Oral Answers to Questions
Damien Moore Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Huw Merriman
My right hon. Friend is indeed a great champion for this scheme, which we have discussed many times. I am pleased to confirm that the local transport fund could be used to develop the new rail link between York and Hull via Beverley. It is important to say that it will be for the local transport authority to decide, and I encourage him to continue to engage with it. Our upcoming guidance will set out more detail about the scope of the LTF, and I am sure he will continue with his mission to deliver.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Mark Harper)
Before I answer my hon. Friend’s question, may I just welcome very strongly your statement at the beginning of business, Mr Speaker, standing up for the rights of Members to debate things in this House and the importance of protecting their security? That is welcome, and I am sure it will have been welcomed by all parts of the House.
In answer to my hon. Friend’s question, Network North will see a further £19.8 billion of investment in the north of England following the redirection of funding from the second phase of HS2. Liverpool city region is one of six areas to benefit from nearly £4 billion of uplift in the second round of the city region sustainable transport settlements. A further £1.48 billion is going to the non-mayoral local authorities to fund a wide range of projects. Guidance on how that should be spent will be forthcoming shortly.
Damien Moore
My right hon. Friend knows how important rail connectivity is to my constituents. It will be further enhanced by the reconnection of the Burscough curves, a project that is also supported by our hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher), who has her own campaign for a station at Midge Hall. Given the importance of schemes that link areas, will he issue stronger guidance for transport authorities to have better links between each other, rather than just within their own transport areas?
Mr Harper
As my hon. Friend knows, I recently hosted a roundtable, bringing together him, his local authority, Lancashire County Council, local rail operators and other interested parties to discuss how to further develop the business case for the Burscough curves. He will be aware that we have allocated that money to the local transport fund. Lancashire County Council will get £494 million over seven years, starting next year. I suggest he continues the conversation we have had to urge the council to look at developing that scheme. We will be publishing guidance encouraging it to do that, working with Members of Parliament in the very near future.
Midge Hall Railway Station
Damien Moore Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) for all her efforts to improve rail connectivity in the areas mentioned in the debate. It is great to have her as my constituency neighbour, working really hard on this issue, which is important to our constituents for all the reasons she highlighted. She has continually campaigned on Midge Hall railway station since she was first elected, and she is not letting her constituents down today.
Connectivity between regions is as important as connectivity within regions. Liverpool is in Merseyside and Preston is in Lancashire. We thank the Department for Transport for the extra funding going to both areas—they are getting about half a billion pounds to spend from the money that would have been spent on HS2. The temptation is always to spend such funding in a single area, but connectivity between the areas is important because of all the economic activity that goes on between them. That should be further enhanced by people being able to move between the areas by an easy train journey, rather than a complicated journey that they would be less likely to make.
Connectivity is also important because we have an education triangle in the area and people living within it find it hard to get around it. There are universities at both ends of it, which people should be able to get to easily. However, people living in the middle of the area find it incredibly difficult to get to a mainline station, so they make car journeys rather than take the train. That is a retrograde step when we think about our carbon footprint.
We are working on the issue. There are a huge number of stakeholders in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend, including businesses and those in the education sector. The Ormskirk, Preston and Southport Travellers’ Association, which is one of the rail passenger forums, has continued to support our efforts in making the connections that are incredibly important to our constituents.
I thank the Department for Transport for its efforts in prioritising regional connectivity, but connections between regions might need a ministerial steer. When people in the affected communities think about their journey to work, college or university, they do not think about who their political representative is; they just know the journey is difficult and want someone to step in to resolve the problem. My hon. Friend and I are doing everything we can to resolve that problem for them. It is a really important time to seize the opportunity to improve the quality of the life for our constituents. I know my constituents in Southport want to see these improvements, as do my hon. Friend’s constituents in South Ribble.
