Govia Thameslink and Network Rail

Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) on securing this debate. I agree with every word he said. The performance of the franchise simply is not good enough. It is a matter of deep regret and enormous frustration that Members have had to come back to this Chamber again to raise concerns about its performance. The figures speak for themselves. In 2011, 78% of Southern passengers were satisfied with train punctuality and reliability. In spring 2015 the figure had fallen to just over half, 56%, and in the autumn it had risen to 65%—fewer than two thirds of passengers were satisfied. Last year, Southern was effectively voted by passengers the worst franchise in the country.

That is unacceptable when, one year ago, thanks to the Minister’s sterling efforts, the industry gathered together and agreed a performance improvement plan for the franchise that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham said, set a benchmark for performance that was already far lower than that in the rest of the industry. What do we see one year later? In the past three months, the franchise has consistently fallen below the standard set by its own benchmark, which was already low. That is simply not acceptable. Indeed, in the original performance improvement plan, the industry said:

“You will notice real improvements from now onwards in the punctuality and reliability of our trains.”

That promise has been broken. It will evince nothing more than a hollow laugh from passengers, who are absolutely fed up. Day after day we hear the franchise’s excuses on its trains, including a shortage of rolling stock. What happened to the rolling stock? How can a train be missed? Why are there inadequate amounts of rolling stock? Another excuse is that drivers are not available. That is not necessarily because, as has been pointed out to me, drivers are failing to turn up, but simply because an inadequate number of drivers are employed by the company. An airline would not run things like that, so why should we accept it from the rail industry?

Where is the accountability for this lamentable performance? Who is being held accountable, and how, for the complete failure to deliver by the franchise’s own standards and the promises that it made? The franchise said a year ago that it would deliver improvements, and those improvements have not been delivered. What penalty will be exacted against it? Have senior managers been held accountable in any way? Have they had their pay frozen or their salaries cut? I hope there have been no performance-related bonuses. There could not possibly have been because the performance has been so bad. Perhaps there should be performance-related penalties. Where is there accountability in the system that will drive better performance? The public are fairly asking those questions.

When the franchise was first awarded in May 2014— I am sorry to have to remind the Minister of this—the Department for Transport’s press notice said:

“Demanding contractual obligations on the operator will deliver cleaner and more spacious trains and improve passenger satisfaction. Tough new benchmarks for performance, train and station cleanliness and customer service information have also been agreed.”

The impression that was created was that the service would get better; it has got worse. Where is the accountability? How will this service be held to account?

None of us has any complaint about how the Minister has approached the issue—far from it. She has arraigned the companies concerned in front of Members and required the companies to meet us to account for themselves. She drove the introduction of the performance improvement plan, and she has done her level best to insist on greater performance, but we cannot find ourselves arriving in this Chamber in one year’s time having experienced the same level of delays and lack of passenger satisfaction as we have now. The service simply must improve. If it will not improve rapidly, we have to consider more radical action to address the problem. The lack of performance is undermining faith in the entire policy of engaging the private sector to deliver public services. In that respect, it is very damaging to the Government and to the reputation of the whole industry. It is simply not good enough, it must improve and there must be accountability on the part of the franchisee to deliver better performance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Perry]

To be clear to the hon. Gentleman, the proposal is to do what Transport for London has done very successfully: train us all to use a reliable alternative system and then take people out and put them on the gate lines to help us. That is 21st century travel and I support it, and I hope he does too. I am afraid he will have to join the queue for lobbying on Crossrail locations.

[Nick Herbert]

In the two minutes my hon. Friend the Minister has remaining, will she say how the franchise is going to be held to account for its failure to deliver the performance expected?

[Claire Perry]

I was just about to address some of the specific questions. The franchise has been fined more than £2 million for cancellations and the short formations that it has put on the service. That money will be spent on passenger-facing benefits. I am very keen that the money that comes in—the hon. Member for Middlesbrough mentioned the £4.1 million of reparations—is spent to directly benefit customers on this line. Additional proposals on that will be forthcoming.

I was asked at what point we do something radically different. Do we take the franchise back? Do we change? The truth is that this is an exceptionally busy, very difficult franchise to run. In my view, nobody out there could do a better job than the current management team, but we have to ensure that there is a relentless focus on the customer. It is inexcusable that the wrong communications are given. It is inexcusable that delays happen or trains are going in the wrong direction. That is customer relationship management 101. We expect the private sector to deliver on that.

In closing, I will always happily welcome debates on this matter, because they strengthen the resolve of us all in getting to grips with some of the underlying problems of running a franchise in the busiest part of the country. Our debates are helping to inform wider changes throughout the industry, such as the relentless focus on customers. With this Government’s record level of investment in transport, we will have to have these conversations in future, whether about Euston or Manchester’s stations.

