High Speed Rail (West Midlands – Crewe) Bill

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con) [V]]

There is less justification for this grossly overpriced project than there was when Labour first proposed it. It is the most expensive way to destroy lives and homes, and tear apart the environment. It also ensures that highly paid HS2 personnel continue to bulldoze through this unpopular project. Public polls show it is an unpopular scheme, and Chris Packham’s petition to halt it in its tracks has already attracted over 136,000 signatures. It is a shame that the Government and this Minister, excellent though he is, do not have the courage to cancel it or suspend construction.

Turning to the Lords amendments, because three minutes really is not enough, Lords amendment 2 applies to all phases of HS2, including the one that tears through the heart of Chesham and Amersham. It covers all ancient woodland, but I am not sure it goes far enough. For example, there has been an ancient oak tree on a property of one of my constituents, but it was on land that was only potentially required during the construction of the railway. It was cut down. There was not the accompanying consultation and the destruction was probably unnecessary, but HS2 did it because it could. That, for me, is not good enough. I hope that Lords amendment 2, now accepted by the Government, will at least go wider and ensure that consultations do take place. I hope that individual trees will be covered and that the reports the Minister gets will include how wildlife is affected, such as the barbastelle bats that have been disturbed at Jones’ Hill wood in my constituency. When HS2 was told it had to stop cutting down trees, it immediately put up very powerful lights at night so that would cause damage to the bats and the environment—so thoughtless and such a cavalier attitude to this rare species.

Turning to Lords amendment 3, the Minister mentioned the cost of £350,000. Let us get that in proportion. It is less than half a year’s salary of the chief executive of HS2. I hope the consultation further up the track will be superior to that exhibited in phase 1 in our area. Our local Chilterns Conservation Board experienced the superficial engagement from HS2, which alienated communities and risks designs, such as that for the Amersham vent shaft, being foisted on our community. They are going to build a headhouse that will stand out like a sore thumb in perpetuity. If that is what consultation means for HS2, beware all of you on the phase 2 line of route. So far, consultation has proved to be poor and inaccurate. On this and on many other parts of the construction, HS2 has failed to inform, consult, communicate and engage meaningfully with the people in communities affected by this wasteful project. At a time when our financial resources should be directed to the benefit of the whole UK, it is a project that is to the detriment of the many and of benefit to the highly paid few.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

To follow on from the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan), I find it slightly bizarre that at a time when rail travel has been upended and changed dramatically, there was no mention of that in the Minister’s comments. Keynes said, “When the facts change, I change my mind.” The pandemic has certainly changed the facts even more than those who questioned the original rationale of this project could have anticipated. It has especially highlighted the contrast between the grand projet—the great project—and the incremental improvement of capacity. That is what the Eddington report, produced back in the early 2000s, highlighted. It should have been listened to much more.

That is to some extent on the supply side. The impact on the demand side has been dramatic. The question is whether that is a blip or an oscillation, or a structural seismic shift. Has it, in fact, changed travel patterns for good, both for conurbation commuting and for inter-city travel? One factor will be possible annual recurrences of the pandemic, as with flu. It may not be as dramatic in a future wave, but it will certainly have an impact.

We have also seen work patterns change. We see that here, with many people working from home. They may not continue to do that all the time, but they may well be working split weeks. That will have an impact on demand. Far more meetings are now conducted by Zoom. That process has accelerated dramatically in a way that nobody, not even the founders of such companies, anticipated. If those meetings patterns change, what will that do to daytime inter-city travel? Will there actually be the demand? Will having the west coast main line and HS2 not actually mean that both become unviable?

I have to ask the Minister, in the light of those developments, whether the Transport Department has actually reassessed the fundamentals of the project—what work has it done on it? While considering the Lords amendments, and given the astronomical sums involved, should there not be a pause and a reassessment, which could require a complete rethink of the project? We may have sunk a few billions—the sunk costs argument is always attractive and seductive but fundamentally wrong—but do we really want to continue to spend tens of billions more?

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con) [V]]

It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate. I begin by thanking the noble Lord Rosser for taking up the cause of my constituents in the village of Woore, a small village where Cheshire, Staffordshire and Shropshire meet; Woore actually means boundary. It comprises a strip of about a mile and a half entailing Ireland’s Cross down to Pipe Gate, with a footpath that crosses the road three times. The road is already inadequate for modern traffic, yet perversely, HS2 has decided to go on three sides of a rectangle to take, at the peak, 300 heavy goods vehicles per day—a total of 130,000 extra heavy goods vehicle movements over seven years.

That road is completely inadequate as it stands, and I take my hat off to the parish council and Mr Cowey, the chairman, for battling for those who live in Woore. It is now really urgent, and I welcome the fact that the Government have endorsed and will adopt these amendments, because we have to move rapidly. I will be in Woore again tomorrow morning talking to HS2 and Shropshire Council. We proposed 38 mitigation measures and are down to 33. These are now really important. They mean more than just turning the crossing into a pelican crossing or having a lollipop lady at busy times, when 65 children try to get to their school. I am seriously concerned for the safety of my constituents. The construction phase will begin shortly; it sadly looks as though this project will go ahead.

It really is important that we have a proper consultation and that the Minister, as he is bound to by Lords amendment 3, listens carefully, and that he ensures that those mitigation measures are pushed through and financed by HS2. We plan to spend, apparently, £80 billion, according to the House of Commons Library. It was £30 billion when I was in the Cabinet. I was told we were going to link it up to HS1 and go to Heathrow, but we are not; we are going to somewhere called Old Oak Common. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) and the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) said, this project is now completely out of date. We can use Zoom and Teams. It would be far better to spend £30 billion of that giving every single household in this country top-class superfast broadband.

