Industrial Action
Debate between Cat Smith and Grant Shapps(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
The answer to the question is none. I have not seen a single police officer sacked or a member of the Army sacked, and they have no-strike deals. We are not proposing no-strike deals here; we are simply saying, I think very reasonably, that the level of emergency service provided by the fantastic workers—and I accept what the hon. Member said about people going on strike with a heavy heart—in his particular ambulance trust should be provided to all Members across the House, no matter where they are. In the case tomorrow, the union has failed to agree that with the management. I rather hope that he and Members on the Opposition Front Bench will join us in persuading people to provide that minimum safety level. If not, they will need to explain to their constituents why they are failing to vote to support the safety and security of their own constituents’ lives.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a proud member of Unite and the GMB trade unions.
During the pandemic, my constituents and I stood on our doorsteps and clapped our key workers—we clapped the nurses at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary and the Blackpool Victoria, and we clapped the postal workers working out of our delivery offices in Lancaster, Fleetwood and Garstang—and now this Government are putting more effort into putting those workers’ jobs at risk than into trying to resolve the strikes. It is clear that the Secretary of State is obsessed about the ongoing strikes. I can assure him that many of the workers who are losing days and days of pay are upset, too. Can I try to help him and suggest that he puts more effort into sitting down with trade unions and finding a resolution than into trying to stamp on workers’ rights?
Grant Shapps
As the hon. Lady will know, various different unions have been invited in, there have been discussions across the different sectors and we are doing everything we can to encourage a settlement. I do need to gently point out to Opposition Members that this is not a Government who have ignored the independent pay review bodies, come up with our own number and, say, halved the amount of money that was suggested should be paid. We have actually accepted in full the recommendations of those independent pay review bodies, so we are actually following the science and following the evidence. She is wrong to suggest, and to continue frightening people by saying, that their jobs could be at risk. Nobody’s job is at risk. I have already explained that we are hiring more, particularly nurses and doctors, and this legislation will simply say that, if we cannot get there voluntarily across the country—not just, for example, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), but everywhere—we will have legislative power to make sure we are able to require minimum safety levels for everybody, not just some.
Transport Decarbonisation
Debate between Cat Smith and Grant Shapps(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
A small but important sub-clause to my announcement that we will be consulting to outlaw the sale of diesel HGVs by 2040 is that by 2035—five years earlier—we will already have done that for lorries up to 26 tonnes. A 26-tonner is a very considerable size of lorry, so my hon. Friend’s prayers may well be answered much sooner than he fears.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
Poor air quality caused by congestion causes health problems and costs lives. This is a particular problem for my constituents in the village of Galgate, which has the A6 running down the middle of it. Will the Secretary of State look favourably on plans to reconfigure junction 33 of the M6 to create a bypass for the village? Regardless of that, there will still be buses running through the village. I note that the Secretary of State said that some zero-emission buses were in production, but does he admit that his target of 4,000 is unambitious, when that represents only about one tenth of the English fleet?
Grant Shapps
The hon. Lady will be pleased to hear that, if anything, we are ahead of schedule on the bus target, with 900 already on their way—in production—so I hope that we can go even further.[Official Report, 20 July 2021, Vol. 699, c. 5MC.] Our £3 billion bus strategy is by far and away the largest for generations, and I look forward to it helping her constituents. I will certainly mention her point about junction 33 of the A6 to the Roads Minister and ask her to come back to the hon. Lady.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Cat Smith and Grant Shapps(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
Grant Shapps
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that bus transport has required a huge amount of support. We have put in hundreds of millions during this pandemic. We have also launched the Bus Back Better strategy, which puts a lot of money into buses—some £3 billion. In the meantime, I will ensure that we return to this House to talk about further ways that we can support our bus sector and ensure that those essential local links that she describes are maintained.
International Travel
Debate between Cat Smith and Grant Shapps(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It is true that changeovers do indeed often take place on a Saturday. It might help if I explain the tensions that have to be measured off. The medical community would of course say, “Don’t leave any time at all: do it immediately”—which is virtually what happened with Spain, the very first country to be removed from a corridor—and the other view is to allow it to continue. It is a question of finding the best balance between the two that would satisfy the chief medical officer and his concerns as well as trying to get people home. I promise to undertake to continue to look at this, but I hope my hon. Friend understands and the House will appreciate the natural and proper tensions that are in place.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
My constituents want to make informed decisions about their travel arrangements, so will the Secretary of State consider publishing the evidence and criteria by which countries are deemed to be on or off the quarantine list?
Grant Shapps
Yes, I can help the hon. Lady, because I have already, several times, published the basis for the decision-making process. The easiest way to find it is on my Twitter feed, @grantshapps, which explains the measures put in place. The data is then available for somebody to look at. We have been quite clear about where people need to go to see exactly which measures are taken into account.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Cat Smith and Grant Shapps(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the railways are too fragmented. They are not, as the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) suggested, being renationalised, but we do want to simplify the operation of our railways. Network Rail is just one of the dozens and dozens of companies involved, and it leads to an impossible fragmentation that means solving problems is just too difficult. So, yes, that is absolutely what we will commit to with Network Rail.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
As a long-time campaigner for the line to Fleetwood to be reopened, I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State was in Poulton-le-Fylde this week, announcing £100,000 for a feasibility study into the line. However, I was concerned that he said in his speech that one of the reasons why we are at the front of the queue is that we have all the stations on the line already. Of course, we do not; we do not have a station in Fleetwood. Can the Secretary of State confirm that the line will be reopened all the way to Fleetwood?