Ports and Port Connectivity

Darren Paffey Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) for securing a debate on this important issue. Ports handle 95% of Britain’s physical trade; sea freight accounts for the majority of the UK’s international freight but, as we have heard, the grid and road and rail infrastructure outside the port gates are too often treated as an afterthought. If the Government are serious about economic growth, decarbonisation and national resilience—as I believe they are—we need to see changes in how we approach this.

The port of Southampton, in my constituency, demonstrates why. It is Europe’s leading cruise turnaround port and the UK’s second-largest container terminal. Three million passengers come through each year, and it is an important gateway for vehicles, manufactured goods and international trade, dealing with more than £71 billion of value every year. It supports 45,000 jobs nationwide, and anchors a wider Solent maritime cluster, worth £10.6 billion. I know this debate is not a competition for the best port in the country, but Southampton would make a very strong case.

In spite of all the strengths and benefits I have just listed, Southampton is not just a stereotypical rich south-eastern seat. Too many communities around the port experience severe deprivation and limited opportunity. Some recent More in Common research found that 58% of 18 to 34-year-olds coming into the workforce in coastal communities are considering moving away, most of them citing a lack of jobs. The investment we are asking for is not just about expanding ports for the sake of it; it is about redistributing that value back into the communities that generate it. That investment locally can be a catalyst for national growth. Southampton has been leading on this: we delivered the UK’s first commercial-scale cruise ship-to-shore power facility. That cut 5,000 tonnes of carbon and has generated £150 million in gross value added benefits in 2024 alone.

Private investment in and around the port is moving ahead, but the constraint is often the public infrastructure outside its gates. I struggle with the fact that we have two ship-to-shore plug-in points, but we can use only one of them. If we plug the second one in, the lights in Southampton go out. If the one UK port that is already leading on shore power cannot fully utilise that potential for another decade—we have been told that the grid expansion will not come until 2036—how much later will the rest of Britain be? In the meantime, our European competitors will spend years investing in their infrastructure, getting greener shipping services and stealing a march on their competitors. There is an urgency to this.

The case for road and rail investment is just as strong. DP World’s modal shift programme has increased proportion of containers leaving Southampton by rail from 21% to more than 30% in just three years. That is 200,000 lorry journeys off the roads, saving 45,000 tonnes of carbon. Again, we just need the scale to continue.

I will close with three specific asks for the Minister. I am grateful for his engagement with me and the sector recently. First, can we bring forward the grid supply point upgrade at Southampton? A 2036 timeline is not compatible with our 2030 shore power obligations or our sector’s decarbonisation ambitions. Secondly, can we commit to ringfencing the maritime emissions trading scheme revenues for port and maritime decarbonisation infrastructure? Finally, can we get Great British Railways and National Highways to treat freight pass and port connectivity as first-order planning priorities? Let us match our ambition with urgency and a plan.