HS2: Revised Timetable and Budget
Chris Bryant Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Huw Merriman
We are looking to publish the enhancements pipeline in the months to come. It will detail the future projects off HS2, which will include bids from projects in Wales and in England, not least the one to which my hon. Friend refers. I also understand that there are champions for a project in south Wales; indeed, I have met hon. Members about it. All those projects will be considered as part of the enhancements pipeline. I reiterate that I see HS2 as a UK-wide project that will benefit the whole United Kingdom, and of course that includes Wales.
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am 61. [Hon. Members: “Misleading the House!”] I am not misleading the House. I cannot see, from what we have heard today, that there is any chance of any of these trains chugging into central London in my lifetime—and I am not intending to shuffle off this mortal coil very soon. [Interruption.] My political lifetime may be a different matter.
Lots of us in this Chamber like the Minister, although incidentally we think the Secretary of State should be the one to answer this important point. Notwithstanding everything the Minister says, however, my constituents in Wales are paying for this incompetence: £600 million is being spent every month, as he says, and they will not get any benefit whatsoever. If he will come to the Rhondda and explain to people at a public meeting why this is an England and Wales project and they are getting no funding, he can have my support. Otherwise, he can forget it.
Huw Merriman
How could I resist that kind and welcome invitation? When the hon. Gentleman is 71, he will be able to access a train from Old Oak Common to Birmingham. At the interchange station, which I have seen, he will then be able to take the train to central London. It is an extraordinary opportunity: he should go and visit.
I hear the same point from my constituents in East Sussex: they ask, “What’s the benefit for me? I don’t have any part of the line.” I continue to extol the virtues of a UK-wide project that will connect the whole UK, grow the UK’s economy and provide jobs and houses for the whole UK. All the UK will benefit from that, regardless of which parts the line of route goes through.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Bryant Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Huw Merriman)
I welcome the work of the Harrogate Youth Council. They should be aware that 95% of buses have CCTV. The trains I mentioned coming up to Tyne and Wear have been designed to contain and reduce antisocial behaviour. What I would really love to do is take the Harrogate Youth Council’s ideas and, when I meet the British Transport police chief constable next week, try to match them and feed back to my hon. Friend.
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Sir Chris Bryant
That would be unfair. Maybe three, even. But they keep offering a meeting to bring together the Welsh Government, the British Government and the local authorities that are interested in the Rhondda tunnel. This has been going on forever and I never, ever get that meeting. When is it going to happen?
Huw Merriman
I hope I am not the one the hon. Gentleman does not like. I can assure him that if he checks his box, he will find an invitation from the roads Minister, the Minister responsible for this at the Department for Transport, the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), to meet him and the team from Wales. I hope that he will then be very happy indeed and that we meet his expectations.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Bryant Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
When will the Secretary of State sort out the Rhondda tunnel, in particular the money for it? When is he going to come to the Rhondda—it is not very far from the Forest of Dean—so that I can dangle him down my hole?
Mr Harper
This is my first opportunity to congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his recently announced honour in the new year’s honours list for his long service in this House. He has raised this specific question on the tunnel with me before; either I or the rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), will meet him to look at what we can do to bring that forward.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Bryant Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Secretary of State knows that he has promised twice to come to the Rhondda to be dangled down a hole into the Rhondda tunnel. We are happy to welcome him at any time. I have had a meeting with him and one with the Minister. They keep promising that they will get this sorted, and that there will be another meeting with all the different stakeholders. We chase and chase, and just like you have seen, Mr Speaker, nothing ever gets done. Can they please sort out the Rhondda tunnel so that we can open it up? It will be a great historic reinvention.
Wendy Morton
Mr Deputy Speaker—sorry, Mr Speaker. Three strikes and I will be out. The hon. Gentleman knows that it is a matter for the Welsh Government. I have had a meeting with him, and I am more than happy to have another meeting with him, but it is time that the Welsh Government put some money forward.
Russia’s Grand Strategy
Chris Bryant Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I warmly congratulate the be-knighted Member, the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), on securing this very important debate.
