Govia Thameslink Franchise

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson]

The important questions that the hon. Lady raises will be answered by the Glaister review and the departmental hard review. We need to establish what responsibility GTR had for the disruption that passengers have experienced, while recognising that other actors are involved that also have a share in what has happened, including Network Rail.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

As the Opposition spokesman implied, Mr Speaker, you probably could have granted this urgent question on any day in the past four years, since the London Bridge investment work began and the timetable fell over after new year 2015. Will my hon. Friend the Minister warn the Opposition, who focus simply on the GTR franchise, that there is a complex set of overlapping responsibilities in this area that mean that a simple solution is almost certainly the wrong one? Will he and his team address the complexity of the structure that started with the privatisation of this service back in 1993? Will he do what is within his power and address the grotesque unfairnesses in some of the fare structures and significantly improve the compensation deal, so that people who access the Thameslink service get compensation as well as those who are lucky enough to go on to a Thameslink train straight away?

[Joseph Johnson]

My hon. Friend raised the issue of the fare structure. He has been a tireless campaigner on this question on behalf of his constituents in Reigate and Redhill, and we take his concerns extremely seriously. He also made the important point that we should not leap to simplistic solutions, as the Labour party has done by thinking that there is a quick-fix answer to this in nationalisation. We have to remember that there are many actors in what has gone wrong, including Network Rail, which is, of course, in the public sector.

National Planning Policy Framework

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady may be interested in the consultation on developer contributions that we have set out today. I am sure she will agree that developer contributions are a type of tax on developers, because they are expected to provide infrastructure or affordable housing, and in some cases both. If she is really interested in this issue, I urge her to look at that consultation.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer to our right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan), which was that councils will be able to amend green-belt boundaries only if they can prove that they have fully explored every other reasonable option for building the homes that their community needs. Will he, however, confirm that the new national planning policy framework goes even further, explicitly saying that housing need does not trump issues such as areas of outstanding natural beauty, sites of special scientific interest and the green belt, so councils cannot be forced to amend their green-belt boundaries by the Planning Inspectorate in those circumstances if they do not wish to do so and they have explored every other option?

[Sajid Javid]

The assurance I can give my hon. Friend is that what we have set out today makes it absolutely clear—even clearer than before—that brownfields should be the absolute priority, and any council wanting to look beyond brownfield must demonstrate that it has looked at all other reasonable opportunities, but this puts councils in control of how exactly they meet their need. When my hon. Friend has the opportunity and time to go through this in more detail, I hope he will be even more reassured.