Summer Adjournment

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to catch your eye in this important debate. I wish to raise four matters: the negative revenue support grant for Stroud District Council, the missing link on the A417, M4 and M5, the reasons for making the Cotswolds into a national park, and—this is the most important issue—the delays in the completion of a £400 million contract awarded to the Fire Service College at Moreton-in-Marsh in my constituency.

Stroud District Council sent a petition to the former Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid). It explained that when it accepted the four-year revenue support grant settlement, it did so on the basis that business rates would remain the same, with 100% retention, and that the new homes bonus would also remain the same. It has subsequently been reduced. I suppose that the most worrying aspect of the negative revenue support grant is the fact that it affects 147 out of 200 district councils in England. Not only will councils not receive any of the grant next year, but some councils, such as Stroud, will have to pay money back to the Treasury.

The petition sent to my right hon. Friend reads as follows:

“Stroud District Council strongly objects to Central Government introducing a new stealth tax on local households by demanding the payment of £549,000 from Stroud District to the Treasury in 2019/20… It is a complete reversal of financial support and is a worrying precedent which seriously threatens the Council’s ability to continue providing essential local and facilities; especially if this payment turns out to be the thin end of a stealth tax wedge which will see ever larger…payments of money siphoned off from local households to Central Government… Council therefore determines to lobby Central Government, through the District’s two Members of Parliament…for removal of the so-called Negative Revenue Support Grant of £549,000”.

There will be a review later in the summer, and I strongly urge my right hon. Friend the new Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to conduct that review in a way that is more favourable to one of the two district councils that I represent.

The second subject that I wish to raise is the missing link on the A419-A417, about which I have campaigned for some 15 years. It is a highly dangerous stretch of road on which, sadly, there have been far too many accidents and far too many fatalities in recent years. It is a very busy road that links the M4 to the M5. Finally, after a lot of campaigning, we had a public consultation earlier this year in which two routes were published. Option 30 was chosen, and it is very important that the Secretary of State lives up to his promise of announcing a preferred route at the beginning of next year, so that we can get on to the development consent order process and get diggers into the ground and start work on this important road in the very early 2020s.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising such an important point about the A417. Does he agree that the death of a young soldier in May on this treacherous piece of road underscores the importance of delivering that vital project, which is crucial for safety, air quality and the economy of Gloucestershire?

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

The death of that young man was tragic, and I feel very sorry for his parents and his family. Unfortunately, this is just one of a number of fatalities, as my hon. Friend, who has worked with me very hard on this project, knows only too well. That is why it is imperative that this road scheme goes ahead, and he and I will shortly hold a meeting with the Treasury to make sure we get enough money for it.

The third subject I wish to raise is why the Cotswolds should be designated as a national park. Already 80% of my constituency is designated as an area of outstanding natural beauty. It is, as many Members will know, an important natural landscape and built environment, and I want to make sure that it continues to be protected so that our children and grandchildren can continue to enjoy this very special place. To that end, the chairman and chief executive and I visited the chief planner of the South Downs national park to see how well it operated, and we were impressed. We were also impressed by the number of similarities between our area and the SDNP—it covers 15 local authorities, and a national trail goes right through the middle—and that it seems to work very well in planning terms. There is a high standard of planning in the SDNP; it has very few call-ins, and when it does have appeals, it seems to win most of them because of the professionalism of its planning team. We could learn a lot from that, and the Cotswolds will get increased resources to pay for a lot of that if we are designated as a national park.

The defence fire and rescue contract was recently awarded, and announced publicly, to the Fire Service College in Moreton-in-Marsh. This contract is worth about £400 million over 12 years to the college. It will secure vital jobs in a part of my constituency where jobs are desperately needed—the north of my constituency, which is a very rural part—and my constituents and the FSC employees were looking forward to running this contract, but it seems to have run into some delay. That is most regrettable, and I call on the Ministry of Defence to resolve whatever difficulties there are—I am not entirely sure what they are—as quickly as possible, because that would provide certainty for the workforce. This contract is much needed in my constituency.

