Train Services: Southend

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), a parliamentary neighbour, for securing this important Adjournment debate. I do not come from Southend, but one of my researchers does and so makes this trip regularly and understands the challenges that my hon. Friend, in securing this debate, has spoken about. Can the Minister confirm the importance, in whatever is done to improve train services to Southend, of British rolling stock being considered in that innovation and development, particularly those of Bombardier, which has a unit very close to my constituency? Trains to Southend are important. It may be that Chips Channon, the former Member, used to drive around in his Rolls-Royce and would come up to London in it, but many people, including my researcher, have to make the journey by train.

[Claire Perry]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend saw what we were discussing on the annunciator and rushed into the Chamber to make those points on behalf of his researcher. What is fascinating about working in the DFT is that many of our staff who commute by train sit around with their official hats on saying all the right things, but as soon as someone opens up a debate about what it was like at Victoria station or at another London station that morning, everyone surges back to reality and describes what it is actually like commuting on the network.

I am not sure whether my hon. Friend was in his place when we talked about the new rolling stock that will be coming into service on this line over the next few months. It is built by Bombardier, and part of it has already been procured by Porterbrook, one of the rolling stock companies. It is a very exciting development. I have visited Bombardier many times. In fact, I have driven a train on its test track. Not many Ministers can say that—actually, I am sure that every rail Minister has probably said the same thing. Bombardier is building the Crossrail fleet as well as the S-class trains—the new worm trains as we call them—that are currently running on the tube network. They are wonderful as they can clear a whole platform of many hundreds of people in a matter of moments.

What is exciting in all of this is that a single line, such as the one we are discussing today, encapsulates so much of what is going on across the whole rail network. First of all, we have unprecedented levels of passenger demand. Although people might wonder whether privatisation was the right thing to do—I do not think that—what we can say is that our railways have never been busier. At no time since the 1920s, pre-Beeching cuts, have we had so many passengers. Indeed, passenger numbers and journeys have doubled since privatisation, largely because of the energy, commitment and fair innovation of many of these private companies. My hon. Friends will recall from the pre-privatisation days that it was not this Mecca of wonderful customer service that people like to cook up. I used to take the line from university to home, and all we could get was a curled up old sandwich if we were lucky and there was no apology if we were late.

Let me mention the compensation scheme—hopefully, my hon. Friends’ trains are never delayed, and so they never have to claim. I urge them to sign up for the automatic season ticket—the key card—because then they get compensation automatically. Our compensation schemes are among the most generous in Europe. People always talk about compensation. Of course we want it to get to the right people, but let me explain the levels that we pay. A person will get 50% compensation if their train is delayed by 30 minutes and 100% compensation if it is delayed by 60 minutes.

Assiduous Members will have seen that, in our manifesto, we have a commitment to introducing compensation payments if the train is delayed by 15 minutes. I am happy to tell the House that we are working up that proposal. I am looking forward to announcing it as soon as permitted. It is an important development, because on many of these lines, where the journey time is not hours, but minutes, it will mean that we can all claim should the trains be late. [Interruption.] There is an awful lot of excellent dancing going on behind the Speaker’s Chair. The aim of all our proposals is that we should not have delayed trains. We should have trains that run exactly to time.

[Christopher Pincher]

Quite rightly, the Minister says that we must not have late or delayed trains. Does she also agree that trains in Southend and elsewhere should not be overcrowded as well as delayed? One reason why trains are sometimes overcrowded is that fair prices rise rapidly or fall rapidly at certain times. Perhaps if we were able to look at a pricing mechanism that did not have these cliff-face increases or falls, we would be able to spread the load over the railways, rather than having a few people trying to crowd on to a few trains at specific times.

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point about pricing and fares. Of course people want to feel that they are getting value for money, but if I may again clock some of the great things that the Government have done for rail users, it is important to note that we have frozen rail fares for the duration of this Parliament at RPI plus zero. That is worth about £700 million to the fare-paying public and will save the average season ticket holder about £425 over the course of the Parliament.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) makes an important point about peak and shoulder fares, as they are called. It seems that people either feel or are told by their employers that they have to get to work at a certain time, so that is when they travel. We could be far more creative and innovative in trying to get people off the peak and on to the shoulders by using pricing and, potentially, conversations with employers. What tends to happen in this country is that we buy lots and lots of trains to fill peak demand, and they run empty for large portions of the day. That is not an economic thing to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

What we need, and what we have, is a Government who are investing record amounts of money in our transport infrastructure—far more than the last Government invested in both capital projects and revenue projects. I can only take what was said in Transport Times by the editor, David Fowler, in his latest edition this week:

“On rail franchising and speed cameras”

Labour’s policies

“seem to be going against the weight of evidence.”

