon. Friend said, for urban areas near airports that is perfectly reasonable as the aeroplane noise blends into the other staple sounds of city life. For instance, a street with traffic can consistently be around the 70-decibel level, so 51 decibels would not add much—the planes are only an additional, minor irritant. The same cannot be said for rural areas, however. In South Cambridgeshire the ambient noise levels are far lower, as I am sure they are in my hon. Friend’s constituency: during the day it is around 31 decibels and at night around 18—really very quiet. This means that aeroplane noise has a far greater impact. For context, if we are within 10 metres of a heavy goods vehicle passing, the noise is roughly 48 decibels. For someone living in a local village, such as Dry Drayton in my constituency, planes coming into land at 11 pm are very disruptive; it is the equivalent of many HGVs in quick succession passing close by their house.
That brings me to my first ask of the Minister—who I am glad is here tonight; thank you—which is to revise the guidance to reflect the differing ambient noise levels of urban and rural areas, the point my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) made so eloquently a minute or so ago. What is important is not the absolute noise of an aircraft, but its relative noise compared to the normal ambient noise of an area. Therefore, there should be a separate noise limit, lower than 51 decibels, for rural areas. That will encourage the design of flightpaths around areas where they will cause relatively less nuisance and distress due to the high levels of existing ambient noise, such as over cities. This should be reviewed with the upmost urgency and considered as part of the post-implementation review for the new Luton flightpaths —or part of a rerun consultation, as my hon. Friend suggests.
NATS and Luton airport are doing a post-implementation review of the flightpath changes. I welcomed an initial extension of this review to June 2023, as a result of concerns that flight volumes were still recovering from the pandemic levels, but I do not think that goes far enough. If the consultation is not redone as a whole, as my hon. Friend suggests, will the Minister ask the Civil Aviation Authority to extend the review by a further three months to September 2023? I wrote a letter to the authority on the matter on 2 December, but I am advised that it is still under consideration. Extending the review for three months to September would allow it to encompass the peak season of travel in July and August at normal operating levels. It is important that we understand the impact of the noise of the holiday season on constituents.
I also want to take the opportunity to raise my concern about the review process. It alarms me that it is the responsibility of NATS and Luton airport to report back to the Civil Aviation Authority on the success or otherwise of their flightpaths. There is no direct recourse for residents to lodge their complaints to the Civil Aviation Authority. That is tantamount to NATS and Luton airport marking their own homework. There is a real risk that the assessment is neither objective, nor seen to be by residents. That leads me to my third ask of the Minister.
Richard Fuller
I am on tenterhooks to hear what my hon. Friend will say. I thank him for calling this important debate. That my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), a neighbouring constituency, is also in his place shows its importance to our constituents. In my case, its importance is to those constituents from Potton through Sutton and down the eastern part of my constituency. To his point about rerunning the consultation and NATS and Luton airport marking their own homework, does he not agree that the change was made because Luton airport wants to expand—it is not about managing existing levels of air traffic but to facilitate a substantial 50% or 60% increase in flightpaths—and that that is another good reason for him to pursue the course that he suggested?
Anthony Browne
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He makes the very important point, which I touched on briefly, that this is about expansion of the airport. That makes it even more important to get it right now, because whatever the noise levels are now, they will get far worse as traffic at Luton expands.
I will take my hon. Friend off his tenterhook—I was about to make my third ask of the Minister. Can the CAP1616 process for changing airspace be reviewed for this and future consultations to ensure that there is a more independent analysis once new flightpaths are implemented and that NATS and airports do not mark their own homework?
Richard Fuller
The other aspect of marking their own homework, which the Minister should be aware of from the debate, is that the land on which Luton airport is based is owned by Luton Borough Council, and that council gets to decide on planning issues to do with the expansion of Luton airport. By my reckoning, the council gets £20 million a year into its coffers at the moment—that will probably double—and not a penny of that money gets shared with constituents in Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire or Bedfordshire whose lives are impacted in the ways that my hon. Friend has suggested. Is it not incumbent on the Minister to look for legislation to say that if an airport is to be expanded, there needs to be a greater sharing of the benefits and that, basically, Luton needs to pay up for the rest of us who are affected and not put all its money in the council’s own pockets?
Anthony Browne
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that powerful point. I had not been aware of those financial implications.
