High Speed 1: Rolling Stock

Debate between Damian Green and Gareth Johnson

Tuesday 21st January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered rolling stock on High Speed One.

It is always a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am pleased to see the Minister in his place. He may feel at times in his life that he spends a disproportionate amount of time dealing with the affairs of Kent, but we are always grateful for his attention. I am happy to assure him, at the start of this short debate, that this is a different kind of rail debate from those he is used to. I imagine—indeed, I know—that most debates in this Chamber about rail services are a cry of rage about unreliability, delays, strikes, and how colleagues’ constituents are at the end of their tether. By contrast, this debate is about a hugely successful service, but one that will be choked by that very success and popularity unless Ministers and the industry take decisive action very soon.

Let me start with the good news. These are facts from Southeastern, which operates the line. Since High Speed 1 started under Southeastern in 2009, it has carried more than 100 million passengers. The passenger satisfaction over that period has been higher than 90%, which, as the Minister will be painfully aware, is an extremely good figure compared with some other lines. It has been calculated that it has delivered a £1 billion boost to the Kent tourism economy, and that it indirectly supports up to 72,000 jobs. Clearly, one of the main reasons for that is the speed. It is a high-speed operation, and the journey from my constituency, Ashford, to London is now 38 minutes. It used to be routinely 81 minutes, so that is significant. Other colleagues from Kent in the Chamber will no doubt have similar stories.

The line also has a hugely positive environmental effect. It has been calculated that some 6,000 cars a year are taken off the road because of the high use of the service. If I may be parochial for a second, it has contributed hugely to economic growth. In Ashford, seven major development projects—offices, leisure, shopping and education facilities—either have been built or are being built around the station. There is a direct business benefit to that: because it is only 38 minutes, using the high-speed train, from Ashford to St Pancras International, whereas office rents are 73% lower than in London, many businesses clearly find Ashford an extremely attractive place to do business. Of course, I welcome all that.

My last bit of positivity, if I can keep the Minister cheerful for a few more minutes, is about a study of what has become an increasingly key industry for the whole of Kent—tourism. HS1 Ltd did a tourism impact study a couple of years ago, and the figures are stark and very encouraging. The value of tourism and the visitor economy to Kent grew by more than £1 billion over the past decade, from £2.4 billion to £3.6 billion, supporting the 72,000 jobs I mentioned. To put that in perspective, that is 10% of all the jobs in Kent. It is a really significant industry.

Sustained investment in not just the tourism industry but transport links, of which High Speed 1 is one of the most important, has led to that significant increase. The study determined the perceived impact that HS1 has had on the sector. More than half the respondents in the tourism industry in Kent believe that HS1 has had a positive impact on their business. The most obvious reason for that is the speed to reach the destination. Perhaps more subtly, there is also the ability to attract visitors from further afield—it increases Kent’s range of attraction.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate. There is no doubt in my mind that HS1 has been good for the county, but does he agree that, before proceeding further with HS2, we need to tackle the challenges of HS1, which has, in many respects, become synonymous with costs and overcrowding?

[Damian Green]

I am about to come to the issue of overcrowding, as my hon. Friend would expect, as that was my principal reason for securing this debate. He says “before proceeding further with HS2”, but I should say that I am in favour of HS2, partly because I have observed the benefits of HS1 on Kent, and I would not want to deprive other parts of the country of the benefits that high-speed rail services can bring. To some extent, the two debates need to be separated. HS1 has been hugely good for Kent, and I wish that to continue, so I therefore urge the Government to address what will be a looming and imminent problem if they do not. The HS2 debate is rather a different one.

Some 71% of respondents in the tourism industry believe that leisure tourism in Kent has increased as a result of HS1. It has been a particular influencing factor in attracting couples and family groups—young families, those with older children and extended families—and that has contributed to a widening and deepening of the Kent tourism economy. I emphasise tourism because, although HS1 is by and large regarded, reasonably enough, as a commuter network—it clearly is of huge benefit to commuters, because it gives them many hours, days and weeks of their lives back through reduced journey times—it actually has a measurable and direct economic impact beyond that.

Overall, HS1 is one of the success stories of the rail network. It provides travel that is not only fast but more reliable than most lines, as reflected in passenger satisfaction surveys. But that, as I reach the halfway point, is the limit of the positive news that I wish to bring the Minister. Now for the bad news.

The bad news is that the service has become too popular for its own good. Overcrowding is a serious and growing problem throughout the line. The operator, Southeastern, has tried to compensate by changing the number of carriages on the most popular peak-hour services and improving the repairs and maintenance programme so that more of the rolling stock is available at any one time, but that is not enough. Essentially, we need more rolling stock on the line. Passenger numbers have grown by an average of 11.7% every year since 2010, and there is no evidence that that increase in demand will slow down in the future. Indeed, given that major housing developments are planned in not just Ashford but other towns in Kent along the line, we can expect the opposite.