However, sadly, this project has its own momentum. If I had the chance tonight, I would vote against it again. I thank the Minister very much for adopting Lords amendment 3 and taking on this consultation, but will he absolutely promise my constituents in Woore that those 33 proposed mitigation measures will be financed by HS2 and will be implemented before those 300 trucks a day start pounding down the narrow lane and past that footpath that crosses the road three times?

--- Later in debate ---

The right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) questioned the reason for moving forward with HS2 at the current time. As he will be aware, the Government’s top priority at the moment is dealing with the covid-19 pandemic, but this is ultimately a project for the long term. Phase 1 of the railway is not expected to be opened until 2029 to 2033. Whatever projections we come to about the impact of covid on the business case, this is a long-term investment that is about transforming rail journeys in the UK and freeing up the existing network.

[John Spellar]

rose—

[Andrew Stephenson]

In case it pre-empts a point that the right hon. Gentleman is about to make, I will just add that the revised business case will be published when we make an investment decision. While I cannot come out with a revised business case today, before the Treasury commits, there will be a revised business case based on that investment decision, and similar to phase 1, we will publish that business case for all to see and scrutinise.

[John Spellar]

I thank the Minister for that helpful reply. Are the Government undertaking an assessment of whether patterns of travel have structurally changed or whether this is just a temporary blip? If patterns of travel have changed, the whole basis of this scheme may have done as well.

[Andrew Stephenson]

We can all see that patterns of travel have changed in the short term, but we are not sure how long that will last. The uncertain end of covid-19—we will get through this, but we are not sure when—means that it is quite hard to predict how long the impact will be. Many studies are going on into this—many academic studies and lots of thought. My personal view is that the global trend we have seen across the world of urbanisation and of people wanting to live in cities and commute between those cities is something we will continue to see. We have seen that in parts of the world that have been affected by previous pandemics and virus outbreaks.

I still think that many people in this country will want to live in cities. When I was growing up, Manchester was like a ghost town and Leeds was similar. Now they are thriving cities and places where people want to live. Therefore I think that projects such as HS2, which is about connecting up the largest cities, still hold sway. As I say, this is an investment for the long term, and phase 1 will not be opening until 2029 at the absolute earliest. I think there is still a strong rationale for it.

I am happy to commit to continuing to keep the House updated. When I was in front of the Transport Committee earlier this month, I committed to informing the House of our thinking about HS2 in my six-monthly report to Parliament. The next six-monthly report on HS2 will be in April, so I intend to give more of the Government’s thinking then. Also, if there is a general debate on this issue, when I am sure lots of these points will be made, I am sure I will be much more closely challenged on the broader point.

[John Spellar]

Is one of the main drivers not peak-time capacity and daytime capacity? Inter-city travel is very much driven by business travel. We have seen how remote conferencing—Zoom we call it, but there are all the other companies as well—has changed the ways in which people are undertaking those meetings. Might that not really drive down use, so that we do not need that peak-time capacity? In the evenings, there is no problem at all, and that may be when people travel for leisure. Has there not possibly been a significant change?

[Andrew Stephenson]

This matter really needs its own debate—I am sure it will get one—where we can go through these things in some depth. What I will say is that if we look at the aspirational growth plans of some of the cities we intend to connect, we see that Leeds, for example, intends to double the size of the city centre. We are going to see different people wanting to use transport. We are certainly going to see changes. How long those last for, who knows? We have all in this House spent many months now on Zoom. I cannot wait for us to return to normality and to get back to face-to-face meetings. This is a debate for another day, however, and with your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will try to get back to the topic and the amendments in hand. I am more than happy to debate this topic with the right hon. Gentleman at another stage.

Turning to the comments from my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) about the village of Woore in his patch, and the impact on that particularly affected parish, I am more than happy to commit to meeting him to discuss the challenges in that area, as well as the undertakings and assurances that have been given, to ensure that we continue to mitigate where we can the impact on his local residents. While the Bill contains numerous undertakings and assurances, it is an ongoing process, and we need to ensure that we are continually looking at the best available evidence of the impacts and mitigating wherever we can.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) spoke with passion about his constituency. He has met me many times about this topic. He is one of the directly affected line-of-route MPs on the 2a route. I am very keen to visit his constituency. He has invited me a number of times to meet specific residents and some of the directly impacted local groups. I am very keen to do so when it is safe for me to do that.

The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) talked about environmental reporting and his concerns that, if HS2 does that via a sustainability report, there could be an element of HS2 marking its own homework. I want to be clear that that is something about which I am very passionate. I want to see HS2 setting a good standard—a new standard—for environmental sustainability reporting. I touched on that point in my last six-monthly report to Parliament. I hope to provide more details in my next six-monthly report.

I am committed to ensuring that the project starts the reporting in a way that looks at all the material impacts and in a way that is seen as credible by stakeholders, and not just greenwashing or something else. The board of HS2 Ltd has now formed an environmental sub-committee chaired by Allan Cook that is looking at this, among other issues. I really want to get environmental sustainability reporting right: it needs to be at the heart of this increased transparency from HS2 Ltd. I am therefore more than happy to meet hon. and right hon. Members to discuss the details of how we get it right, not just on reporting about ancient woodland but on reporting about a whole range of environmental impacts.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) again questions the demand for HS2. I think we have covered that quite well. I am more than happy, obviously, to write to him. As I said, I hope to shed some light on that in my next six-monthly report, but I am sure it will also be the focus of future debates.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) talked with passion about her constituency and the need for the consultation provided for under amendment 3. She lobbied me very hard about amendment 3, as she has about a number of land and property cases since being elected to this House. I pay tribute to her as a doughty champion for her constituents.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) talked about the benefits to his area—comments that were echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), who sees the benefits to Crewe. I was pleased to be able to visit Crewe prior to the start of the pandemic to meet my hon. Friend and the local council leader to talk about the benefits for regeneration in Crewe. Amendment 3 is important for further consultation with residents in Staffordshire and in Cheshire to ensure that we are taking all people’s views into account. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) also talked about amendment 3 and the importance of consulting with Staffordshire because, again, he recognises the benefits.