Airports Capacity

Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I mentioned in my statement the importance of seeing other airports in the United Kingdom grow and offer more services. I think I mentioned Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow—I will be told off for the ones I failed to mention—but the point is well made by the hon. Gentleman: services from other airports are also very important indeed.

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

The Secretary of State said that the Government accepted the case for expansion. Presumably that is why they set up the commission in the first place, so it did not need three years to tell them that. He also said that the Government accepted the Airports Commission’s shortlist of options. Increasingly, he presents the case as though there are three equal options from the Airports Commission, but has the commission not made an unequivocal recommendation? Should not the Government at least be open about that? Is he aware that last week the chief executive of International Airlines Group, Willie Walsh, while expressing concerns about the cost of Heathrow, said that there was

“no business case for expanding Gatwick,”

and:

“Very few airlines support the proposal and no one would move there while Heathrow remains open”?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I could also cite quotes from Willie Walsh which would put a question mark over the Heathrow proposals. If we are getting into the game of quoting Willie Walsh, we will find many that could be cited on this subject. The correct thing for the Government to do is to look at all three options in light of the environmental work and the mitigation circumstances that we would like to see, and then return to the House once we have decided with which option we will go forward.

Airports Commission: Final Report

Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Of course there are Members on both sides of the House who have a constituency interest in this matter. So far, we have heard from hon. Members who have constituency concerns about the expansion of Heathrow. I, too, have constituency concerns, but they relate to the expansion of Gatwick and many of them sound similar to the issues about Heathrow raised by several of my hon. Friends and others. However, all those concerns must be beside the point. We should all agree that we need to take this decision in the national interest, for reasons that were well described by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns).

At the risk of sounding like Basil Fawlty, I have to ask, “What is the point?” What is the point of setting up an Airports Commission at vast cost to seek expert advice and provide the right solution if that preferred option is simply to be swept aside? It would be worse still if it were to be swept aside for narrow political reasons. I also challenge the suggestion that the Airports Commission offered the Government three equal options regarding which airport should be developed. I listened with some alarm as the Secretary of State for Transport told the “Today” programme on 30 October that the Davies report “gave us three options” before conceding that Heathrow was the preferred option. No reading of the Airports Commission report could possibly lead to any conclusion other than that Heathrow was the unequivocal recommendation of the commission.

Davies said that Heathrow was the “best answer” and that it presented the “strongest case”. Yes, Davies said that Gatwick was “plausible”, but he then went on to explain why Gatwick did not offer the same benefits as Heathrow. Those benefits include connectivity. Gatwick lies to the south of London and is not connected to the transport network in the same way as Heathrow is. The rail link to Gatwick is already a joke. It is over-subscribed and it is of course not going to be connected to HS2. Davies also calculated that the economic benefits of choosing Heathrow were considerably greater than those for Gatwick. He identified up to £147 billion in net present value of economic benefit in the increase to GDP from choosing Heathrow, compared with £89 billion of economic benefit from choosing Gatwick. That is a considerable difference.

Thirdly, and, in a sense, most significantly, Davies pointed out that Gatwick could not offer the connectivity of Heathrow. That goes to the heart of the matter: we need a single hub airport, and that is what almost all the airlines are saying. The great danger now would be to produce a solution that does not deliver that hub and to watch what happens to London as a consequence were we then to lose business to our international competitors. New York has two airports, and where is the hub on the east coast of the United States? It is O’Hare, in Chicago, a far bigger airport than there is in New York, offering far more connectivity, and New York loses out as a consequence. Tokyo has two airports, but where is the new hub and where is the new business going in the far east? It is going not to Tokyo, but to Seoul, which has a hub airport. Although competition has of course been advantageous and the break-up of the monopolistic ownership of airports has delivered benefits to passengers in the form of an improved passenger experience, the idea that competition would be a good thing and somehow we could run two hub airports, when all the experience has told us that that is what the airlines do not want to do and that splitting business between Heathrow and Gatwick was such a disaster for British Airways, is one for the birds.

My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) said that Gatwick offers, for instance, flights to Jakarta, but Garuda has just announced that it is going to leave Gatwick and go back to Heathrow, because Heathrow offers it better connectivity with a direct flight to Jakarta. We would be making a serious mistake, on the basis of the worst kind of short-term decision making, if we ignored the unequivocal recommendation of this report.

In 1974, the Labour Government cancelled the channel tunnel proposed then by a Conservative Government and cancelled the Maplin Sands airport proposal, and we are still paying the price. The channel tunnel link was built decades later and the rail link was then built way behind that of the French, and we still do not have a hub airport. Lord Adonis, now to be chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission, described those as “stupid, short-termist decisions”. We have a clear recommendation from the Airports Commission, the evidence is clear, the Government set up the report and now is not the time to run away from it.