We have seen a dramatic improvement in our services, provided by the private sector. The Labour party is so opposed to the private sector and everything it stands for that it wants to destroy it, on the back of our seeing one of the most successful turnarounds of the rail industry in this country.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

T3. I am grateful to the Minister of State for meeting me to discuss problems at the A5 Wall island, but while he is considering it will the people’s Minister ask the Highways Agency to look at the other end of the A5, the congestion from Tamworth to the M42—congestion made worse by more traffic trying to merge on to the A5 from Pennine way?

[The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Mr John Hayes)]

Every meeting I have had with my hon. Friend has been a joy, as was the one yesterday. I have diagrammatic and photographic representations of the issue he raises, which I will deliver to you, Mr Speaker, and make available to Members on request. I will send officials not only to look at the matters we discussed yesterday, but to look at the matter my hon. Friend raises today, to see what can be done, but I have to say I think we should act in accordance with his recommendations, because I know he always champions his constituents’ interests.

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

I will not, because other Members are still to speak.

There is clearly the potential for fracking. I do not pretend to be a scientist—I stopped studying science when I finished my double-award GCSE at the age of 16—so I will not get into the arguments, but clearly there is the potential for an industry that a large number of my constituents would support, subject to those safeguards. That is why I voted the way I did in previous stages of the Bill’s consideration. I do not think that the way the Lords amendment has been drafted, or indeed this evening’s debate, has done a great deal to increase the confidence of residents. I make a plea to the Government that we have to take people along with us on a journey, particularly when there is a new technology that is very controversial—[Interruption.] Hon. Members say that it is not a new technology, but it is new to this country, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), so people’s concerns about it should be heard, just as concerns about wind farms should rightly be heard.

I urge the Government to think very carefully about this. I reiterate my view that the residents of Brigg and Goole and of the Isle of Asholme are not closed-minded about this technology; they simply want to know that the evidence is there to support it and that their homes, communities and local environment will be sufficiently well protected. That is what I thought we had agreed to with the amendment a couple of weeks ago.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

I am reassured by the words of my hon. Friend the Minister, particularly with regard to groundwater protection. I think that she and the ministerial team have gone out of their way to be as consensual as possibly in order to bring the Opposition with them in support of hydraulic fracturing. Having heard the shadow Minister, who is a decent and knowledgeable man, say that he believes in a bipartisan approach, I think it is a great pity that he has chosen not to adopt such an approach tonight. He and I served on the Energy and Climate Change Committee, and it is worthy of note that the Committee has produced in this Parliament not one but two reports on fracking and shale gas.

It is also worthy of note that except for the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), not one Opposition member of the Select Committee is here tonight. That seems to suggest that the others are not particularly concerned about the proposals put forward by the Government. Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat members of the Committee all supported the importance, with safeguards, of fracturing for shale gas.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), a fellow member of the Committee, made an eloquent speech demolishing many of the myths that surround shale gas extraction. I will not attempt to reheat and rehearse most of what he said. He made a point about aquifers relative to shale layers underground. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has worries, as have others, about the potential pollution of the water table. I think that that is almost impossible as a result of shale gas fracturing. Fracking, in and of itself, cannot cause pollution of the water table, because the shale layer is hundreds, sometimes thousands, of feet below the earth’s surface, whereas the aquifers are just a few feet below the earth’s surface. In between the aquifers and the shale layer are hundreds, sometimes thousands, of feet of solid rock. Firing sand grains into fractures a hair’s breadth wide is not going to cause pollution of the aquifers. That will happen only if the wells themselves are compromised, and given that we have some of the best environmental protection in the world, that is very unlikely. If one drills down thousands of feet—

[Gregory Barker]

My hon. Friend draws attention to the fact that here in the UK we have the best environmentally regulated regime for oil and gas extraction in the world. That is a very important point. We have a terrific record, particularly for onshore drilling. It would be wrong to cast out—

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

That is not a point of order.