I am sure the Minister is aware that we will continue to campaign for these concerns to be resolved until we see a feasibility study that will, I am sure, unlock these projects and make them a reality, making life easier for our constituents. I hope the Minister has taken that on board. We need a conversation about connectivity between areas because of the passengers affected in those blackspots. Rather than the money being spent on great services within each area, helping connectivity between our constituencies is equally important.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damien Moore Excerpts(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman is right to put the safety of ships and seafarers at the centre of the issue, as we and the IMO do. We work very closely with the sector to ensure that it has the best possible information, both at policy level and in the region. We are taking further steps to ensure that the best advice is available on the ground, so that individual captains as well as their companies can make the best decisions commercially and, importantly, for the safety of their crews.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Huw Merriman)
Network North will see a further £19.8 billion- worth of investment in the north of England following the redirection of funding from High Speed 2. That is in addition to what has already been committed through the £3.5 billion to northern city regions from the first round of the city region sustainable transport settlements; the development of Northern Powerhouse Rail, which will transform rail connectivity between the north of England’s key economic centres; and £11 billion for the trans-Pennine route upgrade.
Damien Moore
In the light of the Government’s commitment to level up through Network North, will my hon. Friend commit to a meeting with me and other key stakeholders to discuss reinstating the Burscough curves rail link, which would connect Southport to Preston and the wider north of England, fulfilling our economic potential and helping us welcome another million visitors a year to Southport?
Oral Answers to Questions
Damien Moore Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Andrew Stephenson
I know that the hon. Gentleman likes to blame Brexit for everything, but of course there are HGV driver shortages around the globe. On freight coming in and out of the UK, we are seeing similar numbers at the moment as we would normally. The checks that are due at the ports are on track in England. Of course, in Scotland, they are a matter for the devolved Administration. We are aware of some risks there, but the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and other Departments are working closely with the Scottish Government to find a resolution.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
We are committed to reversing the Beeching cuts and reopening railways through our £500 million restoring your railway fund. I was pleased to reopen the first such line—the Dartmoor line—in November 2021.
Damien Moore
Does my right hon. Friend agree that restoring the Burscough Curves link, which would connect Southport with Preston and up to Glasgow via the west coast main line, should be a priority for the Government, both to demonstrate the levelling-up agenda and connect all regions of our great United Kingdom?
Russia’s Grand Strategy
Damien Moore Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) for securing this important debate, in which colleagues have raised important issues relating to Russia’s grand strategy.
It is particularly timely that we are talking about energy security and the extent to which we are dependent on Russian gas exports. It is clear that Russia has the power to influence the rising energy bills that affect many of our constituents. I very much hope that we will continue to increase our domestic energy production so that we become less reliant on Russian exports.
I share colleagues’ concerns about Ukraine’s fate. The events of 2014 and the tragic effects of the war still being fought in the east of the country today should leave us in little doubt that Russia is prepared to violate sovereign territory to further its own aims, as the brief five-day war of 2008 in Georgia had earlier indicated.
I also appreciate the increasing concerns about Russia’s actions in cyber-space, which is perhaps the most complex and difficult of the areas that have been covered in the debate. When cyber-war is discussed, it usually seems to include everything from a Russia-attributed attack on Estonia’s Government and financial institutions in 2007 to the NotPetya ransomware attacks against Ukraine in 2017 and even the SolarWinds espionage of 2020, in which UK Government computers were among the millions across the world on to which Russian agents quietly sneaked, remaining to listen and gather intelligence.
The last point sounds rather alarmist. We are right to make every effort to clamp down on and weed out digital Russian spies wherever we find them. We know what to do when we find a physical spy, so when spying is done via a digital medium, why do we hear respected voices announcing that there has been a “cyber-attack”? When a Russian spy is detected in the UK, we do not claim that Russia has launched an attack; rather, we use the existing tools at our disposal to deal with the situation in the established way. Applying the term “cyber-attack” to cyber-espionage is extremely unhelpful, especially in relation to Russia: rather than seeking to develop and promote the norms that countries should follow when they detect cyber-espionage operations, we lose ourselves in needless sensational hysteria, abusing terms such as “cyber-war” and “cyber-attack”.
