Amendment of the Law
Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Lord Walney(12 years, 8 months ago)
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John Woodcock
I am glad the Secretary of State asks me that. I would expect a little more humility from the Government given that on their own plans they are set to borrow £150 billion more. We strongly believe that the cuts we do not accept represent a false economy that will act as a drag on the nation’s growth and stop us returning to the prosperity that this country desperately needs.
The Government’s priorities are not with the family who are struggling to make ends meet, with the small business that wants to create more jobs or with the employee who wants to be able to afford to turn up to work in the morning.
John Woodcock
I am not going to give way at the moment because the Secretary of State has taken up the hon. Gentleman’s time.
On all those counts, Wednesday’s Budget was a great disappointment. I will give the Secretary of State one thing: at least she is consistent. When we dig beneath her unrealistic claims that everything will be peachy, we see that she is not gearing up to deliver jam tomorrow after the pain today. Instead, with the Budget the Government set out this week, motorists, train passengers and bus users will be squeezed today, tomorrow and for years into the future. The effect will be a decade-long drag on jobs and growth, with the prospect of drivers and commuters being priced out of getting to work, or left stranded at a bus stop wondering why the service has been axed.
The Chancellor offered nothing to hard-pressed motorists this week. In fact, he has made things worse. He has raised the prospect of finding new ways to make things harder in future. Even from the comfort of No. 11 Downing street, the Chancellor cannot have failed to hear the growing calls for some relief on fuel taxation. If he refused to listen, it was the Secretary of State’s job to prise open his ears and tell him just how hard it is for Britain’s motorists. In the Budget negotiations, however, she secured diddly squat—[Interruption.] Instead, faced with rising and record petrol prices, she set her face against calls for relief in fuel tax, including the call for a temporary—[Interruption.]
John Woodcock
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I shall take that as a lesson.
Faced with record and rising fuel prices, the Secretary of State set her face against all calls for relief, including the Opposition call for a temporary VAT cut.
Charlie Elphicke
I remind the hon. Gentleman that this April petrol duty will be a full 10p lower than it would have been under the previous Government’s plans. That will save the average family £144 and be a massive benefit—a far greater benefit than if Labour had remained in office.
John Woodcock
That shows just how out of touch the hon. Gentleman and Government Members are. I would like to see him go to the forecourt in his constituency, or any forecourt around the country, and say, “Let’s welcome the further rise in fuel taxation that you’re getting this week. What a great job the Government are doing in keeping fuel prices down!”
Families in Britain, worried by energy bills, clobbered by spiralling rail fares and made poorer by cuts to tax credits, are, thanks to this Secretary of State’s inaction, once again being squeezed even harder at the fuel pump. There is pain today and pain tomorrow. The ultimate victims are jobs and growth, and the nation’s return to prosperity. What is the Chancellor offering motorists in return for their growing fuel bills? He is offering only vague promises, which might well turn out to be yet another ratchet with precious little reward.
The National Audit Office has warned the Government that they are creating a vicious cycle of deteriorating roads and higher long-term costs. A plague of potholes is making our road network less safe for all users, less green and more congested. The road network is a brake on, and not an agent of, jobs and growth. There is no movement on the cuts already set for local roads—that is good news on potholes but bad news for everyone else—but what about our trunk roads, which the Secretary of State mentioned? We need long-term strategic investment in the road network, and we also need to look at how we lever in that investment, but Britain’s drivers and cyclists will have little confidence after seeing Ministers tying themselves in knots in recent days.
Before the Prime Minister’s speech on infrastructure on Monday, those pesky anonymous briefers, who seem to be everywhere in this Government—good luck in trying to catch them, Mr Speaker—said that tolling would be considered only for brand new roads. However, in the speech, “new roads” became “new capacity”. We now know for certain that charging is being considered when improvements take place on existing roads because the Budget document confirms it. We are told that the shortlist of options include “widening some sections” of the A14,
“rationalising access to the route, and improving the route of the southern bypass for Huntingdon.”
In other words, the A14 will be not a new road, but the existing one with added tolling.
Britain’s motorists, already squeezed to breaking point, demand plain speaking from the Government, so I will give the Secretary of State another opportunity. Will she tell us what will constitute a capacity improvement on an existing road that could lead to tolling? Will that include an extra lane, a contra flow, a new slip road, a roundabout or a bollard? Motorists deserve to know what the Government have in mind.
John Woodcock
Well, you know. [Laughter.] I am here all week.
The Chancellor told us on Wednesday that the country must confront the lack of airport capacity in the south-east. He is right, but his words would carry more weight had the Government not spent the past two years dithering and delaying on producing any sort of aviation strategy. What did we actually get this week? We got not one but two further delays. First, the Chancellor announced that the strategy that the Department for Transport’s business plan told us to expect in March will now appear late this summer; and now the Secretary of State seems to have put back the date even further to this winter or next spring—more dithering, more delay, while competitor hubs in continental Europe get on with providing new capacity that could transform their economies.
John Woodcock
I will not give way any more because I am running on and I want to give other Members time to speak.
The Government came to power with just one policy on aviation capacity—to abandon the Heathrow third runway. Since the election, the Government have come up with no practical thinking on alternatives. Instead, they seem to have outsourced their aviation strategy down the river to a Mayor who is more interested in trying to grab attention than in finding a plan that will work. That is no way to treat a vital economic driver that is critical to the country’s future growth.
As the Secretary of State is well aware, the plans for an airport in the Thames estuary are being met with a barrage of opposition from the area, including from her own party’s MPs and councillors. She would be even clearer on that if, like my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State, she had been to north Kent and talked to local people in the areas affected. The idea of building a new airport from scratch in the Thames estuary is a huge distraction from the real need for airport capacity here and now. It is obvious why so many people, but apparently not the Secretary of State, see an estuary airport as a complete non-starter—there is the impact on local communities, the destruction of internationally important habitats, the safety threat from explosive-laden wrecks, a liquefied petroleum gas terminal and a huge offshore wind farm.