[Andrew Miller]

No, but it is on the record.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

When considering investment in our roads network, two factors are always borne in mind. One is congestion, and in that respect the section between Malton and Hopgrove is the busiest and most congested. The other is safety, and that would include the situation to which my hon. Friend refers.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

3. What plans he has to introduce new rolling stock and infrastructure on the railway.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

Network Rail is delivering an unprecedented £38 billion investment programme for the period from 2014 to 2019, which will transform the infrastructure on the busiest parts of Britain’s rail network. Passengers will also see significant improvements in rolling stock, thanks to the Government’s unprecedented investment and the changes to the franchising programme. This will allow passengers across the country to benefit from the enhanced investment.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful for that answer, but on the question of infrastructure, my constituents in Drayton Bassett are concerned by comments that have been made by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) that the HS2 marshalling yard proposed for Washwood Heath might be moved. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Government believe that Washwood Heath is the right site for such a marshalling yard and that they do not propose to move it?

[Claire Perry]

I can confirm that Washwood Heath is absolutely the right location for the rolling stock maintenance depot. This was confirmed by the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill Select Committee’s announcement in December, and it would be a brave and foolhardy politician who suggested for political reasons that anything else might be appropriate.

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[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

T4. I will meet the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) shortly, but will he heed the representations of Councillor David Salter and ask the Highways Agency to review the new design of the A5 Wall Island, which is still causing accidents, tailbacks and huge chaos for my constituents in Shenstone, Wall and Muckley Corner?

[Mr Speaker]

That was very long. We really have to speed up.

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) for her brevity and much of the content of her speech, and I congratulate the Minister on his opening speech. Those who heard it will agree that the shade of Disraeli stands permanently at his shoulder. He made an important speech about an important matter. For Governments of all shades and stripes, infrastructure—be it energy or transport infrastructure—has too often been a Cinderella subject, ignore and abused. As a result, today we have to invest a great deal of money—about £120 billion—in less than 10 years in our energy infrastructure: in the pipes, pylons and power stations that keep our lights on and our water warm.

Much of that investment will come—rightly—from the big six, but if the balance of the cost is not to fall on the consumer and taxpayer, much must also come from the small independent players that we must encourage into the marketplace. I know that that is what the Government want to do—it is what the Energy Act 2013 was intended to do—and I say to the Minister here now: do not let the great work of the Act and of the capacity mechanism be unwound by some siren voices in the Department of Energy and Climate Change who would like to see the capacity payments for 15-year contracts discounted to the value of an annual contract, because that will certainly discourage small players from entering the marketplace and entrench the position of the big six.

Whatever we do to invest in our energy infrastructure, in the short to medium term it will largely be in gas. Right now, as we sit in this Chamber, 38% of our generating capacity comes from combined cycle gas, 31% from coal, and just 6.5% from wind. If we are to turn off our coal-fired power stations in the next few years, we must, in the short to medium term, switch to gas to make up the shortfall—that is just the way it is—so we need to invest in those stations. However, that will expose us more to international hydrocarbon price fluctuations, which could hit consumers in this country. Part of the way to deal with that is to invest in gas storage, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) said, but part of the answer is to allow our shale gas resources and companies to expand to scale, which they say they can do by 2020, so that we can hew our home-grown gas. It is important that we do that, and I commend that particular industry to everyone in the House.

Some have raised the concerns of local communities where fracking might take place, and we must address those concerns soberly and sensibly. I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who is no longer in his place. He is a real champion for his constituents, but he and we have to be careful not to allow those concerns to snowball into scaremongering. I shall focus on just one thing he said, however, because my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) eloquently demolished most of his concerns: the pollution of the aquifers.

In and of itself, fracking does not pollute the water supply. The shale gas layer is at least 300 metres, and often thousands of metres, beneath the earth’s surface, whereas aquifers are just a couple of hundred feet below it, and separating the water table and the shale layers are hundreds, sometimes thousands, of feet of solid rock. Impurities cannot move through that solid rock into the water table. Only if there is a failure of the integrity of the well can the water table be polluted. If someone drills a pipe half a mile underground, fills that pipe with concrete and then drills through that concrete and puts another pipe down, the chances of the well’s integrity being compromised are minimal—they exist, but they are minimal. That is the tone in which we need to address the shale gas opportunity and challenge, and I hope that everyone concerned about what shale might mean for their communities will make that fact clear.