The Bill itself concerns 36 miles of track between Fradley in the west midlands and Crewe in Cheshire. At its conclusion, the Bill is accompanied by over 17,000 pages of environmental assessment and a register of undertakings and assurances that make over 1,500 individual commitments to petitioners and other interested parties about matters they have raised during its passage. The Bill has been scrutinised carefully by both Houses and improvements have been made to it.

I am sure that the wider debate about HS2, on which we have been slightly exercised tonight, will continue for many months and years. I look forward to further engagements as we prepare for the next stage of HS2—the hybrid Bill taking HS2 from Crewe into Manchester. It is right that we debate this project because it is of such significance nationally, and also so costly at a time of so many pressures on the public finances.

At its heart, though, HS2 is a project that will connect people and places. It is a project that will help the country to level up and help us to build back better from the coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, it is my view that we must get on with it. We must equip our people with the training and education needed to undertake the highly skilled roles in planning, in engineering and in constructing this railway. We must offer the jobs promised and get shovels in the ground. This Bill is a small part of a bigger project that will create much-needed capacity on our rail network. I believe that opponents—they may disagree—are short-sighted.

It is right that people stay at home now and we reduce travelling to an absolute minimum, but this will not last forever, as we will defeat the virus. The pandemic will end. People will travel again, both for business and for leisure. When that time comes, I want people to be connected. I want this House to have thought about the long-term future of our country and to have planned for it. I want to join up the west midlands and Crewe. I want us to drive investment in infrastructure, in skills and in growth across a whole levelled-up country. In short, I want this Bill to pass.

Lords amendment 1 agreed to.

Lords amendments 2 to 12 agreed to.

International Travel

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am a great champion of the aviation sector, as he is, and it breaks my heart to see it suffering, jobs being impacted, and the second or third greatest and biggest aviation sector economy in the world being affected. He is absolutely right to ask whether I will keep my eyes and ears open for absolutely everything that we can do. I have my officials working on that all the time, and I will return—a number of Members have asked when—to the House the moment the scientists provide the information we need to be able to take further testing forward.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Finally, the Secretary of State, in this last answer, actually acknowledged that we have a major aviation sector which is hugely important to Britain and to Britain’s place in the world. There was no acknowledgment of that in his statement, nor any acknowledgement of the 10,000 jobs that have already gone and the 100,000 jobs that are at risk. Also, frankly, the Secretary of State seems to be focusing on seeking complete risk avoidance rather than intelligent risk management. He needs to recognise that unemployment kills and poverty kills. We need to be getting Britain back to work as we go into autumn facing a national jobs crisis and, in particular, a crisis in the aviation industry. When he is going to get a move on?

[Grant Shapps]

I may have taken the rather presumptuous position of thinking that the House knew how much I love aviation, but I will put it on record again. As a qualified pilot for 25 years, I absolutely think it is a terrific industry. However, the right hon. Member is right about the balance between getting people back to work—he knows how hard we are working to persuade people to go back—and doing it in a safe way. I do slightly take issue with him over the idea he expressed when he talked about the risk-benefit ratio, and it is very important that we do not see another spike. We are seeing the numbers creeping up, and I think it would be unforgivable if, having got on top of this virus, we re-imported this disease back in again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We have now appointed the head of the new aircraft noise body, which will monitor noise levels at airports and inform the Civil Aviation Authority when it needs to step in and use its enforcement powers. Of course, with the transition to a new generation of lower noise, lower emission and lower fuel consuming jets, the noise footprint around our airports is now considerably lower than it was a few years ago.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to support UK transport-related industry after the UK leaves the EU.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)]

My Department is working closely with the transport industry to ensure that businesses and passengers are prepared for EU exit. We engage frequently with stakeholders to understand their needs, and we have taken action to ensure that we are prepared for all possible outcomes. We have agreed contingency regulations with the EU to ensure that flights continue and that hauliers have access to the EU marketplace in a no-deal scenario. We have also set up new UK safety certification regimes so that we have proper safety standards and rules in place in all eventualities.

[John Spellar]

Unfortunately, the Secretary of State did not refer to the manufacturing industry in that answer. As Brexit looms, his civil servants will no longer have their lame excuse that they are unable to prefer trains built locally—an interpretation of European regulations that is not shared by any other major country in Europe. Even when a firm built a factory in the north-east, it disgracefully lost a contract to a firm that will build the great majority of those trains abroad. Will this Brexit-supporting Secretary of State finally show some backbone and instruct his civil servants to buy trains made in British factories by British workers?

[Chris Grayling]

Of course, the contract to which the right hon. Gentleman refers, which was won by Siemens rather than the other bidders, including Hitachi in the north-east, was in fact let by the current Labour Mayor of London.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones]

We are making sure that we are dealing with the disability issue. We want to make sure that the rail network offers smooth, easy journeys for people with disabilities. With regard to the rolling stock coming on to the midland main line, of course, we will deliver it as soon as possible.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I wish to follow the line of argument of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I do not know whether the Minister has read the very authoritative transport study produced for the previous Government by the British Airways chief, Rod Eddington, which clearly made the case against grand projects and advocated widespread incremental improvement. Would we not be better served if the Government funded not only rolling stock but many other transport improvements by scrapping the ever more expensive, budget-busting HS2?

