Bus Passes: 1950s-born Women

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Cunningham]

I fully agree. The factors that I have set out mean that many of these women are already at a financial disadvantage. The Conservatives’ changes to the state pension age only add to that.

The WASPI women have put up an excellent fight against the injustices, but the Government have refused to admit their mistakes or address the problem. The May Administration and now the Johnson Administration have refused to compensate these women for the money that they have lost out on. I note that the Prime Minister, when he was campaigning to be Prime Minister, acknowledged that there was an injustice there, and that it should be put right, but so far we have seen no action. Instead, we have a general election. It will be interesting to see what he does afterwards.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is being very generous about interventions. He is making an excellent case. Does he agree that one of the biggest injustices was that this was supposed to be a gradual change, yet in reality it is a cliff edge? People either get the bus pass or they do not. Many people are having to wait five years for something that, if they had been born a few months earlier, they would have got automatically. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a problem?

[Mr Cunningham]

It is a problem, but an additional point is that central Government could fund the bus passes and not leave that to local authorities. We all know that at the moment local authorities are cash-strapped, to say the least. I will not go down that road, but I emphasise that the Government should compensate local authorities for the bus passes.

HS2

David Drew Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I would extend that further to Sheffield, Hull, Newcastle and other cities in the north. We can do both things and we will do both things: both upgrading the national rail infrastructure and—the Prime Minister mentioned this in his first speech, which he made in Manchester, so I think it would be a bit churlish not to recognise it—linking northern cities.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

The problem with HS2 is that the benefits are not shared around the country. The west, in particular, gains nothing. Will the Secretary of State look at how we could put the money into electrification and rebuilding the Severn tunnel?

[Grant Shapps]

I do not know in what form this will or will not take place, but I do know that the jobs, skills and supply chain affect the entire nation. There is almost not a constituency in the country that would not benefit in some way. As with any big national infrastructure project, we need to ensure that the benefits of that work and supply chain are spread across the nation.

Drone Users: Registration

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Tim Loughton]

I will give way to the hon. Lady first, and then to the hon. Gentleman.

[Tim Loughton]

I agree. If the hon. Lady bears with me, I will come on to exactly that point. However, it is £16.50, not £16, just to be pernickety.

[Dr Drew]

To build on that point, people who fly radio-controlled model airplanes feel that the way this has been handled has ignored them, and that they were only brought in at the last moment. I hope the hon. Gentleman will talk about why they should be handled very delicately, because they have never been involved in any criminal activity but almost feel that they have been criminalised.

[Tim Loughton]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I will come on to precisely that if he hangs around.

As I say, I think most people acknowledge that we need more robust rules. Back in 2018, the Government decided to mandate a drone registration and education scheme in the UK, to strengthen the accountability of drone users and their awareness of how to fly their drones safely and responsibly. Fortunately, it was agreed—after different thinking originally—that the scheme should register the operator, not every individual aircraft or drone, which could have made it a much more bureaucratic exercise. To that end, the Government propose that everyone in the UK operating drones or model aircraft between 250 grams and 20 kg in weight must register by the end of November this year and take an online safety test, or face a fine.

The scheme will be run by the Civil Aviation Authority which, as the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) said, proposes an annual £16.50 charge per operator, supposedly to cover the cost of running the scheme. That is based on an estimated 170,000 assumed registrations, which would raise something like £2.8 million —not a small sum. The CAA claims that it needs to cover the costs of the IT service hosting the system, IT security packages, a major national drone safety and registration requirement campaign, variable costs linked to user volumes and the ongoing upgrade of drone registration services, although there is not a lot of detail on those ongoing costs and why such a large amount of money is required.

I agree with the hon. Lady. One of my constituents’ main concerns is why the charge is £16.50, and why it is levied every year. Why not just an up-front registration fee, without the need to re-register? The United States scheme costs just $5 for three years, in Ireland it is €5 for three years, and France brought in a free scheme, so £16.50 seems disproportionate, given the experiences of comparable countries. Why is it is as much as £16.50? Why not a one-off fee? What are the ongoing costs? Will it go up from £16.50? These things have a curious habit of going up but never going down when schemes begin. Is it fair to charge a teenager £16.50 for using a drone when Amazon, which in years to come will probably operate fleets of hundreds of drones to deliver goodies to everybody, will also be charged £16.50? Those are my first questions to the Minister.