I turn now to roads. The Secretary of State and I have not always seen eye to eye on transport. Our relations are very cordial—they have to be; he was once my Chief Whip—but he and I have not always agreed on HS2. However, there is not a grain of asphalt between us on the issue of road building which he announced last week and which the Minister made special reference to earlier today. In particular, I welcome the investment in the M42 around junction 6. It is a pity the Minister is not here, because he is a great student of G. K. Chesterton, and will know of Chesterton’s aphorism:

“The traveller sees what he sees; the tourist sees what he has come to see.”

A traveller or tourist on the central section of the M42 will not travel very far very fast, and all a tourist will see are the shimmering silos of the Kingsbury oil terminal. In the past, that road was often a car park. Now, 99,000 vehicles use the M42 each day, and more than 120,000 use the section of road around junction 6, so that investment has been very important.

However, I make a plea to the Minister here now. The opportunity that allows my constituents to commute more easily to Birmingham, where many of them work, and which encourages businesses to set up in Tamworth and people to come and live in Tamworth, also presents us with a challenge. We all accept the importance of localism, and we all accept that there must be devolution and that local authorities and county councils must control county highways. Unless we can also get investment in the road infrastructure in Tamworth, all those homes that there is pressure to build to meet the demands of people who want to live in the town cannot be built in the centre and might need to be built on the green belt and on the greenfield sites around it. Investment in the road infrastructure in Tamworth and similar towns will allow brownfield sites to be better developed for building homes. I hope that when the Minister responds, he will take care to recognise the importance of linking local authority development with the Bill.

That said, this is an important and welcome Bill. It takes our long-term economic plan and translates it into a long-term infrastructure investment. I say again that it is a pity that the Minister of State is no longer in his place because I know he is a great fan of St. Augustine, who said: “Go forth along your way as it must be on the path of walking”. I hope that with this Bill we will not simply be able to walk, but drive as well.

Road Investment Strategy

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In this whole programme, we have tried to be fair to the whole country. However, I have been very mindful of connections between the east and the west of our country, particularly in the areas referred to by my hon. Friend—up and around Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Sheffield—and I hope that, in the document, we have addressed some of the most contentious hot spots.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

I heartily welcome the investment in the M42, which will be good for commuters in my constituency and make Tamworth an even better place to live, work and bring up a family. Will my right hon. Friend have it in mind that after years of failure to invest in the centre of the town, there is still a need for road improvements, so that we can continue to build all the houses that we need on brownfield sites and not greenfield ones?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I hear what my hon. Friend says. No doubt he has made representations to Philip Atkins, the leader of Staffordshire county council, because those are local highway authority roads. I will join him in making those strong representations. I agree with him that Tamworth is an excellent place to invest.

A5 Trunk Road (M42/M69)

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

Indeed, and it was for that very reason that I met the representative body of road hauliers just last week, in the spirit that my hon. Friend personifies. In congratulating and applauding the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton, I must also pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) and for Bosworth (David Tredinnick), who have been tireless campaigners in the defence of and, moreover, in their aspirations for their constituents. They have all taken a particular interest in the A5.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

I am obliged to my right hon. Friend for giving way. May I say that, as a Transport Minister, he is also the people’s friend? In support of my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), may I pray in aid the A5, which is a very important route that my constituents use from the exit of the M42? One part of that exit, which is not dualled, is the exit going towards my hon. Friend’s constituency through north Warwickshire. The route is important for infrastructure and for my constituents. I urge the Minister to listen to what he says.

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend follows in the tradition of his predecessor, Sir Robert Peel, who also represented Tamworth, in his determination to do what is right for those whom he serves. I prefer to be inspired by Disraeli, as perhaps my hon. Friend does too. None the less, that is an important tradition, and he makes, as always, a powerful argument in this Chamber.

The Government already recognise the importance of improving the A5. The Highways Agency pinch-point scheme for the M42 junction 10, which was completed earlier this year, along with the Highways Agency pinch- point scheme for the A5-A47 Longshoot and Dodwells junctions, which has recently started on site, are due to be completed by March 2015.

In addition, the MIRA enterprise zone, which is located adjacent to the A5 in Hinckley, was successful in securing regional growth funding with which it is providing A5 improvements. Those improvements include increasing the capacity at the A444 Red Gate junction as well as improving the access arrangements to the site itself. Those works are currently on site and are expected to be completed by March 2015.

Overall, these schemes show Government investment of around £15 million into improving this section of the A5. However, I recognise that my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton is concerned that the scale and potential economic and housing growth along the corridor will place increasing pressure on the A5 and that—he has made the case tonight—further investment in the route is necessary. To that end I commend the efforts made by—

High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

This debate is hugely important to the country, but the proposals put forward by the Government are of huge concern to many of my constituents who face the prospect of both phase 1 and phase 2 of HS2.