I suspect I am going to agree with everybody and that everybody is going to agree wholeheartedly with one another today, but I think that that is important because it is important that Russia understands that the UK has a single voice on this matter. I am absolutely delighted that my political party has now returned to common sense on these issues. I welcome the new shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), and I am delighted that he is here for the whole debate. If I am honest, I wish that the Foreign Secretary were here, because this is the kind of debate that the Foreign Secretary should listen to. Let me start with some things I have said before. I have been saying some of them for a very long time, and when they were not very popular things to say in this Chamber.
In essence, there is a great lie at the heart of Putin’s strategy. His lie, first of all, is that the west is threatening Russia. In fact, the first clause of Russian military doctrine states that the existence of NATO is the greatest threat to the Russian Federation. That is a lie. Everybody in this Chamber would agree that NATO is a defensive alliance. There is no aggressive intention whatever behind our alliance. The second part of the lie is that Ukraine is oppressing Russians. That is remarkably similar to what Hitler said about the Sudeten Germans in the 1930s. It is also a blatant lie. Thirdly, he says that Russia is interested only in self-defence and auto-determination, and that that is the policy it tries to advance all around the world. That is a blatant lie. As we can see in all its activities, whether in Syria or the Balkans, it is very clear that Russia is always pursuing its own self-interest.
The last bit of the lie, repeated regularly in particular by Russian ambassadors to the Court of St James’s, is that everybody who disagrees with Russia’s attitude on any individual case is a Russophobe. It is almost an equivalent to antisemitism as far as they are concerned. That is a lie. Every single person in this House who takes an interest in Russia does so because we have a phenomenal respect for the Russian people, their history, their traditions, their arts and their culture. We only have to go to Russia for a day to understand what a phenomenal history they have. Whether we are talking about art, music, poetry or novelists, they have made such a phenomenal contribution to the world. None of us in this debate today is a Russophobe. We are all lovers of the Russian people.
What is actually happening in Russia, rather than Putin’s big lie, is an aggressive campaign of destabilisation. It takes two forms. The first is a destabilisation of the democratic west. This is a repeated theme. It is quite cheap. It is much cheaper to try to destabilise us rather than to go to war with us. I will say a little bit more about that later in relation to some of the secret documents I have obtained from the Kremlin.
Daniel Kawczynski
The hon. Gentleman is a strong proponent of the European Union and campaigned for our membership of it; how does he react to Germany and France bypassing sanctions on Russia and supporting things such as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that clearly undermine our NATO partners in central and eastern Europe?
Chris Bryant
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman about Nord Stream—indeed, I regularly try to berate British Government Ministers for not being robust enough and decisive enough on that issue. My anxiety about our having left the European Union is that there is a danger, in respect of the Europeans’ common security and defence policy, that they will renege on the kind of policies that we would like to see. I would like us to find a way of still sitting at the table so that we can influence such decisions. The Spanish Prime Minister once said to me that one problem with the EU maintaining its sanctions regime was that once Britain—frankly, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)—was no longer in the room, everybody started to fracture apart. I come to the same conclusion as the hon. Gentleman but from a different perspective.
Others have talked about the pattern of behaviour, about South Ossetia and Abkhazia, about the problems in North Macedonia and Catalunya, about the destabilisation in the United States of America and, of course, about the invasion of Crimea, as well as about the recent problems in Montenegro. All that is, of course, a deliberate distraction from the real problems of the Russian economy. I say that because I have a copy of a document—as does the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely); he may refer to it later—signed by President Putin himself on 22 January 2016. It clearly outlines Russia’s strategic aims. First, it notes the falling incomes of Russian people which, it says, could lead to significant social tension. It also notes the positive effect of the invasion of Crimea and the policy in the Donbass region on public opinion in Russia, but points out that that positive effect has been only temporary and may not last.
The document suggests that, consequently, Russia has to engage in a process of influencing other states in the world, particularly the United States of America and western democracies. It says it should do this, first, by the provocation of the emergence of a sociopolitical crisis in the United States of America; secondly, by the delegitimisation in the public consciousness of the state system in western democracies; thirdly, by instilling an internal social split in order to facilitate a general increase in the radicalisation of society in western democracies; and fourthly, by provoking the emergence of and strengthening non-traditional communities in the United States, with ideological focuses ranging from extremely right to extreme left but always with one message: they do not hear us. That is precisely what the Russian state has been doing for the past few years in the United States of America and in every western democracy, including the United Kingdom.
