Space Industry (Indemnities) Bill

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 23rd February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory). There are few more intrepid voyagers in this particular enterprise, defiant in the face of adversity but also on a voyage of discovery. She made an excellent speech and picked up on what the Bill is really about.

My hon. Friend rightly identified that this not just about putting big shiny things on rockets and firing them into the sky; it is about unlocking other important bits of the economy. My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) also made that point incredibly eloquently. We can go back to Adam Smith and see the cosmic threads, if you will. We are opening up new sectors for the UK economy and empowering our people.

I am delighted by the idea of space lawyers. I promised not to go around waving my LLB about, but that sounds awfully like the superhero name I would end up giving myself. I am really excited about this. I am a member of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, so I was very pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Lord) mention our report. A lot of love went into it—we enjoyed ourselves a bit too much, I am not going to deny it!

I find this entire sector incredibly fascinating and extremely exciting, not just because of the aforementioned geekery but because of its potential. I think about kids in my constituency who are now being exposed to opportunities and new horizons that simply were not on the radar of young people even five or six years ago. Apprentices in my patch are talking about working in this area. Some have gone to work for Airbus, which is doing fantastic things with satellites. I recently went to its Stevenage factory as part of my Industry and Parliament Trust fellowship, which is in space and aerospace. One thing it purports to be doing is transferring energy from space, which will genuinely be a game changer. I was flabbergasted when that was explained to me.

To monitor climate change, satellites will tell us how much heat is transferring out of wood in forests, so we know whether rainforests need to be reforested and whether we are facing climate change at 1.5° or 2°. That is mind-bendingly brilliant stuff, and it is now available to kids who, five or six years ago, might have been told, “Right, once you finish school, you either go work in the JJB Sports factory down the road or in a shop.” It is exciting, fantastically valuable and hugely important for things like our financial sector. Greater Manchester has a fairly sizable financial sector, which is great for us. We also have a large legal sector—I know because I used to work in it. I would love to be a space lawyer. Let’s see how the rest of the year goes; I might need to become one.

Ultimately, the Bill is about empowering us. The other thing I love about it—again, I promise not to wave my LLB about too much—is its simplicity and elegance. It is that Coltrane sax solo: so simple that it is brilliant. Changing a word effectively empowers us to do so much more. The power of that is inestimable. That is why it was part of the report that the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee put out.

At the moment, we are disincentivising people from innovating, and that is not what we should be about. We are saying instead that people should go out and take risks, and we will ensure that they can be rewarded. They will not be completely and utterly obliterated for having a go. Even if the second-stage fuel pump does not work, it will not be the end of the business. We need to be alive to that because we need risk takers, as we do in every sector. We need people who are willing to boldly go into the final frontier. [Interruption.] I have not finished yet. When I shout “House!” everyone will know that I have done them all. Fundamentally, this is about ensuring that Britain’s future is not just here on Earth, but in the stars, and we have every right to be there—as much as any other country.

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene, especially given that I have just rambled on for who knows how long. One thing I did not mention that he might be interested in is the defence sector. Again, when I visited Goonhilly, there was a huge amount going on there. We talk about our maritime fleet being bothered by the Russians and the Chinese on a daily basis, but our satellites and space are as well. It is hugely important that we are at the forefront of this. Does he agree?

[Chris Clarkson]

My hon. Friend is entirely correct. Like me, she has been on the armed forces parliamentary scheme. I was restraining myself from mentioning Culdrose when she was giving her excellent speech, but of course I have now done it. Our defence sector is incredibly important. Again, we are making this stuff here at BAE Systems and Airbus, and defence manufacturers in this country create jobs and opportunities. That is hugely important, and I am absolutely delighted to support the Bill. I love its technical merits.

My hon. Friend the Member for Woking has played an absolute blinder in doing something quite sensible. I will give a lived example because, quite frankly, the Empire would not have been able to build the second Death Star if it had been on the hook for the price of the first one. My hon. Friend has stuck the landing. I congratulate him and look forward to supporting the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anthony Browne]

My hon. Friend has expounded a very important point: we are critical to the space industry, and to space exploration more generally.