Active Travel

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I congratulate the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts) on securing the debate.

Let me start by mentioning horse-riding. I have to say this, because my horse-riders have been on to me. Pat Harris of the Mid Cotswolds Tracks and Trails group tells me that there are 2.9 million regular horse riders and half a million carriage users. They do not like being left out of debates about cyclists and pedestrians, because they feel they are an important part of the group of non-motorists.

On cycling, a couple of weeks ago we had a very interesting session upstairs, which was led by members of the science community. They mentioned that the number of cyclist and pedestrian accidents had flatlined recently. That is sad—obviously, we want the number of accidents to reduce considerably—but they reminded us that there are ways in which side-on accidents can be prevented. If we “think bike” when we come to a road junction, we should always be looking to avoid anything coming into conflict with us.

I am a keen cyclist. The problem is that it is getting increasingly difficult to cycle, particularly during the winter. Sadly, our roads are deteriorating beyond all recognition. Potholes are a nightmare for cyclists, but my biggest bugbear is leaves. Because we do not sweep up leaves any more, they all get pushed to the side of the road, where cyclists cycle, and they get wet and freeze. I challenge anyone to stay on a bike while going over such a slippery surface. My plea to the Minister is to ask local authorities to undertake decent road maintenance so that cyclists are prioritised. I suspect that an awful lot of accidents involving cyclists—notwithstanding the even more serious accidents involving other road users—occur because people come off their bike as a result of the road surface.

The real reason why people do not walk nowadays—the reason they do not walk their children to school in particular—is air quality. Particularly in built-up areas, the quality of the air leads people to use their cars. That is counterintuitive and wrong. We have to get children back to walking as their main way of getting about; otherwise, we will have increasing issues with obesity, which has been mentioned, and all the things that come from that. We must ensure that the Government address and prioritise these issues.

Rail Fares: Cheltenham and London

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I have called this debate on rail fares between Cheltenham and London because when it comes to rail travel, my constituents are not being treated fairly. Local people, simply because they live where I and my constituents do, are being charged more per mile for their train travel to London than others who live a similar distance from the capital. It is an injustice that stretches back decades and it needs to be put right.

Cheltenham is around 90 miles or so from London. Because Dr Beeching, in his wisdom, pulled up the more direct line through Andoversford, the train line itself is a little lengthier because it travels a more circuitous route, but the central point remains: it is not terribly far from London at all. It is a substantial town, with more than 110,000 people. It is larger than Basingstoke, Chelmsford, Maidstone and Worcester. It is the home of GCHQ and GE Aviation—certainly if we include Bishops Cleeve. It is the home of Spirax-Sarco and Superdry. It hosts the world famous Cheltenham jump racing festival, the renowned literature, jazz, and science festivals, and much more besides. When it comes to train use, Cheltenham is by far the busiest station in Gloucestershire. Data from the Office of Rail Regulation shows that 2.35 million passengers used the station in 2016-17—almost as many as all the other stations on the route combined, and twice as many as 10 years ago.

Despite all that, there is a glaring discrepancy when it comes to the price of tickets, and season tickets in particular. Take, for example, Kingham to London, which is admittedly a shorter distance, but not much shorter. The season ticket price is £7,124. What about Bath Spa to London, which is further than Cheltenham to London? The season ticket price is £8,064. A season ticket for Bristol Temple Meads to London is £8,244, and a season ticket for Worcester to London is £8,400, yet a season ticket for Cheltenham to London Paddington is £10,344. To make the point absolutely clear: were someone to go way further than Cheltenham, down to Exeter, which is a similarly sized town, the distance from London is 202 miles, which is approximately double the distance to Cheltenham. The season ticket for Exeter to London is £9,788. In other words, it is around £500 cheaper than the Cheltenham season ticket. How can that possibly be fair?

What rubs salt into the wounds is that the service is not as good as it should be. First, there is a systemic problem: it is too slow overall. I see the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) nodding his head in agreement. Let me put that into some kind of perspective: the journey from Bristol to London takes around an hour and 43 minutes, and from Exeter, which as I said is around double the distance, it takes two hours and two minutes to get to London, yet the shortest journey from Cheltenham takes longer still than that. On average, it takes two hours and 16 minutes.

