Transport Connectivity: Merseyside

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) on securing this debate, which is much needed and very timely, as the number of speakers shows.

I agree with all that has been said about the IRP and the comments of Mayor Steve Rotheram. This issue gets to the heart of the problem with the Government’s transport policy, because we have been promised for more than a decade that the transport issues in the north will be dealt with. I am old enough to remember when the northern powerhouse was championed by the Conservative party; not any more, it seems. We were promised even by the current resident of No. 10 that we would see levelling up, but those promises ring absolutely hollow every time a constituent of mine tries to get a bus.

I will make just a few brief points. In Merseyside and right across the north of England, public transport is straightforwardly an equality issue, because it is people without cars, parents and older people who really struggle. If we are to improve productivity in this country and see a growing economy, dealing with the challenges of our public transport will be at the heart of the solution.

First, buses are massively important. We talk a lot about trains in this country, but the vast majority of people who are at the bottom end of things when it comes to wages get on buses; they have less access to cars, and in Merseyside they live further from train stations. I sound like an old woman today, but I remember when this Tory Government took away the bus support grant; it had a massive impact on the availability of buses in Merseyside and we are still feeling it today. Other hon. Members have talked about what a big deal it is when a bus gets taken away from a community. We have the possibility of some reform now in Merseyside, but what conversations has the Minister had with colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the Department for Work and Pensions and other Departments about the impact of poor bus services on the employment prospects for people in Merseyside and other parts of the north?

Secondly, our social housing areas in Merseyside are often very poorly served by public transport because of how the rail network was historically built to support a growing economy during the Victorian era. That means that, as many hon. Members have said, we need to go much further to address the imbalance. We need to look at the interconnections between areas of housing that need to grow, particularly for people who are struggling, and put the transport links in. My neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) mentioned the Wrexham-Bidston line; I feel like when the world ends I will still be saying we need better services on the Wrexham-Bidston line, so I implore the Minister to look at it.

Thirdly, people without cars need better transport because they need to be able to get to work and have better chances. We all need people to get out of their cars, because we all need to do something about climate change and we know that it will most affect those who have least. It is a matter of our environmental future and a matter of equality. I ask the Minister what conversations he has had with the Liverpool city region about its plans, because we need to supercharge them.

Finally, when devolution came about for Merseyside, we wanted it because we wanted to demonstrate that we could run ourselves—that we could improve life prospects for people in Merseyside right where we are, instead of having to come begging all the time to people in Whitehall, asking them to help us. So far, it is working. I simply ask the Minister to get behind us and let us show what we can do.

Thomas Cook

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: there are very profitable parts of this sector. One large British airline has just made record profits, which shows that there is money to be made in the sector. However, I would not want to be in the position of dictating to the sector how it runs its businesses—some will succeed, and some will not. What I am passionately interested in is that, when they do go wrong, as has been discussed, the problems do not fall on the taxpayer’s shoulders.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I can tell the Secretary of State that my constituents are not happy with the Government’s response. However, at the heart of this problem is a company that was signed off by auditors last year. The Government know that the audit system is not working well, and they had the Kingman review look into this issue and make recommendations. In terms of the cross-Government arrangements the Secretary of State is speaking about, what have the Government done to reform audit, alongside the recommendations that they themselves asked for?

Rail Infrastructure (Train Operating Companies)

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has mentioned South West Trains and how some of this integration is already in place in our network. So either we are talking about that, in which case this is not really a change, or this is the predecessor to a privatisation which will go badly—which is it?

[Chris Grayling]

It could just be that we have had some tentative steps in this direction that have shown early signs of promise and that we think we should pursue much more seriously—it could just be that.

High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill (Sixth sitting)

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Andy McDonald]

Further to that point of order, Mr Chope, may I also express my thanks to you for chairing so expertly, and to Mr Hanson, who performed superbly, saving us from an invasion by the House of Lords? At one point he got a good deal of exercise, and I think he owes us a debt of gratitude for his improved physicality after bobbing up and down to move through clauses with great rapidity. We had an excellent discussion about the man on the Clapham omnibus—

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Person.

[Andy McDonald]

My hon. Friend is quite right; we corrected it to “person”. She scolds me correctly. We also had a tour around other jurisdictions, including Australia and the Bondi tram, which I am sure you would have found absolutely fascinating, Mr Chope, had you chaired that particular sitting.