Coming back to the issue of regulation—coming down to Earth from our big visions, the Clangers and so on—the Government have been funding the industry. We put in place the Space Industry Act 2018, which my hon. Friend the Member for Woking talked about, and appointed the Civil Aviation Authority as a spaceflight regulator—that is why I am answering this debate, as a Transport Minister, rather than someone from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Getting into space and orbit is a DFT responsibility. The civil aviation regulator—which has licensed SaxaVord, for example—enables the licensing of spaceflight activities from the UK, such as operating a satellite in orbit, and enabling a launch to orbit from UK spaceports for the first time.

The Government recognise that the issues of liability and insurance are of the utmost concern to the space sector, and they are obviously the entire point of the Bill. The industry made clear in its responses to the consultation on the then draft space industry regulations in 2020, and in response to the Government call for evidence to inform orbital liability and insurance policy in October 2021, that holding unlimited liability will have an adverse effect on the UK space flight industry. People sometimes object to private Members’ Bills because they are not based on consultation, but this issue has been endlessly consulted on and negotiated with industry, and the industry is calling for this Bill.

The industry has advised that it is impossible, not just difficult, to obtain insurance for an unlimited amount. Members might ask, “Why is that, if the chance of something happening is infinitesimally small?” The reason is that it is impossible for the actuaries to quantify it; with infinity over infinity, one could come up with any value. Also, insurers are required by regulation to show that they have the capital to meet any claim on them. Clearly, insurers cannot have unlimited capital, so it is regulatorily and legally impossible for insurance companies to insure to an unlimited amount. It is very difficult for the industry to say to investors, “Please give me money to fund the launch of a rocket, even though I may not be able to insure it.” We need liability limitations so that launch companies and other space operators can get insurance, and so can get the investment that they need.

If a spaceflight company cannot get unlimited insurance, it obviously cannot get full insurance. As a number of hon. Members have said, if the Government did not limit a spaceflight operator’s liability, spaceflight companies and investors would instead look to more favourable regulatory regimes in other countries, where Governments share the risks involved by limiting an operator’s liability and offering a state guarantee. The United States already does this, as does France with French Guiana.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Woking has explained, there are powers in the Space Industry Act that we can and do use to limit a spaceflight operator’s liability when carrying out spaceflight activities from the UK. Government policy is that the regulator should use those powers and specify limits on operator liability in the licence, so that no operator faces unlimited liability. However, the law sets out that the Government “may” do that, rather than “must”.

The Government fully support the Bill for two key reasons. It is consistent with our policy that all spaceflight operator licences should have a limit on liability. It will not, therefore, impose any additional liability or risk on UK taxpayers. My hon. Friend made that point. The Government also recognise the value that the industry places on legislative certainty on this matter. As I pointed out, if investors are to make an investment in a space company, they need to know that the company will be able to get insurance. The report by the Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform—the TIGRR report, for short—published in May 2021, expressed concerns from the space sector over the use of the word “may” in section 12(2) of the Space Industry Act. The Bill would replace that “may” with “must”.

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) explained his great interest in space, and mentioned financial services, which I want to come on to. The point was well made that before the UK was a spacefaring nation, we were a seafaring nation. London was the biggest port in the world for more than 200 years, which led to a whole maritime industry with insurance around it, including Lloyd’s of London, and lawyers. We have a huge maritime industry in London as a result of having a maritime fleet, and we now have the same opportunity with space. We can have space investors—I have met some of them—as well as space lawyers, space insurance companies, regulatory experts and so on. It is a huge opportunity. The Government and the regulators need to ensure that the industry has the right incentives.

[Chris Clarkson]

The Minister mentions ports. Obviously, quite a few of our maritime assets are considered critical national infrastructure. Have any discussions been had on whether our space assets will also fall into that category? That applies particularly if we are to launch a 3D printer so that we can build on the moon, which is apparently the only place where the Liberal Democrats will not try to block house building.

[Anthony Browne]

My hon. Friend asks an interesting question. I will raise it with officials and come back to him with an answer.

My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) gave the most fantastic and enthusiastic speech about the space opportunities for Cornwall. I bet most people in Britain do not realise quite how important space is for Cornwall. There are 150 different companies; I had no idea that Cornwall had its own space lawyers, so that is a great insight. We also heard about the use of satellites for the maritime sector and various other issues to do with Cornwall. I want to make sure that my hon. Friend knows that as the Government Minister responsible, I fully agree that the Cornish launch, which was before my time as a Minister, was absolutely a success from a regulatory and investor point of view. I agree that the whole regime worked.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest made the point that we in this country tend to overemphasise the negative, and we always look at the bad things that happen. I think I am right in saying that the first three launches from SpaceX did not get into space, but were actually seen as successes because they contributed to the whole launch operation. Lots of things were learned from those launches, and the same is true of the Cornish launch.