I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State say that he does not believe that those who have shown their concern are nimbys, because others have taken a rather different view, as he will know. If he looks at the report of proceedings in Westminster Hall on 31 March 2011, he will read some very disobliging comments about people concerned about HS2.

My constituents are not nimbys. They tell me that if the business case stacked up, if the mitigation was right and if the compensation on offer was fair, reasonable and quick, they would accept the proposals. They would not like them, but they would accept them in the national interest. The problem is that the business case does not stack up, the mitigations are not right and the compensation is not fair, reasonable or quick.

We have already heard concerns about the business case. I will not recapitulate them here, but suffice it to say that I am concerned that the connection between our vital airports does not seem to be there; the proposals for the funding do not appear to stack up; and the route around Birmingham goes west, not east, and therefore through virgin countryside rather along than existing transport corridors. In my judgment, the business case does not stack up.

Even if it did stack up, the mitigations in my part of the world are nowhere near adequate. I was pleased to hear from my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) that in his constituency HS2 will be tunnelled. Mitigation in Tamworth extends to a few trees, except around the village of Hints, where the ancient woodland will be demolished to make way for the line. We will gain a few saplings, but we will lose a lot of ancient oaks, because HS2 will not build a cut-and-cover tunnel.

In Knox’s Grave lane and Flats lane, an innovative proposal from the residents has also been rejected so far. The local housing stock is so overcrowded in the community that there is nowhere for them to move to, so the compensation simply will not help them. They want to rebuild their homes nearby, but thus far, HS2 has said no. All it has offered to those people is the prospect of living in caravans. That is a bitter twist of the knife for them to bear. Indeed, every mitigation proposal in my constituency—in Drayton Bassett, Swinfen, Hints and Flats lane—has been rejected by HS2.

The Secretary of State made great play of the compensation proposals that he has tabled. A couple of weeks ago, I listened to those proposals being adumbrated by the Under-Secretary of State, and they are an improvement, but the fact remains that not a single constituent of mine will benefit from those proposals. The village of Hints lies 400 metres away from the proposed route. In the past four years, not a single home has been sold in Hints, except four that have been sold to the state through the exceptional hardship scheme. The people in that village are blighted now: they cannot move, they are trapped and they have lost their liberty. The only way that we can get the property market moving in those places, so that people can realise their aspiration to move if they want to, is by introducing a property bond. I hope that the Secretary of State or the Select Committee, or a combination of the two, will accept the need for such a bond.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), in a passionate and personal speech, said that when we are building infrastructure, the needs and demands of the country must be addressed. We would all accept that, but the needs and demands of the people who are affected by the proposals that we are foisting on them also need to be properly and effectively met. It is my judgment that, although the Secretary of State has been solicitous and patient with me—I am grateful for his help and concern, and I trust they will continue—the proposals do not stack up. For that reason I shall, with regret, oppose the Government tonight.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

Highways authorities use the speed of 1.2 metres per second for people crossing the road, although we understand that many elderly or disabled people may need longer. It is possible for local authorities to extend the time. The use of puffin crossings, rather than pelican crossings, allows sensors to be fitted that allow people more time. In parts of London, the use of countdowns on lights has also helped.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

T7. The Secretary of State made it clear yesterday that he hopes that Birmingham airport can expand. Currently, the 15-mile journey between Tamworth and the airport takes 45 minutes by rail. Does he therefore agree that infrastructure projects such as the Whitacre rail link, which would reduce the journey time to 18 minutes, could be beneficial to my constituents and the airport?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)]

My hon. Friend is right that good service access is essential for airports. He is right to point out that the Secretary of State said on Tuesday that we regard Birmingham and Manchester not as regional airports but as important national airports in their own right. I am happy to look at the Whitacre link proposals. I encourage my hon. Friend to continue to discuss the development of the business case with the local enterprise partnership and Centro, so that it can be brought forward.

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[Tom Brake]

I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman perpetuates the myth that the Bill will affect the ability of charities to campaign on policy issues. Clearly, it will not.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give further detail on any representations he has received under part 3 of the Bill on trade unions?

[Tom Brake]

I am afraid we have not received any representations. Of course, the Government gave Labour that opportunity, and given that its leader expressed an interest in dealing with the issue of Labour and funding, I am disappointed that he did not take up that opportunity.