[Andrew Jones]

Again, I give the answer that I gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis): we are doing both. It is not a question of one or the other. We are delivering HS2, which is required to add capacity into our rail network, and, at the same time, we are also delivering, in control period 6, maintenance and enhancements worth £48 billion across our classic rail network. So we are doing both, not one or the other.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I am sure that the Secretary of State can chew gum and walk at the same time, so while he is dealing with future viability with our leaving the EU, will he also deal with the current crisis over drones affecting airports? May I give him the opportunity to answer the questions that he did not answer earlier in the week? Were contingency plans agreed with the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office to protect our airports from drone incidents and others, and if not, why not? Were such plans not activated in time because of dithering? Why did they not work? Was that the fault of the Secretary of State’s Department, the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office or, indeed, the Cabinet Office?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I listened to the right hon. Gentleman’s question with great interest. It was tangential to the substantive question, and I just say gently to him that I had been thinking of offering him an Adjournment debate on the matter, until I realised that he had, in fact, just conducted one.

Drones: Consultation Response

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I know how strongly my right hon. Friend feels about the matter. Of course, the same issue would arise whether expansion took place at Gatwick, Stansted or Heathrow. The reality is that Heathrow has been ahead of most other airports in providing protection against drones, but even Heathrow has not had the perfect solution. That is why the systems that we now have in place could be deployed at Heathrow at short notice to provide protection for the airport.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I think it was Peel who said that the absence of crime, not the apprehension of criminals, was the test of a good force. What the hundreds of thousands of travellers wanted was for the disruption to be stopped. May I ask some very specific questions? Were there contingency plans already agreed with the MOD and the Home Office to protect our airports from drone incidents and others? If not, why not? If there were such plans, why did they not work? Were they not activated in time because of dithering, and was that the fault of the Secretary of State’s Department, the Ministry of Defence or the Home Office—or, indeed, the Cabinet Office and the Cabinet Secretary in No. 10? Which is it?

[Chris Grayling]

As we are hearing from around the world, protections against such a deliberate and disruptive attack are few and far between. The reality is that the Government and different Departments, including the MOD, moved very quickly to assemble a response of a different kind from any previous one, and they did so in a way that is now being looked at very carefully around the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

I can certainly confirm that we will be consulting shortly on E10 and that we are looking closely at the issue of fuel labelling, which, as the hon. Gentleman knows, has to be addressed relatively quickly.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept that what is really needed is an overall, measured, strategic approach to the propulsion mix for vehicles? That will rightly include E10, but it will also include diesel. What has been so damaging to that industry has been the Government’s war on diesel, which has been hugely damaging to our automotive sector, as well as our engine manufacturing.

[Jesse Norman]

I can only salute the right hon. Gentleman’s expertise in crowbarring a question about diesel into exchanges about E10. We are taking a strategic approach. We introduced changes to the renewable transport fuel obligation earlier this year. We have changed the status of the crop cap. We are pushing for the increased use of waste-based biofuels, and we are supporting the introduction of higher-performance fuels in other sectors of the transport world.

National Policy Statement: Airports

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald]

I will make some progress, because I am aware that many Members want to speak.

This has not been a great year so far for the British transport system, with meltdown on the railways and growing frustration across the transport industry about the Government’s “It will be all right on the night” approach to Brexit. Last week’s news from Airbus struck like a thunderbolt, so the proposal to undertake a large-scale infrastructure project in the UK should be a good news story. The expansion of our hub airport should be very good news indeed—except it is not.

The Government have not done the work to support the development of this project. Their case is riddled with gaps and is fundamentally flawed. Yet again, this Secretary of State has made a complete shambles of a vital national project. Yet again, he is not putting the relevant facts before Parliament. Today’s vote has been scheduled just days before the Government’s own advisory body, the Committee on Climate Change, is due to publish a report that is expected to warn that increasing aviation emissions will destroy Britain’s greenhouse gas targets. It appears that the vote on the national policy statement has been planned for today so that hon. and right hon. Members are left in the dark about how much the Secretary of State’s plan will obliterate the UK’s climate change commitments. That is not only reckless, but shows contempt for Parliament and for the environment.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Is not my hon. Friend slightly missing the point? Aviation—across the world and into Europe—will continue and grow, so the real question is whether it will be going into Schiphol, Frankfurt or Charles de Gaulle airports, or whether we will create investment, protect the well-paid, unionised jobs at Heathrow, and create opportunities for the youngsters of the future.

[Andy McDonald]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention but, of course, we must always ensure that any growth is delivered sustainably—that has to be the point.

Hon. Members will not have the opportunity to see the hugely important Committee on Climate Change report before they vote. Global warming is the single most important issue facing the world, yet Members of this House are being asked to vote today without full knowledge and without the full set of facts.

That is outrageous behaviour from the Government, and from the Secretary of State in particular. The Justice Committee said last week that his multi-billion pound reforms to the probation service in 2014 will never work. In his two years as Secretary of State for Transport, he has laid waste to the railways, slashing and burning and leaving a trail of scorched earth. Rail electrification cuts, franchising meltdown and timetabling chaos have caused misery to millions. His mismanaging of airport expansion, as he has mismanaged other areas of transport, will present much bigger risks, with immensely more serious consequences.

The Transport Secretary has consistently demonstrated poor judgment and a reliance on incomplete, unreliable and non-existent evidence, yet he stands here today and expects the House to take his word for it—to take a leap of faith with him. Labour has been clear that we will support airport expansion only if the very specific provisions of our four tests are met. We are not against expansion; we are against this option for expansion, as presented.