I know that the Intelligence and Security Committee looked at this issue, although I do not think it had that document. I do not understand why, when our own Intelligence and Security Committee has recommended changes in this policy area and the proper investigation of attempts to try to destabilise the British political system, the Government have simply refused to do so.
Frankly, we have been getting our policy on Russia wrong for two decades now. We vacillate and send off mixed messages all the time. We look weak and indecisive. We look as if we need Russia, rather than the other way round. We constantly make ourselves the supplicants—the demandeurs: “Please, don’t do that, Mr Putin. Please don’t do that!”
We tempt Russian oligarchs to the United Kingdom with easy visas: we had these golden visas that largely went to extremely wealthy oligarchs who had made their money corruptly in Russia, with no questions asked other than, “Do you have enough money?” We did not even ask, “Are you going to invest it in the United Kingdom?” We boast about our clever lawyers and accountants who can tidy things up so that assets are protected, however they have been obtained. We open up our high-end housing market to Russian billionaires even though we know that the best way to squirrel away a dirty fortune or, indeed, to launder £20 million is to buy a property that is worth £10 million for £20 million. Yes, £10 million is lost, but we have managed to clean up £10 million. That is precisely what has affected the London housing market so deleteriously. We even grant—Government Ministers do this—some Russian individuals anonymity in what is meant to be the public register in Companies House of beneficial ownership of companies.
Bob Seely
The hon. Member is, as always, making an excellent speech. He is talking about all the corrupt and corrupting facilitators in our society. Is he as concerned as I am by the use by Putin allies of very high-end libel lawyers to try to silence former Members of this House and people such as Catherine Belton who are trying to expose what Putin allies are doing in the west?
Chris Bryant
Absolutely. It is a real problem for us that the British libel courts end up being used to effectively silence dissent and the truth about Russia. Catherine Belton’s book is an absolute belter. I believe every single word of it to be true and I wholeheartedly support her campaign, which, in the end, is a campaign on behalf of the Russian people to ensure that Russia’s wealth is for the Russian people, not a few kleptocrats.
Our implementation of all the “Moscow’s Gold” report is long overdue, as referred to by the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. That means that we must have a public register of beneficial ownership that should apply to the owners of overseas companies operating or purchasing property in the United Kingdom. That still does not exist; I simply do not understand why.
The unexplained wealth orders seem to have fallen on stony ground and do not seem to be much use because there is a great difficulty in implementing them, so they need to be reviewed. We need to ensure that the overseas territories do not become a soft backyard where people can hide vast amounts of money corruptly, effectively under the British banner. That is not a patriotic commitment by the overseas territories. The patriotic commitment that the overseas territories should be making to Britain is to put public beneficial ownership registers in place as soon as possible.
Of course, we have to co-operate entirely with NATO and our allies in the United States of America, but we also have to take seriously the rest of the European Union. If Europe fractures on the issue, Russian territorial aggression will get worse rather than better. Russia will continue to think that we are weak, gullible and easily bought off unless we adopt a single clear, robust, serious and consistent posture that applies to dirty money, human rights abuses and territorial aggression.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Bryant Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
As I said at the last Transport orals, I would be happy to visit when time allows.
Chris Bryant
I hope it will be very soon because, frankly, the harness is ready. The mines rescue service is ready to dangle the Secretary of State down a hole, and I will be right behind him.
On a serious point, the Rhondda railway tunnel is a disused tunnel that is 3,443 yards long. It belongs, oddly, to Highways England, so it is the Secretary of State’s responsibility. If we are able to reopen it as a cycle path, as many people hope, it would be the longest cycle path in Europe. It would be a major local attraction, which would be good for tourism and jobs in an area of outstanding beauty that unfortunately has terrible financial deprivation. The Secretary of State is welcome.
Grant Shapps
I did a bit of research following our last exchange at the Dispatch Box, and it transpires that National Highways owns the tunnel at the moment. I would be happy to transfer it to a local group, the Welsh Government or the local council, with money for the purpose. The hon. Gentleman is welcome to take that up, and I look forward to taking up his offer of a harness at some time in the future when I can see it fully open.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Bryant Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Chris Heaton-Harris
Antidotes and doctors! Following his question to one of my colleagues yesterday, I was not sure that my hon. Friend was all that keen on vaccines—or vaccine passports, at least.