Rail Cancellations and Service Levels

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. For too long we have worked in a manner that does not allow us to plan ahead and give certainty to the passenger or the workforce. TransPennine Express had too much reliance on the rest-day agreement. It seemed to operate because it was at 1.75 wage, which is the highest. Two other train operators operate at 1.5, and the others are much lower or have just normal rates. That was a high rate, and we could not get ASLEF to continue to operate it, which exacerbated the issue. There is too much reliance on rest-day working. When it operates, it works well, because train operators do not have as many drivers in place, but the train drivers earn overtime from that. When industrial action comes in, that breaks down. We want to move, and our modernisation plans and reforms, which we are trying to get an agreement to put in place, would deliver a seven-day railway where we are not reliant on rest-day working. That is the kind of certainty we want brought in, and that is the only way we will ever be able to avoid such issues in the years to come.

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

It will not have escaped the Minister’s attention that a number of MPs from Greater Manchester are in their places. The west coast main line is essential to our local economy, so we need three services to London an hour, but as far as I can tell, the schedule is currently designed using a tombola. I am convinced that the Minister is serious about getting modernisation in the way in which Avanti runs the service, but should there be no significant improvement at the end of the six-month period, will he outline the steps he will take to ensure that we have a functioning service? Greater Manchester cannot afford what is going on at the moment.

[Huw Merriman]

Our plan, as signed off by the Office of Rail and Road, was always to see Avanti deliver the extra 100 drivers, change the timetable and then bring services back. As I specified, that would have seen us operating more services than had been the case before the end of June, when arrangements saw drivers not taking up rest-day working. At the moment, we are contingent on the drivers to ensure that that new timetable is put in place. However, it is a two-way process—we cannot unilaterally force it, because we do not have the ability.

On my hon. Friend’s question about the contract, it was renewed for six months, but we will not wait until the end of those six months—we will need to see improvements in place at the beginning of the year to make that decision. I make the point again that where matters are in the control of Avanti to deliver, we hold it to account. Where matters are outside of its control and in the control of the unions, we must take that into account as well.

High Speed Rail (Crewe - Manchester) Bill

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda), who made some very interesting and worthwhile points about how HS2 will be delivered and especially on talking to the team behind Crossrail. Crossrail had its own teething problems, as has HS2, so if we can learn some of those lessons, that would be excellent.

It is also a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), who made some excellent points. He has been a doughty champion on this issue for a long time, although unfortunately he did misspeak when he said that Crewe and not Heywood should be the home of Great British Railways. I will forgive him.

I completely understand the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) about the effect of suspending Metrolink. I have been having my own battle to get it to my constituency, so I definitely understand why he does not want it to go anytime soon.

This is a very timely, some might say slightly overdue, Bill and I welcome it very warmly. For some of us, getting HS2 to Manchester has been a labour of love for well over a decade. I think back to my time in Salford town hall, having these debates and talking about, “Oh, it’s only a couple of years down the track.” Of course, then it was a couple more years and then a couple more years, so it is very nice to be here debating this Bill in this Chamber.

At the heart of the Government’s manifesto at the last general election was the commitment to level up the UK. The Bill is evidence of that commitment. The industrial revolution began in Manchester. It was the world’s first industrial city and it should be at the heart of the next industrial revolution and the industrial revolution after that. Of course, the unspoken truth is that for a very, very long time investment in this country was tilted very heavily towards the south, creating the perverse situation where what was once the cradle of this country’s productivity was dependent on handouts from the part of the country that we dragged kicking and screaming into first the 19th century and then the 20th century. HS2 is an investment in infrastructure that the north of England desperately needs. We are not talking about the old “teach a man to fish” argument. We know how to do that. We basically invented fishing in this scenario. We just want our fishing rod back.

One of the most spurious arguments against the project is that the time it takes to get from Manchester to London is already a little over two hours and that HS2 will not really make a big difference. That, of course, spectacularly, and often deliberately, misses the point. This is about capacity, not just speed. The demand to do business up north far outpaces our ability to deliver, because we are choked off from the vital infrastructure we need to compete. It is a fact that HS2 will not just enable better north-south connectivity; by doubling capacity between London and Manchester, regional lines will also be freed up for more east-west and local services, too.