There has been a great deal of consensus and good will among the parties; a lot of the good will sits on the other side of the Committee permanently. We have yet to hear in further detail about the Minister’s burial ground. I was curious whether the residents were still paying him rent. With that, Mr Chope, I thank you. I thank the Clerks specifically for their superb assistance to me and my assistant in preparing the Bill; the Doorkeepers; and, of course, the police who have kept us safe throughout the process. This is an important Bill, and we have given it proper attention and interrogation. I think that we all look forward to the fruition of a most important infrastructure project for the United Kingdom.

High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill (Fifth sitting)

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Sir Simon Burns]

I do not want to enter a sour note in what have been harmonious proceedings so far, but I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s new clause. I am in good company, because the last two Labour Prime Minister’s shared my view: neither Tony Blair nor Gordon Brown ever wanted to re-privatise the railways while in power and they did nothing to re-privatise the running of them. He failed to answer my interventions on that.

I always find it slightly odd that those who—sadly, like me—are old enough to remember British Rail see it as the halcyon days when everything was wonderful: the trains ran on time; they were terribly cheap, notwithstanding the taxpayer subsidy of fares; and investment in improving the network overflowed. In fact, every time a Government—whether Labour or Conservative—was hit with an economic crisis, one of the first budgets mangled was that for nationalised industries and investment in the railways. That is why both the previous Labour Government and this Conservative Government have had to invest so much money in improving the rail network’s infrastructure: there was so little investment before privatisation.

The hon. Gentleman seems to think that it was a wonderful experience to ride the trains when they were publicly owned, but that was not the case. They were not more efficient and there was out-of-date rolling stock and collapsing infrastructure and, if we go back to 1963, a significant proportion of the network was closed down as a result of the Beeching report. I therefore really do not think that the answer is to turn the clock back to the bad old days as if they were some halcyon period that we should aspire to replicate today.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I do not mean to detain the Committee for any longer than necessary. I was not going to speak a word on this subject—I could speak on trains for about three long hours—but, given that we are talking about the past and the right hon. Gentleman alluded to his seniority in this place—

[Sir Simon Burns]

In age.

[Alison McGovern]

You say potato. I trust he will confirm that during the long years of the 1980s and 1990s when our rail system was starved of investment, he lobbied the then Conservative Government at every opportunity to invest in it.

[Sir Simon Burns]

The dates the hon. Lady chose are slightly selective, because it was not just in the ’80s and early ’90s that there was a starving of investment. I at least have the decency to spread the blame to all parties, not just the Conservative party. Rail was starved of investment in the ’70s. My first job was working in this place from 1975 to 1981, and four and a half of those years were under the Wilson and Callaghan Governments, when we ended up running to the International Monetary Fund because the country ran out of money—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady does not like the truth. The country had to go with a begging bowl to the IMF, and one of the major areas to suffer from public spending cuts was the railways.

Crossrail: Elizabeth Line

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out the complexity of the project—some of the tunnels have been tunnelled to within 30 cm of existing infrastructure beneath the streets of London, which is an astonishing achievement—and of the interchanges, on which such decisions are often considered to be too complicated. The Government, TfL and Network Rail are working closely with the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation—that is another example of a devolved authority—to make sure that it understands its aspirations for the publicly held land at Old Oak Common. It is a balancing act and it is difficult to get it right for the future, but we will continue to invest in this vital infrastructure and we will make it work for the benefit of the British economy and of rail passengers across the UK.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I agree wholeheartedly with what the rail Minister and the shadow rail Minister have said about Her Majesty and about our brilliant railway staff. I am a former Network Rail staffer, and I worked with some fantastic women engineers. May I, however, offer the Minister some constructive criticism? Her statement made more references to services to Liverpool Street than to those to Liverpool. Now that Crossrail is moving towards completion, will she turn her attentions northwards, and will she say when she will meet a delegation from Merseyside to discuss rail services there?

[Claire Perry]

I talked more about Liverpool Street only because Crossrail does not of course go very far north at the moment. I have great respect for the hon. Lady, but she will know from her constituency that we have electric trains running between Manchester and Liverpool for the first time ever. That is tangible evidence that the Government are delivering both on infrastructure promises in the north and on rolling stock. I am sure that she, like me, has long thought the Pacer should have been phased out a long time ago, because it is not fit for purpose in moving people around such a vibrant and growing part of the country—the north—which I know she is proud to represent. This Government are taking such investment decisions. My door is always open to delegations from any part of the country that wants to talk about how railways can further transform their local economy.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie). I have listened to his speeches during this Parliament, and he has offered us his wisdom and made a serious contribution. I am very glad that he finished by talking about deficit reduction, because that is how I want to start my speech.

