Zero Emission Vans

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate the hon. Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards) on securing the debate and on her thoughtful and well laid-out speech, covering a range of really important issues. The way she has brought this debate is a credit to her. In that spirit, I hope the Minister and I can have a positive interaction and try to get some answers.

I know we can all agree that vans play an integral role in our economy, and if the UK is to decarbonise successfully, vans will need to play a central part. Any measures in service of this welcome transition must offer a pragmatic and reasonable way forward, which the hon. Lady outlined so well. It is key to remember that too speedy a transition to electric vehicles can present challenges that we may not yet be ready to address.

It is probably no surprise that I want to draw attention, first, to the measures taken by the last Conservative Government and the manner in which they did so. They spent over £2 billion to transition the UK to zero emission vehicle use, and as of November 2023, the plug-in van grant alone had supported over 40,000 electric vans and HGVs across the UK. The previous Government also acknowledged the challenges presented by battery warranty requirements and amended battery warranty capacities, which was a welcome move. In 2023, the Department for Transport took the welcome step of announcing that the additional five-hour training requirement for drivers would be removed, and that it would make changes to towing allowances for electric vans weighing up to 4.25 tonnes. Again, the hon. Lady touched on some of the very important issues facing the industry.

I urge today’s Government to continue this work and to listen to the sector. Specifically, I ask the Minister whether the Government intend to retain the changes that I mentioned and whether she will commit to the renewal of the plug-in van grant, which is set to expire at the end of March 2025. It is critical that this Government continue on the route established by the previous Government and that they do not get too tied-up in any longer-term reviews that may hold things up. I know that the Minister is widely experienced in transport from her previous role and that she will be across these important issues.

The industry and drivers would appreciate more certainty about what measures the Government intend to retain and what action they intend to undertake. I hope that the Minister will offer some specificity. I also hope that the Government will commit to engaging with the industry on a range of issues, including MOT testing and drivers’ hours to further understand how the Government can pragmatically remove barriers to aid decarbonisation for fleets.

As the hon. Member for Tamworth rightly mentioned, infrastructure is crucial. As of May 2024, the Government, in collaboration with the industry, supported the installation of over 61,000 publicly available charging devices. That included more than 10,000 rapid-charge points.

The hon. Lady spoke about being able to charge the vehicles, and the infrastructure involved. That is very important, but we also need to be able to generate the electricity if the infrastructure is in place. Does the Minister intend to have a wider conversation with the Energy Secretary about how quickly the building of new turbine-run power stations will be up and running so that we can try to meet the current demand, as well that of the infrastructure that needs to be put in place? To reach 300,000 chargers by 2030, the number of public charge points installed annually must continue to grow by around 30%. Will the Minister confirm whether the Government have plans to maintain that growth year on year? 

Finally—but of central importance—given that the Government have confirmed it that they are moving the date for new petrol and diesel vehicles back to 2030, can the Minister provide clarity on the timeline for vans? Changes must be pragmatic. I think the hon. Member for Tamworth will not be aware that I sat on the Bill Committee for the Energy Act 2023 in the last Parliament, and that I made the point then that we need a pragmatic approach that takes the public with us. In that spirit, I ask the Minister to reflect on how that can be achieved, communicated and properly undertaken. I ask her to consider how the concerns about the potential costs that might be put on businesses will be addressed through new employment laws, and whether that is one of the unseen consequentials after the Budget that may stop some of the investment. I am requesting that she looks holistically at all the different aspects relating to where small businesses, in particular, may look to invest in this area.

I hope that the Minister will be able to provide some clarity on the questions I posed, and I again congratulate the hon. Member for Tamworth on a very well thought-out speech.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let us continue the Yorkshire love-in with shadow Minister Sir Alex Shelbrooke.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

Let me say to my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), that my constituency does not have a train station either. Joining up towns and cities in the north of England is a way to untap this country’s great economic potential. As the first ever shadow Minister for northern transport, and a Yorkshire MP, I am incredibly excited about the mass transit system in Leeds that I have campaigned on for years. Along with the rest of Network North, it will be a transformative endeavour but, unfortunately, Labour has a history of not delivering mass transit projects in Leeds. In fact, it seems the only deliveries it is interested in are boxes of clothes from Lord Alli. What message does that send to the people and businesses of Leeds, whose lives it will improve? Can the Minister put them all out of their misery and confirm that the project is going ahead?