I am obviously well aware of my hon. Friend’s bid for the Ashton-to-Stockport line, including the Rose Hill connection, which is in round 3 of the restoring your railway ideas fund. He has kindly given me a great deal of information about the bid, and I have met him and the other proponents of it. I promise him that we are assessing the bids, and expect to announce outcomes very shortly.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Grant Shapps
The Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), says he has received an offer he cannot refuse. Also, I would be very happy to come and visit when the diary allows.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Bryant Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Andrew Stephenson)
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Government are committed to ensuring that our rail network is more accessible. We are in the process of making 16 stations in Wales more accessible as part of our £350-million Access for All programme. My hon. Friend the Rail Minister would be happy to meet him to discuss Ruabon station.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab) [V]
Andrew Stephenson
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I can confirm that no one puts illegal hoardings on land controlled by the Department for Transport or Highways England. Much of this illegal signage is put up on land located next to motorways, so this becomes a planning matter. I will therefore raise his concerns, if he is happy for me to do so, with Housing, Communities and Local Government Ministers.
Income tax (charge)
Chris Bryant Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
Again, I want to make a bit of progress, because I am aware that many hon. Members want to speak in the debate.
We have been clear about how we will fight the war. The first principle is to follow scientific advice at every step. It is all too easy to be distracted by the demands of round-the-clock media coverage, by the clamour on social media or by means and measures that sound good at the time, but are not based on irrefutable scientific logic. We will continue to base our decisions on what the experts believe is in the best interests of this country.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I wholly support following the evidence and scientific advice, but the Government’s advice yesterday to avoid pubs and restaurants has caused a genuine outcry across the whole hospitality industry, because people are terrified that their businesses will be closing forever in two to three weeks’ time. They cannot manage their overheads, they desperately need support and they cannot even claim for insurance because the Government will not formally close them. Why will the Government not make that decision now?
Grant Shapps
The hon. Member speaks for the concerns of many across the House and across the country. I do not think there can be any denying it, because that is the severity of the enemy in this war. I reassure him, and many other hon. Members who plan to make interventions, by saying that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will say more on that later today.
At no point will we stop listening to the advice or reacting to events, because as the progress of the virus changes, so will the response. The nature of this crisis and the circumstances are changing all the time, so our response will evolve to meet the threat until the virus poses no threat to the country or to our citizens.
Exiting the European Union (Transport)
Chris Bryant Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Michael Ellis
I am so grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. Of course, everything that I do in the Department for Transport considers these important issues of climate change, and my officials are very alive to this issue.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Very frequently in the measure, the words “notified body” are replaced with “approved body”. Why is that so common a feature?
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It’s a strange old world, isn’t it? This must be the strangest Parliament in many years. We are debating Bills that are no more than clauses, in effect, and we now have on the Floor of the House a measure that would normally have been taken in a Committee Room upstairs. It is actually a measure that the Government—or certainly today’s Government—hope they will never have to implement, because they are hopeful that some kind of deal will be done, so that we are not in the no-deal scenario in which this would be necessary.
There is a fundamental complexity in what the Government are arguing. In the explanatory notes, the Government say that the SI’s whole aim is to mirror precisely what the EU is doing. One therefore presumes, as my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) said, that if there are amendments to EU regulations in this area in the future, the UK Government will immediately implement them in the UK. That hardly feels like seizing back control; if anything, it feels more like ceding control to a body on which we will no longer be sitting. If there are to be European-wide measures on ski lifts—because, I guess, lots of people from across the European Union who travel from one country to another will want to know, when they get on a ski lift, that it is safe—one would have thought the UK would want to take part in establishing those rules and regulations.
The regulation has been admirably and beautifully expounded on by the Minister, who has had more than a wry smile, I would say, on his puckered lips.
Chris Bryant
No, the Minister does not always look quite like that. This proves yet again what many of us have felt for a long time: that Brexit is proving far more complicated than anybody ever thought it would be, and is using an awful lot of our time and energy. Whether it will produce anything more than wind is difficult to know.