Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

The Government are on track to deliver the policy. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, we are working with companies to build substantial supply chains that then have to scale up by several orders of magnitude in order to meet the scale of orders. If we look at the number that have been ordered alone: for zero emission bus regional areas, the ZEBRA scheme, 1,342; 275 for Coventry; 20 will be going to Cambridgeshire in the next few weeks, I am pleased to say; and 350 to other schemes in England outside London. The total so far is 3,429, which is well on track to meet our target.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Will the Minister visit Morebus, serving my constituency, because there he will learn that its new buses generate fewer emissions than I do pushing my lawnmower?

[Jesse Norman]

One can take that as a comment either about buses or about the size of my right hon. Friend’s lawnmower—let us assume that it is about buses. I thank him for his interest and I am certainly happy to discuss that further with him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

When will services be restored on the mainline between Waterloo and Southampton?

[Huw Merriman]

I am happy to write to my right hon. Friend on that matter. I am not sure whether he is referring to landslips and recent weather-related events, but Network Rail is working incredibly hard to deliver. Perhaps I can update the entire House by putting in the Library a letter with the most recent update.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury]

In the past three months alone, I have received 26 complaints about delays at the DVLA—

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Hear, hear!

--- Later in debate ---

[Trudy Harrison]

I am delighted to confirm that we have now appointed Chris Boardman as the acting CEO of Active Travel England, which I will be meeting after this session. Actually, the £2 billion is an unprecedented amount to be investing in walking and cycling over this Parliament. Our investment is already seeing results: levels of cycling increased by 46% in 2020 compared with 2019. However, I would like to put on record my thanks to the hon. Member for the work she does on the all-party parliamentary group on cycling and walking, which I look forward to joining.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I cycle for 10 hours a week, and on a narrow forest road I always cycle close to the kerb, because I am a driver too and I want to accommodate drivers. The advice in the new code that I should cycle in the centre of the carriageway is bonkers, isn’t it?

[Trudy Harrison]

I would like to stress that that advice is only on narrow roads, but I am delighted that my right hon. Friend has embraced cycling, because we want to see half of the journeys made in towns and cities walked or cycled by 2030.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Trudy Harrison)]

The Government remain absolutely committed to supporting the introduction of 4,000 zero-emission buses and achieving a zero-emission bus fleet. I had the joy of visiting a place in Glasgow, when I was there for COP26, that is rolling out those buses, and this will support our climate ambitions, improve local transport for communities and support high-quality green jobs. Overall, we are providing £525 million of funding for ZEBs this Parliament, and the Government have provided funding for 900 zero-emission buses through existing funding schemes.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

T5. Were the brilliant bus recovery grant to end, at current passenger number levels, I could lose half of my services. Will the Secretary of State consider extending but tapering it, so that more services have a chance to recover passenger numbers to economic viability?

[Trudy Harrison]

We will of course look into my right hon. Friend’s suggestion, but over the past two years we have provided over £1.7 billion in covid-related support to the bus sector. The recovery grant is worth more than £250 million to operators and local authorities, and has been supporting the sector as passenger numbers remain suppressed.

Income tax (charge)

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish]

Putting my hat on as the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, and having done a lot in previous inquiries on air quality, I should come and see exactly what Aberdeen is doing, because hydrogen has huge capabilities.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Forgive my ignorance, but does a hydrogen-propelled vehicle work on the same principle generally as the internal combustion engine, in that there is an explosion that creates a vacuum that turns a crank?

[Neil Parish]

I do not have the detail to give an exact answer to my right hon. Friend, but I do know that hydrogen is mainly produced from water with electricity, so the actual fuel itself is so much cleaner and so much less polluting. I cannot give him all the details of exactly how the engine itself runs, but it uses a clean fuel and gives that support.

Overall, I believe that this Budget is very good for the future of this country and the people of this country. I look forward, as I have said, to the statement later this evening from the Chancellor, because I think that the thing that is worrying all our populations and all our constituents at the moment is coronavirus. We need to get through this. We need people to have enough income to pay their rent or their mortgage and keep their families running, as well as their businesses, so that we do not have a knock-on effect of business failure bringing other businesses down with it. I look forward to the statement, and I very much welcome this Budget.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Yes, definitely. That will level up in the process, but we have to get private sector involvement. It is the private sector that creates jobs, not the public sector. That is a means to an end in terms of transport spending. We have to get the private sector to move into these areas, start up and scale up or expand their businesses.

I primarily want to talk about covid-19. We are talking about levelling up. If we are not careful with this, there will be levelling down, because the coronavirus will have a huge impact. We cannot even contemplate the size of the impact that this could have on our economy and business sector. This could be an existential crisis for hundreds of thousands of businesses. It is huge.

The situation is so fluid, but we need to give people confidence—and we are getting there—that we will support them through this crisis. I was heartened by the Chancellor talking at the Dispatch Box about what he has done so far and what he will do in future if that is not enough. He has spoken this afternoon about a massively enhanced package, and that is exactly what we need, because the scale of this is huge. Capital Economics does not give the rosiest outlook in its forecast of the economic situation in the UK. It predicts that there could be a 15% drop in gross domestic product within a three-month period. If we compare that with the great financial crash, we saw a 6% reduction in GDP over a few years from 2008.