[Simon Lightwood]

Let me remind the hon. Gentleman that the Conservatives were in government for 14 long years. Now, the hon. Gentleman has the temerity to stand there and ask why we are not getting on with it. This Government are moving quick and fixing things. We are determined to work with Tracy Brabin as the Mayor of West Yorkshire to achieve her objectives.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

I am delighted by the progress that the hon. Lady mentions, and she is right about that third station. I will meet officials, so that I can write to her with the details. I am keen to work with her local authority to see how we can use regeneration moneys to achieve that end. As for building on the 240 Access for All step-free access stations that we have, we will make decisions shortly. We have been through 300 brilliant applications, and we are shortlisting them for delivery. I will happily write to her to ensure that she has the detail about her projects.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Long before I was elected, it had been identified that in the east direction, the Leeds to Selby railway line had only a footbridge, which restricted access for so many people. Will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming the construction taking place on the Access for All bridge in Garforth? It shows that Conservative MPs working with Conservative Governments improve rail services for all constituents.

[Huw Merriman]

My right hon. Friend is spot on, as always. I thank him for his work, because ultimately that project would not have got off the ground without the campaigning and partnership that he provided. It just shows that a superb MP working in the community, and the Access for All stations fund, which has delivered 240 projects and will deliver more, is a winning partnership.

Zero-emission Vehicles, Drivers and HS2

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I actually can. If the hon. Gentleman goes to the website of Oxfordshire County Council, he will see a very specific proposal for, I think, five roads. That council is proposing to have filters on those roads and to issue permits, enabling local residents to only drive down them a specific number of times a year. That is a Labour-Lib Dem-Green council, or at least it was when the proposal was made. If a resident exceeds that number of permitted journeys, a picture will be taken of their licence plate and they will be issued with a fine. We in the Conservative party do not support those sorts of restrictions being put on motorists by local authorities—clearly the hon. Gentleman does, but we do not, and we will not stand for it.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s statement. Phase 2b to Leeds was cancelled earlier in the year, so does my right hon. Friend know when the safeguarded land through my constituency will be released back? That has had a big impact on constituents who have seen their lives blighted and have been unable to move forward. Any news my right hon. Friend has would be gratefully received; he may want to write to me later so that I can feed it back to my constituents.

[Mr Harper]

To help my right hon. Friend, phase 2a safeguarding will be formally lifted within weeks. Phase 2b safeguarding, which covers the area in which his constituents live, will be amended by next summer to allow for any safeguarding we need for the Northern Powerhouse Rail projects. In the meantime, we will start taking steps to lift the blighting effect of HS2 in areas where safeguarding is going to be lifted. We will obviously set out the details of that in the usual way. There is a proper legal process to be followed, and we will continue working with local authorities in my right hon. Friend’s area and colleagues in the House to keep them fully informed.

HS2: Revised Timetable and Budget

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

The Government are plainly not committed only to delivery between London and Birmingham, because the entire plan is predicated on a two-year rephasing of the parts going up towards Crewe from the midlands. Beyond that, up to Manchester, the indicative timeline does not change at all. The Bill Select Committee remains in place, as does its brief, so that commitment is there. It is not a commitment just to the south-east, and the hon. Member has certainly got that wrong. The £96 billion integrated rail plan is based solely on the midlands and the north, and that shows this Government’s desire to level up across the midlands and the north, as opposed to spending money in the south-east.

