Crossrail: Elizabeth Line

Clive Efford Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support, and indeed for highlighting “Clean for the Queen”, which will have us all putting on our rubber gloves and getting out our litter pickers in the next few months. He raises the important point that this House is at its best when we come together to invest in major pieces of infrastructure that will transform the lives of those who will benefit directly, but also benefit those working for such a construction project or, indeed, supplying products for it.

An outbreak of cross-party consensus is just what we need, and we of course have such a project with HS2, which I believe completed its Select Committee stage only yesterday. Frankly, I pay tribute to the Committee, because it has been a labour of love—[Interruption.] I am not going to comment on that. Spades will be in the ground from 2017, and the skills that many hundreds of men and women have built up—we now lead the world in soft-ground tunnelling—will be very useful for the Thames tideway, the HS2 work that is coming and, indeed, with the A303 proposals that will benefit my constituency.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Could some of the efficiency that the Minister has spoken about with regard to Crossrail be applied to Southeastern, which has been providing an appalling service? Will she agree to meet a delegation of MPs from south-east London to discuss how that might be done?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Gentleman has long been a doughty campaigner for improved rail services for his constituents. I hope that he received a letter from me just a few weeks ago, which said that I hope to make a decision shortly about the long-awaited capacity increases, because I know that he is very concerned about the crowding on those trains. I hope to have good news on that very shortly, but, as he knows, my door is always open.

Transport for London Funding

Clive Efford Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Thomas]

I share my hon. Friend’s scepticism about the garden bridge. Like her, I wonder whether that money might be better spent. A whole series of projects in my constituency could use that £30 million well, and I want to draw the Minister’s attention to a couple of those.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

On the garden bridge, which no one has ever asked me for, TfL intends to build the Silvertown tunnel in south-east London to relieve congestion at the Blackwall tunnel, but it says that local residents will have to pay for it through tolls, though no other river crossing in London has charges. Perhaps the garden bridge should have an entrance fee, so that it can pay for itself instead of taking money away from vital transport links that are needed in the rest of London.

[Mr Thomas]

Rather than getting into the detail of what may happen with the garden bridge, let me say that I would prefer to see that money reallocated to a series of other existing and necessary capital investment projects. If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I think the priority is Harrow, but I am sure that he will be able to make the case for south London well.

I come back to the concern that the £3 billion cut in funding in the spending review and the extra costs from the sub-surface upgrade programme might put other investment projects at risk. The Piccadilly line refurbishment is particularly important for many of my constituents who live in Rayners Lane, South Harrow and Sudbury Hill. Will the refurbishment programme for that line go ahead as planned? There has been much speculation about when, or if, the night tube will go ahead. Perhaps the Minister can give us an indication of whether it is at risk of cancellation or substantial delay as a result of those cuts. In the Minister’s intervention, he raised a point about fares revenue. The upgrade of the four lines in the sub-surface upgrade programme would have generated extra fares revenue that will now be lost, as more passengers will not be able to be carried until much later. Some estimates suggest that that could be as much as £270 million lost.

In the eight years in which the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) has been Mayor of London, fares have rocketed. Some of my constituents, such as those who travel from West Harrow on the Uxbridge branch of the Metropolitan line, have seen a 60% increase in the cost of travelling into central London. My constituents and others who live in outer London and use the tube regularly have been treated as a cash cow by the Mayor of London for too long. I am concerned that the loss of that £3 billion may increase the pressure on the Mayor, and/or future Mayors, to raise fares still further.

I am also concerned that further job cuts on Transport for London’s network, which are now inevitable, will further compromise the safety and security of passengers, including my constituents. TfL operational staff fulfil crucial operational functions as well as many safety-critical roles such as managing peak flows of passengers and handling emergencies. On the tube, DLR and Overground, adequate numbers of staff are needed to identify and respond to emerging crush situations.

Adequate numbers of staff are required to limit fare evasion, too, which is rocketing—it is up to £61 million a year following a reduction in staffing levels. I pay tribute to Greater London Authority Labour colleagues, led by the excellent Val Shawcross, Navin Shah and Len Duvall, for that information. Visible staff help to deter and detect crime, including people preparing for or engaging in acts of persistent serious crime and even—God forbid—terrorism. Staff also reassure passengers during tense periods such as now, but staffing is at its lowest level in recent history and Government cuts make it look likely that it will drop further.