My fourth and final ask for the Minister, in addition to those from my hon. Friends, is to join me in calling for greater transparency from National Air Traffic Services and Luton airport. The final decision on flightpaths has the potential to significantly impact many people’s lives for the foreseeable future, so it is vital that we gather all the data necessary to make a comprehensive and informed decision.
In October, I convened a meeting with National Air Traffic Services, Luton airport, the Civil Aviation Authority, campaign groups and my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon. In the meeting, National Air Traffic Services said that it was happy to share its automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast and radar data with the campaign groups, but it has subsequently made excuses that it would be too time consuming for its staff to do so. It would be an act of good faith if it shared that data, which would help bring much-needed transparency to what is actually happening. If National Air Traffic Services is confident that the terms of the consultation are being adhered to, it should be happy to share that information.
I ask the Minister to leave no stone unturned in ensuring that the most appropriate decision on Luton flightpaths is reached, and no stone unturned in ensuring that residents can have confidence in the whole process. The current settlement is causing distress to a large number of people across a large part of the country. While I accept that there must be winners and losers from a change in flightpaths over inhabited areas, I find it difficult to accept that stacking planes over a once-quiet rural area is the right solution. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and to working with him on this matter.
Motor Vehicles (Compulsory Insurance) Bill
Anthony Browne ExcerptsFriday 28th January 2022
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Motor Vehicles (Compulsory Insurance) Act 2022 View all Motor Vehicles (Compulsory Insurance) Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Bone
The hon. Lady goes to the crux of the matter. That question was brought up in Committee by the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar), and I will discuss it in some detail later on; if I may, I will deal with it when I get to it.
This Bill will restore the interpretation to British statute that this sovereign Parliament always intended. Most importantly, it will end any associated liability for insurance claims against the Motor Insurers’ Bureau for the cost of accidents on private land when motor insurance was not held. Importantly, the Bill does not seek to invent new policy, nor, to the point the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) raised, would it limit the Government or Parliament in changing insurance regulations for motor vehicles in the future, if that is what Parliament decides to do.
How did we get into this mess? Under the European Union withdrawal agreement, the Vnuk decision has become retained EU case law. In other words, it is the law of the land unless we change it. We cannot just ignore it, because it is an EU court decision and has now become the law of the land. Therefore, it is essential that we act to prevent this European Court of Justice decision from punishing motorists through higher premiums. At a time when the cost of living is at the forefront of all our minds, this is an opportunity to save ordinary people from an unnecessary burden.
I will explain further: if the status quo is allowed to continue, to account for its liability for accidents on private land, the Motor Insurers Bureau will have to increase its charging levy. That levy is paid by the motor insurers, which in turn will pass on the cost to the motorist.
That is all well and good, but how much will the extra cost be reflected in the average motorist’s insurance premium? The Government actuaries have got out their bean counters, pressed a few buttons on the computer and estimated the cost. By removing the Vnuk judgment, the average motorist will be saved from a £50 price hike to their insurance premiums. Let me say that again: the Government experts say the Bill will save the average motorist £50 each and every year.
Clearly, there are huge benefits to motorists, so it is no surprise that the Bill enjoys support from both sides of the House. I thank hon. Members on the Opposition Benches for supporting something that will benefit all motorists. On Fridays, as we know, it is good when both sides of the House work together to achieve something that helps our constituents.
Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
My hon. Friend mentions that motorists might benefit from reduced insurance by getting rid of the clause. Will those of us who have just renewed our car insurance, including me, get some sort of discount as a result?
Mr Bone
Nice try! It is important that the motor insurance industry knows that the Bill is making progress, so it has not put the £50 on. If we do not do it, that will happen. It is not that people will see their motor insurance go down by £50 per year, but that they will not see it go up by £50 a year. My hon. Friend can go ahead and renew his motor insurance.
I believe that I am correct in saying that, if passed, the Bill will be the first Act of Parliament to remove retained EU law. It will certainly be the first to remove retained EU case law, so it will be a landmark step in taking back control of our own laws. It is just one of the clear advantages of leaving the European Union that we can now alter our laws to ensure that they are interpreted the way that this sovereign Parliament intends.
The Bill will be the first of many post-Brexit dividends to be established in primary legislation. We will deliver the independence that the British people voted for and put pounds back into their pockets. In fact, it would not be a bad idea for the Government to have a Brexit Minister whose sole responsibility it was to root out such savings across the whole of Whitehall—and for that person to be a Brexiteer who had consistently supported that point of view, maybe even a Spartan, and clearly not someone who is a member of the current Government. Does that give the Minister any clues?