I am afraid that I must begin with what I see as the Chancellor’s failed record on deficit reduction. We must not let people in this country forget what he promised when he came in and wrote the emergency Budget in 2010. He told people in this country that he would close the budget gap by the end of this Parliament, but he has failed to do so. Despite the most severe cuts to some of our communities in this country, he has failed in the objective he set himself. That will leave the next Government, whoever they are, with a serious and significant challenge. I will say more about the right way to meet that challenge.

The Chancellor has also failed on two of his other targets. Let us not forget the target he set himself on protecting our credit rating, which he failed. Given that the Chancellor’s target was to get debt falling, not rising, in this Parliament, do we really expect the British public to accept that a mere 0.2% is good enough to meet that target? That is meeting the target by the merest technicality. We have sort of and a little bit turned the corner on reducing debt, and that is supposed to be okay with the British public. Well, that might be okay for the Tory party, but it is not okay for my constituents.

The Chancellor has failed the tests he set himself, but—much more importantly—he has failed the test that the country set for him, which was to put money in the pockets of British people. I want to set out four ways in which the next Government will get that right. On the deficit, we will close the gap in the right way. We will not do as the Chancellor did and claim that severe austerity will do the job and that we just need to cut indiscriminately to fix the gap.

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

With those cuts decimating some of the poorest people in society and the need to leave at least two thirds of fossil fuels in the ground if we are to avoid dangerous climate change, does the hon. Lady agree that handing out yet more eye-watering tax breaks to multinational oil and gas companies is a deeply irresponsible use of public money?

[Alison McGovern]

I am glad that the hon. Lady focuses on those with the least. I have been to Brighton and seen people rough-sleeping, and it worries me greatly that the council there is insufficiently focused on those with the least. She also mentioned wrong choices, and I want to say a little more about the right choices. First, we need to focus on the financial services industry, because it worries me that the Chancellor has defended bank bonuses on many occasions, not least in Europe. That is why I want to see us raise more through a bank levy, which we will invest in the next generation through our pledge for free universal child care for three and four-year-olds from working families.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

In the final year of the five-year forecast, the Chancellor will increase public spending by £38.1 billion in a single year. Does the hon. Lady think that is enough? If not, how much more would she like?

[Alison McGovern]

If the right hon. Gentleman had been listening to my speech, he would have heard me say that we need to make the right choices and show our priorities. As I was saying, the right way to close the budget deficit is to focus on taking money through a bank levy on the financial services industry and investing that money in the next generation and in hard-working families in Britain. I am pleased that we have confirmed that the next Labour Government will have no requirement for new debt for our election pledges. That is the right way to go about managing the British economy.

The right investments matter. It matters whether we choose to invest in infrastructure for the long term. I am sorry that the rhetoric about investment is still not matched by the reality on the ground, and is still so heavily focused—as it has been over the past five years—on London and the south-east. Of course steel in the ground matters, but we also need to think about our education system as part of our country’s infrastructure. I am concerned that we have not heard a pledge from the Chancellor to match our commitment to fund education properly and to ring-fence that budget all the way through children’s lives.

While we are talking about the right balance and right investment, I want to talk about the north of England. I am in politics because I grew up on Merseyside in the 1980s and 1990s and I knew that the then Governments did not care very much about families like mine. I wanted to see a future for my friends and family in Wirral South in which they did not have to leave the place that they loved to have a successful career. Under the last Labour Government, that was happening. We had “The Northern Way”, which saw regional development agencies investing in the north. That was the right way to rebalance the economy, and it was working. Labour investment was working.

Today the Chancellor has tried to use rhetoric and spin to talk about a northern powerhouse that nobody in Merseyside believes in for a second. We have been living with the Chancellor’s true political priorities—a level of cuts not seen in the wealthier parts of the country. That is despite historical deprivation and the fact that we are still living with the consequences of a Tory Government who deindustrialised the north and provided no other options. “The Northern Way” and the regional development agencies were working under the last Labour Government, and that was the right way—not soaring rhetoric about northern powerhouses, but actual investment in the north—[Interruption.] If the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), wants to intervene, she is more than welcome. As she does not seek to do so, I take it that she has nothing to say about the north.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I am a Member from the north-west and I have shared platforms with the hon. Lady in the past. Does she not accept that, under the Northwest regional development agency and the infrastructures that her party put in place, the jobs that were created were public sector jobs? We now have a more sustainable platform of private sector growth. From memory, unemployment in her constituency is down by more than 30% in the last year—does not she welcome that?

[Alison McGovern]

I bow to no one in my applause when unemployment falls, but to say that Wirral, Merseyside and the rest of the north-west have not suffered from huge cuts to local government is to ignore the facts. I know that that is an argument that almost everyone in the north-west—perhaps with the exception of members of the Tory party—will recognise.