Southern Railway (Performance)

Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the performance of Southern railway.

On reflection, I think I could have tabled a different motion and begged to move “That this House has considered the performance of Southern railway and found it wanting.” I could also have included Network Rail in the scope of the motion that hon. Members and I want to debate this morning: we should all accept from the outset that Network Rail bears its share of responsibility for the lamentable performance of Southern over the past few months. I want to focus on the performance of Southern railway, but I will not speak for too long as I am aware that a large number of Members wish to make points. I hope everyone will have an opportunity to do so.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) has been assiduous in raising his constituents’ concerns about the performance of Southern; he very much regrets that he is unable to be here today, but I have undertaken to raise many of his constituents’ points for him. My hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) is attending a Select Committee, but he intends to come along to this debate. If there is time, I hope it will be possible to call him to speak, Mr Turner, because his constituents are concerned about what is going on.

The plain facts of the matter are these: according to Transport Focus, which conducts an authoritative survey of passenger satisfaction, 82% of passengers were satisfied with the performance of Southern in autumn 2010. That still meant that about a fifth of passengers were dissatisfied, but let us leave that aside. By spring 2015—these are the latest figures—only 72% of passengers were satisfied with Southern’s performance. According to this authoritative survey, more than a quarter, one in every four, of passengers travelling on Southern are dissatisfied with its performance. That makes Southern officially the worst franchise in England. It has the lowest satisfaction rate of any franchise. The company should hang its head in shame at what passengers are saying.

Southern actually has ratings lower than that. The percentage of passengers satisfied with the availability of staff at the station, for instance, remains at a very low 58%. The figures are simply unacceptable. My first key point is that the one thing that passengers expect and need is a reliable train service to get them to their chosen destinations, particularly if they have flights to catch or if they are going to and from work.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I apologise, but I will not be able to stay for the whole debate. Like me, in the past 24 hours the right hon. Gentleman will have received in his inbox an update on Southern’s performance improvement plan; it has clearly been a bumpy ride.

Another thing that passengers want is decent compensation. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that paying compensation after a 15-minute delay, rather than a 30-minute delay, would be appropriate? Does he agree that getting the train companies to publicise how people can claim compensation when their train is running late, or at the stations where they are arriving late, might be a good way to improve passengers’ views of Southern and Network Rail?

[Nick Herbert]

I strongly agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s points, which were well made. I will come to compensation—as, I suspect, will other Members. The current compensation arrangements do not properly hold the companies to account, and they need to be sharpened up.

On punctuality, according to the Office of Rail and Road, in the first quarter of 2005, the year in which I was elected to the House, 2.6% of Southern trains were cancelled or significantly late. That is by the official measure, which does not include trains that are just a few minutes late—that is a point on its own: commuters expect absolute reliability and get it from other franchisees and in other countries. In contrast with the 2005 figure, 6.2% of Southern trains were cancelled or significantly late in the fourth quarter of 2014. Over that 10-year period, the number of Southern trains cancelled or significantly late increased by two and a half times. That is an unacceptable deterioration in performance and relates specifically to an important point: neither Southern nor Network Rail can wholly lay the problems at the door of the London Bridge improvements.

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend makes a valid point. My constituents have to put up with delays, timetable changes, short-form trains, extended engineering works and overcrowding far too regularly. Southern seems incapable of communicating effectively with its customers when those problems arise. Does he support my view that the Office of Rail and Road and the Transport Committee should hold inquiries into Southern’s performance and, in particular, into its management?

[Nick Herbert]

My hon. Friend has made her points effectively. She speaks up for a large number of constituents, hers and mine, who are absolutely fed up to the back teeth with Southern’s performance and want to see real action.

In 2010, the figure for trains arriving on time was 90.8%, but this year the average is only 82.8%, although that figure has improved to 86.5% in the second period of 2015-16. There may be some belated evidence of improvement in Southern’s performance. If that is true, it will be welcome, but it must be locked in and sustained.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I assure the right hon. Gentleman that Brighton commuters certainly do not see any improvement on the Southern line. They are fed up with the service they are seeing—not least the notorious 7.29 train that did not arrive on time once in a whole year. He is eloquently taking the battle to the doors of Southern and Network Rail, but does he not think that the Government have a responsibility to look again at the whole franchise system? We have such a fragmented rail system; time and again, the rail network and the rail companies are not joined up. One problem that that creates is that we are simply not seeing the improvement that commuters and our constituents rightly expect.

[Nick Herbert]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. I do not choose to attack privatisation in itself, which has resulted in significantly increased investment in the railways—there has been a huge increase in the number of passengers. However, given the split between the operating companies and the entity that owns the track and is responsible for signalling, effective co-operation between the two and effective communication to passengers are important. The very fact that I secured this debate singling out Southern is a reflection of the attitude that our constituents will have: first, they hold the train operating company accountable. The fact is that we need a joined-up service from the rail industry as a whole.