The Vnuk judgment has also led the European Union to revise its European directive, because it was as surprised by the decision as we were, although, as with many decisions taken at EU level, the interest of the ordinary motorist has been sacrificed in the name of greater harmonisation between states. The revisions it has made will fail to protect motorists in the EU from the associated costs of the compulsory insurance requirement on private land. Because of Brexit, this Parliament has the opportunity to do better, and that is just what we are doing with the Bill.
I will briefly mention the case of Colley v Shuker, which is being considered by the Court of Appeal next week, as I know the implications of the Bill have been questioned in relation to it. It is clear, however, that the case bears no connection to the Bill that we are considering today, as it involves an accident where an insurance policy was in place. The effect of the Bill is only to restore the statute book to the position that everyone understood it to be before the Vnuk decision.
I mentioned earlier my gratitude to Committee members and I am thankful for their excellent contributions. In Committee, the right hon. Member for Warley raised an important point, which the hon. Member for Cardiff North made today, that the obligation that we have discussed arises in cases where there has been an accident and possibly an injury. It is certainly true that protecting genuine victims and general safety is of the utmost importance when considering insurance requirements but, in most cases, for accidents involving motor vehicles on private land, a different type of insurance policy will already be in place. In many cases, there is even an existing compulsory insurance requirement, such as public liability insurance, employers liability insurance or events insurance.
As previously stated, the Bill does not seek to create new law or to tie the hands of Parliament in making changes to the requirements for motor insurance in the future. What it does is restore the interpretations of the Road Traffic Act 1988, which stood for almost 30 years. In that time, copious case law in British courts shaped the interpretation of that Act and established through precedent recourse to the Motor Insurers’ Bureau in certain circumstances. To give the House an example, although my local Waitrose car park might technically be on private land, were I to have an accident with an uninsured driver, the Motor Insurers’ Bureau would have liability, as established through existing case law. It is impossible to anticipate every possible accident scenario, although the Road Traffic Act has historically proved very adaptable. If, out of the blue, an incident highlighted a deficiency in protection for injured parties, I have every confidence this Parliament would act to rectify that.
I would also like to address the concerns of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight), who bowled the Minister quite the bouncer during the Committee. I must add my thanks to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), for stepping in at the very last minute to deal with the Bill in Committee, as the responsible Minister was unfortunately ill on that day.
My right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire raised a concern about how electric scooters will fall under the Road Traffic Act. It is my understanding that electric scooters would be classified as motor vehicles under the Road Traffic Act and would therefore require compulsory insurance. However, electric scooters are not allowed to be used on the roads, so Parliament will have to clarify that situation. That is not relevant to this Bill, because all we are doing is restoring the law to what it was before the Vnuk judgment.
Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) on bringing forward this legislation. It is the first to get rid of some inherited EU law, as he said, for many of the reasons that have been highlighted by other Members.
Clearly, anything that reduces costs for motorists is welcome. As many Members have done, I declare an interest as a motorist who pays car insurance, which costs a lot of money. Anything that brings that cost down is very welcome, particularly during a cost-of-living crisis, and this measure that will help with that.
As my hon. Friends the Members for Vale of Clwyd and for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) mentioned, the retained law is incredibly impractical in the details. Just how would it work? How would responsibility be assigned? How would pay-outs be made? None of that has been properly sorted out. Practical measures are very important in a farming constituency such as South Cambridgeshire, where there are an awful lot of off-road vehicles—I live in a small farmhouse, and we can drive for quite a long way without going on to a public road.
Just as important is the unpopularity of the retained law not just in the industry, but among the public. Various Members have mentioned the consultation that the Government held, in which 94% of respondents said that they did not want that legislation. It is expensive, impractical and unpopular, yet we still have it in the UK.
My constituency is quite different from many of those that other hon. Members have mentioned because it overwhelmingly—63%— voted remain. I think, however, that even my constituents would have trouble understanding why the European Court of Justice, rather than this Parliament, should be able to decide the policy and laws on insuring golf buggies.
Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the first positive signs of our new freedom post-Brexit is that we can start to reverse some of the impractical judgments that were made without the UK specifically in mind, which started, for example, with the Factortame case?