When we want to understand Russian cyber-espionage and how we respond to it, we do not need to look much past the rules and norms that we have already established with conventional espionage to understand the role that cyber-espionage plays in Russia’s grand strategy. However, while looking towards traditional espionage helps us to understand some of Russia’s strategy in cyber-space, the fact that the area is still widely misunderstood and lacks rules and norms for operation means that there is still ample scope for Russia to navigate and pursue its grand strategy in what many people call the grey zone.
Let us take the international response to the Russia-attributed denial-of-service cyber-attack on Estonia in 2007. Despite effectively cutting off Estonia from the rest of the world and cutting off its citizens from their Government and financial institutions for some three weeks, it was not deemed an attack under article 5. Qualifying as such an attack would have seen the NATO alliance rise to Estonia’s defence in a war with Russia. Although there was no loss of data or money and no physical damage to resources, it seems plausible to say that it was an attack, but that was not how NATO saw it. That issue needs to be addressed.
Denial-of-service attacks are not rare. Russia launched similar denial-of-service attacks against the Georgian Government in 2008 as part of the five-day war, although this time they were aimed solely at Government and military sites. In 2017, Russia launched the ransomware NotPetya against Ukrainian banks, energy companies and infrastructure. It combined that cyber-sabotage with kinetic troop movements on the eastern border, again to display power. Attribution is not overly complex: the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre has said that Russia was “almost certainly” responsible for the attack.
As many of us in the House remember from seeing North Korea’s WannaCry ransomware unintentionally lock an estimated 70,000 NHS machines in May 2017, the rules and norms that exist in kinetic war, such as not attacking a hospital, simply do not exist in cyber-space. That is something that we clearly need to address. While it is clear that Russia sees cyber-espionage as part of reasonable statecraft in the present day, as the 2020 SolarWinds hack indicates, and while it is clear that Russia was perfectly happy to conduct clear cyber-attacks against Estonia in 2007 and Georgia in 2008, the international jury is still out on what is acceptable in cyber-space.
We must avoid alarmist declarations of “cyber-attack” or “cyber-war” every time we detect cyber-espionage attributed to Russia. Let us use the tools already in our arsenal to react to such cyber-espionage as and when we detect it. Let us mobilise the culture and machinery of government to determine how we view Russian action in cyber-space, building on recent publications. Most importantly, let us lead the international community in clearly laying down rules and norms to which Russia will feel an international obligation, so that no school or hospital ever need fear an indiscriminate cyber-weapon wreaking havoc, as happened to much of the NHS at the sloppy hands of North Korea in 2017, and so that we are ready to act proportionately as and when a cyber-attack may occur. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson) said, we also need to avoid miscalculation.
Southport to Manchester Rail Services
Damien Moore Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered rail services from Southport to Manchester.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am pleased to have obtained this debate about train services to and from my constituency to Manchester, particularly the Manchester Piccadilly service, which is critical for my constituents and local businesses. Many of my constituents use that train service for employment, particularly in Wigan and Manchester, for education and for leisure. Local businesses also rely on the train service to bring potential customers, employees and other visitors to our tourist economy. All they want—indeed, all they deserve—is a direct train to the south side of Manchester.
My hon. Friend the Minister is aware that I have campaigned on this issue since I was first elected as a Member of Parliament. The good news is that, over that time, we have repeatedly fought and won to secure the future of this important service. I owe much credit to the Southport and Ormskirk rail travellers association and to the numerous Rail Ministers who have preceded my hon. Friend, including my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), the former Member for Orpington and my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). I know he shares an interest in this particular line, as its alteration impacts his constituents as it does mine.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper), who has led on this issue with me, and my hon. Friends the Members for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) and for Bolton West (Chris Green) and the hon. Members for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) and for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) for their support. When there have been problems with rail timetables, we have collectively done our best to respond and force changes to the benefit of our constituents.