Under plans for staff cuts at stations, Leytonstone station, which currently has four staff in peak periods, will be reduced to two members of staff—a 50% reduction at a station where there has already been a worrying terrorist incident. That is just a small indication of the worry that further job cuts, driven by the major cut in Government funding, might force on us.

I understand that London Underground Ltd now plans to cut a further 838 front-line staff positions from normal traffic hour operational levels. New staffing levels have apparently been derived from so-called business need schematics formulae, which do not incorporate the need for security checks or other operational needs. As a consequence, staff are required to meet the demands of security checks and will have to be removed from their allocated customer service positions for sizeable portions of their shifts to do so, leaving their areas unstaffed and effectively unmonitored on occasion. That is a concern. Will the Minister be willing to review with Transport for London’s managing director whether the loss of those front-line staff is a sensible way forward and whether alternatives might be found?

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[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) on securing this important debate. I start by associating myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) on the cruise liner. I will not go into detail because I do not intend to speak about that, but I entirely agree with his points.

I, too, want to be parochial and I will talk mainly about the proposed Silvertown tunnel in the context of TfL’s funding. I have long called for a solution to the problem of traffic congestion on the approach roads to the Blackwall tunnel. It is a daily environmental disaster and occurs when queues of traffic build up, particularly at peak times, causing a huge environmental problem of air pollution in that part of our borough. The topography of the area means that a lot of pollution collects in the river valley, and having stationary traffic stuck there for long periods just adds to the problem. That traffic will not disappear. It needs to go somewhere and the problem needs some relief. There are no alternatives. We do not have the London Underground in south-east London beyond North Greenwich station and people rely heavily on surface and suburban rail services, which are already at over capacity so we need to increase capacity there. I will come to that later.

In many circumstances, people are forced to drive. That applies particularly to residents of the boroughs of Greenwich, Tower Hamlets and Newham, for which the Blackwall tunnel is the nearest river crossing. People have to use that crossing to get across the river, so we are seeing a significant impact on people’s daily routine because quite often they are delayed and cannot predict when they will be able to get through the tunnel. In addition, many businesses lose time and money because of the traffic congestion. We need to deal with the traffic congestion at the Blackwall tunnel and we need a third bore, but dealing with the issue by building a road crossing alone will not be sufficient.

We have been offered buses by TfL, and we will take the buses. They have buses in other parts of London, and of course we want more buses. However, the equivalent of a small city has been built in Docklands. We have seen massive expansion not just of housing, which will continue to grow, but of businesses and leisure, and more and more people want to go north and south on the eastern part of the Thames corridor, rather than on the traditional route, like the spokes of a wheel, served by suburban rail that goes in and out of central London. Without increasing significantly public transport links that go north and south across that east Thames corridor, we will congest even more the central London transport system, because people have no choice, if they want to use public transport, other than to go in and then out.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always good to give a Northern Ireland flavour to a debate on London transport. The hon. Gentleman referred to using more buses. I, too, encourage people to use more buses, because if more buses are bought, they will come from Wrightbus in Northern Ireland, so it is always very good to have that.

[Clive Efford]

I cannot think of a better reason to want more buses. To get even more parochial for a minute, I want to put in a plug for TfL finally to deal with the issues with my local services, on which my constituents have been campaigning. I am talking about the B16 and 178 buses through Kidbrooke. Those issues must be resolved; we are not accepting no for an answer, and we welcome the moves that it has made already on the B16.

The 132 bus runs from Eltham to North Greenwich, and when I became a Member of Parliament I campaigned for its introduction. TfL came to my office to meet me and said, “There’s no demand for such a service.” It was to provide a public transport link along the route corridor of the A102, the Blackwall tunnel approach road. Finally, as the Olympics approached, we got an extension of the 132 bus route down to North Greenwich. It was a single-decker bus and it quickly filled up, so a double-decker service had to be introduced. That service is now often oversubscribed and passengers are left behind at the terminal where the bus starts—at North Greenwich—such is the increasing demand from people for public transport links along the route corridor of the A102, which connects with the A2 and my constituency of Eltham.