Active travel is not part of this urgent question, but £3 billion will be spent by this Government on active travel during this Parliament. There are levelling-up fund bids that go toward active travel. We are absolutely passionate and committed to the delivery of active travel, and that will continue, as will our delivery of HS2.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

So far, the Minister has rightly been talking about phase 1 and phase 2a, but not about phase 2b. My constituents and I are sick to death of waiting for the inevitable announcement that phase 2b is not happening. I have constituents who have been suffering for over a decade while preserved land kept aside has ruined their ability to sell their houses and forced them into compensation schemes. It is not going to happen—Mrs Miggins in the Dog and Duck knows it is not going to happen. So will the Minister stand at the Dispatch Box right now—not to talk to me about the integrated rail plan; I have been hearing that cobblers for three years—and tell me that my constituents will get their land released and stop having their lives blighted?

[Huw Merriman]

When the integrated rail plan was published, it made reference to a Leeds area study that needed to be published, which in itself would unlock money for a mass transit scheme for Leeds. We will shortly bring forward that route study, which will provide the answers on how HS2 trains can go up to Leeds. Until then, the safeguarding will remain in place. I am keen that we get those answers, so that we either find a solution to get HS2 trains up to Leeds—again, that will be down to the study and responses—or, if that is not possible, decisions will need to be made about land and property that is currently blighted. That will occur once the route study has been published and responded to.

Rail Strikes

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend said, billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money was put into the railway industry and it kept almost everybody in employment. In my constituency, many businesses survive by servicing the footfall through the stations. Because these businesses employed staff and they were people’s own companies, they were not capable of getting the loans and grants that were in place, because they had to keep the company alive and keep the people they employed. So what does he think their reaction is to hearing about more public money spent on the railways, on top of the £16 billion, when they are struggling to get their businesses back on track? This strike will make it even worse for them.

[Grant Shapps]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to point that out. Just as the railways and the country are recovering—after two years of being locked down, with many of our constituents having lost their jobs and businesses while coronavirus was going on, without the kind of £16 billion of protection that the railways have enjoyed—now is not the time to strike.

P&O Ferries

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I should point out that the workers involved, many of whom I have been speaking to, frankly do not want to go back and work for P&O Ferries and/or have already accepted jobs elsewhere. I think they will be looking for a change in that company before they rush back.

On the P&O contracts, we have not found any that exist. On the DP World issue that the hon. Gentleman refers to, I have seen figures quoted for the amount of money in a contract, but that is actually money that, by and large, goes to the local authority—I think that is the point that my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) was making. It is for the local authority to then set out how the freeport operates. The hon. Gentleman should be in no doubt, however, that we will be keeping a close eye on that and increasing the pressure to ensure that the right thing happens with P&O.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, which has clarified many technical points. It will be important to analyse how the cruise ship industry accesses British waters and to ensure that the critical infrastructure of freight transport is not allowed to be held hostage again, which is what P&O tried to do on its own terms.

On the point of ensuring that seafarers are being paid at least the minimum wage in our waters, how will that technically be done if they are not registered through HMRC in this country?

[Grant Shapps]

I should point out again that P&O Cruises is not in any way, shape or form related to what has happened here. It is the people at P&O Ferries who are very much in the dock. With the ferries, we will ensure that that policing takes place through HMRC and the work of the ports themselves.

Russia’s Grand Strategy

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Indeed, and I will be explaining how these apparently disparate events are integrated in Russia’s grand strategy.

Beneath the cloak of this military noise and aggressive disinformation, in recent months—Kazakhstan is another example—Russia has been testing the west’s response with a succession of lower-level provocations, and I am afraid that we have signally failed to convince the Russians that we mind very much or are going to do very much about them. They have rigged the elections in Belarus, continued cyber-attacks on NATO allies, particularly in the Baltic states, and demonstrated the ability to destroy a satellite in orbit with a missile, bringing space into the arms race. They continue to develop whole new ranges of military equipment, including tanks with intelligent armour, fleets of ice breakers, new generations of submarines, including a new class of ballistic missile submarine, and the first hypersonic missiles.