The bad news is that I cannot set out that glistening picture today because the service is once again faced with the prospect of being downgraded. In January, the Department for Transport, in partnership with Network Rail and Transport for the North together, having already established the Manchester recovery taskforce, launched a consultation on timetable options to improve rail performance in the north of England. That represented a major backward step for many of my constituents, who had only just secured the return of their direct services to Manchester Piccadilly. As one of my constituents said: “The most frustrating thing is that we only secured the return of the direct rail service to Manchester Piccadilly back in December, and whilst it was far from perfect, we had direct rail services to Piccadilly. Less than a month later and our town’s rail services are back on the table like a poker chip.”
The key issue is not about having a consultation, but about the reason behind it and the front-loaded way in which the options to change the routing and frequency of some existing journeys have been too heavily stacked against my constituents from the start. All three options presented by the Manchester recovery taskforce would remove my constituents’ direct rail service to Manchester Piccadilly.
Before I address that point, I will set out for the Minister the nature of the problems that my constituents currently face. Manchester has five city centre stations. For many years, the Southport line had two daytime services to Manchester—one to Victoria in the north of the city and one through Piccadilly on the south side to Manchester airport. The service specification for the Northern franchise let in 2016 meant that the long-standing Southport airport service was withdrawn and all trains from my constituency were to be routed to Victoria.
A campaign challenged that change, conducted passenger surveys and, in collaboration with the rail authorities and train operators, analysed travel data, which proved journeys to Manchester were destination-specific to one of the five city centre stations for reasons of work, business, study, health, leisure and, in the case of Piccadilly, connections to the rest of the country. Two thirds of Southport and Lancashire residents travelling to Manchester usually required the south side.
In April 2017, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, who back then held the responsibility for our country’s rail services, recognised the issue and directed the franchisee, Arriva Rail North, to present a business plan that would deliver an already identified solution. Following my election as Member of Parliament for Southport in June that year and with ARN dragging its feet, I asked the campaign group to draw up a business case, which I sponsored and presented to the Secretary of State for Transport in January 2018.
The case was accepted by the rail industry. By then, it was committed to the May 2018 timetable debacle, which included the withdrawal of the Southport airport service. Two morning and evening services were retained. The services were restored incrementally up to the completion of the reinstatement in December 2019, but that did not include services directly to Manchester airport. When emergency key worker timetables were introduced with the first covid lockdown last year, the Southport line services, like many, were halved. Significantly, in recognition of the line’s importance, the train operator, which is now Northern Trains Ltd, devised and implemented a non-standard train path and timetable to maintain a direct key worker service to the south side. Since the pandemic, the Southport line has been one of 12 operated reliably and punctually through the Castlefield corridor.
Those are issues with the current service, but I come now to the fundamental problem of the Manchester recovery taskforce’s consultation and the proposed timetable changes to and from Southport: the downgrading of our direct rail services. When it is fully running, the line will benefit those of my constituents who want to get on a train at Southport station and sit on it as it carries them through to Wigan or perhaps the north side of Manchester. That might be of benefit to some of my constituents. However, for those who do not want that or who want a faster service to Piccadilly, such proposed timetable changes were never the answer. My constituents have been asked to forgo a service that takes them to one of the three stations in south Manchester and within a five to 10-minute walk of their workplace, the universities and the hospital. They are now being asked to use a rail service that will take them to a place they do not want to travel to, on the wrong side of the city, which will add a further 20 minutes to their overall journey time.
Allow me to provide the Minister with a bit of context. Piccadilly is the busiest station in central Manchester and the only one in the north-west region that provides connections to services everywhere in Britain. It is not a backwater at the end of the metro service. Manchester Piccadilly is a crucial stop that promotes my constituency’s tourist economy and acts as a pathway to tens of thousands of visitors each year, including to the Southport Air Show, the Southport Flower Show and, I am proud to say, The Open, which was held at the Royal Birkdale in 2017 and attracted almost a quarter of a million visitors. The station is also crucial to my constituents’ having the opportunity to attend good universities and access employment opportunities. There is now talk of a fourth compromise option, but the MRT should not be planning for Oxford Road to be the main Manchester station for my town. The demands of my constituents and visitors is driven by destination—simply put, they need to be where they want to be.