I have had discussions with my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay), whose constituency contains Manston airfield where this activity is currently based, and he is very happy and wants to see this contract resolved as quickly as possible, because Manston airfield can then be used for an aviation freight hub opportunity and for further houses, which are desperately needed in his constituency.

I therefore call on the MOD to resolve the problems and to keep me, as the constituency Member of Parliament, informed. I should add that I have received superb help from the all-party group on fire safety and rescue. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) is present, and I thank him for his support over many years and months. The group’s members have visited the college in Moreton-in-Marsh and seen for themselves the world-renowned excellence of this institution, and it will be made even better and the entire country will benefit if we can get this contract there and it can start selling its services to the rest of the world by proving, through this defence fire and rescue contract, that it is superb at what it does.

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[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

What a pleasure it is to follow the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), whom I have had the privilege of serving with on the Select Committee on Justice. May I also take the opportunity to congratulate the hon. Members for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) and for Sheffield, Hallam (Jared O'Mara) on their distinguished maiden speeches today?

I want to take a few moments to speak about CrossCountry services from Cheltenham, because this matter relates not only to the convenience of my constituents, but to social mobility and opportunity. Unless those rail services are at the standard my constituents are entitled to expect, both those vital priorities will be undermined. Putting it simply, those services are too costly and too crowded, and they finish too early. It is particularly important that I mention them at this moment because a public consultation has been announced by the Government about the future of CrossCountry’s rail franchise and it is important that these points are made.

So what is the context? Cheltenham Spa is the busiest station in Gloucestershire, with 2.35 million passengers using it last year, which is an increase from 1.73 million in 2011. So we are talking about some 800,000 additional passengers in that relatively short time. The next busiest station, Gloucester, had 1.48 million users—about 900,000 fewer. There has been good news in recent years: there has been a new, additional, early morning, 200-seat service from Cheltenham to Bristol and through to Taunton and Exeter, as well as an additional 1,000 seats per day on the CrossCountry routes between Bristol, Cheltenham Spa and Birmingham. It is the cost that is the problem. An off-peak return ticket from Cheltenham to Manchester will cost £81.90 and a peak return will cost £129.40. That is extremely expensive—prohibitively expensive. That is important because, if we want to drive things such as the Cheltenham cyber-park, people need to feel that they can go between Manchester and Cheltenham in an affordable way. Oddly, not only is this travel expensive, but there is a strange discrepancy; someone who wants to go north from Cheltenham has to re-mortgage their house, whereas someone who wants to go south from Cheltenham finds that a return to Bristol costs £25.40—[Interruption.] I appreciate that it is a bit closer, but there is an enormous discrepancy.

Overcrowding is a really important issue for my constituents, a number of whom write to me about it. When we drill into the service that is put on, we see why there is overcrowding. The 7.10 am train from Cheltenham to Birmingham, which Members might feel is at a peak time, has just four carriages and the 7.41 am has just five. That means trains are running at or beyond capacity. To put that in context, trains running from Cheltenham to London on the Great Western Railway line have about 10 carriages. So CrossCountry really needs to resolve that.

The final point I wish to raise is the business of these trains finishing too early. Cheltenham residents who want to go to Bristol have to get the 10 pm train back and Cheltenham residents who want to go to Birmingham have to get the 10.12 pm back: the trains finish quite early. By comparison, a Bristol resident who wants to get the train back from Cheltenham gets to stay in Cheltenham until 10.50 pm and if they want to go to Birmingham they get to stay there until 10.58 pm. In other words, these trains need to run until later in the evening.

I wanted to make those short but none the less important points. As I say, it is an issue not only of convenience for my constituents, but of how we provide opportunity and social mobility to people in Cheltenham so that my town can continue to provide great opportunities for young people and for people across its demographics, and so that they are well connected to some of our great conurbations, including Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and beyond.