The hon. Lady rightly drew attention to the train of shame—the 7.29 from Brighton to Victoria, which was late every single day of last year. I think that train ran on 140 days, and it was never once on time. The Prime Minister himself was drawn to criticise that failure, saying that it was completely unacceptable.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The right hon. Gentleman’s speech has been one of the most fiery we have heard in Westminster Hall for some time, and I congratulate him on it. On compensation, surely the fact is that because it takes so long to get recompense for late trains, the general public do not even bother to claim any more. We should show them how and encourage them to do so.

[Nick Herbert]

I will see whether I can fire things up further and liven things up for the hon. Gentleman on Budget day.

While we are discussing the Brighton service, I should mention that my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby) is sitting patiently behind me listening to the debate. As a Government Whip, he has taken a vow of silence, but he feels equally strongly about Southern’s lamentable performance and the service it is delivering for his constituents. He wants to see improvements, and I know that he has fought hard for them.

I have dealt with how important it is for Southern to run a more punctual service. Secondly, there is the issue of overcrowding. It is unacceptable that commuters and others should so often have to endure an overcrowded service and be forced to stand for either part or the whole of a journey. The problems with Southern and Thameslink are exacerbated by trains that stop at Gatwick and pick up a large number of passengers, which overcrowds the trains. In part, that is a reflection of the significant growth in passenger numbers, in which case services must be expanded to accommodate demand. Regular overcrowding is adding to the frustration of commuters and others with the service.

Thirdly, all that is further exacerbated by the absence of timely information when there are problems with the service. The London Bridge improvement works have caused disruption, and some of the consequential timetable changes have been very unpopular. There will be incidents that are beyond the control of the train operating companies or Network Rail.

We all understand that such incidents—such as tragic accidents—will happen, but the travelling public’s tolerance for them is completely stretched given that so many other incidents are within the companies’ control. When it is clear that the companies could deliver a better service, people’s anger about what happens repeatedly is exacerbated by the absence of proper information about what is going on.

It may have been taking steps, but Southern must get better at providing information, particularly when there is major disruption, so that people are able to get home. On 30 April, during the election campaign, my excellent research assistant travelled down from London Victoria to Arundel to deliver some casework to me. The journey took her five hours because of significant disruption on the line. One issue she mentioned was the absence of good information.

Fourthly, the cleanliness of trains is a problem. A lot of the time, Southern trains are filthy, despite the introduction of new rolling stock. It is appalling for commuters and others to have to sit in trains surrounded by discarded food. The loos are often either disgusting or out of service. The cleanliness of trains is, in part, the responsibility of those who use them. Too many people leave litter, food and so on, but other companies are better at collecting it and ensuring that trains are clean. The situation adds to the poor quality of the service, and it is a constant complaint from my constituents.

I pay tribute to the Minister for her work to address the poor historical performance of Southern and Network Rail on the routes we are discussing. Along with other Members, I met her before the election, and she was already in the process of taking action. She chaired a meeting in the House between the Office of the Rail Regulator, Network Rail and Southern, and an improvement plan was put in place. Not content with that, she took further action, convening another meeting immediately after the general election to demand further improvements. No doubt she will tell us about that when she responds.

Nevertheless, those were remedial measures. To return to the point made by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), we need arrangements in the rail industry that automatically ensure proper performance and do not require Members of Parliament to complain or ministerial intervention, however effective. That is not how the system is meant to run.

That leads us directly to compensation. The right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) was right to ask whether compensation arrangements are effective. Compensation kicks in only when trains are 30 minutes late, and the arrangements are not very well known by the public. The take-up of compensation is low: according to the ORR, 68% of passengers say that they have never claimed compensation, mainly because of a lack of awareness. In July 2013, Transport Focus found that 88% of those eligible for compensation did not claim. One of the most effective ways in which we could sharpen the accountability of rail operating companies is by having more effective and automatic compensation arrangements, so that the companies feel pain when they fail to deliver an adequate service for passengers. Compensation arrangements must be improved.

[Caroline Lucas]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there should be some focus on the fact that when a delay is Network Rail’s fault, it has to give quite a lot of compensation to the rail operating companies, but only a fraction of that is passed on to passengers? There is a real disproportionality between the amount of money the train companies get and what the passengers get. That ought to be looked at.

[Nick Herbert]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point.

Owing to Southern and Network Rail’s poor performance and passenger experience, all the good things that have happened have, in passengers’ eyes, been negated. That is a pity. There has been £21 million of investment in new signalling on the Arun valley line, which was meant to improve punctuality. The work at London Bridge will deliver improvements in future—no doubt the Minister will talk about them—and is the result of £6 billion of investment. There are new trains on the line, and no doubt staff are trying hard to improve the service.