The idea that the industry will decide what sort of service people can get confirms that, for so long, it has felt that it enjoys playing trains until it concerns the passengers. However, passengers are key, and those who choose to use the service must have it available to Deansgate, Oxford Road and Piccadilly along the Castlefield corridor. Similarly, my constituency should not be seen as a scapegoat to alleviate congestion along a busy stretch of line, for which there is no operational argument. I was deeply concerned when the MRT reported timetable changes that showed that it had always been the intention to remove my town’s direct rail links to Manchester Piccadilly under the caveat of consultation, and that the main destination of services from my town would be Oxford Road.
That was never made clear in the consultation, but it absolutely confirms my constituents’ fears that the Manchester recovery taskforce’s consultation was nothing more than a caveat to removing my town’s direct rail services. At some stage, it was always going to turn around and say, “We want to remove the direct rail service to Manchester Piccadilly. You can get off at Oxford Road instead.” I rejected the idea in 2017, when I was first elected, and I reject it now, as do the overwhelming majority of my constituents who responded to the consultation.
I urge the Minister to ensure that the Northern franchise continues to provide a direct service between Southport and Manchester Piccadilly on the mainline, and not just for Oxford Road. There has to be a sufficient number of services at the right time and with enough seats, so that people can use the service that they need. My constituents want the services restored and, at best, strengthened. Some might say it is natural for me, as the local Member of Parliament, to stand up and say that for my constituents, but it matters beyond my constituency.
Some people using the services to Manchester Piccadilly are not from my constituency but get on at my station. As I have said, this issue affects a number of hon. Members’ constituencies, just as it affects large areas of Lancashire and Merseyside. Instead of using the trains, some of my constituents have already started to drive to Manchester because of the reduced service. If that is the trend, it will likely increase the chance of one of the three proposed changes put forward by the Manchester recovery taskforce being implemented. How does that help our 2050 climate target? How does that achieve levelling up?
We want more people to use the trains, but we will not achieve that if services are cut off from entire communities such as mine. We want the country’s economy to thrive. It is right that we level up across the UK—an idea that my constituents fully support—but levelling up is not a wonderful esoteric prize that only a few should benefit from. It must apply to all parts of the country. Good train services matter to my constituents, and are crucial if we are to build back better from the pandemic and strengthen our economy for us all. I urge everyone involved—the Minister, Transport for the North, Network Rail and the Department for Transport—to do everything to ensure that my constituents continue to have the train services that they need. We must continue to see people using the trains bringing people from Manchester and Wigan to my constituency, and from Southport to Manchester, to provide opportunities to access good jobs and education.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
The debate left the station on time at 1605 and must arrive at its destination on time, no later than 1635. I call the Rail Minister.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damien Moore Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
Andrew Stephenson
Thank you, Mr Speaker. As I have just told the House, the budget for Northern Powerhouse Rail available to Transport for the North last year was £59 million; next year it is £67 million. Looking at that funding alone, it has all the money it needs in order to deliver on the priorities in the north of England. At the same time, we are getting on with delivering, with £29 billion invested in transport across the north of England since 2010, while in the Budget we committed to over £40 billion more for transport and rail infrastructure projects, £17.5 billion in renewals and upgrades over the next three years, and £22.6 billion for HS2. We are getting on with delivering, levelling up and building back better from covid-19.
Damien Moore
The infrastructure that underpins the Southport to Manchester Piccadilly service, which serves my constituency, is part of the plan to bring in £400 million-worth of investment and to create jobs. Does my hon. Friend agree that connecting people to jobs and attracting investment is a key part of the levelling-up agenda?