The north-west runway is too risky and it may be illegal. There are simply too many holes in the case. There are too many hostages to fortune for the taxpayer and for any future Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

My right hon. Friend has made his point eloquently. All I would say is that the major roads network that we announced last week, along with the bypass fund, is specifically designed to be part of a wider strategy whose purpose is to provide the infrastructure that new housing development requires. That should be part of the solution for any of these schemes.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This question has been narrowly confined to Mid Sussex, from which the right hon. Gentleman’s Warley constituency is a considerable distance away. If he is going to focus his question exclusively on Mid Sussex, not “and elsewhere” or “and other places”, we will hear him.

[John Spellar]

Will the Minister accept that the improvements to the road system to East Sussex—

[Sir Nicholas Soames]

Mid Sussex.

[John Spellar]

Mid Sussex. Does the Minister accept that the road system to Mid Sussex would be considerably improved if money was diverted from the ever-deepening, bottomless pit of HS2, thus enabling those projects to move forward much more quickly? May I join my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) in calling for a reassessment of this increasingly troubled scheme?

[Jesse Norman]

Mr Speaker, it is a mark of your grace that you were able to allow the right hon. Gentleman to proceed with a question so evidently unrelated to the issue, so much so that he was not able to make it to the actual name of the constituency or the area concerned, although that came in the first 10 seconds of his question. The answer to his question, if I may dignify it with an answer, is that there will be plenty of investment in both sides of that equation.

Diesel Vehicle Scrappage Scheme

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered a diesel vehicle scrappage scheme.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I also have great pleasure in leading this debate. The good attendance shows the strength of feeling for implementing a diesel vehicle scrappage scheme and tackling air pollution problems. In my speech, I shall touch on why we need a scrappage scheme, outline how such a scheme would complement the Government’s new air quality plan, and suggest how systems could be designed and targeted at the dirtiest diesel engines.

Why do we need a diesel vehicle scrappage scheme? I think that everyone here knows how we got to this point. The previous Government said that diesel cars should attract less vehicle tax than petrol equivalents because of their better carbon dioxide performance, and the present Government carried on in very much the same vein.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for saying that, because there is a narrative that this was a perverse act by the previous Government. Can he confirm that in fact it was supported by all the other parties at the time—as he has rightly conceded, the policy was continued by the present Government—because CO₂ reduction was seen as the overriding imperative?

[Neil Parish]

Heaven forbid that I should say the last Government were perverse. It was the acquired wisdom of the day that we should reduce CO₂, and diesel produced more per litre than petrol, so encouraging diesel was the obvious way to go. There were some rumblings at the time, if I remember rightly, but I have to accept that we did not change the policy when we came to power. Of course, we have now seen the new science and seen the light, and therefore need to take action on particulates and on nitrogen oxides in particular.

[Mr Spellar]

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for intervening again, but he says that we have seen the evidence. Can he tell us the breakdown of emissions of particulates and NOx from various modes of transport, whether buses, trucks or private vehicles, and particularly as compared with other sources? I will mention a number of them—

[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. Not in an intervention, I hope.

[Mr Spellar]

Incineration, power stations and a number of others, which I will reflect on in my contribution.

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[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The conversion to gas can reduce the particulates back to about 60% to 70% of what they were previously, so a big gain is to be had there. I also understand that most lorries would have to carry their full capacity load weight in batteries in order to drive themselves, so at the moment the electric lorry is not an option. We will probably build towards some hybrids in the future. We also have to look at taxis; we want electric taxis, but for those that cannot become electric in the first instance we should perhaps convert them to gas and then to electric. It is the same with delivery vans and other vehicles. Part of our lifestyle these days is that we order a lot online and find a lot of vans going round. This is about a whole combination of those things.

[Mr Spellar]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Neil Parish]

As long as the right hon. Gentleman makes it brief, please.

[Mr Spellar]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. The one thing that has been absent from his wide exposition over a range of transport issues is any actual costings of the changes he proposes. Has his Committee actually done any of that?

[Neil Parish]

I actually converted one of my own vehicles to gas. Usually, converting a vehicle is something like between £1,500 and £2,000, so it is not ridiculous money to convert to gas. All the bus companies and taxi firms will do all the costings and will know firmly how much it is. As I said, a certain amount of help is therefore needed to help the commercial sector to convert to the new world. Otherwise they will not do it because of the economics.

The Government have twice lost in court over their failure to tackle poor air quality. In November, the High Court forced the Government to come up with a new, better air quality plan. The draft will be published imminently—by 24 April at the latest—so we may hear something on that matter from the Minister this morning. Already, from this October, pre-2006 diesels and petrol vehicles will face a £10 charge when they enter London at peak periods. It is expected that diesel drivers will be hit hard. Separately, the Budget Red Book stated that the Government would consider appropriate tax treatment for diesel vehicles ahead of the 2017 Budget. Diesel owners who bought their vehicles in good faith are expected to be hit with higher bills.

Of course, I understand the need for tough action. These new measures are the stick to reduce diesel vehicle numbers, but what about the carrot? Where are the incentives to encourage drivers to move away from diesel? The Prime Minister recently said,

“I’m very conscious of the fact that past governments have encouraged people to buy diesel cars and we need to take that into account”.

That is where the case for a targeted diesel scrappage scheme comes in; it perfectly complements the Government’s clean air zone plans.

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[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

As I mentioned earlier, I will publish my Clean Air Bill today. I should put on record that I completely agree with the sentiments and words of the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish). We all recognise that we have limited resources, so a targeted, capped scheme would send the right signal to consumers and producers about the future and put the focus in the right place. The electric car company Tesla, which produced just 76,000 cars last year, is worth $49 billion—$3 billion more than Ford, which produced 6.6 million cars. In other words, the marketplace is ready for these changes, and the Government need to facilitate them.