None of that, however, will count for anything unless Southern can get its act together and deliver a better service to passengers on a daily basis. The whole concept of the rail industry being in private ownership is being undermined by this company, which is letting down not only its passengers but the very concept that a private company can deliver a decent utility to people in this country. It seems to me that that alone is a good enough reason for Southern to improve its performance.

In conclusion, the number of my constituents who have been complaining about Southern’s service has increased steadily over the past few years. People are absolutely fed up with the company’s performance, but they are also fed up with excuses. They want real action to deliver a better service. There are signs that such action is being taken, but it must be embedded and sustained. We need better arrangements to ensure that rail companies that fail to deliver pay the price and are held properly to account by the public.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) on securing the debate. I am not sure congratulations are in order simply for winning the ballot, though, because I understand he was competing against my hon. Friends the Members for Croydon South (Chris Philp), for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), for Wealden (Nusrat Ghani), for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby) and me. We were all competing for this subject today.

[Nick Herbert]

But I won.

[Crispin Blunt]

As my right hon. Friend says, he won. Given the number of hon. Friends who wish to contribute, I will try to restrain my remarks, despite the immense pain felt by my constituents because of Southern’s service. I have been president of the Redhill, Reigate and District Rail Users Association since my election in 1997, and I have never known anything like the situation that we face today. I do not say that Southern has been a beacon of excellence throughout that period, and my commentary on the performance of the company overall is that it seems focused on the interests of its shareholders rather than its customers. When service improvements such as increased train lengths during out-of-peak services are put forward, there is then an issue of cash and cost, and it appears that service levels for customers are a secondary consideration.

We face a company that has managed itself extremely tightly. The disaster over the introduction of the London Bridge upgrade scheme has seen company performance levels totally collapse, to the cost of the people we serve. My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs has already illustrated some of the highlights: the five-hour delay on 30 April and the 230 cancellations and significant delays as recently as last week, on 1 July. Southern’s performance in the heat was worse than any other company’s.

The daily commute has become a wholly unpredictable experience, with the consequences that the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) mentioned. Too often it is a nightmare for the people we represent, so Southern’s levels of satisfaction being at the bottom of the league table are not remotely surprising.

I want to turn to issues specific to Reigate and Redhill, given where my constituents sit on the line.

Davies Commission Report

Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

Yes, I will certainly take that seriously. The hon. Lady will know that the recent runway expansion at Birmingham has been very important in trying to attract more business and offer more opportunities to fly to other destinations. She is absolutely right about how important HS2 will be for that airport.

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Has not the commission made an unequivocal recommendation, finding that Gatwick would deliver fewer benefits—half the economic benefits of Heathrow—has poorer transport links, especially to the north, and, crucially, would not deliver the hub solution that this country needs? In taking a decision swiftly, will the Secretary of State be mindful of the fact that it might be inconsistent to talk about a long-term economic plan and the national economic interest while going for a suboptimal solution that has not been recommended by the commission?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I think my right hon. Friend is trying to prejudge the decisions we will take. I shall not get caught in that trap. We will consider all parts of the report and I assure him that we are committed to seeing the United Kingdom and its long-term economic plan grow and succeed.

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

It would be helpful if the Minister put some of those reassurances in writing.

Finally, as we know, the Government tried to rush through a poorly drafted reform of the electronic communications code, without adequate parliamentary scrutiny, as part of an uncosted deal with mobile phone operators that could lose the taxpayer £1 billion. It is good that the Government have listened to Labour, and that they have made a U-turn and are going back to the drawing board, but their incompetent failure to reform the code now puts the whole deal in doubt.

Reforming the code that governs the agreements between mobile phone operators and landowners is important for the expansion of mobile telephone access, and the Government need to get it right. We welcome the move to withdraw from the Bill the clause and schedules on the electronic communications code, and we are glad that the Government listened to us and to various organisations. We hope that they will now take the time to renew and update the code properly.

I will leave it there, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

I will be brief, to allow other Members to speak. We clearly need more time to debate major Bills such as this on Report. It does us no credit that we have insufficient time.

I rise to speak to new clauses 12 and 20. New clause 12 is supported by more than 20 of my right hon. and hon. Friends and would abolish the Planning Inspectorate, and new clause 20 would create a new community right of appeal against adverse planning decisions.

I believe that the Localism Act 2011 was one of this Government’s most important pieces of legislation. It gives communities power, and the provisions on community assets are one example of that. I welcome the Government’s proposals to strengthen those provisions so that pubs may be protected, which is a sensible way forward. I also welcome the development of neighbourhood plans, which, as the Minister said, are now proceeding well, with community support, including in my constituency. They give the local community the power to decide where developments should go.