Andrew Stephenson
Fresh from securing £37.5 million for the towns deal for Southport in the Budget, I understand that yesterday my hon. Friend met the Rail Minister once again to make the case for his local rail services, as he has consistently done since he was elected. I can assure him that the industry taskforce will be doing its utmost to address the concerns he has raised while preserving the core aim of producing a simplified timetable that all passengers can rely on.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damien Moore Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
We share the same ambition, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will join us in welcoming the Williams rail review which, among other things, will do so much to devolve more power to local communities.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
Grant Shapps
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend and pay tribute to him for his doughty campaigning for the reopening of that line. Members across the House should have received a letter inviting them to a Beeching event here in the House on 4 February at which they can find out how to apply for schemes in their constituencies.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damien Moore Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Andrew Jones
That was a very entrepreneurial link, Mr Speaker. As soon as the Scottish Government start using the powers that they have, they will be more credible when they ask for more.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)
Northern is now running an extra 2,000 services per week compared with two years ago and is introducing major improvements for its customers, including 101 brand new trains, which will be operating on the network from this summer. This is part of a major programme of rail investment across the north, which will see room for more than 40,000 passengers at the busiest times and will help transform the rail experience for coastal communities travelling into the cities.
Damien Moore
The hourly service from Southport to Manchester Piccadilly is absolutely vital for residents and businesses in Southport. Will my hon. Friend and the Department for Transport join Network Rail in supporting my bid to restore the hourly service from Southport to Manchester Piccadilly in the December 2019 timetable?
Andrew Jones
My hon. Friend is a great champion of rail services in his area, just as he was of the Access for All bid for Hillside station. I appreciate how vital it is to have regular and reliable train services. I am aware that an additional service was added in the May ’19 timetable, and we are working on an extra service for December. Obviously, I am very happy to keep the pressure up and will keep him posted as we make progress.
Transport: Cheshire
Damien Moore Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Justin Madders
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will talk about the Mersey Gateway later, because we have another very difficult situation there.
As my right hon. Friend says, many people have no option but to cross the Mersey to get to work. Many of those people work in public sector organisations such as the police and the NHS, and have not had a real pay rise for almost a decade. They often work shifts. The only way they can get to work is with their own transport, because public transport does not operate on the routes or at the times they need to get to work.
For example, an Ellesmere Port resident works as a physiotherapist specialising in treating head and neck cancer patients from across the north-west at Aintree Hospital. She pays at least £400 more per year than Wirral residents to get to work. What about the band 5 staff nurse who recently began working at the Royal Liverpool Hospital and, due to her shift times, has to drive from Ellesmere Port to Liverpool? She says she finds it financially crippling to pay tunnel tolls and car park fees. She also makes the point that colleagues who live down the road from her on the Wirral and in Liverpool can pay the lower toll, but they have better public transport options anyway.
We know how hard it is for the NHS to recruit and retain staff, particularly nurses, but this policy seems to be forcing them out. One nurse told me that
“the individual cost of the Toll fees on my current wage may force me to leave my nursing post at the Royal Liverpool NHS Foundation trust and seek employment elsewhere. I find my situation ironic due the desperate need for nursing staff at the hospital but am being forced out by unfair and discriminatory postcode politics.”
I could not have put it better myself. Then there are the people who have to travel across the Mersey at both crossings to get treatment at more specialist healthcare services, such as Broadgreen and Alder Hey. Why should people with the most serious conditions be treated in that way?
I have been given dozens of examples of people who use the tunnels for work and who are thinking of taking their talents elsewhere. Ultimately, this is an economically damaging policy. There are also those who go to visit their family, including elderly relatives. I have a constituent who travels over the Mersey nearly every day to care for her 80-year-old mum, who has dementia. She saves the council a fortune in social care costs, but her contribution does not appear to carry any weight. There are others, including the British Sign Language interpreter, the paramedics, the teachers and the Leahurst veterinary school students. None of those people have been considered, because there has been no assessment of the impact of the decision.