My Bill sets out a wider plan to provide a hydrogen infrastructure, an electric infrastructure and new powers for local authorities to get the evidence on localised air pollution, in order to have evidence-based restrictions and charges that protect the elderly, young people and general communities, alongside a fiscal strategy. This is a brave and sensible first step in that endeavour.

[Mr Spellar]

My hon. Friend talked about the market deciding. Which market is he talking about? Is it the bubble stock market, maybe reflecting fashionable thought, or is it the actual car market, which shows overwhelmingly that people are buying from the mainstream manufacturers?

[Geraint Davies]

Obviously, we can influence the market. More than 50% of new cars are now diesel. Margaret Thatcher knew about the problems of particulates and there was a judgment call on public health versus carbon. Since then, the problems with NOx have grown. The fact is that the amount of particulates and NOx being produced is much, much greater than people previously thought, partly because of the deception of Volkswagen and others. This is a public health catastrophe.

I will present the case for my Bill this afternoon with support from the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of General Practitioners and UNICEF. People will know that last year’s report by the Royal College of Physicians found that 40,000 premature deaths were due to these emissions, as well as presenting emerging evidence about foetuses suffering long-term damage and about the damage to the neurology, and general physical and mental health, of young children in urban spaces, particularly in poor areas. Those children are being poisoned, which has a disastrous impact on the rest of their lives. I am not prepared, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr Spellar) appears to be, just to go on with business as normal, backing the poison of the current industry, which seeks to maximise profits.

It is the function of the Government to regulate markets in the interests of the public and it is an outrage that parents are unable to protect their own children, and that—as we speak—hundreds of thousands of children are in playgrounds enjoying themselves but inadvertently inhaling poisonous fumes. We need to take action and I am glad that we are moving forward with this first step; I hope that the Government agree.

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[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I will depart slightly from the prevailing tenor of this discussion. I declare an interest, as one of the 11.7 million drivers of a diesel vehicle—in fact, I am a long-standing driver of a diesel vehicle—and as a Member of Parliament who represents one of the poorest areas of the country, but one that is at the heart of the British motor industry.

One of the things that I found slightly disturbing about the contribution by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), who is the Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, who is someone I hold in high regard, was about the cost of this scheme. When I asked him about costs, he just talked about the cost of converting an individual vehicle. There was no mention of what the overall cost to the Exchequer would be, nor about how we would deal with the infrastructure cost. For example, he talked about gas vehicles, but what would be the cost of creating a gas infrastructure across the country? Part of the essence of any scheme must be a national infrastructure to back it up, otherwise it would be exceedingly unattractive to individual motorists, notwithstanding the fact that, for buses and major truck fleets for example, it might make an important contribution.

One thing I found interesting was when the hon. Gentleman talked about fines. I was really surprised that he showed so little confidence in the ability of his Prime Minister to negotiate an effective Brexit that he thinks the EU will still be in a position to fine us.

[Dr Poulter]

The right hon. Gentleman is making an important point about cost, but many car manufacturers have a global market, so much of the innovation, particularly in the electric and hybrid car market, has already been achieved, because other countries have different regimes for taxing cars and providing incentives. That will reduce the cost of the roll-out of electric cars in the UK, which will be very helpful to us.

[Mr Spellar]

I am not entirely sure I follow that. I will break it down into two areas. One is about infrastructure cost. Whatever contributions have been made by the Toyota car company, for example, in creating a very successful hybrid vehicle, that does not alter the fact that people will need an infrastructure to charge up those vehicles. Although the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton, who introduced this debate, may well be able to plug in his vehicle on his country estate, he may have noticed that in urban areas such as mine there is very tight terraced housing and a lot of high-rise flats—and an increasing number, by the way, of apartments in our urban areas. I would be interested if he could tell us how people will be able to charge their vehicles, what the infrastructure cost will be and what Treasury contribution will be required. A decision may have to be made, but at the very least people need to know what the overall cost will be.

[Neil Parish]

If I could just put the right hon. Gentleman right, I do not have a “country estate”; I have a farm. There is a little bit of a difference, and I was also a working farmer before I got here. Let me make that abundantly clear.

To be serious, the Government are already rolling out an infrastructure for charging points; we also want the fast charging points, so that people can charge up their cars quickly. As far as gas is concerned, there is an infrastructure out there already. A lot of garages supply liquid gas. There are probably not as many as we might need, but there is quite an infrastructure for gas out there already, so that does not need to be reinvented.

[Mr Spellar]

I think the hon. Gentleman is underplaying the position. I acknowledge the fact that he is a farmer—which is why I threw it in the way I did—but I would ask whether he and his neighbours use red diesel. There was no mention in his contribution as to whether the enormous discount on red diesel should be included in our considerations. Again, I note that there was no figure—no estimate—for how much all of this will cost.

[Geraint Davies]

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) mentioned the cap of half a billion pounds for the scrappage scheme, but if the signal from the Government to the market is that having points for hydrogen and gas is the direction of travel, the market will accelerate the infrastructure provision. As has been pointed out, there is a gas and an electric infrastructure. We need to pump prime a hydrogen infrastructure and the market will invest. The old-style socialist view that everything has to be paid for by the state is not the case.

[Mr Spellar]

But we are talking about dramatic change, with 11.7 million diesel cars, let alone trucks, buses and so on. The idea that the current infrastructure or even a massively ramped-up infrastructure will be able to deal with that without major Government investment seems entirely fanciful.

[Charlie Elphicke]

In a world where there are around 30 million cars in the United Kingdom and 11,000 electric charging points, of which about 800 are fast-charging, does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that there is some way to go and that it is important to have a step change to the electric future?