A road crossing, therefore, will not be sufficient: we need to have the DLR. If TfL is not going to build a DLR link, there is no point in building the Silvertown link, because it will just become as congested as the Blackwall tunnel is now. People will have no alternative to switch to—in the large numbers that we need them to switch—if we are to protect that route from becoming congested again in the future, just with more cars. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West pointed out, the DLR has in recent times increased its usership significantly—by more than 50%. It has gone up from a few million passengers, as my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse said, to nearly 100 million passengers a year. That shows how effective it can be, so a DLR link from Silvertown to North Greenwich—that is then brought down the route corridor of the A102 to places such as Kidbrooke and Eltham—will have a significant impact by changing people’s choices of the transport method that they use to get across the river in that part of the city.

We cannot allow traffic to grow, and I accept that some form of tolling will be needed, but no one else in London pays to cross the river by their local bridge. I do not see why my constituents should have to pay to cross the river when no one else in London does. If TfL says that the only way to fund schemes in the future—because of the cuts to its budget—is to introduce tolling, I say that it has to be fair to my constituents, who in recent years have watched billions of pounds being invested in the London underground, which does not come anywhere near where we live. We accept that it is a major contributor to London’s economy and is vital—no one disputes that—but the comparison between the investment in other parts of London and that in outer south-east London does not stand up to scrutiny. We have bus services, but other than that, TfL spends precious little on investment in that part of London, so asking for—no, demanding—a DLR link as part of the scheme is just asking to be compensated for the lack of investment in previous years.

If people in my area are to be asked to pay a toll to pay for the river crossing, we should toll every river crossing in London and make everyone pay to cross the river, because that is the only fair balance that we could strike. I see the Minister’s eyebrows going up as he thinks, “Actually, there might be a point there. We might be able to make some money.” It is true that we have sat by in south-east London and watched money being spent on the London underground, while getting precious little—

[Mr Goodwill]

rose—

[Clive Efford]

I have a finishing time in order to allow the Minister time to respond, but if he will be brief, I will give way to him.

[Mr Goodwill]

I just point out that those who pay the congestion charge might argue that they are already paying to use the bridges and perhaps would not be thankful to be double-charged.

[Clive Efford]

They might well, but there are bridges beyond Vauxhall. I can point all the bridges out to the Minister if he needs me to do that; I can name them all. We need the Silvertown link, but it cannot be built without the DLR.

I want to move on to talk about a site in Kidbrooke, Henley Cross that is owned by TfL. TfL is definitely trying to maximise its income from that site, but we need such sites, which are in public ownership, to be used to provide local services and vital affordable housing where possible, not just sold off to the highest bidder. I would like to put in a bid to TfL to consider that site in relation to the Kidbrooke regeneration and the need to identify sites for secondary schools in the borough of Greenwich. Henley Cross is situated between the motorway—well, the approach road to the Blackwall tunnel—and the railway. The site is unsuitable for people to live on, but it would be suited to other uses. Perhaps some sort of land swap could be arranged with the Kidbrooke Village regeneration and a school could be built where it was intended to build a Sainsbury’s supermarket. I urge TfL to sit down with the London borough of Greenwich and with Berkeley Homes, which is doing the development, to consider that option, rather than cramming housing on to the site, which is unsuitable because of its location.

Finally, I want to turn to TfL taking over the running of suburban trains, which are vital for my constituency as it relies entirely on suburban trains as the major route into London because—as I said—we do not have direct links to the London underground. If that is to happen, TfL needs to start planning ahead now. At peak times, trains that run through my constituency—through Eltham, New Eltham, Plumstead and along all those routes—are heavily oversubscribed. They have so many passengers they have PIXCs—people in excess of capacity. We need to increase capacity on those lines. That means that when the Thameslink scheme is completed and the new rolling stock becomes available, the current Thameslink rolling stock must be made available to Southeastern, which wants to purchase it, so that it can increase capacity on those vital services in south-east London.

Airports Capacity

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If any lesson has been learnt from the preparations for HS2, it is the need to ensure that all the processes are gone through diligently and properly. There were a number of attempts to secure judicial reviews in relation to HS2, and nearly all of them failed.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has come to the House today to try to hoodwink us all into thinking that he is the most incompetent and indecisive Secretary of State that there has ever been, but no one is fooled by his attempt to take a hit on behalf of the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith). This is a fix for next year’s mayoral election, and nothing else. It certainly has nothing to do with anything that is in the national interest. [Interruption.]