The first problem, then, is that it is too slow, which is galling because there was a time when Cheltenham had the fastest train service anywhere in the country—the Cheltenham Flyer was the fastest train in the land. The second problem is that there are too many delays and cancellations. On Saturday 4 August, five services were cancelled because a train manager was not available.

What is the impact of all this? Put bluntly, the impact in my constituency is modal shift, which is a technical way of saying that people get in their cars. So many of my constituents drive to Kemble, Kingham, Swindon, Oxford, or even all the way to London. My constituents express frustration at the fact that they are forced to do so and at the fact that that has an unhelpful impact on the environment and air quality. Other concerns are expressed about businesses being restricted from developing and expanding in the way that they otherwise might have done. I posted on social media about this issue, and businesses in Eagle Tower in the centre of Cheltenham said that they are unable to recruit in the way that they might otherwise do or to expand their businesses.

This issue is also important because Cheltenham has plans for a cyber-park, which I have been passionate about since 2014 and which has made really crucial steps forward in recent months. The Department for Transport has committed £22 million in transport infrastructure improvements. The Department for International Trade is promoting the park at international conferences and so on. The park will succeed, but its ability to do so will be immeasurably enhanced if we can have an affordable and good rail connection with London.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Considering that we are talking about the Stroud Valleys line, which goes to Cheltenham, I have a vested interest in this matter. On fares, when I had to travel to Gloucester last week, I found to my shock that it cost an extra £10 either way. That may well be what happens from where I live in Stonehouse, and yet that is exactly the same cost of just getting a train from Stonehouse to London. In other words, the company is charging a person the same when they are on the train as they would do if they were getting on the train for the shorter journey. That cannot be right or fair. Effectively, it is charging the punter more than it should. Does he agree?

[Alex Chalk]

I do agree, yes. There are two aspects to the pricing perversity that that helpful intervention discloses. First, the line itself is more expensive than similar lines. Secondly, there can be perversities within the line itself, which is an inequity for local people. In the interests of balance, it is important to note that there are some really important and good things taking place. Nationally, I commend the fact that the Government are continuing with an ambitious programme of investment. That is £48 billion over the next five years. The DFT is in the process of moving from Delay Repay 30 to Delay Repay 15, which is more justice for consumers. In Gloucestershire, the redoubling of the Kemble to Swindon line is a hugely positive infrastructure improvement. There are impending timetable changes and new faster trains, so we will be getting a direct hourly sub-two hour service to London in 2019. That is all great. It is also great that Cheltenham is getting an additional 70 surface car parking spaces, taking capacity to at least 320 spaces. That is investment worth £700,000 going into Cheltenham, so that is also good news, and there is further investment to come. I am not standing here and saying that, somehow, we should turn the clock back. I do not believe in renationalisation. I am just about old enough to remember British Rail, and it was absolutely terrible. The fact is that, since privatisation, a huge amount of money has been invested in our railways and passenger numbers have soared.

It is not enough to say that renationalisation would be a terrible backward step. It is not enough to say that it would cost the taxpayer, not save them money. It is true that it would reduce investment, not increase it, and innovation would be stifled, not encouraged and so on. However, simply rejecting renationalisation is not enough. The market needs to be forced to act fairly. Private companies have a responsibility to the public, and a particular responsibility where the public is a captive market, and cannot take their custom elsewhere, as is the case on the railways. The provider must operate within a framework that ensures that that monopoly position is not abused and customers are treated fairly. It is fair to say that, in these circumstances, it is not acting as it should. In a debate on 15 October—so, not very long ago—the then rail Minister referred to “historical anomalies”. He also stated:

“No one could defend the current fares system”.—[Official Report, 15 October 2018; Vol. 647, c. 476.]

He was absolutely right, and I really welcomed that frank admission. One issue is that monopoly power on certain lines distorts pricing. For example, if we look at Grantham, which is also around 100 miles from London, we see that there are three franchises competing to provide a service. A season ticket from Grantham is around £3,000 a year less. Equally, if we look at Crewe, where there are two operators, it is only £500 a year more, despite being 170 miles from London, so a considerable distance further. The issue of whether there is a single operator or more providers can make a big difference as well.