They have carried out targeted assassinations and attempted assassinations in NATO countries using illegal chemical weapons, provoked a migration crisis in Belarus to destabilise Ukraine, and brought Armenia back under Russian control, snuffing out the democratic movement there. They have claimed sovereignty over 1.2 million square miles of Arctic seabed, including the north pole, which together contain huge oil and gas and mineral reserves. This followed the reopening of the northern sea route, with Chinese co-operation and support from France and Germany, which also hope to benefit. Meanwhile, the UK has expressed no intention of getting involved.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. He has just outlined some weapons that Russia has developed, but does he agree that the recklessness with which it has done so makes them even worse? The nuclear-powered Poseidon torpedo is cooled by seawater, and they feel that some of their hypersonic missiles are cooled by the air, so they have no concerns whatsoever about radioactive contamination from the delivery systems, let alone the payloads.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

My right hon. Friend is completely right. They are ruthless about pursuing what they regard as their own interests and disregard any other risk. Indeed, they are very far from being risk-averse, and the west has been far too risk-averse to compete with that. I will come to that later, but I thank my right hon. Friend for reminding us about the Poseidon torpedo, which is a nuclear-tipped torpedo—another escalation in the arms race.

Russia has also been rearming the Serbs in the western Balkans, including the Serb armed forces and the police in the Serb enclave of Bosnia, with the intention of destabilising the fragile peace that NATO achieved 30 years ago. Russia has stepped up its activity and influence in north and central Africa and has even started giving support to Catalan separatists in Spain. Russia uses its diaspora of super-rich Russian kleptocrats to influence western leaders and exploit centres such as the City of London to launder vast wealth for its expatriate clients.

Following the shaming chairmanship of Gazprom assumed by the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, so Russia has now recruited former French Prime Minister François Fillon to become a board director of the massive Russian petrochemicals company Sibur, with its headquarters in Moscow. The Russians must have contempt for us for being so gullible and corruptible. Our unilateral withdrawal from Kabul also vindicates their narrative that the west is weak, pointing out that we failed to stand by our moral principles or our friends.

Closer to home, look at how Gazprom has gradually and quietly reduced the gas supply to Europe, running down Europe’s gas reserves and causing prices to spike, leading to quadrupling gas and electricity prices in the UK. If Putin now chokes off the supply, it would take time and investment to put in place the necessary alternatives, which the Russians will seek to frustrate, as they already have in Algeria. Algeria was in a position to increase its supply of gas to EU, depending on the existing pipeline being upgraded, but a successful Russian influence campaign aimed at Germany and France prevented that from happening. Gazprom is enjoying its best ever year, so Putin can not only threaten western Europe’s energy supplies, but get the west to fund his war against the west.

Moreover, as gas supplies to Germany through Ukraine seem less reliable, so Germany continues to support Nord Stream 2, the pipeline that will bypass Ukraine, strengthening Russia’s hold over both countries immeasurably. At least we have the option of re-exploiting our gas reserves in the North sea. For as long as we require gas in our energy mix, we should be generating our own, not relying on imported gas from Europe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Following on from my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), it is worth saying that the Kiev International Institute of Sociology did a poll in eastern Ukraine and found that support for Russia had halved from 80% to 40% since Donbass was effectively invaded by Russia.

Nobody in today’s debate has stood up and said that Ukraine should join NATO. I accept my right hon. Friend’s argument that others have suggested it. NATO is one argument—my right hon. Friend says that is music to President Putin’s ears and he can exploit that—but this country is also a signatory to the 1994 Budapest agreement, which allowed Ukraine to give up its nuclear arsenal and have its borders protected by Russia, by us and by other countries, so I argue that we have a responsibility to Ukraine that falls outside our membership of NATO.

It is also worth putting on the record in the House that there are many reports of the ethnic cleansing of Tatars in Crimea. There are reports that 25,000 people have disappeared. There is a complete lockdown on the verification by outside international media of what is taking place in Crimea. To follow the comment by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) about the population of Crimea, I do not think we can simply dismiss the matter by saying that the people of Crimea want to remain in Russia, because there are many aspects to it.