[Mr McLoughlin]

I am going to do it again. The shadow Chancellor has just said “That was a compliment.”

Let me say to the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford)—who has been present for all the exchanges—that it is not my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park who has changed his position on the question of Heathrow, but the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), who, when he was a transport Minister, said that he was firmly in favour of its expansion. As for the date of the mayoral election, if we had initially wanted to put off the decision until after the election, we would have simply said that there would be no decision for 12 months, and would then have considered it for 12 months. The fact is that we are making progress. It is important that we make more progress by 2030, and that is what we shall do.

Transport for London Bill [Lords]: Revival

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman]

The hon. Lady might wish to probe that point further on the revival of the Bill when we debate particular aspects of changes to it, but it is not about the revival of the Bill in its own right.

Clause 6 expands the list of entities through which TfL can undertake commercial activities to include limited partnerships, limited liability partnerships and companies limited by guarantee. This enables TfL to conduct its affairs more flexibly and meet the maximum value from its assets. Clause 7 gives TfL greater flexibility to mitigate its risks through hedging, including allowing it to hedge commodity prices when it is exposed to fluctuations as a consequence of a transport contract or a contribution risk to the pension fund.

Contrary to assertions made on Second Reading and elsewhere, the Bill does not give TfL any new powers to sell or to develop its land. TfL has had such powers since it was created in 2000 and is not seeking to extend them in any way, shape or form. TfL must obtain the consent of the Mayor to dispose of surplus land by sale or granting a long-term lease. If that land is operational, or has been operational in the past five years, the Secretary of State must also give his or her consent. TfL is also subject to scrutiny by the London Assembly and has various obligations to publish financial details in its accounts and details of its surplus land and building assets. The powers TfL is seeking in the Bill will not detract from its discharge of its core functions.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Bob Blackman]

I will not give way any more.

The discrete scope of the Bill should be taken as indicative of a desire by TfL to meet its business needs more flexibly, and cost-effectively.

One of the key issues that has been identified during the whole process, which I think we all agree on, is the opportunity to maximise the development of assets for housing purposes. If the Bill were finally to become law, TfL would release more than 300 acres of land in London to help create more than 10,000 new homes across London. Sixty-seven per cent. of this phase of development is in travel zones 1 and 2.

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[Clive Efford]

That is a really important point. Too often, people talk about housing numbers and bandy around the word “affordable” for properties that are by no means affordable for most people in London. Making available 300 acres of land for housing that people from London, particularly those on moderate and low incomes, will not be able to access will contribute nothing to their housing needs.

[Emily Thornberry]

I have to say that Islington residents who are on what could be seen as high incomes are very concerned about their children, as are those who are on middle and low incomes. How will children who were born in Islington remain in Islington, given the price of housing? The Mayor of London’s answer has been to redefine affordable housing. It is a little like getting rid of child poverty by taking income out of the definition.

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[Emily Thornberry]

Yes. Representing and living in the area that I do, I could not agree with my hon. Friend more. The property market continues to be stoked. The Government say “Let’s cut back on the amount of housing benefit available and that will dampen down the property market.” I laugh, because clearly that is not what happens. Instead, rents and property prices continue to rise, and we continue to price Londoners out of London. If it continues to eat itself, London will cease to function. But perhaps that is fine by TfL: no one will need to travel into London because no one will be able to live or work in London. They will need to live so far out that working in the centre will not be viable.

[Clive Efford]

My hon. Friend, like me, heard the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) say that TfL should be able to maximise the income from the sale of this land, but, as she pointed out, where land values are extremely high, that is likely to squeeze out affordable and social housing. TfL is a public body, however, and there is a shortage of public land on which to build social housing, which is why we need properly to scrutinise how this land is used, instead of selling it off to the highest bidder in every case.

[Emily Thornberry]

If we do not use public land to build affordable housing, what land will we use? If we sell off the land, and it ends up in the hands of private property speculators, that will be the end of it, in terms of its being within the reach of Londoners.