Anthony Browne
I completely agree. I declare another interest. I used to be Europe editor of The Times and I lived in Brussels for many years. I used to drive around across borders. If you drive for a couple of hours from Brussels you get into Luxembourg. Another half an hour and you are in Germany. Within 10 minutes, you can drive between France, Germany and Luxembourg: you are crossing borders the whole time. From that point of view, one can understand why one would want some co-ordination between insurance policies and so on. In the UK, we are an island. That is a very different position and different motoring rules apply. Often, the EU would have motoring rules, for example regulations on child seats in cars, that might have made sense if one lived in Luxembourg and drove into Germany and France every day and would not want to have the different regulation of child seats. In the UK, however, there is no particular reason why we should have the same regulation for child seats in cars as there is in, say, Poland.
Anthony Browne
We do. Clearly, people do drive from what is now the EU to the UK, but the volume of traffic is very low.
I want to raise a point about why we ended up with this European Court of Justice ruling. As a Europe editor of The Times, I wrote various think-tank reports about EU regulations and structure. I advised the Government and was involved with European law-making for about 20 years. In the Lisbon treaty, there is the principle of subsidiarity. We do not talk about it much in this place. When Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, she talked about it and everyone scratched their heads saying, “What is subsidiarity?” The basic principle is that one should make laws at a European level only where necessary, for example on cross-border issues such as pollution or trade. I cannot see any argument for why the insurance of golf buggies needs a pan-European law.
Sir Greg Knight
I join my hon. Friend in declaring an interest as the insurer of several vehicles. Is it not the other side-effects of Vnuk that are so offensive and why we are right to support the Bill? Without the Bill, would it not mean that, for example, ride-on lawnmowers would need to have insurance?
Anthony Browne
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That ECJ judgment has incredibly wide-ranging implications across many different sectors. I picked on golf buggies, but it affects lawnmowers, agricultural vehicles and electric scooters, as we heard. It is incredibly wide ranging. It is baffling and extraordinary how a Slovenian farmer, Mr Vnuk, getting knocked off his ladder—poor guy; I hope he was not too badly injured and I hope he got compensation—can lead to a series of different judgments, amendments and so on that cost the British motor insurance industry £458 million or a £50 increase in premiums for British drivers, a total of £1 billion a year. It is difficult to explain to voters, even in remain constituencies like mine, what the justification is for that.
Before my right hon. Friend’s intervention, I mentioned subsidiarity as a principle enshrined in an EU treaty. There are various mechanisms in the EU to try to ensure subsidiarity. Parliamentary committees of national Parliaments are meant to have votes and give red flag warnings when EU legislation contravenes it. However, this was not EU legislation. It was a judgment from the European Court of Justice and, as case law has the effect of legislation, it was enshrined in UK law after we left the EU. That raises the question of the European Court of Justice.
I reported on the European Court of Justice. I have visited its buildings many times. I will give one little anecdote about a story I once tried to do. The British Government were appointing a judge to the ECJ. I thought that that was quite an important story. The British Government were involved and the ECJ had, when we were in the EU, a constitutional role in the UK. It could make laws that overrode the national Parliament and the national Government, and could change the lives of British citizens. The Vnuk ruling is a clear example of that. At the same time that I was suggesting to the editor of The Times that I write a story about the British Government’s appointing a judge to the European Court of Justice, there was some controversy over a judge on the United States Supreme Court, as hon. Members may recall—one of them had a nanny they should not have employed, or something. I said, “This is a far more important story. The British Government are involved. This court changes the lives of British citizens. It can overrule the British Government and the British Parliament.”
I wrote my story, and the next day the Supreme Court wrangling was front page of The Times, the main story, and my story about our appointing a judge to the European Court of Justice was a “News in Brief”, a tiny little thing. This is not a pro-remain or pro-Brexit argument, but even when we were members of the EU we had virtually no knowledge or understanding of the workings of the European Court of Justice or its important or significance.
When we were members of the EU, I used to play a little parlour game: “We have the right to appoint a British judge to the European Court of Justice. What is the name of our judge on the European Court of Justice?” I used to ask MPs and so on, and no one had any idea. I searched for his name in newspaper articles and this particular judge was never mentioned—I cannot actually remember his name now. I will save their blushes, but I asked the serving Europe Minister at the time, “What is the name of our judge on the European Court of Justice?” and he had no idea. I thought, “We really do have a problem as a country. We have no understanding or appreciation of the importance of the court, the way it works or the influence it has over our daily lives in this country.”
