Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bill Esterson and Grant Shapps

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have already pumped £40 million into Acorn. It is on the reserve list. He asks when; the answer is this year for track 2 and track 1 expansion. So I say it again: the Secretary of State does get it.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

2. What steps his Department is taking to help energy intensive industries decarbonise.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bill Esterson and Grant Shapps

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

We were insulating 10 times as many homes in 2010 as this Government are doing now. Everyone knows what has happened since the Secretary of State’s Government decided to get rid of the “green crap”. Will he adopt Labour’s plan to insulate 19 million homes over the next 10 years? It has the support of the Construction Leadership Council, the Federation of Master Builders and the building trade as a whole. It will create new jobs, cut bills and play its part in reducing carbon emissions. Will he do it?

[Grant Shapps]

This is one of those slightly odd parallel universes: we are saying that we have gone from just 14% to 46% of homes with A to C ratings—[Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Minister of State suggests we might even be hitting 47%. I have also stood at this Dispatch Box and talked about £12.6 billion of investment to go even further, yet the Labour party will not just say, “That is very good, and we’ll support you.”

Industrial Action on the Railway

Debate between Bill Esterson and Grant Shapps

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I caught Mick Lynch, the leader of the RMT, on TV at his press conference after he walked out of the talks, saying that there is no need for any reductions or changes because, on the basis of last week’s figures, 90% of the passengers had come back. That is completely wrong. Those numbers are not accurate; a fifth of the passengers are still missing. However, there are the occasional lines and the occasional times when 90%-plus have come back, and they tend to be at the weekends. It tends to be on the Saturday and Sunday services, and is all the more reason why we need a seven-day railway, like any other business. We need to be able to run it on a Sunday, because compared with 1919, when these rules were put in place, the world has changed.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

My constituents will not be able to use Merseyrail trains tomorrow, but not because there is a strike at Merseyrail. There is no strike because Labour-run Liverpool city region has met the rail unions and avoided strikes at Merseyrail. However, there still will not be any trains in Merseyside because this Conservative Transport Secretary is responsible for Network Rail, where there is a strike, and he has refused to meet the unions for months. Labour has found a way to resolve potential disputes in Wales and in Merseyside, so what is it about this Transport Secretary that prevents him from finding solutions and stopping these strikes?

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Member may want to reflect the same question to the Mayor of London, I suppose, for the same reasons. I am delighted that Merseyrail has been able to do its thing. I do hope that he will now join me—will he join me?—in condemning the strikes, because I think that would have real weight from the Labour and unions party, but the Opposition will not do it, will they? They will not condemn these strikes, and millions of people up and down this country have taken note.

P&O Ferries

Debate between Bill Esterson and Grant Shapps

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

The simple fact is that this package will finally ensure that the whole seafaring community is on a level playing field—or a level sea—when it comes to channel crossings and that there will be no advantage to Irish Ferries running a cut-price route or P&O Ferries trying to do the same. For Stena Line, DFDS and others, it will ensure that they can all operate and compete on a fair platform.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State says that P&O should reinstate every worker on their original terms and conditions, with which I completely agree, but he needs to take every action available to him to support the group of workers who have just been sacked, as what he announced today is largely about the future. Will he suspend or cancel P&O and DP World contracts, including the lucrative freeport contracts? That is how he will show them that the Government are really serious and how he will have the greatest chance of putting the pressure on them that will lead to the reinstatement of those workers.

[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bill Esterson and Grant Shapps

Thursday 17th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

11. What steps he is taking to improve the (a) quantity and (b) reliability of public electric vehicle charging stations.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)]

The Government have committed £2.5 billion to vehicle grants and infrastructure to support the transition to electric vehicles.

[Grant Shapps]

We are always looking at what more we can do. We put in £1.9 billion in the 2020 spending review, and we have enhanced that with an extra £620 million for the transition. I will always look at what else can be done. Electric vehicles—I can attest to this because I have driven one for several years—are dramatically cheaper than equivalent fuel vehicles, albeit that the infrastructure needs to be got right to make sure that they are chargeable.