Those are just some examples of the hardship faced by my constituents and others who have no choice but to cross the Mersey—hardship the metro Mayor actually appears to recognise. Last year, he said:
“The introduction of additional tolls has proven to be a significant imposition to many from lower socio-economic groups, who are already struggling to make ends meet.”
He was talking about the Mersey Gateway tolls, but it could just as easily have been the Mersey tunnels tolls. I agree, and his argument applies to both crossings. I also agree with him when he said:
“The economic wellbeing of our city region is a joint responsibility between the combined authority and Government.”
I ask the Minister to set out what he will do to ensure that my constituents no longer face these rip-off charges.
If the Minister does not think it is the Government’s responsibility to ensure citizens of this country do not face postcode discrimination, he must agree that they do have responsibility for promises made by members of the Government. I refer specifically to the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, who made promises about the Mersey Gateway that have not materialised. In a tweet on 23 April 2015 he said:
“Confirm we’ll extend free bridge tolls to residents of Cheshire W & Chester + Warrington”.
One of my constituents was understandably a little sceptical about that comment, so he emailed the Conservative party candidate for Ellesmere Port and Neston in the 2015 election, who responded in unequivocal terms:
“If we get a majority it’s a firm commitment and applies to all of Cheshire West Council including us. I’ve been involved in making the case to the Chancellor and he’s listened and acted.”
As we know, the Conservatives did win a majority, but the promise was reneged on. As my constituent said, it was a clear and simple promise on which they have totally failed to deliver in any way whatever.
While we are on the subject, I draw the Minister’s attention to a statement by the then Chancellor during the 2015 election regarding Mersey tunnel fees. He said:
“They will definitely be cut. I think we might be able to go further. I’m quite optimistic that we might be able to go further and abolish them altogether”.
Please, Minister, do not say in responding that this is for local operators to determine. When the Chancellor of the day makes clear statements—promises, no less—it is incumbent on the Government to deliver them. The reputation of this place has had a real shaking in recent times, and no wonder when unambiguous, incontestable promises are made just before an election and jettisoned without a second thought. It destroys the very essence of what politics should be about—honesty and integrity—and replaces it with cynicism and callous disrespect for the public.
I turn to our continuing problems with the Mersey Gateway, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) referred. According to the local campaign group, hundreds of thousands of fines have been issued, and so far about 7,500 penalties have been appealed to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal, which I understand have all been allowed. If that is correct, it must surely encourage the Minister to make enquiries about what on earth is going on. I urge him to look into how these fines are arising. It is clear there are regular issues with people seeing the signs and paying in time. It is far from clear when people have to pay by and how they should pay. Why does it have to always be online?
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
Many of my constituents have been affected and are deeply upset, getting continual fines after they thought they had paid when there was a problem with the system. Paying online is immensely difficult for older people who do not have access to online facilities. Why should they have to go to a shop somewhere to pay? It should not be up to them to find that; it should be up to toll operators, if a toll is to be charged, to make it as easy as possible for people to cross.
Justin Madders
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. The system seems to have been set up to make it as difficult as possible to pay the tolls, which is probably why there are so many difficulties and so many fines. It is the major route to John Lennon airport, and how realistic is it to expect people going on their holidays to pay a toll online by the following day? It is not living in the real world.
There are real concerns about the tactics used by the debt recovery firm once a fine is issued, and about the way costs can escalate to nearly £400 in no time at all. A minimum bailiff charge of £380 for a £2 crossing seems totally disproportionate; it is yet more racketeering. I have heard too many stories of bailiffs turning up unannounced and clamping vehicles before they have spoken to anyone to be confident that they are operating reasonably.
I ask the Minister again to consider that those in the public sector in particular travelling in both directions over the bridge face four-figure increases in their costs just to get to work. I have heard many difficult stories about how people have been affected, including one from a young mum whose husband had a stay in Broadgreen Hospital. It was costing her £15 extra a day just to visit him. She had more than enough to worry about at that time.