However, that plan-led system can sometimes be a developer-led system, which is not what we want. Localism can be undermined, especially by decisions of the Planning Inspectorate. In a good report issued before Christmas, the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government said that it had received a great deal of evidence that the national planning policy framework

“is not preventing unsustainable development in some places”

and that

“inappropriate housing is being imposed upon some communities as a result of speculative planning applications.”

Such speculative applications, put in against the wishes of communities drawing up neighbourhood plans, are particularly damaging. Developers know that they have an opportunity to get permission for sites that they would not get permission for were the neighbourhood plan to go through. Too often, the Planning Inspectorate either upholds on appeal a local authority’s decisions to decline those applications or terrifies the local authority into submission, so that it gives permission because it knows that otherwise it would lose an appeal and would have to spend a great deal of money on doing so.

[Sir Nicholas Soames]

I entirely agree with the thrust of my right hon. Friend’s argument. Does he agree that it is immensely discouraging to communities trying to make local plans when their wishes are ridden over roughshod by the Planning Inspectorate?

[Nick Herbert]

I strongly agree with my right hon. Friend, who has been tireless in promoting the interests of local communities against such developments in his constituency.

The first problem is the Planning Inspectorate upholding or encouraging speculative applications. The second is that the inspectorate is interfering with local plans drawn up by planning authorities. The Conservative party’s manifesto at the last election stated:

“To give communities greater control over planning, we will…abolish the power of planning inspectors to rewrite local plans”.

That is exactly what we should now do, but the inspectorate is rewriting local plans. It is raising housing numbers in my constituency to beyond the level set out in the south-east plan, and it is causing delay at a time when responsible authorities are planning for a great number of houses—40,000 in the district council areas that cover my constituency, where there are 7,000 unbuilt planning permissions in one authority alone.

[Mr Hayes]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful and persuasive case. Let me be absolutely clear: if the existing regime is not satisfactory, as he describes, we will have a regime that is. New guidance will be issued that is stronger and more effective, that defends the interests of local authorities and that prevents the problems he has set out.

[Nick Herbert]

I very much welcome the Minister’s important intervention, and we look forward to that new guidance.

The Planning Inspectorate is meant to stand in the shoes of Ministers. I submit that Ministers could stand in their own shoes and take decisions themselves if they had to interfere. That would perhaps deal with at least some of the £40 million budget and 80 staff of the Planning Inspectorate.

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Unlike the last speaker and the official Opposition, I welcome the Bill and its focus on the importance of speeding up infrastructure delivery. I would like to speak to three aspects of the Bill: part 1 on highways, part 4 on planning and part 5 on the proposals for fracking. I shall also identify one other aspect of infrastructure provision that I think is missing from the proposals and needs to be addressed.

On highways, it has been a huge step forward that the Government announced a roads investment programme for our strategic roads network. The time period for the programme is defined and the Government are providing the resources for it. I disagree with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) who implied that the local roads network was somehow more important than this and was being neglected. In fact, in my constituency in West Sussex, it is the strategic road network that has been in need of significant investment, and the failure to provide it over past decades has put great pressure on our local roads network as traffic is forced up through the rural network, including through beautiful parts of my constituency in the South Downs national park. That causes environmental damage.

Up until now, proposals to deal with this problem, particularly relating to the A27, which is a major coastal route, have either not been developed, have been developed piecemeal or have been cancelled when they were initially taken forward. That is what happened in respect of the Arundel bypass, which was cancelled by the last Labour Government. I thus strongly welcome the Government’s major investment in roads, including a £350 million investment in the A27 and an Arundel bypass. It is precisely this kind of long-term vision for national infrastructure that will help to generate the necessary prosperity. If the creation of Highways England will assist in delivering that long-term vision and some accountability to ensure that these roads are built to time, it is welcome.

I agree with what the roads Minister said about the importance of aesthetics. I have already mentioned the fact that my constituency of Arundel and South Downs is a very beautiful one. The proposed Arundel bypass would run at the bottom of the national park across the Arun valley and through a very small piece of the national park if it is to take the preferred route, which achieved a great deal of local consensus when last proposed. I believe there is a powerful environmental argument for this bypass, but the design of this road and of a bridge across the River Arun would do a great deal to mitigate any concerns about the impact of the road on the aesthetics and beauty of the local area.

The French have done this very well in the past in the provision of some of its national infrastructure. We could think of notoriously stunning bridges that have been built in France such as the Millau viaduct over the River Tarn. That is a stunning piece of work by a British architect, and many would argue that it adds to the beauty of the area and does not detract from it. We should seek to achieve the same thing in the design of our roads infrastructure in the same way as the Victorians impressed us with their design of rail infrastructure—Brunel’s bridges, for example. In doing so, we would win much more public support for our roads proposals.