One thing that has been overlooked in today’s debate so far is that we have talked about the geopolitical consequences of the grand strategy but we have not spoken about the consequences of the murder that is happening on the ground in various areas where Russia has a malign influence, whether that is Crimea, the Donbass, Georgia, Armenia or other regions. We should be careful not to soften how we describe the situation today.

[Bob Stewart]

This is just a quick point: the 1994 Budapest accord referred not just to Ukraine but to Kazakhstan, and today Russians have gone into Kazakhstan. If we look at the accord, we see that we have guaranteed the sovereign integrity of Kazakhstan.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, because he reinforces the point that I am trying to make: this is not just about whether Ukraine should join NATO and whether we should support Ukraine. We have committed ourselves to other countries, but today’s debate seems to be saying, “Well, tough luck. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

On the grand strategy, if we try to summarise what Russia is trying to achieve overall, let us look at the EAEC—the Eurasian Economic Community—which was formed in 2000 and is now known as the Eurasian Economic Union, which Putin holds dear. The analysis is that it needs 250 million people to work as a viable internal trading bloc that could then challenge other areas. To achieve that, the union needs the 43 million Ukrainians and their powerful agricultural output to succeed. When we look at the countries Moscow wants to bring into that pact, we see that it is in effect a neo-USSR. As has been said many times today, we have to stand up to the idea that Russia can come to the table saying, in effect, “Troops must be withdrawn from all the east European NATO countries; otherwise, we are going to invade.”

My right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) made an important point about the political situation in the USA. Let us not forget that then Vice-President Biden had an enormous fallout with President Obama about the surge into Iraq. He was always opposed to a lot of the interventions that took place. If we in this House know that, we can be damned sure that President Putin, sat in Moscow, knows that and he will be making that analysis.

I come back to where this all started: in the summer of 2013, when President Obama had said, “If you drop chemical weapons in Syria, that is a red line that we will not tolerate.” They dropped chemical weapons in Syria and President Obama pretty much just wrote a stiff letter to The Washington Post. We can track exactly what happened from that point: in less than a year President Putin walked into Crimea. Again, what did we do? Nothing. We did not do anything.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

May I briefly remind my right hon. Friend of what happened with the invasion of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008? President Bush moved the sixth fleet into the Black sea, ready to confront Russian aggression, and the invasion stopped. We are going to need that kind of response now; of course, the two treaties and the hypersonic weapons are intended to pre-empt any possibility of that kind of response.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend, who reinforces the point that I was making. This is where we get the Jekyll and Hyde—or the paradox, if you like—of President Trump. In early 2017, there was another chemical weapon attack in Syria and, within a short space of time, the American Administration under President Trump launched 26 Tomahawk missiles on strategic targets in Syria. For the rest of that presidency, nothing else happened in that arena. However, President Trump’s actions exactly a year ago today were manna from heaven in Moscow, because that idea of undermining democracy, destabilising the west and creating divisions in societies is one reason why there is such ambiguity about whether the USA would support its NATO allies in Europe, as it is dealing with such a split society at home. We could say that, over the last 10 to 15 years, Russian objectives in the USA were invited by President Obama, created by President Trump and too much of a concern to tackle for President Biden. The debate should not be about America and its entirely different Government, but I am afraid that it is relevant to the conversation.

We must accept a couple of things. My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) often talks about Nord Stream 2, and he is right to do so. I do not believe for one second that it will be switched off or not commissioned. It will be switched on—that will happen—and that will put the Poles and people in eastern Europe in a very difficult position. However, that boat sailed 20 years ago and we are where we are. This country and its leadership have tried to point out the folly of that programme, and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly talks about it all the time, but I do not see how anything will change. That is where we are today.