This issue must be fixed. I am aware that the Government have commissioned the Rail Delivery Group’s “Easier Fares” consultation, and are considering that. I am also aware that, on 11 October, the Secretary of State launched a “root and branch review of the rail industry”. In his words, he said:

“It is vital that this review leaves no stone unturned and makes bold recommendations for the future.”

I warmly welcome that, but one of those stones needs to be marked “Cheltenham”. We are not asking for special treatment, but we are asking for fair treatment. For the sake of my constituents and the future of the town I represent, that cannot come soon enough.

Road Safety

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) on securing this very worthwhile debate. My contribution will be very short and will cover slightly different areas to those covered so far.

I am indebted to many of my parish councils. I attended a meeting last Friday at St Paul’s church in Whiteshill and over two thirds of my parish councils were represented there. The issue that people came to discuss was speeding. It is probably the biggest issue I have, in terms of postbag, outside of all the individual issues that we all face as Members of Parliament.

People came to that meeting to express their concerns, but I was also greatly indebted to my friend Charles Pedrick, who has done more than anyone I know in the area to highlight the issue of what to do about speeding. He organised the meeting, with the support of Martin Surl, Gloucestershire’s police and crime commissioner, who has put his money where his mouth is by partly paying for two automatic number plate recognition cameras—one in Whiteshill, which is why we were there, and the other one in Rodborough. The cameras have demonstrated that, in the main, people are law-abiding, but those who break the law do so in a hideous way, by driving at 70 mph through a 30 mph zone.

My first question to the Minister—this is why I will be brief—is whether it is possible that we could use the data that has been collected. In Gloucestershire, about 100,000 pieces of data have been collected in the year or so since the two ANPR cameras have been up. At the moment, that data is used by the police. They go and knock on a door, in extremis, or they send letters to those who have offended seriously, not once or twice but on a regular basis. Is it possible that we could use that data more proactively, so that we can catch these people out?

I was genuinely shocked when I tabled a parliamentary question about how many people in Gloucestershire were banned from driving. Given how serious speeding and drink-driving are, the number is infinitesimally small, and that is because we do not seem to have any joined-up action. Can we use that information to crack down on those people who are making other people’s lives a misery?

Of course, it is not only people who are affected by speeding but cows and horses. There are a number of commons in my constituency. Every year, when the cows are put out we lose about 12 of them, because they are knocked down. However, it is not just a case of knocking down an animal; such incidents have a hideous impact on the affected farmers, who have to pick up the beast and who also often lose out financially. There is very little that can be done about the perpetrators. We ought to be able to do much more to them. If anyone hits an animal in a car, it is their own fault; they were driving without due care and attention. Is there something more that we can do to follow up on those individuals who have had accidents and caused all this disruption?

The same is true of horses. We are considering how we can have safer bridleways, but how do people get to those safer bridleways? We need to consider, very carefully, how the network can be joined up, to ensure that people are able to ride their horses safely, without people rushing past them at 60 mph.

My last point comes from the meeting I attended last week and it is a request to look at traffic regulation orders. Can we have a way in which we can make villages more composite, so that each village does not have to pay quite a large sum of money to get a TRO to reduce the speed in their area to 20 mph, which is largely recognised as being what villages need?

If the Minister could answer those questions in the short time that he has today, I would be very grateful.

Confidence in the Secretary of State for Transport

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that although this issue is concentrated in the north, the east and London, it is a national problem? Great Western has been going through its own dramatic problems, with a huge number of cancellations, driver shortages and all the other problems that have been mentioned. It is a national problem.

[Grahame Morris]

I am grateful for that thoughtful intervention, and my hon. Friend makes a good point. However, although there are national issues with the training of drivers and ensuring that they have the appropriate skillset, industry stakeholders pointed out to the Department and, presumably, the Secretary of State that it would normally take 40 weeks to prepare, identify training needs and ensure that drivers were in place, but in this case only 16 weeks were allocated and, if my memory of yesterday’s evidence serves me right, it was not until around two days before implementation, when they were drawing up the driver rosters, that they discovered that they had the wrong skill mix and that the drivers were in the wrong places to operate the new timetable. So although my hon. Friend makes a good point, Ministers and the Secretary of State must ultimately bear responsibility for the decisions that were made.

Potholes and Road Maintenance

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. Of course, one of the problems is that local authorities’ budgets have been slashed consistently over the last eight years, to the point that local authorities are often left able to deal only with their legal obligations, and potholes and road repairs have to be put on the backburner.