My second topic relates to planning. I agree about the importance of speeding up the provision of nationally needed infrastructure, but as a Government we also promised that we would deliver localism to communities. In fact, local communities are very concerned when planning permissions are given that local infrastructure should be sufficient to meet the needs of the new development. Too often in my constituency, the development of houses has not been matched with sufficient provision for schools, local roads or even basic things such as sewerage provision. This has resulted in placing great pressure on local infrastructure, and it undermines support for local developments.

The Government announced new guidance last year—I was grateful for it—that emphasised the importance of planning authorities ensuring suitable infrastructure provision before housing is delivered. It is important to enforce that guidance if we are to continue to build houses on a sustainable basis. In that respect, the provision of localism through the Localism Act 2011 was important in giving communities control through local plans and neighbourhood planning. Where that has worked well, with the early adoption of neighbourhood plans in my constituency, for example, it has commanded strong local support and even built support for development that would otherwise have been absent.

That process, however, can be undermined when speculative planning applications are granted by local authorities or overturned on appeal by the national planning inspectorate. The consequence is that development that would not have been permitted in the emerging neighbourhood plans or the local plans can be insisted on by that inspectorate, which I think can gravely undermine the localism we promised.

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

My constituents are very excited about the idea of localism—local decisions made by democratically elected councils—but does my right hon. Friend agree that there is not much localism in action when a distant planning inspector is allowed to ride roughshod over local decision making?

[Nick Herbert]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend, and I share his concern. While all four of the district councils in my constituency are preparing responsible plans for the delivery of substantial numbers of houses, speculative applications are being made by developers who are circling villages like hawks. They want to get in quickly and secure planning permission that would otherwise not be given under the local plans but is being allowed in this instance because the planning inspector is taking a view of the provisions for five-year land supply that is excessive and unrealisable.

The inspectorate has just examined Horsham district council’s plan. It makes substantial provision for housing in the area to meet local need, but the five-year land supply provision presumes that building could take place at a rate that has never been achieved by the local authority and never could be, because it does not take account of the fact that developers did not build using the existing permissions that were given by the local authority in the years of the economic downturn. The five-year land supply provision is resulting in the allowing of developments in villages in my constituency that will damage the villages and erode green space between them that should be maintained, and runs against what local people seek in their neighbourhood and local plans.

If we are to deliver the localism that we promised, it is important for top-down intervention by the planning inspector to be prevented. After all, in our Conservative party manifesto we made this pledge:

“To give communities greater control over planning, we will…abolish the power of planning inspectors to rewrite local plans”.

If we believe in localism—if we want to put power and responsibility in the hands of localities through neighbourhood and local plans, which is already proving very successful, and which does not produce fewer houses but produces them by consent in the places where people want them—we should not allow a body that is based in Bristol to come in and effectively rewrite those plans, because that undermines the localism that we promised.

[Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend suspect that the planning inspectors are overriding local plans because they want to chase councils to make them hurry up and complete their plans? Could that be a deliberate policy?

[Nick Herbert]

I suspect that there is something in what my hon. Friend says, and that the purpose of pursuing a tough approach is to ensure that local authorities produce their plans as swiftly as possible. The four district councils in my constituency are proceeding as fast as they can, making very difficult and sometimes controversial decisions about where development should take place. Villages in the constituency are beginning to write neighbourhood plans which require a great deal of local effort from volunteers, which are complex, and which take time. It is unfair to penalise bodies that are making responsible decisions by allowing speculative applications that harm the process of building consent.

[John Mann]

Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the Secretary of State and the Government changed the system when they issued national planning guidelines last year? As a result, 95% of local plans have not been adopted by the planning inspector, who works on behalf of the Secretary of State. What the right hon. Gentleman is moaning about is Government policy which is intended to force through more housing more quickly.

[Nick Herbert]

Opposition Members are calling for much more local housing as well. What we are discussing is the right way to deliver that. I am arguing that localism, if properly delivered, will empower local communities to make responsible decisions, and will produce the housing that is necessary. I do not believe that the planning inspector’s intervention will help to bring about consensus, or will produce the houses that are needed. I urge the Government to keep faith with the localism that they promised, to continue to back the development of local plans, and not to allow the inspectorate to make heavy-handed decisions that can undermine it.

[Ian Lucas]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his generosity in giving way. Will he be opposing localism this evening by voting in favour of a Bill that limits the rights of local people in respect of shale gas exploration, and takes away their rights to the expression and acceptance of their views?

[Nick Herbert]

I shall deal with precisely that issue in a second. Let me say first, however, that if the Bill is given a Second Reading, I shall table amendments to restrict the power of the planning inspectorate to rewrite local plans, as we pledged to do, and, indeed, to abolish the inspectorate so that we can have a proper discussion about how localism should be delivered.