[Bill Esterson]

The UK needs 480,000 EV charging points if we are to transition to electric vehicles. So far there are 28,000 publicly available charging points, and only 1,000 on-street charging points outside London. Last year, just 7,600 new charging points were installed. At this rate, we will have to wait until 2080 for everyone to be able to use an electric car. These figures are from the National Infrastructure Commission. How does the Secretary of State expect motorists to be able to play their part in the move to net zero if the Government are not delivering the charging infrastructure?

HGV Driver Shortages

Debate between Bill Esterson and Grant Shapps

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

It is of course absolutely true that, with salaries increasing, more people are being encouraged to come into the sector. That means that there may be an impact overall where people are paid more in different professions. We have seen an increase in the number of drivers coming in—I know this from the DVSA booking figures—which shows that there is a solution on the horizon. My hon. Friend is also right to question whether the Army could deliver some of the goods and services. At the moment, that is not being considered. Of course, the Government as a whole keep a very close eye on this issue and have contingency plans in place, but it is absolutely not something that at the moment the Government are looking at.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Empty supermarket shelves, increasing prices of building materials and shortages of blood tests and flu jabs are an indication of a very serious set of crises. We are 90,000 short of drivers in this country, which is more than twice the figure in the other countries that the Secretary of State mentioned. According to a constituent of mine, only eight tests were available at the Switch Island testing centre in my constituency last week. Taking short cuts that undermine safety cannot possibly be the answer to this crisis. There is a problem right now. Lorry drivers need it sorting out, consumers need it sorting out and businesses need it sorting out, as does the country. What is the answer—here, now, today—to this shortage?

[Grant Shapps]

Again, there seems to be some misunderstanding. First, the tests are still required for HGV drivers. We are not compromising safety; the tests are just taking place in a different place. For example, there is the C+E test, which is for articulated plus rigid. These used to have to be done separately, and we are just combining the tests so that people do not first have to have done the C test before they do the E test. It does not reduce safety at all, and it is widely welcomed by the sector. Similarly, the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), who is leaving the Chamber, said that we are increasing drivers’ hours. We are not increasing drivers’ hours. There is a lot of misunderstanding. The measures we are putting in place now will provide immediate additional capacity. They already have—we already have 50% more tests available—and they will bring up another 50,000 per annum. We are doing this today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bill Esterson and Grant Shapps

Thursday 12th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)]

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to say a few words about an issue that I know a lot of Members have been concerned about: smart motorways. I announced last year that the Department would carry out an evidence stock-take to gather the facts about the safety or otherwise of smart motorways and make recommendations. I have listened to friends and families affected, and I have looked hard at the evidence. Today, I am publishing a report into the findings. Alongside that report, I am launching an 18-point action plan to raise the bar on smart motorway safety. Overall, the evidence shows that in most ways smart motorways are as safe or safer than conventional ones, but they are not in every way. I have therefore developed new measures to further improve safety.

I pay tribute to Edmund King of the Automobile Association and the families of those who have lost loved ones, including Meera Naran who is here today watching our proceedings. I also want to thank other campaigners, in particular my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), and my hon. Friends the Members for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and for Harborough (Neil O'Brien). Their work to help to ensure our motorways are as safe as they can possibly be is, I think, something the whole House will welcome. I have laid copies of the report in the Library and a written statement will be laid later today.

[Bill Esterson]

I thank the Secretary of State for those comments on smart motorways. The new plan for a northern powerhouse between Manchester and Leeds has been announced every year since 2014. Why would anybody think it will be any different this year? If Northern Powerhouse Rail is to be a success, it has to go right across the north, so why is there is nothing about the Liverpool to Manchester part of the route, which is the easiest part to deliver? As the Prime Minister was fond of saying during the election, it is oven ready.

[Grant Shapps]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s frustration. I have a consultation virtually ready to go. I am working with Transport for the North to get that signed off across various different parties up there. I will be expressing the hon. Member’s concern to them to get on with that. I agree that Manchester to Leeds is part of it, but getting on with the bit to Liverpool, out to Hull and all the rest is also important.