Such worries are particularly serious for cyclists, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) mentioned. Between 2007 and 2016, Government statistics show that at least 390 people were killed or seriously injured as a direct consequence of potholes and other road defects. More than 15 times that number of people are reported to have had less serious crashes because of them.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

As a cyclist, I sympathise with my hon. Friend’s excellent speech. Does she accept that one of the biggest dangers is the poor repair of trenches? Public utilities coming in and doing an inferior repair is the most dangerous thing of all for cyclists.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

That is absolutely correct; I cannot disagree with that.

Damaged roads are also a serious concern for the elderly and for children. Some roads in my constituency of Bolton South East are particularly problematic. The potholes in Westland Avenue are so big that when it rains, the rainwater stays. That has caused damage to people’s homes. At least four families have had to be taken away from their homes to be rehoused elsewhere, and two other families are living in the upstairs part of their home.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

David Drew Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Karl Turner]

The strategy has to address the issue of remote areas—that is essential. In Committee, the then Minister gave assurances that it would. We now know, of course, that the strategy will be published in March. I would like to press this Minister on how security will be ensured in regards to the transmission of data from charge points. That issue was brought up repeatedly in Committee, and the Government’s new clause does not seem to address it head on.

The Opposition are also supportive of Government amendment 1, which relates to enforcement. It expands Clause 13 so that the requirements allow for the inspection or testing of “any thing” to do with charge points rather than just allowing the person “to enter any land”. That position was ambiguous and we welcome any tightening up of the wording in the Bill. The original subsection gave prescribed persons permission to enter land but did not include much else. The Government amendment extends the scope of enforcement and defines what documents and other important data and information can be investigated in order to inspect whether the proper regulations have been complied with when it comes to charge points.

We are also supportive of new clause 2, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse). Currently the Bill regulates for the provision of public charging points at large fuel retailers. The new clause would mean that owners and operators of public facilities such as supermarkets, public car parks and airports would also be required to provide charging facilities. Such locations would already have the service areas for vehicles to park up and be placed on charge. Having accessibility to charging points is vital to promoting the use of electric vehicles, and the new clause seems a sensible way of doing just that. The objective of the new clause is commendable, and I trust the Minister will bear that in mind when he is devising the Government strategy on this.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I refer to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. At the moment, electricity charging points at motorway service stations are separate from petrol stations. Does my hon. Friend anticipate that when we have fully accessible electricity charging point provision they will be one and the same, on the same location—or will they remain separate?

[Karl Turner]

I think they will be an integral part of these sites. That is how things would have to work in order to be practical.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) on tabling new clause 3 and put on record my personal support, and that of our Front-Bench team, for the new clause. New clause 3 focuses on public transport and commercial vehicles, but it raises many of the issues I was hoping to speak to in relation to new clause 4. For uptake to be encouraged, electric vehicles need to be practical, affordable and convenient for users, which means putting in place the necessary infrastructure. There are currently nearly 12,000—11,862, to be precise—charging points for electric vehicles in the UK, but there are multiple charging point operators, each with their own plugs, software, customer charges, billing systems and payment methods. These are also unevenly distributed, with more charging points available on the Orkney Islands than in Blackpool, Grimsby and my own fair city of Hull combined. New clause 3 would ensure that the Secretary of State assesses the costs, benefits, location and feasibility of charging points to enable the promotion of a national network of sustainable charging points for commercial and public transport.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Drew Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

This is an important matter. The A303 and the A358 are a crucial part of our investment programme in the west country, and they will open up a new corridor for people travelling down to the south-west, but they do have to work for my hon. Friend’s constituents and others in the region, particularly for the new employment area next to the motorway in her constituency. I assure her that I will continue to work with her to ensure that the projects delivers both for the region and nationally.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

There is some evidence that trains from Paddington to Bristol and onwards are much better, less crowded and more reliable. However, people face delays and overcrowded and unreliable trains when getting from the south-west to the midlands. Will the Secretary of State put some funding into those lines?

[Chris Grayling]

I am aware of the particular congestion problems on the CrossCountry franchise. We will be re-letting the franchise shortly, and I want to see longer trains with more capacity for passengers. All of us who travel on CrossCountry trains from time to time know that they are too short for the loads they carry, and we need to find a way of sorting that out.