[Mike Thornton (Eastleigh) (LD)]

I, too, thank the right hon. Gentleman for his generosity. Are councillors in his constituency starting to feel that developers see no need to obtain local permission for any new development because they know that the planning inspector will overrule any decision made by the councillors?

[Nick Herbert]

Local authorities are clearly nervous. They fear that if they do not give planning permission in response to a speculative application—although their plans are in the process of being developed—if that is overturned by the planning inspector, costs will be awarded against them. They feel that there is no equality in the process.

I do not resile from the importance of providing a great deal more housing, because it is clearly needed. The issue is how that can best be provided. I think that the early adoption of neighbourhood plans by consent shows that, given power and responsibility, communities provide the necessary housing, while top-down intervention of the kind that Government Members have always criticised can undermine that provision.

The third issue that I want to raise relates to the proposals in part 5 of the Bill to provide access to subterranean land for the purpose of fracking. This is a live issue in my constituency. An application to drill in an area of beautiful countryside that is very close to a national park was turned down by West Sussex county council, but is the subject of an appeal by the company involved.

Two sets of issues related to fracking concern local communities, and I think that we should try to separate them. First, there are the environmental concerns about the impact of the activity that takes place below ground. As many Members on both sides of the House have said, those concerns need to be addressed by means of proper regulation and controls, and we should discuss the importance of ensuring that they are adequate.

Secondly, there are the issues that relate to what happens on the surface, and the choice of sites for drilling. In my constituency, the choice of sites has been crucial. Opposition to the drilling does not just come from communities who are concerned about the environmental impact below the ground. Rural communities fear that they will experience significant lorry movements through their villages—which they would not otherwise have experienced —over an extended period. Wise site location which minimises disruption to communities on the surface is a second way in which the industry could address much of the concern about these proposals.

We now have a specific proposal in this legislation on trespass, which seeks to deal with the land ownership issues. That comes against the background of great concern about the activity. It is true that members of the public have largely misheard the proposals so far. In my constituency, I fear that many people believe that the proposals will license invasion on the surface of their land by those who wish to drill, without them giving permission and without any of the regulatory controls which exist. The Government must continue to reassure local people that in fact these proposals relate to deep subterranean activity and do not change any of the requirements for permission to be given by a landowner as to whether they want drilling on their land, nor any of the regulatory requirements.

[Dr Whitehead]

rose—

[Nick Herbert]

I will give way in a moment

On the specific proposal for subterranean drilling, there is a question mark over the way in which compensation is to be given to landowners via some kind of community fund, and one of the issues that needs to be explored is whether the compensation should go directly to the landowners who are affected. I think that might be a better way to ensure there is confidence in this procedure. It has been proposed not only by the Country Land and Business Association but by one oil company, INEOS. I hope the Government will consider that proposal carefully as a means to ensure that communities and individuals are properly compensated for these activities.

In conclusion—

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Nick Herbert]

I have been generous in giving way to a number of hon. Members.

There is one aspect of infrastructure provision that I do not believe is covered in this Bill but which I believe merits serious consideration, and that is broadband infrastructure. This is essential if we are to ensure continuing economic growth and is equally essential in rural areas. There will need to be further discussion of how we can close the digital divide that is in danger of opening up in rural areas that do not have access to superfast broadband. There are encouraging plans by the Government in co-operation with local authorities to deliver superfast broadband by 2017, but they still leave a gap. It sounds small, as it is intended that only about 5% of the population will have broadband access but not superfast, but in rural areas it becomes quite a big gap. This is a question for another day, but there must be a plan to close that gap and ensure that all parts of the country have access to superfast broadband in future.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Road Investment Strategy

Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I partly agree with my hon. Friend, but I diverge from him in one area. If we are to build in the Stonehenge area, we must do the right thing both for the environment and for that particular ancient monument, which is so important. I suggest that my hon. Friend looks at other examples relating to environmentally sensitive areas, such as the Hindhead tunnel, which has been very beneficial to the environment.

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Severe congestion at Arundel damages both the local economy and the environment because traffic is forced up through the south downs. Storrington in my constituency has some of the worst air pollution in the south-east, so I welcome today’s statement and the announcement of an Arundel bypass and thank my right hon. Friend. Does he share my surprise that Opposition Front Benchers should criticise this Government for delivery when it was the previous Labour Government who cancelled the Arundel bypass?

[Mr McLoughlin]

No, the Opposition’s line does not surprise me. It is a great pity. I have been to see the route supported by my right hon. Friend, which I think will make a huge difference to Arundel. The amount of traffic backing up on that route at present is bad for Arundel, the environment and passengers.