We need not just the right investment but the right protections. We have seen family budgets hit radically and hard, we have seen child poverty rise and, on the relative measure, we have seen people in the middle of the income distribution fall back towards the bottom. That is not offering families in our country the right protections—

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Alison McGovern]

I will not take any more interventions, because I might be here for a long time if I did.

We need a bank levy to fund 25 hours of free child care for working families with three and four-year-olds. That pledge alone will help 51,000 children in poverty and will be a real boost to their families’ incomes, which have been hit hard. Whatever the Chancellor says, and whatever the Tories try to convince themselves of, it is not only the London School of Economics and its analysis of the past five years that shows that the incomes of the bottom half have fallen while those of the top half have risen; the Treasury’s own figures now say that the bottom fifth has done worse. We need the right protections to ensure that when economic growth happens, it is not just for the few but real growth for the many. Rather than failed austerity, we need a truly progressive Government in favour of the many, not the few, and more than anything else we need a Labour Government.

East Coast Main Line

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he has said, but I should point out to him that this is not just about passengers. It is also about staff—the staff who deliver a fantastic service on the east coast main line, and who will now be given better training. I think that the national academy—which, as I said earlier, will be based in London, York and Derby—is very good news for the people who work on our railways, as well as the passengers who travel on them.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Virgin fares on the west coast main line are excruciating. Will the Secretary of State tell us what he can do to protect passengers on the east coast line?

[Mr McLoughlin]

As I have said, some of the top fares will be reduced by 10% in May. Moreover, if passengers buy tickets in advance, they can obtain some very good deals.

High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I will give way one final time in this part of my speech, to the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern).

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. When does he expect to respond to the phase 2 consultation?

[Mr McLoughlin]

If the hon. Lady will be patient, I shall deal with that point a little later in my speech.

I was telling the House that it is time to connect great cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds. It is time for better links between north and south and between east and west, and time to connect to world markets to make the most of their skills and talents. It is time for HS2; time for a new north-south railway line.

Today, we can get a high-speed train from London to Lille but not to Leeds, and from London to Brussels but not to Birmingham. That has to change, but of course our investment plans must also run much further. More than £38 billion is being invested in the existing rail network between 2014 and 2019, including about £16 billion of Government support as part of our plans to invest £73 billion in all forms of transport between 2015 and 2021. We are trebling the budget for our major road schemes to £15 billion between 2015 and 2021; we are investing £14 billion in local transport schemes between 2015 and 2020; and next year, the Davies commission will propose options on future airport capacity. We need to do all this because if we are to support our economy, we need our infrastructure to work. Two years after the Jubilee line reached Canary Wharf in 1999, 27,000 people were employed in that area. By 2012, the figure was over 100,000.

We begin, it is true, with the advantage of our Victorian inheritance, but others are catching up. At the start of 2007, China did not have a single high-speed railway line; today, it has more than 6,000 miles in service, and by 2015, that will be 11,000 miles. France and Germany have been reaping the benefits of a high-speed rail network for decades, while we have just 67 miles from London to Kent and the channel tunnel.

Of course we have a good existing network, but we need to improve it, and upgrading Britain’s rail infrastructure is a key part of this Government’s long-term economic plan. In the south and south-west of Britain, the great western line is receiving more investment over the next five years than any other route. This will bring huge benefits to people working in that region.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Hammond]

My hon. Friend is a well-known and doughty campaigner for her constituency, which is why I have had the pleasure of visiting it several times in the past couple of years. I will of course look seriously at that and speak to Network Rail. It is essential that that new port is a success.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

7. What recent assessment he has made of the quality of bus services outside London.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

Passenger Focus research shows that customer satisfaction with bus journeys is high—84% of passengers are satisfied with their service. The Government set out their programme for further improving bus services in “Green Light for Better Buses”, which was published in 2012. Our proposals include reforming bus subsidy, improving competition and making buses easier to use for everyone.

[Alison McGovern]

As we have heard a little this morning, Members could probably talk for hours about rail fares, but what about bus fares, especially those outside London? Will the Minister tell the House what has happened to bus fares outside London on his Government’s watch, and what impact the removal of the bus service operators grant had?

[Mr Goodwill]

Bus fares have been rising for several years above inflation, although many operators and councils across the country are working together and separately to provide good deals. The picture is variable and reflects local circumstances. We are working with the sector to see what can be achieved to make sure that buses are accessible to as many people as possible, given the social and economic importance of bus travel.