Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Hinds and Andy McDonald

Monday 29th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

T7. Five years on from the approval of a new secondary school in my Middlesbrough constituency, not a brick has been laid and the children of Outwood Academy Riverside remain in an old Home Office block, and the next two years’ intake are going to be bused to Redcar to portacabins plonked on a field. Children are spending their entire secondary school years in temporary accommodation and it is just not good enough. Will the Secretary of State tell ministerial colleagues to get a grip and crack on with building the new school these students need and deserve?

[Damian Hinds]

We have increased the amount of money going into condition funding. We are also, of course, rebuilding 500 schools under the school rebuilding programme. I will look into the specific case the hon. Gentleman mentions and come back to him.

Transport

Debate between Damian Hinds and Andy McDonald

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The Welsh Government are taking a serious issue more seriously, and they are to be commended for their work.

What is more, transport is the most emitting sector of the UK economy. It is responsible for more than a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, and that is excluding international shipping and aviation. It is also the worst-performing sector when it comes to reducing carbon emissions, which are higher now than in 2010. Progress has been poor in comparison with that of other sectors: transport emissions were just 2% lower in 2016-17 than 1990-1991, compared with 60% for energy supply and 30% for businesses more generally.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Would the hon. Gentleman care to comment on what happened to transport emissions under the Labour Government in the 10 years following 1997, before the financial crash?

[Andy McDonald]

We are dealing with 2020 and the risible record of this Government. I know that a number of Conservative Members think that the world started in 2020, but the Government have been in power since 2010, and they should take that on board.

The facts that I have given compound the Government’s depressing lack of ambition. Their failure to reduce transport carbon emissions and act on the crisis is a huge missed opportunity to lead the world in developing and manufacturing low-carbon technologies. Yesterday’s announcement of a 2035 phase-out of the production of petrol and diesel cars highlights the poverty of vision for the climate and for industry. Electric vehicles will be as cheap as diesel and petrol cars by the mid-2020s. It makes no sense to go on selling polluting vehicles that will be more expensive to buy and run into the 2030s. In its alternative strategy, Labour has set out a clear pathway to achieving significant reductions in climate emissions at the same time as reducing regional and social inequalities and improving the quality of life.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy McDonald]

I have already indicated that I will not give way because so many people want to speak.

Fifteen per cent. of the UK’s population accounts for 70% of all flights, and half the country does not fly at all in any given year. Ahead of a possible tax cut for the aviation industry next month, Ministers should be thinking more imaginatively, such as replacing air passenger duty with a fair and just levy that targets frequent flyers. The Government’s advisory body, the Committee on Climate Change, has called for the introduction of a frequent flyer levy. Such a move could reduce demand for flying without penalising the annual family holiday in the sun, instead making it more expensive to fly out for a weekend at the second home in Provence for the umpteenth time that year.

[Damian Hinds]

It is more about business.

[Andy McDonald]

No, it is not.

Is the Secretary of State aware that it is more than a decade since the effectiveness of regulators in the transport industry was seriously questioned or considered? [Interruption.] I know he is not listening, but he really should.

Regulators could and should have a positive role in driving carbon reduction in the industries they oversee. Does the Secretary of State agree that the powers of the Office of Rail and Road and the Civil Aviation Authority should be strengthened to ensure that the road, rail, bus and aviation industries meet their climate crisis obligations? Have the Government issued any guidance to the transport industry regulators in that regard?

Finally, the Department for Transport does not have a carbon reduction budget or target. The Government should set a carbon budget consistent with the aspirations of the Paris agreement and beyond. In addition, each of the sectors—rail, road, aviation and maritime—should have carbon reduction targets in line with that departmental budget, and departmental spending should be reallocated to achieve the changes required.

Claire O’Neill is correct to say that the Prime Minister “doesn’t get it” on the climate crisis. The Transport Secretary has an opportunity to show that he does get it by halting the colossal road-building programme and his plans for airport expansion, and by boosting investment in active travel, public transport and electric vehicles.

Dealing with transport is critical to confronting the climate crisis. We are compelled to take action by decarbonising not only to respond to the existential threat to our one and only planet but to embrace the green industrial revolution and, simultaneously, to address the gross and obscene deficits in social justice. We must level up so that everyone across our nation has affordable, accessible and sustainable transport. We must connect our communities and businesses, and we must give people the means to get to work, to get to college, school or university and to get to hospital, and to help address social isolation.

The moral, social and economic imperatives are urgent and stark, and I urge this Government to take the bold and radical action that is necessary. The country, indeed the world, is watching. I commend this motion to the House.