The Vnuk judgment is not only a clear example of the role of that court, overriding the objections of the British Government and of Parliament, but a clear breach of the principle of subsidiarity, which is enshrined in EU treaty law. There will probably be other examples of retained EU legislation; my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough suggested that there will be a whole series of such bits of legislation that we think are inappropriate for the UK. He suggested a new Government position: a Brexit Minister, someone who has had an interest in this issue for the whole time and is not currently serving as a member of the Government. I wonder who he could be thinking about?
Without repeating that suggestion, let me make another one. I keep coming across different bits of legislation in this place that we can only enact as a result of our having left the EU. This Bill is one example, but there are many others. It would be useful for the Government to compile a list across all the different Departments of all the little things we are doing as a result of leaving the EU, as well as the big things such as reforming the common agricultural policy and so on.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
One of the first things we did was to change the taxation on motorhomes, which is very important to my constituents because North West Durham is where we manufacture many of them. Under the EU regulations that came forward, gold-plated by our civil service, we would have seen a 700% tax increase, which we have been able to reverse since leaving the EU. I agree with my hon. Friend’s point, but does he think that we need to see all those practical examples laid out by the British Government to show the benefits of our having left the EU?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Before the hon. Gentleman responds to that, is there any possibility of steering his great speech back to Third Reading of the Motor Vehicles (Compulsory Insurance) Bill?
Anthony Browne
I was talking about the underlying legislative process for the Bill. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I agree; there are probably many other bits of legislation such as this, and it would be good to get a holistic view of the impact of all that.
For all the reasons I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, before talking about European jurisprudence, I fully support this Bill. The Vnuk ruling is impractical, it is expensive to motorists, including myself, and it does not serve the deemed objectives. For the reasons mentioned by the Opposition, the Government probably do need to think about whether there are any other bits of legislation needed to ensure that there is no harm done by lack of insurance on private land, but this Bill is incredibly popular and I fully support it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Anthony Browne Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
Given that we have £2 billion of funding for walking and cycling—the biggest sum ever invested in active travel, as far as we can work out—the idea that there is a lack of investment is, of course, entirely untrue. The hon. Lady will have noticed that last year the coronavirus occupied almost everything we were doing, but it did not prevent us issuing a new cycling strategy, published by the Prime Minister and backed by me. We will be saying a lot more about that, and I welcome the hon. Lady’s enthusiasm.
Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Grant Shapps
I will answer my hon. Friend. East West Rail, the company behind the new line, is aiming to deliver an entirely zero-carbon railway. It will be considering conventional and emerging technology solutions for powering trains, which could be part-electric and part-hydrogen or battery in the future, for example, so that services that operate along the whole length of the route are zero carbon.
Jet Zero Council
Anthony Browne Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I echo the sentiments of my colleagues. It is great to be here at your first debate, Mrs Miller. It is also great to be with the Minister of Aviation, newly installed in the position. I congratulate him on that and my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on securing this very important debate.
I am keen to speak because tackling and stopping environmental destruction is the defining mission of our age. We have seen so much of it over the last 100 years, and we have to bring it to an end. That is why I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the environment. Clearly, one of the biggest environmental challenges is tackling climate change. As a country, we have adopted the legally binding target of net zero by 2050, and I strongly welcome that. A huge body of work is needed to achieve it.
In many areas, progress is already quite advanced. Electricity is now 40% renewable, largely from wind energy, which is an enormous achievement compared with what was expected 20 years ago. Electric cars are not quite commonplace, but they are becoming commonplace. The technology is well advanced and proven; they are fantastic cars to drive and we now have a Government target of abolishing the sale of internal combustion engines by 2040 and we are consulting on 2035, which I certainly support.
Aviation, however, is a conundrum, because it is a growing source of national emissions overall—now 8%, increased from 5% five years ago—yet it is a very difficult source of emissions to tackle. We are not quite there, as we are in other areas.
There are those who would say, “Well, we should stop flying. Fly less. Make it so expensive to fly that people cannot go on holidays.” I absolutely do not support that, for the reasons echoed by colleagues. Aviation is jobs. My constituency is near Luton airport and Stansted. It is incredibly important in terms of leisure and business that people carry on flying. The challenge is to make sure that flying can be carbon neutral and that is why I welcomed so strongly the launch of the Jet Zero Council earlier this year.