Again, perhaps someone can enlighten me, but there has been talk that TfL could set up a subsidiary to insulate itself against risk. I do not understand what TfL has said about that, but, on the face of it, if it continues to own the land, or at least to manage it, it seems that a court would say, “The legal instrument might say one thing, but the reality is quite clear”, and strike it down. The project is being built on the never-never, and on very dubious grounds. We are asking serious questions about the risk this public body is being put under. What is TfL going to be doing with our land? What does it mean for the future of London? There are so many questions. I appreciate the Bill has a long history, but that makes it even more disappointing—to say the least—that these questions cannot be answered. They have been asked of TfL many times, yet we still do not have answers. In the absence of such answers, it does not seem correct to revive the Bill.

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[Claire Perry]

No, I will not.

TfL has already implemented a savings and efficiency programme that will enable it to invest in infrastructure while holding down fares. I have not heard any Labour Members stand up for their constituents who have to get on to the tube every morning, and who are delighted that fares have been kept down.

[Clive Efford]

Will the Minister give way?

[Catherine West]

Will the Minister give way?

Davies Commission Report

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

Again, my hon. Friend points out some of the other things that we need to take into account when reaching a conclusion and returning to the House later this year to set out the proposals that we wish to follow. Deliverability will be an important consideration for us.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State undertake to return with specific and binding proposals for the air industry on emissions and minimising noise pollution when he announces his final conclusions?

[Mr McLoughlin]

That will be part of the issues that we want to address. We will look particularly at how Sir Howard and the commission have said that the issues can be addressed. As we heard in earlier questions, that will be debated by the Environmental Audit Committee and other Committees between now and the Government reaching a conclusion.

London Bridge Station (Redevelopment)

Clive Efford Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) on securing this important debate and thank the Minister for organising Thursday’s meeting with Southeastern and Network Rail, which gave us an opportunity to get some answers to questions following the timetable changes. I met Network Rail on 10 December to talk about the arrangements. I was also in contact with Southeastern, and its representatives were due to attend that meeting, but unfortunately did not turn up. Some of the things I feared have come to the fore, but I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to the customer satisfaction survey that was published today. It shows that Southeastern has the worst customer satisfaction of the train operating companies, and that survey was carried out before the changes.

My constituents who want to go to London Bridge, especially from Mottingham and New Eltham, are finding the Cannon Street trains to be dangerously overcrowded. It is clear that there was no plan for the extra demand for those trains. They are the only trains stopping at London Bridge, but there was no plan to make them longer to increase capacity. Will the Minister tell us what will be done in the short term to address the serious overcrowding on those trains? Overcrowding is also being experienced by those who are forced to go to Waterloo East and then try to travel back to London Bridge on the London underground. Southeastern seems to have taken the view that if it sits this out, passengers will be forced to find other forms of transport. My constituents have told me that they are getting off at Lewisham, which is becoming very overcrowded. British Transport police have to be at the station because the situation is becoming dangerous. Passengers are starting to use the docklands light railway as an alternative route. It is shocking that the approach seems to be to force passengers to go elsewhere. That is just not good enough. Southeastern has not planned for the capacity that is necessary to enable passengers to get to London Bridge and continue their journeys.

What will be done in the short term? Like my hon. Friend, I want to find out what will happen about the Thameslink trains, because we know that we need them. There should have been 12-car trains on our network from January last year, but Southeastern has failed to address the problem.

I shall make what will be my final point, because I know my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd) wants to speak. In response to this morning’s survey results, Mr Statham, the managing director of Southeastern, said:

“Over the next three years we’re investing more than £70m in the things that our passengers tell us are important to them. This investment will enable us to provide better information to our passengers”—

that is fine—

“improve the interior and cleanliness of our trains”—

that is excellent—

“refresh the look of our stations and provide extra staff to deliver more face-to-face customer service.”

That is all wonderful, but if passengers cannot get on the damn trains, what is the point? There is nothing in that statement about increased capacity, extra carriages or 12-car trains, which we have been promised by two successive Governments. The issue is capacity. Southeastern is not addressing the problem, so we want to hear from the Minister what she will do about it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Clive Efford]

The Minister will have heard at our meeting on Thursday that Southeastern said it had shifted around some of the carriages, taking them from some services and adding them to others. However, my constituents feel—I certainly feel the same as a user of the trains—that those carriages have gone to the longer-haul services, where people pay higher prices for their season tickets. Services from places such as Dartford through places such as Eltham and New Eltham are the ones that have suffered. Those services are not sufficient, and my constituents cannot get on them, particularly when they are going home in the evenings. We need extra carriages; we do not need Southeastern just to shuffle them around.