[Mr Spellar]

If that is the case, I have to ask the hon. Gentleman how much that would cost and who would pay for it. One of the problems we have—I know this as a former Transport Minister—is that those who create policy, whether they are in the Department for Transport, Westminster City Council, London City Hall or even Birmingham Council House, overwhelmingly have clerical jobs by definition and travel in on public transport. Certainly in the London region, they travel overwhelmingly on rail. That is their mindset, and the mindset of many of the press lobby as well. Look how fascinated they are every time there are any problems on the railway, as compared with the situation on the roads.

If we go outside London—when I say London, I mean central London, because this applies very much to the London suburbs and the peripheral towns around London—and look at all the Government data, although there is a marginal shift at the moment, people overwhelmingly travel to work by road transport, whether by bus or in cars, which make up a significant proportion. That is how people get to work. People may fancifully say that people can get on their bike to do that, but if they are going 10 miles away to do shift work at a factory or a hospital, or if they are going to a building site carrying their tools, that is not a realistic option.

The problem is that the interests of London and the policies that affect London start to impact on the rest of the country. Even within London, there are all those builders coming in—that steady stream of vehicles travelling in on the motorways bringing in those who are constructing the city—and we are looking at significantly penalising them. That is why I asked the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton what actual assessment there has been of the problem, breaking it down. In his contribution, he said that there is no doubt that private vehicles contribute the bulk of the pollution. My council, Sandwell Council, did a study of the Bearwood Road only a couple of years ago. It found that buses formed 8% of the vehicles on Bearwood Road and contributed 57% of the pollutants being emitted there. It may be very sensible for him to say that we should target the problem by providing a subsidy to the bus companies—rather than taking away the subsidies from bus companies, as this Government have been doing, threatening them—and actually having a bus scrappage scheme to take the older buses out of the system. That would be a perfectly realistic way of looking at it.

[Graham Stringer]

Just before my right hon. Friend gets too carried away with making Brian Souter even richer than he already is from public subsidy, I would like to bring him back to the very sensible point he was making about infrastructure. I recently asked the Department parliamentary questions about the capacity of the electricity generating board to provide electricity if we moved over to a fully electric motorised fleet. Quite simply, we are nowhere near that capacity. The Department has not thought that through.

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[Mr Spellar]

That is absolutely right, and I thank my hon. Friend for that. I suspect that the transmission capacity, particularly locally, will be affected in the same way. Equally, we have to look at the availability of petrol if we remove a great chunk of the diesel market, which may or may not also happen in the rest of Europe. What discussions has the Minister had with his European counterparts? The duty levied on diesel there is considerably lower, which is why they have much lower diesel prices in the EU. Reference was made to the European Commission putting the UK Government on notice and our Supreme Court responding to that, but it is interesting to note that the European Commission also mentioned a whole number of other countries, including Germany, France, Spain and Italy. Is there any common factor among those countries, apart from them being the major industrial countries of the EU? I therefore find it rather strange that we are looking at a major upheaval that does not seem to be mirrored by our European counterparts without getting proper figures in an impact assessment, and at a time when we are considering the uncertainties of Brexit. Apart from one or two towns and cities in one or two countries, there seems to be no similar reaction from other countries.

Equally, there seems to be no consideration as to whether, as was rightly said earlier, we could actually have alternative fuels for many heavy goods vehicles. There is a reason why, across the whole world, goods vehicles are overwhelmingly diesel. It has to do with torque, traction and so on, and that applies to many builders’ vehicles, which are for lifting and generate power to do that. That would not be possible with an electric vehicle—certainly not with the current state of technology.

Electric vehicles may have some minor advantage when sitting in traffic, but many of those arguing for this proposal should perhaps be looking at better traffic management. With a number of cities, and particularly London, quite a bit of the congestion has been aided and abetted by the construction of cycle lanes. Boris Johnson’s cycle lanes have generated congestion in central London, as taxi drivers and others will all attest, so we need to be looking at how we can deal with the problem in its various segments. With petroleum, it is true that we can keep cracking the oil in different stages and get more petroleum out, but that adds considerably to the cost—I will come to the cost to the individual in one second, after I give way to the Chairman of the Select Committee.

[Neil Parish]

I am finding the right hon. Gentleman’s contribution very interesting, because he is going into great detail on all the problems we have, but he is then saying that bicycles are causing problems. Surely people on bicycles are not emitting any emissions at all, other than breathing in and out as they are riding along. It is no good coming out with a whole list of things that are wrong with the proposal. I would like to see a bit of a more positive approach to the whole argument.

[Mr Spellar]

As the hon. Gentleman rides in on his bike from Battersea, he may notice that the bridges across the Thames are always much more congested than they used to be. That is because there is much less road space because of the introduction of cycle lanes.

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[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions are getting longer and longer. At least one other hon. Member wishes to participate in this debate.

[Mr Spellar]

In that case, I will speed up, Mr Chope. A considerable number die as a result of air quality because of cooking with solid fuel in enclosed spaces, particularly in Africa, which is certainly something we should look at and is certainly something to do with photovoltaic and storage. Also, on the assessments and the figure of 40,000, Roger Harrabin of the BBC has said that it could be anything between a fifth or five times as much as that. It is not about cardiac arrests or even lung cancer, but about the average reduced periods of life. A real study of the data is needed, accepting that there is a problem, but that this is about scoping it.

There is also the issue of sources of generation. In coastal areas, particularly in ports, what is the contribution of shipping to the numbers of particulates? What is the contribution of diesel trains? Perhaps the Minister will explain why the Government are cutting back on some of the electrification, which will mean more diesel trains going into urban areas. What is the contribution of power stations, central heating boilers and the burning of solid fuel? Interestingly, what is the contribution, as I mentioned earlier, of urban incinerators, of which we have a large number to deal with the problems of waste? Also, what is the contribution of tar, which is believed to be considerable, particularly in terms of small particulates?