Police Cautions (Young People)

Debate between Damian Green and Gareth Johnson

Wednesday 17th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Damian Green]

However, the time for which an offence should hang over a young person or anyone else is contentious, and we must be careful to strike a balance. Ensuring appropriate punishment and particularly appropriate reparation for victims, so that they have confidence in the system, form the other half of the balance that I am sure all hon. Members want to strike.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

The Minister makes a valid point about the public’s confidence being undermined by using cautions. Does he agree that confidence might also be lost when cautions are repetitively given to offenders with a view to improving the clear-up figures?

[Damian Green]

I would be interested to know whether my hon. Friend has evidence that cautions are used to improve clear-up figures. The answer to his general point is that, yes, I agree that the repetitive use of cautions may damage confidence in the system. One reason why we are looking at the whole system of cautions is precisely to avoid such damage to confidence.

A youth caution may be given for any offence that the young offender admits when there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction but it is not in the public interest to prosecute. The flexibility provided by the youth caution allows the police greater discretion to offer a disposal that is appropriate to the circumstances of the offence and offender, rather than being arbitrarily determined by previous disposals or convictions.

We have retained in the youth caution the critical elements of assessment and intervention inherent in the final warning scheme. The youth offending team will be obliged to assess and, unless considered inappropriate, to put a rehabilitation programme in place when a young person has received a second or subsequent youth caution. That reflects the current threshold of obligatory assessment following a warning and is designed to prevent a return to precisely the repeat cautioning to which my hon. Friend referred. Unlike reprimands and warnings, the youth caution does not have a fixed limit on the number that may be administered, and it may be used if a young person has previously been convicted. That allows the police to use discretion, in consultation with the youth offending team, and to avoid an unnecessary court process if that is not merited.

Introducing a flexible youth caution that can be used more than once should help young people when seeking future gainful employment despite a minor misdemeanour that is causing concern. The youth caution becomes spent immediately, so there is no requirement for the young person to disclose that they have received one, unless they are seeking employment in an occupation listed in the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975, such as working with children or other vulnerable people.

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 revised the youth conditional caution. We reduced unnecessary bureaucracy by giving the police power to authorise youth conditional cautions without the need to seek the authorisation of a prosecutor. The police can now offer a youth conditional caution with input from a youth offending team as at present but without the need for agreement from the Crown Prosecution Service. The youth offending team’s role is now statutory to provide a check on the appropriateness of the disposal and will also allow the YOT to apply for a parenting order if necessary.

Conditional cautions require offenders to take responsibility for their actions, including agreement to conditions that require them to put things right or to seek help for their behaviour. It is important to recognise the role of the victim and to ensure that they have proper redress through such an out-of-court disposal. Since 8 April, the revised youth conditional caution has been available to all 10 to 17-year-olds throughout England and Wales. The youth conditional caution has a three-month rehabilitation period to allow for the conditions to be completed, but offers similar benefits to the youth caution in becoming spent rapidly and therefore not subject to disclosure for most purposes.

The third change to that sort of disposal in the 2012 Act was to abolish penalty notices for disorder for 10 to 17-year-olds. Penalty notices can be an effective deterrent and provide resolution of offences for adult offenders, but we believe they are less effective for young people. The principal aim of the youth justice system is to prevent offending by young people. For that age group, we believe it is more effective to use out-of-court disposals involving assessment and intervention by the local youth offending team than fixed penalties.

Other legislation that is centrally important to the matters that the debate gives rise to is the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, which has an important role in helping those who have a criminal conviction but have put criminality behind them. From the tone of the debate, it is clear that many hon. Members believe that it is important to provide individuals with the opportunity to leave behind mistakes that they made when they were young. Minor offending behaviour committed when the offender was immature should not blight their prospects. That is recognised in the fact that rehabilitation periods are generally shorter for under-eights than for adults. Most crime committed by young people is relatively minor and often results in the out-of-court disposals or fines that I am talking about. A significant proportion of the population have had a conviction at some point in their lives, but few of them pose a serious risk of harm to the public. I am sure that we all agree that it is in society’s interest that ex-offenders are given the chance to reintegrate into their communities and lead law-abiding lives.

My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester referred to a recent Court of Appeal judgment that found that both the current exceptions order to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and part V of the Police Act 1997 are unlawful. That is because they provide for blanket disclosure of all spent convictions and cautions regardless of how old or minor they may be. In response to that judgment—my hon. Friend raised this point specifically —we are amending the exceptions order. We are proposing that certain spent disposals will no longer be subject to disclosure under that order after a specified period, which will be shorter for young offenders than for adults.

Public protection and safeguarding obviously remain primary concerns, and for that reason disposals for specified sexual and violent offences and other offences relevant to safeguarding will always be subject to standard or enhanced disclosure. Any offence resulting in a custodial sentence will continue to be subject to disclosure. Those measures are necessary to maintain public protection, and I suspect that there is agreement on that on both sides of the Chamber.

For other offences, cautions and minor convictions will no longer be subject to disclosure, nor will they be able to be taken into account by an employer after a certain period. Cautions and equivalents administered to a young offender for a non-specified offence will no longer be subject to disclosure under the exceptions order after two years. Secondary legislation containing those provisions has been laid before Parliament and will be subject to the affirmative process. My hon. Friend wanted a detailed timetable, but he has been here long enough to know that such business management goes on behind closed doors.