[Andy Carter]

My hon. Friend is making a very good speech and his point on north-south is very well made. He will know that there is to be a new high-speed line which will pass through Warrington, through Warrington Bank Quay, into Manchester. The value of creating north-south, east-west in the north of England is the big picture we should be considering. We are talking about an HS2 Bill, but we should look at the full picture with the £96 billion investment that the Government are making in the north of England. When we add all those things together, it really is a phenomenal investment in rail in the north of England.

[Chris Clarkson]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. In fact, this is the biggest investment in rail, I believe, in the history of this country and it is certainly more than the sum of its parts. That £96 billion will multiply and multiply again. Warrington is already a hub of both commercial and industrial activity. It is not properly connected to Manchester. It is a bit of a mission to get from A to B, as it is to get from Warrington to Liverpool. To get from Liverpool to Manchester is like pulling teeth. The very first seat I contested, in 2015, was Wallasey. I had to start very, very early in the morning on a Saturday to get there in time for my first canvassing session. I would welcome more connectivity, especially the high-speed rail link my hon. Friend talks about.

This Bill is more evidence that the Government are delivering on the integrated rail plan for the north. The Crewe-Manchester scheme will also provide the basis on which much of Northern Powerhouse Rail can be developed. I hope that eventually it will provide connectivity from Liverpool in the west to Hull in the east.

[Mike Amesbury]

On connectivity and levelling up the north, my constituency includes Northwich, not far from Manchester and certainly not far from Crewe. HS2 is wonderful in terms of the job opportunities it will create in Crewe and the surrounding area, but on average it takes one hour 40 minutes to get from Northwich to Crewe, which the hon. Member will know is not actually that far up the road. Those who are disabled or immobile and who need to use a buggy cannot go in one direction, because there is no disabled access. He paints a wonderful picture on investment, but does he agree that there is a considerable way to go?

[Chris Clarkson]

I paint a wonderful picture because there are so many wonderful things to work with, but I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point. Accessibility to public transport is hugely important. I have the same problem with the stations in my constituency. I only have two and one of them is completely inaccessible for those with even the slightest of mobility issues, so we have a lot more to do. Investment in local services will be driven by the fact that there will be more demand for them once we free up capacity, but I absolutely take the hon. Gentleman’s point. I know his part of the world very well and for somewhere so well located it is surprisingly poorly connected.

I hope that providing connectivity from east to west will be a vital part of our long-term competitiveness as a region. I strongly urge Ministers to keep up the pressure on that part of the project. East-west will be as important, if not more so, than north-south in the long run.

I am pleased that Ministers from the Department for Transport have been engaging with local government to make sure they can build on the opportunities of HS2 and spread the benefits of this public investment in levelling up across the region. It will not just be the centre of Manchester that will benefit. Those on the outskirts will also see the rewards. It will bring more investment into our area and into other areas of the north-west, too. It will spread the good around.

That is not to say there are not some sticking points. My hon. Friend the Minister, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) will have heard from most Greater Manchester MPs at one point or another. Obviously, there will be some snagging issues, but I am pleased to say that in the round when I have had questions or concerns, I have been able to have a frank and open conversation with him and have received honest answers, even if they are not always the ones I wanted.

I understand that the Greater Manchester Combined Authority has a number of concerns about the Bill in its current form, the largest of which is how Manchester Piccadilly will be developed and configured to accommodate HS2. Its preference is for an underground through-station, rather than the proposed new six-platform overground station next to the existing one. I am pretty agnostic about that—I can see arguments for both—but I took the time to do a bit of homework on the underground option. My concerns, essentially, are that the project calls for a huge tunnel to be built under the station which is larger than anything that has ever been drilled before. We would end up with the same situation as Euston, where we have to build a giant box underground. That, in turn, means it cannot be situated under the existing station, so it needs to be either alongside it, as is the case with the overground station anyway, or somewhere else altogether, which is largely pointless.

As the GMCA wants a through station, we will need to have very bendy tunnels, which will slow down the trains on their approach and increase journey time, or we will have to build the station at a right angle to the existing station, which will mean it will be an absolute nightmare for people to get from A to B, again negating its value. Added to that is the fact that we will have a hole in the ground for a period of about seven years, which will basically be an opencast mine, with trucks making thousands of movements a year to take spoil through the centre of Manchester.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

I am reminded of a session we had yesterday about protestors tunnelling to prevent HS2. Does my hon. Friend think that Opposition Members who support HS2 should rethink their opposition to the Public Order Bill, which HS2 Ltd says is necessary to prevent protestors holding back HS2?