We must come to some conclusions. As the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) said, the cold war exists again—it started the moment that Putin walked into Crimea. The invasion of Crimea changed the last 25 years of policy at NATO in Brussels. It obviously had a defensive policy up to the end of the cold war and then more of a political one, but that changed everything. It is now both political and defensive. However, the progress made in a very short period—almost, if you will, in a panic about what happened—shows that we are back in a cold war status, and NATO recognises that. As we are in a cold war status, let us not even entertain the argument of people saying, “We don’t want another cold war.” It is there—accept it.

Now, we lived through a cold war for 50 or 60 years—what did we do? Surely everything is about counterbalance. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) said, when the invasion of Georgia came, President Bush sent the sixth fleet in. That was a counterbalancing, reactive measure. Many of us across the House recognise the importance of renewing Trident, because that is about counterbalances. There are those who say, “Trident will never be used,” but we know that it is used every single day. It would be a failure of policy if we ever fired the weapons—but by then none of us would care because we would be at 10,000° F. The reality is that that weapon works every day, and counterbalance is what we must do.

We come, therefore, to a simple conclusion. Today, our constituents—especially the poorest in our constituencies—are suffering from gas prices that are being manipulated from Moscow. That is a fact. There was a big argument about what the Treasury can do, but the reality is that we are allowing these things to happen because we are not standing up against them. A simple message must go to the Treasury today. In the cold war, we spent 5% of GDP on defence. We cannot carry on with today’s level of defence spending. It must increase, because we are back to where we were 30 years ago. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough said that it is realpolitik, and it is. We must realise that we are in a cold war and that we must increase defence spending. Counterbalance is the only way to stop the situation escalating.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

International Travel

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 20th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I am really sorry the hon. Gentleman has gone down this route. I was following him at first, particularly when he talked about the sadness of not being able to see friends and close family in Pakistan, Bangladesh and elsewhere on the red list, but to come here and claim that the Joint Biosecurity Centre’s work is somehow based on politics dishonours his argument and I encourage him to consider whether that is appropriate. I know there has been a push to politicise this, but the JBC has to look at all the numbers; it has to look at the level of infection, the amount of vaccines administrated and the capacity of different countries to carry out sequencing of the genome, and I have to say that is a disappointing argument to hear.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for everything he has done through this positive statement and his hard work, but I would ask him to clarify two points. Are the lateral flow tests to be taken now instead from day two to be administered at home or at the airport? I wasn’t quite clear on that. Also, now that people can either go to another country or it is on the red list, what will be the lead time in turning a country into a red list country? That is important for the tourist industry.

[Grant Shapps]

On lateral flow tests, the Department of Health and Social Care will set out more details on what exactly will be required, how they will be taken and so forth. On red lists, I must repeat the general warning that we have always had to live with in terms of coronavirus that one never quite knows what is going to happen with the virus, but 18 months in we are now in a world where we know that vaccinations make a very big and sustained difference, and I hope we move away from a world in which instant changes are required. I cannot absolutely guarantee that, but I think we can see by the direction of movement that things are coming on to a more sustainable footing at the moment notwithstanding whatever the virus decides to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

I think the shadow Minister knows my answer. As the Prime Minister announced, we are working on the integrated rail plan, which is progressing well. It is only right that Ministers take time to fully consider all the evidence from all the stakeholders, regional leaders, the National Infrastructure Commission and the Government’s own analysis before making a decision. This is a cross-Government decision, but we intend to publish the integrated rail plan soon.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the problems with the HS2 phase 2b eastern leg is that local authorities seem constantly to be adding to the cost? Leeds City Council told HS2 that it could not shut any bridges or roads in the construction, meaning that the line has to be on a viaduct, which has increased the cost massively.

[Andrew Stephenson]

We are very keen to ensure that the benefits of HS2 are delivered as affordably as possible, recognising the importance of valuing every single penny of taxpayers’ money. Leeds and the regional stakeholders have brought forward ambitious plans for regeneration around a new Leeds station. That is one of the many aspects that is being considered across Government by Ministers not just in this Department but in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Treasury ahead of making decisions on the integrated rail plan.