National Policy Statements
Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Lord Walney(12 years, 12 months ago)
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John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
This motion is brought before the House on the day that the Chancellor has unveiled his national infrastructure plan on which the UK’s economic recovery is supposed to rest. I have to say that those are grand hopes for a 150-page wish list with little coherence and even less sense of how it will be delivered. Although it is welcome that the House is getting the chance to debate the national policy statement on ports—an important innovation pioneered by the previous Government and made possible by the passage of the Planning Act 2008—it is time that Ministers faced up to the opportunities that are being missed because of failure to join up key decision making on transport infrastructure.
First, though, let me say what we support. We are pleased that national policy statements are going ahead and that Ministers have chosen to accept the Transport Committee’s recommendation that debates on them should take place in Government time.
We have heard today, in the Chancellor’s autumn statement, that Britain faces continued stagnation. Unfortunately, it will take more than a national policy statement on ports, no matter how finely crafted, to return our flatlining economy to health. However, although not sufficient, thriving ports are necessary to any recovery. Any successful route out of these doldrums will require an economic rebalancing that includes Britain’s exporting more to the rest of the world.
With about 90% of world trade taking place by sea, we need more than ever to ensure that Britain has sufficient modern, efficient port capacity that is capable of handling the size of ships and containers that are coming to dominate global trade. That port capacity needs to be linked to a land-based transport network that provides reliable and efficient links for exported and imported goods. That means having fast and free-flowing road links to major ports and increasing capacity on key rail routes, not only in relation to train paths but to enhancing the loading gauge to allow larger containers to be carried. That is why the last Labour Government worked with Network Rail to allow containers of 9 feet 6 inches to be carried between Southampton and the midlands. Today’s statement on rail freight interchanges is therefore welcome.
Our ports are essential to this island nation. They are part of our heritage and our future as a global trader. In 2010, the UK’s ports handled 512 million tonnes of freight, making our ports sector the largest of any in Europe. Ports and directly related services account for about 58,000 jobs, widely distributed across the country. From Immingham to Southampton and from the Medway to Liverpool, ports are at the centre of local economies.
We support the principles behind the policy statement in that port expansion is essential economically but must be conducted in ways that benefit local economies, drive regeneration and are environmentally sensitive. That is because businesses seeking new markets will be looking to the new Administration to deliver on the significant expansions consented to by the previous Government: a two thirds increase in the handling capacity at Felixstowe, consented to in 2006; the London gateway port that the Minister mentioned, handling up to 3.5 million containers a year and consented to in 2007; a doubling of capacity at Liverpool, also consented to in 2007; and further major expansions given the green light at Bathside bay in Harwich, at Teesport, and at Bristol.
Although we agree with the underlying principles of the statement and will therefore support its approval, the way in which it has been presented exposes serious shortcomings in the Government’s approach to planning transport infrastructure. I hope that the Government will reflect on that and make changes so that their already disjointed infrastructure planning does not deteriorate further.
The need to link ports with other infrastructure projects, particularly in road and rail, is obvious. However, the Minister has not given a satisfactory explanation of why he has ignored the recommendation of the Transport Committee to integrate the NPS on ports with the promised NPS on national networks.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that the Eddington report was published in 2006 or 2007. The previous Government did not get on with improving road infrastructure to the ports. I say gently that it is a bit rich for him to criticise this Government for not moving more quickly on that.
John Woodcock
Progress was made, but unquestionably more needs to be done. I think that it was incumbent on the incoming Government to respond positively to the recommendations made by the Transport Committee just before the last election. It is a matter of great regret that they have not done so.
The Government have chosen to abolish the Infrastructure Planning Commission, yet the entire statement is written on the basis that the IPC exists. I hope that the Minister will make it clear in winding up, if he has time, or in writing if necessary, whether the end date that he gave of April next year is a firm date or simply a target, and whether that change will require further consultation on the NPS.
The House is being asked to approve the NPS without reference to wider ports policy, most notably on ownership models, including mutualisation. As the Minister is well aware, that is of great interest to many Members and local communities, most notably around Dover and the trust ports. The lack of any guidance on ownership and changes of status in the NPS demonstrates why it is not a substitute for a proper ports policy. I hope that the Minister, whom it is an unexpected pleasure to see today, or the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), will commit to coming before the House with a comprehensive statement on ports policy, in which the NPS sits.
It is unfortunate that the statement gives such limited consideration to the economic and social impacts of port development proposals, particularly on local employment. After the fiasco of the Thameslink procurement process, Ministers claim to be alive to these issues, yet they seem to be little more than an afterthought in this document.
The Transport Committee recommended that the statement should include preference for port development to reduce inland road transport, yet that is missing from the statement. It contains no wider policy on how to achieve a reduction in the reliance on road freight. We hope that Ministers will consider revising the NPS to ensure that development decisions are taken in a way that specifically promotes and encourages a modal shift for onward transportation away from roads and on to rail and coastal shipping.
On climate change, there is little in the NPS on emissions. The Government need to make it clear whether they will accept the advice of the Committee on Climate Change to include the UK’s share of shipping emissions in the 2050 target.
Finally, we support and welcome the growing demand from the offshore energy sector for additional port capacity, including in my constituency of Barrow and Furness. The Government need to take a more proactive role to ensure that the UK takes a larger slice of this booming market. That is referenced in the NPS, but there is little detail. Will the Minister say how the Government intend actively to promote the potential for ports in the offshore energy sector?
The statement shows some progress but, with the economy flagging, the Government need to raise their game on ports and infrastructure across the piece.