[Chris Clarkson]

My hon. Friend knows that I am an enthusiastic supporter of the Public Order Bill. To be fair, if we could get the protesters to do the tunnelling for us, it might save us 5 billion quid. That might be a way of doing it—get a few Swampy types in and get the job done.

We have regenerated the centre of Manchester many times, certainly in my adult lifetime, but this is not the kind of regeneration that we particularly want. It will undo a huge amount of good. Digging up a square mile of the city centre will certainly not deliver the value for money that we want. Having said that, may I encourage the Minister to publish in the Library the cost-benefit analysis of both versions of the station? That would enable a fuller debate, especially when the Bill comes before the Select Committee. The subject needs to be discussed further.

[Mike Amesbury]

If an underground station is good enough for London, why not Manchester? The scale of this investment will benefit generations to come. We have to get this right. What is good enough for London certainly should be good enough for Manchester.

[Chris Clarkson]

As a proud northerner, I do not think there is any bit of London that cannot be improved by digging it up. I do not think that the same is true of the centre of Manchester.

As for the cancellation of the Golborne spur, I join my hon. Friends the Members for Leigh (James Grundy) and for Warrington South (Andy Carter) in welcoming the reconsideration of that ludicrous white elephant. As hon. Members well know, it was originally included only as a sop to the former Member for Leigh, who is now the Mayor of Greater Manchester. That money could be much better deployed elsewhere, including on integrating our public transport properly.

That point brings me to my favourite subject: public transport. One area on which I can make common cause with the GMCA is that the project needs to be fully integrated into whatever network the Mayor gets around to implementing. I particularly note the call for a new Metrolink station, Piccadilly Central, to be included in the project. I support that call fully, although I will be less than chuffed if central Manchester gets yet another metro station before either Heywood or Middleton is connected to the network.

I urge the GMCA and Transport for Greater Manchester to get their collective digits out of wherever they are, and get on with the feasibility studies that are supposed to deliver these projects. Obviously, levelling up needs to be more than just a railway, but building HS2 is a vital first step towards drawing wider investment into Greater Manchester and the wider north-west. Building this scheme will help to bring businesses, jobs and prosperity to our region.

[Katherine Fletcher]

We have heard in interventions from Opposition Members the idea that somehow this is not enough. Has my hon. Friend considered how many generations of neglect the north of England has had to put up with in its transport and rail infrastructure? Does he welcome, as I do, the fact that it is this Conservative Government who are sorting it out?

[Chris Clarkson]

I absolutely do. For generations, we have had our faces pressed against the glass of economic opportunity, only to be told that it is too expensive for us or that it is not the sort of thing our part of the world needs. It is always an over-investment; then, of course, as soon as we are the ones spending the money, we are not spending enough. It is the Andy Burnham textbook—but people seem to like that, so who knows?

The region, which a couple of centuries ago levelled up this country, and consequently the rest of the world, will be our link to a new economic horizon for the north-west and for the entire country. It will allow us to connect our world-class businesses, our world-class universities and our innovation in science and technology to the rest of the country and beyond. HS2 between Crewe and Manchester is a major step towards rebalancing regional discrepancies in investment, and I expect it to have a similar positive effect on economic development elsewhere.

We need to get on with the project now. The longer it takes, the more opportunities are lost. As I have said, it is not just about speed; it is about capacity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Largan]

Well, I am very glad I took that intervention. I would say that perhaps George Osborne did expect to be here, but that is beside the point.

As I was saying, I believe that the Government deserve significant credit for taking a very long-term decision that will be of huge benefit to the country, although they will not get any credit for it for a long time to come. Let us contrast that with the Leader of the Opposition, who spent his first four years in Parliament focusing on two objectives. The first was to block High Speed 2 and the billions of investment in the north of England. The second was to try to make the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) Prime Minister.

[Chris Clarkson]

Does my hon. Friend think that is proof that the only north-west the Leader of the Opposition is interested in is NW1?

[Robert Largan]

I could not have put it better myself. When I flagged this point earlier, Opposition Members said it is a constituency interest, which is very revealing. A Member of Parliament’s list of priorities is supposed to be country, constituency, party and then self. It is slightly worrying that, when the interests of the country come up against the interests of a narrow corner of north London, the leader of the Labour party opts for self, party, constituency and then country last, which is very revealing about his priorities.