Tackling aviation is difficult because electric batteries are too heavy to fly in planes. They do not have enough energy density to be able to fly a plane across the Atlantic. Low-carbon fuels are here, but they are still at a fairly early stage of development. Aeroplanes also tend to be long-lasting—fleets last for 40 or 50 years. It is not like cars, which have quite a high turnover, so it is easier to introduce new electric cars.
However, there is a lot of innovation in this area, as previous speakers have mentioned. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire spoke at length about the Whittle Laboratory, which is just on the edge of my constituency—it is just outside, so I cannot claim it is mine, but it is a fantastic laboratory. Imperial War Museum Duxford is also in South Cambridgeshire. It is known for its Battle of Britain aeroplanes and a Concorde, but it also has an AvTech—aviation technology sector—development, co-launched with Gonville and Caius College. The first company there is Faradair, an electric aviation company. It is developing a bioelectric hybrid aircraft, with the first flight aimed for 2023. It is aiming for an all-electric aircraft by 2030. It has a lot of energy and bright ideas and is definitely worth supporting.
Obviously, it is not only the UK that is doing this. Flight is of its nature international and the International Civil Aviation Organisation has been doing a lot of work trying to co-ordinate the industry. It has committed to a 2% annual increase in fuel efficiency. It has a global offsetting scheme—CORSIA—which starts in 2021. It is supporting sustainable aviation fuels and better air traffic management, which has been quite important for increasing the efficiency of aviation, as we have seen over the past five years or so.
Developments are definitely gathering pace. EasyJet is planning its first short-haul electric flights by 2030, which would be very impressive. Norway—I am half-Norwegian and am very proud of Norway—has the aim that all short-haul flights should be electric by 2040 and all electricity in Norway is renewable, so that would be completely carbon neutral, and it is investing in that.
With all these developments, there is a huge opportunity for the UK. We absolutely need to make it a national mission. If we are ahead of the curve, there are huge export opportunities as well.
On recommendations and policy, I would be interested, first, in including international aviation emissions in the 2050 target of net zero. Domestic aviation emissions are already in that target, but I understand the Government are thinking about the international emissions. That would be a good step, in order to put pressure on the sector and make it part of the national mission to become net zero.
Secondly, we should think about nature-based carbon offsets. Offsetting has a slightly bad name, because schemes are often not very robust. They can be made robust, however, and the Government should think about having a universal mandate on airlines, to give passengers an option for a robust offsetting of their flights. We could end up with lots more money for tree planting, which would be wonderful.
We need to do a lot more work to develop sustainable aviation fuels, as we have heard. There needs to be a whole regime to support the development and take-up of sustainable aviation fuels. For example, aviation duty is not taxed because it is cross-border and it has been impossible to get international agreement, so we have air passenger duty on flights taking off. We could think about moving to a system where air passenger duty reflected the efficiency of aeroplanes in the way that vehicle excise duty reflects the efficiency of cars. It may be too early to do that yet, but we could certainly move in that direction.
We will not get a UK-only solution on this. We should try to lead the world but we definitely need to work with other countries. We should absolutely work internationally and that should be a big part of what the Government are doing. This is a huge opportunity for the UK and we really must take advantage of it. We need a massive national commitment and the Jet Zero Council can lead the UK on this, and I commend the Government’s work on it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Anthony Browne Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
On the hon. Gentleman’s specific point, I have asked the operator of last resort to do a deep clean of all the trains from 1 March, and that there should be a proper schedule in place and they are cleaned. It is disgraceful that they should ever be turning up dirty in the first place. There are also new trains coming on to the network. As part of yesterday’s announcement, next year trains will be brought up from elsewhere on to the network as well.
Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
I am pleased to confirm that today the Government will announce the preferred route for the Bedford to Cambridge section of East West Rail. Following public consultation, we have accepted the East West Rail Company’s recommendation that route E, which runs from Bedford Midland—a new station between Sandy and St Neots—to a new station at Cambourne and through to Cambridge, will be taken forward to the next stage of development.
Anthony Browne
All five proposed routes for East West Rail pass through my constituency. South Cambridgeshire has a town, Cambourne, that is so gridlocked that in rush hour, although it is only 10 miles from Cambridge, it can take people an hour to get to work. Will the Secretary of State support the East West Rail route going through Cambourne so that we can get South Cambs moving again?