HGV Driver Shortages
Mike Amesbury Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the need for vocational training and testing in all sectors. One of the good things about these measures is that the expanded number of tests that will be available will be useful for vocational drivers in all sectors, including the coach sector and the much loved Bus Back Better sector as well.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
It has been highly amusing seeing the Secretary of State paint himself somehow as Comrade Shapps, a champion of the workers who is enhancing terms and conditions while at the same time increasing workers’ hours. Actually, this measure has a really detrimental effect on health and safety. I have written to the Secretary of State about a number of constituents who could not get their tests to become HGV drivers. Is it not about time that the Secretary of State sat down with the new general secretary of Unite, if he is so interested in terms and conditions and in improving wages? He should sit down, collectively bargain and enhance terms and conditions for British workers.
Grant Shapps
There is a fundamental misunderstanding here, because what we have done does not increase workers’ hours. It provides flexibility without changing the hours. If the hon. Member is accusing me of being in favour of the worker and on the side of people earning more money for a decent day’s work when they deliver the goods to our shops, guilty as charged. I hope he will join me on the frontline.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mike Amesbury Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is right: it is really important to make these bus services work in a manner where people can just rely on them and where they do not even have to look at a timetable because the frequency is there. As part of doing that, we will be opening up bus open data powers, which will ensure that that information is transferred and available to people at bus stops and in their apps, enabling a much more frequent service to run.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)
Fares are crucial to funding railway operations and our upgrade programme. We have frozen regulated rail fares in line with inflation for the seventh year running.
Mike Amesbury
Given that rail fares have gone up by a massive 40% since 2010, we now have the second most expensive railway in Europe. However, I still have a situation where constituents in the Northwich part of my constituency cannot get a reliable train service—in fact, disabled passengers cannot get one on one side at all. What are the Minister and the Government going to do about that?
Chris Heaton-Harris
The hon. Gentleman would probably like to know that 98p of every £1 paid in fares goes back into the railways, which allows investment in all the areas where he would like to see it, including accessibility for his constituents.