HS2 is an important infrastructure project, so I take great pleasure in busting some of the myths we have heard this evening. A series of myths about high-speed rail have been perpetuated over the last decade by a combination of muddled thinking and well-financed interest groups, and I will take them one by one.

As we have heard tonight, this is all about time. Who needs an extra 30 minutes off rail journeys down to London? First, this has never been primarily about journey times and speed; this has always been about capacity.

Rail Strikes

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is right to point that out. If I am honest, I am more worried about the rail card that the general secretary gets with his job than about his salary, because he will not be able to use it during the strike. I imagine that will be a problem for him.

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

Prior to coming here, I was a rail commuter. I stood on platform 14 of Manchester Piccadilly every day, Monday to Friday. That is why I am so frustrated that our Mayor has said absolutely nothing about the strikes and that a fellow Greater Manchester MP is enthusiastically backing them. Has my right hon. Friend consulted any of the Labour of MPs who have taken donations from the RMT about whether they will donate to their constituents on low incomes who will not be able to afford to get to work?

[Grant Shapps]

My rail commuting friend makes an excellent point. Every person in this country will want to know and understand how MPs have voted in this place tonight. It matters to them and their families, and it matters for their jobs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Secretary of State could call in ACAS this afternoon in order to take this dispute forward, but, instead, despite repeated promises made to the public, this Government have slashed 19,000 rail services, hiked up rail fares, and presided over near-record delays. The insane system that they have created means that private operators, handed millions of pounds for failing services, will be protected throughout the strike. Those operators have no incentive to settle this dispute. They will carry on collecting their fee and the taxpayer will foot the bill. That is the reality of the Conservative mismanagement of our railways.

Finally, let me say this loud and clear: the tens of thousands of workers who keep our railways running are not the enemy. In 2020, the Secretary of State called them “true heroes”. They kept our country served and stocked during the pandemic. They are cleaners, technicians and apprentices—the very same people to whom the Prime Minister promised a “high-wage economy” before presiding over the biggest fall in wages in a decade. Just six weeks ago, the Transport Secretary and his colleagues confected outrage about the illegal decision to replace 800 P&O workers with agency staff. He even called on the public to boycott P&O, but in reality he is acting directly from P&O’s playbook. The only difference is that he wants to make it legal.

Today, the Government have shown their true colours: they want to gut the rights of British workers. How do they think scandals such as P&O can be avoided or even properly punished if they are going to take the axe to the limited protections that workers currently enjoy? Labour will always fight for fair pay and a decent wage for working people. However, rather than do their job, desperate Tory Ministers are spoiling for a fight to distract from their chaotic, discredited and aimless Government.

[Chris Clarkson]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I hope this is a serious point of order and not just an attempt to disrupt the debate. I want to be absolutely clear that it is very discourteous to the House to keep interrupting with points of order when colleagues will have the chance to contribute separately. I look forward to this being a proper point of order.

[Chris Clarkson]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a proper point of order, because we value a proper debate in this House. Is it a proper debate if the hon. Member at the Opposition Dispatch Box refuses to take interventions from this side?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Honestly, the hon. Gentleman should know very well, because he will have seen it on both sides of the House, that it is up to an individual right hon. or hon. Member whether they take interventions. He knows that very well. Quite honestly, that was a bit spurious. Let us have just a bit of courtesy to each other in this debate—[Interruption.] Don’t question me. I call Louise Haigh.

Motor Vehicles (Compulsory Insurance) Bill

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 28th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[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.

Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Bill

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 10th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The taxi and private hire sector is often misunderstood. It plays a key role in our transport sector. Extraordinarily, it represents the largest number of people employed in transport. My hon. Friend is right that for so many people, particularly disabled people, taxis and private hire vehicles are a lifeline. The fact that they have been under such pressure is a cause for further action from Government.

Three and a half years is a long time to wait, and in the meantime I am grateful that Members across the House have pressed relentlessly for action. The hon. Member for Darlington has already praised the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for his role when he was Minister. He established what was known as a task and finish group led by Professor Mohammed Abdel-Haq. His group achieved remarkable consensus, because there are competing views, particularly between taxi and private hire. It came back with 34 recommendations, a number of which include the very proposals we are discussing this morning.