As for the scrappage question, it is all very well to say we will give somebody £1,000, but £1,000 towards what? Towards buying a new vehicle? What does that say to someone who needs his car to get to work and who has probably already seen a drop in its value of about £2,000? What does it say to people who are asset poor and who need their vehicle to get to work? If we give them £1,000, who will lend them the money to buy new vehicles? Will they buy vehicles from further up the chain? There may be answers, but figures came there none during this debate.

What about taxi drivers? Birmingham City Council is proposing a purge of diesel taxis. Taxi driving is entry-level employment for many in this country in all communities. Are we telling them we will take them off the road and put them on the dole? That is certainly not an attractive proposition for many constituents who are active in the taxi trade.

I have already mentioned the question of where people will charge their cars. Even if we have fast chargers, how many can we put through the average service station on the motorway compared with how many can fill up there? How many can we have at any other service station? What about city centre areas? I accept there is probably a lower percentage of car ownership in some of those areas, but there are still a hell of a lot of cars. How will we have a charging system on the congested urban streetscape of Britain? And what will we do in isolated and rural areas?

Mr Chope, I am aware that we want to hear from the Front-Bench spokespeople, and, as you rightly drew to my attention, one other speaker wishes to participate, so I shall end now. This is a big debate. I do not think we should move forward with disconnected local schemes or without a well-thought-out, well-costed Treasury-backed scheme. We should not rush into this. The matters are serious. They are about international competitiveness, people’s financial welfare, and, as people have rightly said, people’s health and welfare. This is a big issue. We should not go ahead on prime ministerial whim or just on what local government decides. We need a proper national debate and proper national answers.

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[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr John Hayes)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope, and to speak in this debate. I have just 15 minutes to deal with this important subject —I hope it will be 15 minutes of pure joy.

Disraeli, the greatest Conservative Prime Minister, said:

“The fool wonders, the wise man asks.”

My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) has indeed asked a question about what he feels is an important contribution to the developing strategy on air quality, which, as he knows, I have been working on with colleagues at DEFRA and others across Government so as to put it in place in a way that is both practicable and demanding. I say practicable, because I am not in the business of penalising drivers—particularly those on modest incomes who bought their diesel vehicles in good faith. They were badly advised, largely by the previous Labour Government, as we heard from various contributors to the debate. There has been refreshing honesty in that respect today.

[Mr Spellar]

Will the Minister tell us whether he or the Conservative Opposition in any way opposed those measures at the time?

[Mr Hayes]

I can answer that question directly. The Conservatives took an entirely different approach in opposition. In our 2001 environment manifesto, the then Conservative Opposition called for a vehicle excise duty to be based on air pollution and vehicle emissions rather than just carbon dioxide. None the less, Gordon Brown went ahead with the scheme unaffected by that advice. That is the direct answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question. Ministers do not give many direct answers, but that is a model example of one.

[Mr Spellar]

Will the Minister tell us how the Conservatives voted in Parliament on that?

[Mr Hayes]

In the short time available to me, I do not have access to Hansard, and it would absolutely wrong for me to give any information that is not pinpoint accurate. That is not my habit, Mr Chope, and it is certainly not something you would permit in this Chamber. I now need to rush on to deal adequately with the contributions that have been made to this debate.

It is absolutely clear that the prosperity of our nation and, more than that, the common good depend on our wellbeing. Closely associated with wellbeing is the health of our people—urban and rural, young and old. If we are going to promote a better Britain to fuel—if I can put it in these terms—the common good, we need to look at air quality and pollution, as that is critical to health.

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[Mr Hayes]

In recent years emissions have been a problem in particular areas—I acknowledge that clearly—and the Government are particularly keen to deal with the effects on those areas. The air quality plan will of course have a national footprint, as it is a national plan. The particularity I described was about Government setting out an appropriate and deliverable framework, and then working with localities to ensure that in the implementation of that framework all those local circumstances are put in place. That is the point that I was making about urban and rural areas and the different circumstances that apply there.

Clean air zones cover a designated area and involve a range of immediate local actions to support cities to grow while delivering sustained improvements in air quality and transition to a low-emission economy. Measures that could be implemented include the promotion of ultra-low emission vehicles; upgrading buses and taxis; promoting cycling schemes; and, in the worst cases, charging for the most polluting vehicles. In 2015 we named five cities, Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby and Southampton, that are required to introduce a clean air zone. The Government are engaging with the relevant local authorities on the schemes’ detailed design.

Clean air zones will support the transition to a low-emission economy, but the Government are considering how to mitigate the zones’ impacts on those worst affected. I am not in the business of disadvantaging those who are already disadvantaged and in exaggerating the circumstances of those who already face tough choices and have a struggle to make their way in the world. That is not we are about and would not be the kind of fair politics that I believe in and to which this Government are committed. A fairer Britain is one that takes account of such disadvantages and we will do so in the construction and delivery of this policy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton suggested that a means-tested scrappage scheme could address some of those issues. He emphasised the fact that his scheme would be means-tested, and he did so with a fair amount of passion. Hegel said:

“Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion”,

and my hon. Friend has displayed that very passion today. Let me be clear: I note his points and I will ensure that they are considered as part of our consultation and as part of our work. I do not think you get much better than that typically in Westminster Hall.

It is absolutely right that the Government’s clean air zone policy recognises all the challenges that have been set out by various contributors to the debate and it tackles the problems of the most polluted places by acknowledging that low-cost transport is vital to people’s opportunities and wellbeing.

[Mr Spellar]

I have a one-sentence question. How much money have the Department and the Treasury designated to deal with the problem?