[Claire Perry]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that I and my officials are in constant contact with the operator, and we are encouraging it to do whatever it needs to with the rolling stock to try to alleviate the crowding that is happening as service patterns change. I would hate to think, if there is excess crowding on shorter journeys, that the management was not fully aware of it and not working actively to alleviate it.

Let me briefly mention the point about new rolling stock. The hon. Member for Lewisham East is right that there is potential in the next couple of years for some rolling stock. I have checked, and about 100 class 377 units provide capacity for approximately an additional 10,000 passengers. She is right that some are already committed to go to other parts of the country—that is the way, as she knows, the cascade system works—but the stock is potentially available to come on to the franchise. We have asked Southeastern to consider all available opportunities to look at this, demonstrate the business case and really push on trying to get the additional capacity. I agree with all hon. Members that that is something we would need to do over the medium term.

Rail Network (Disruption)

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

Network Rail will publish the report that has been ordered by the chief executive by the end of this week, in time for the appearance of the chief executive and Robin Gisby before the Transport Select Committee. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance to commuters of the railway’s reliability.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State should have had a warning about these problems from Network Rail’s performance in the run-up to Christmas. If he had been travelling on Southeastern Trains, he would have suffered a great deal of disruption on several days during that period. If he had been on top of his game, he would have asked Network Rail about its capacity to manage the engineering schemes, but he failed to do so. What sanctions will he put in place so that the management of Network Rail can be held to account for their failures over the Christmas period?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I will go back to the Department and try to find the letter that the hon. Gentleman sent me warning me that the possibility of delays was so obvious. I think he is speaking with the benefit of hindsight, rather than having warned us about the delays beforehand. I travel on many different parts of the rail network, and I see the huge amount of work that is being carried out on it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right about the significant repercussions for the residents of Dartford, but he will appreciate that security is our first priority. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already called for an in-depth report into the incident, the implications, and what can be done to mitigate such effects in the future.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) is right to highlight the fact that south-east London is not served by the underground system and therefore is heavily reliant on the rail system. The plan to develop a road crossing at Silvertown, next to the Blackwall tunnel, will not sufficiently provide the extra river crossings and access to docklands that south-east London needs. I stress the need for extra public transport options—including, if we build the Silvertown link, a docklands light railway crossing—that will reduce the capacity on the roads.

[Stephen Hammond]

I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s case, and I accept the point about the Silvertown link—indeed, the Mayor has made a commitment to look at that. As I said to the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), any proposal to extend the underground and the rail system in that part of London is primarily a decision for the Mayor.

Cycling

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Ruane]

And Ealing. If it has been done in those places, why can it not be done throughout the country? If we have fantastic and safe facilities in my constituency, why can we not use them? They are floodlit. We could use them for 16 hours a day.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is outlining the need for co-operation to achieve an outcome across policy areas, from health and local government to sport and recreation. That will be achieved only if there is a cross-Government message from the top. The message needs to be not only on cycling, but on sport, and on recreational and physical activities across the board.

[Chris Ruane]

All hon. Members would have been sent to swimming lessons when they attended school. Cycling lessons should be on a par with those.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Hammond]

We received the examining authority’s report and recommendation on the scheme from the planning inspectorate on 19 December. The report is being considered carefully. We are obliged under the Planning Act 2008 to decide whether to grant a development consent for the scheme by 19 March 2013. I am looking to see whether we can accelerate that even faster.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

When the Minister next meets the Mayor of London, I urge him to discuss the Silvertown link between North Greenwich and Silvertown on the north side of the river. More importantly, many people are concerned about the need for public transport links along that stretch of the river, so will the Minister discuss with the Mayor the need to introduce a link for the Docklands Light Railway to come to North Greenwich, as it is essential for that to be part of the river crossing?

[Stephen Hammond]

I regularly meet both the Mayor of London and the commissioner of transport for London. I will make sure that that subject is on the agenda the next time we meet.