There have also been repeated questions to Ministers and Westminster Hall debates. I remember when I was a member of the Transport Committee hearing a passionate appeal from a professor who feared we would see further incidents of the type that the hon. Member for Darlington has already referred to. He felt it was only a matter of time, without improvements in licensing, before we would see further tragedies. At Transport questions on Thursday morning, it sometimes felt like a permanent item on the agenda that Ministers would be pressed on this point. I am sure that many Members across the House will have heard over the past few months from a whole range of constituents about these issues, as well as from safety campaigners, disability organisations, trade unions and so on.

Technology has also produced huge challenges and changes for the sector in recent years. Something that has come across to me in my discussions with people going around the country is just how different the situations are in different parts of the country. I have already made reference to the black cab trade in London, and we hear about that, but there are different patterns in different towns, cities and market towns across the country. I thought that London and Cambridge were different in their approach, but in learning more about Liverpool, Brighton, Manchester, Rotherham and Wolverhampton, as have already been mentioned, and then looking at the market towns and rural areas, we see it is not a simple task to regulate all these different situations.

There are many, many things we need to tackle, and for those who want a quick history, I refer people to my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), who had an excellent Adjournment debate a few years ago, where he traced the history of taxi legislation all the way back to the Victorian era. It is astonishing how much of the legislation still refers back and is based on so much of that. When I was talking to Department for Transport civil servants, they pointed me to the volume of legislation, which I am sure the Minister is intimately familiar with. It is lengthy, complicated and, frankly, it probably needs an overhaul, exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) suggests. The world has changed and unfortunately the legislative situation has not changed to keep up, and it cannot be done in a private Member’s Bill, as the hon. Member for Darlington clearly acknowledged. There are so many things we need to do, but this is a small part related to passenger safety.

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

As a former member of a licensing panel, I completely agree with what the hon. Gentleman just said. Does he agree that the Bill is a valuable first step in bringing uniformity and rigour to how different authorities license their taxi drivers? I think particularly of Rossendale Borough Council, which is next door to Rochdale Borough Council, where I am an MP. They have completely different standards, so we see a preponderance of Rossendale licences in our area, rather than Rochdale ones. There is clearly a disconnect between how they license their taxi drivers, and people are exploiting that.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. Rossendale, I am afraid, did feature extensively in some debates. When my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish had his Adjournment debate many years ago, he referred to that issue in particular. I have to say it is astonishing how many Wolverhampton plates still turn up in Cambridge. I was not aware of the Perth example, but one can see the problem. This system was devised in an era where people worked locally, but the world has changed completely with the kind of technologies we have, which is why the legislation needs such a major overhaul.

I was going to go through the details of the Bill, but the hon. Member for Darlington did so impeccably, so I feel no need to trouble the House with them again. He has obviously done very good research. I had intended to contact Tameside to see where the NR3 database had got to. I was struck that it had not yet achieved universal coverage. That is the key point: until it is universal, there will always be the possibility of gaming the system.

There is a danger in this whole debate of implying that there are large numbers of people doing this. The hon. Member was absolutely right to make the point at the outset that most people are not behaving badly, but some are.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici), and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) as well as the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) who brought this Bill’s spiritual predecessor to the House. I share his frustration this occasion did not happen sooner. I am a former member of the licensing authority on Salford City Council, and we often benefited from the voluntary sharing of information. I particularly pay tribute to the council chair, a great Labour councillor called John Warmisham, with whom, despite our varied politics, I usually found myself in full agreement—that picks up on the point made earlier, that this issue should be supported across the House.

At its heart, this Bill is about confidence. It is about enabling people to feel confident when getting into a private hire cab, and about them knowing that the person who has that licence is a fit and proper person and has not somehow gamed the system. I alluded earlier to the fact that just over the border into Rossendale a slightly different standard was applied to the distribution of taxi licences, and someone would be more likely to find a Rossendale-licensed cab in my Rochdale-based constituency than they would one from our own licensing authority. The Bill is also about confidence for taxi drivers, as my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington pointed out.

Currently, the bad acts of one driver can impact on others—I think of a particularly cogent example in Rochdale. We are all aware of the heart-breaking events of the Rochdale grooming scandal, and many of the people involved in that were taxi drivers. We then had a situation where certain taxi providers in Rochdale were offering white drivers to people as a matter of confidence. That is a shameful situation in which to find ourselves. It besmirches the reputation of honest ethnic minority drivers—obviously it is a very diverse community—and it led to difficulties in an already tense situation in a very diverse town. It also created a situation where people did not feel comfortable using their local provider, which is bad for the local economy.

