Oral Answers to Questions

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We are in the process of digesting the route strategies provided by Highways England. The strategies set a blueprint for the projects we will need to deliver in the future to ease those points of congestion. I cannot at this early stage give a Government commitment to individual projects, but we are looking carefully at that study and others. We are seized of the need to make sure that we address such problems.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Three years ago the Law Commission recommended wholesale reform of taxi and private hire services, but the Government have not responded. Uber proliferates, but it pays no VAT and the country loses a fortune in avoided corporation tax. The former London Mayor was sat on when he tried to bring Uber to heel, despite the denials of his Bullingdon club friends. A No. 10 adviser, lo and behold, now runs Uber. Is it not time that we saw some urgent action from the Secretary of State on the taxi and private hire industry and, while he is at it, on the way in which his party runs its chumocracy?

[Chris Grayling]

Given the current state of the Labour party, I am not sure I would go down that road if I were the hon. Gentleman. We are currently looking at what is the best approach to the future regulation and structure of our taxi and private hire services. I see it as a particular priority to ensure public safety. We and local authorities are doing that work, and we want to deliver the right framework for it. Our job is to ensure that we have the right choice for consumers and the right options in our marketplace, but we also want to protect those parts of our industry, such as London black cabs, that are a national institution and that none of us would wish to see disappear. This is about a measured approach. Of course, some of the most evocative issues lie in the hands of the London Mayor and not of this Government.

[Andy McDonald]

The Uber scandal is not the only issue of concern right at the heart of this Tory Government, given their perpetual revolving-door employment strategy. While we await a formal response on how a senior Department for Transport civil servant awarded a rail franchise while part-owning the consultancy advising the successful bidder, yesterday it was announced that HS2 had dropped the £170 million engineering contract with CH2M. The chief executive officer of HS2, now a full-time appointment, came from CH2M and, more than that, HS2’s former chief of staff worked on the engineering company’s bid for the project. Now the director general of HS2 has resigned this very morning. I do not agree with the TaxPayers Alliance when it says that it does not pass “the smell test,” because in fact it stinks to high heaven. Will the Secretary of State order an immediate independent inquiry into these goings on? His silence on the issue speaks volumes.

[Chris Grayling]

Let us be clear about this. First, on the appointment to the chief executive role of HS2, I want the best person for that job, and we will always seek to recruit the best person for that job. I will also ensure that if there are any questions about the recruitment process, they are addressed and investigated carefully by the civil service to reassure me that we can make an appointment without any concern. That we did, and I have absolute confidence in both that recruitment process and in that new chief executive. Yesterday’s announcement that CH2M HILL has decided to withdraw from the contract after an issue—not a massive one—emerged in the contracting process is the right one. I am grateful to the company for doing that, as it is the right thing to do. I want to make sure that Government contracting processes recruit the right expertise, corporate or individual, but are also robust in making sure that, if things are not done right, it is addressed. That is what has happened.