We know from the pandemic that taxi drivers have been an essential part of keeping this country going. They have been key workers in a very real sense. I do not drive my own private car because I live in the city centre and it is not practical for me to do so, and I often rely on taxis to get me from A to B. I like to get into a taxi knowing that the driver is a decent person, and I am grateful for the extra effort put into keeping me safe from covid, in addition to all the other things that those drivers have done, sometimes at their own expense. Many are now multi-apping and working across different platforms, to try to keep the wolf from the door. I want them to understand that by introducing this Bill we are trying to make their lives easier. This is not about casting aspersions on the quality of taxi drivers; this is about ensuring that the few who choose to game the system and bend the rules are not allowed to carry on. I fully commend the Bill. I am extremely glad that it is going through the House, and I hope we will press forward with it today. It has my absolute support.

Railway Station: Gamesley

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Robert Largan) for securing this important debate. It is widely known among his fellow northern MPs that he is a doughty champion for his constituents on a range of issues, not least this important project. In that vein, I wish to take Members on a brief journey, one that I hope will be as enriching and swift as commuters will soon enjoy from Gamesley to Manchester. That journey begins where else but in ancient Rome. In the senates of the Roman republic there was an august member of that body known as Cato Censorius, who was convinced that war was coming between the republic and the city of Carthage for control of the Mediterranean. So convinced of that was he that he began to end every oration with

“Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam”

or, “Moreover, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.” It did not matter what the debate was on, be it taxation, agriculture or the most auspicious date on which to go to the Circus Maximus, each and every speech would end the same way. That was helpfully shortened by 19th century historians to “Carthago delenda est”, which is less of a mouthful.

It was another 2,237 years before there would be another orator to match that clarity of purpose and single-mindedness—Robertus Architectus, or Robert the builder. This champion of the people of Alto Cacumen—High Peak to we mere Anglo-Saxons—has skilfully worked the building of Gamesley station into no fewer than eight debates, covering topics as diverse as rail fares, the economy and the Greater Manchester spatial framework. He has mentioned Gamesley station more times in his eight months as a Member of this House than all his predecessors combined.

That might all be to put a humorous spin on things, and I do so because my hon. Friend is a great friend of mine, but it does not diminish the fact that he is doing what we all came here promising to do: to put the interests of those who elected us first. The construction of Gamesley station will, much as the extension of the Metrolink to Middleton, do a great deal of good for the local economy, the environment, jobs and the prosperity of the region he represents. We are all seized with the idea that we need to get cars off the road and improve transport infrastructure, as well as boost our economy in the post-covid era. As Cato may well have said, this is bonum commune communitatis—for the good of the whole community.

It is an absolute pleasure to participate in this debate and I will bring my thoughts to a close by simply saying: ceterum autem censeo Stationem Ardotaliæ esse ædificandam!

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

15. What steps his Department is taking to improve rail services in the north of England.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Andrew Stephenson)]

We are working with Network Rail, operators and stakeholders to raise performance, and we are investing billions of pounds to improve services for passengers.

[Chris Clarkson]

I thank the Minister for that answer. Does he agree with me that, in addition to national rail projects, light rail projects such as extending the Metrolink to Middleton and Heywood in my constituency form a vital part of levelling up and increasing capacity?

[Andrew Stephenson]

Under this Government, the Metrolink has been extended to reach new destinations right across Greater Manchester. The most recent extension to the Trafford centre is due to open later this month. While the development of light rail proposals is a matter for the Mayoral combined authority, we will work closely with them. I hope to see the Metrolink extended to my hon. Friend’s constituency. As the Chancellor said yesterday, we are getting investment done.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I must say that Andy Street is an excellent Mayor for Birmingham and I hope he is re-elected.

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to improve rail infrastructure in (a) the Castlefield corridor and (b) West Yorkshire.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)]

My Department is working closely with Network Rail, train operators and stakeholders to develop options for improving rail capacity and performance on the Castlefield corridor in Manchester. We completely understand that sorting out the capacity there is so important.

[Chris Clarkson]

I thank the Minister for that answer. The national railway network barely grazes my constituency, and Metrolink avoids it altogether. Does he agree that an extension of Metrolink and the welcome reversals of the Beeching cuts will be an important part of levelling-up the forgotten towns in the north-west such as Heywood and Middleton?