We need to say to businesses and consumers—and if we do not, it will cost us the amount anyway—what the German Finance Minister said a week ago: that, as far as possible, no company should get into existential trouble and no job should be lost as a result of this crisis. That is the message we need to get out. Macron has said the same thing, with a €300 billion guarantee that no firm will go bust due to social distancing.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

That is an admirable ambition to have and I do hope that the Government accept that ambition, but be in no doubt that we have, in effect, closed down the hospitality industry and public entertainment, and that will require the Government to pay those wages.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. One of the difficulties with the announcement last night was that it was not brought forward with a package of remediation or mitigation. I think that has come today, and clarity of that is very welcome.

We are going to need to pump hundreds of billions of pounds—not the odd billion, £5 billion or £10 billion—into the economy. I think the Chancellor has announced today £330 billion-worth of loans for the business sector, which is absolutely right, with £25,000 for businesses that are not insured for losses from business interruption, plus business rates holidays and three-month mortgage holidays, which is also absolutely right. If we talk about this in terms of hundreds of billions of pounds, the natural question is: where are we going to get that money from? This is a time when we have to set aside the fiscal rules. We will be paying for this anyway, in lost jobs and businesses, redundancy payments and reductions in tax receipts, if we do not put a huge fiscal stimulus into the system right now, so I welcome the measures from the Chancellor.

We need a few things in addition. We saw in 2008 that banks did not support businesses through that financial crisis—there is no doubt about it; in fact, quite the opposite. We need a commitment from the banks, UK Finance and the Treasury that they will continue to cash-flow businesses for as much as they need until they get through this period. To make sure that they do that, we should introduce emergency legislation to bring SME loans and financing commercial loans within the regulatory perimeter. That would mean that banks would have to have the oversight of the Financial Conduct Authority, and indeed of Members in this place, if they did not do the right thing through that period.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Everitt]

That is an excellent point and it is well made. The nutrition of the people of Milton Keynes is well served by the Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

We find ourselves in a strange situation in this Budget debate. It is almost as if the rules have changed. As I stand to speak, we are digesting the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has launched a £330 billion fiscal bazooka at the coronavirus to support our businesses, many of which are in my beautiful constituency. In that context, it feels odd to be talking about last week’s Budget. It was going to be the levelling-up Budget. It was going to be the got-Brexit-done Budget. It was going to be the Budget of infrastructure. Of course, it was the first-swing-at-corona Budget. As we look at it now, it was last week’s Budget. These are indeed strange times. However, I am sure that many Members on the Conservative Benches, and possibly some others, were struck by the optimism, hope and positive spirit of the Budget. It was enthusiastic about our future. While we deal with the sheer scale of the coronavirus outbreak, we should take some joy from the fact that this is a Government who are looking forward beyond the coronavirus and into a world where we have levelled up and we will have a more equal, more productive and more aspirant, tolerant society. It is a Budget of hope and positivity.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

Does my hon. Friend recall a poster from the 2010 election campaign? It had a picture of a baby and the slogan, “He’s got his mother’s eyes, his father’s hair and Gordon Brown’s debt”. Does he think that future generations will applaud us for the action that we are taking, or curse us?

[Ben Everitt]

My right hon. Friend refers to the bail-out of the banks over a decade ago, which cost our economy in the region of £860 billion. It proved 10 long years before we could get over its effects, during which the British people worked incredibly hard and everybody came together, putting us in a position now where we are dealing with the next crisis. Will we be left with a burden of debt? Undoubtedly. Is it the right thing to do? Given the context, it probably is.

Last week’s Budget was excellent for families, not just in my constituency, but across the country. As set out by the Chancellor of fiscal bazooka fame, it will level up the economy, raise our regions, increase investment and encourage growth across the country. On transport, I particularly welcome not the big flashy transport projects, but the smaller, almost overlooked projects that engage our transport networks on a more local level.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

As usual, I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. The fact is that the Secretary of State has been leading the way in this area, and the Department for Transport is also a world leader. Some 200,000 ultra low-emission battery, electric, and plug-in hybrid vehicles are registered in the UK, and we are the second-largest market for ultra low emission vehicles in the European Union, so the hon. Gentleman is quite wrong.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

How will it work for houses that do not have a driveway or reserved on-street parking, and what does the Minister mean by the term “en suite”?

[Michael Ellis]

Did I say “en suite”? We are investing in technologies and supporting innovations in on-street architecture—[Laughter.] We might invest in “en suite” architecture as well, but that would not be for my Department. Fixtures have been fitted to streetlamps, for example, and there have been innovations in contactless charging. Businesses around the country are working on various mechanisms, and this Department is supporting many of them with funding to help them to invent new technologies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones]

I simply do not accept the premise of the hon. Gentleman’s question. This service is not being run on the cheap. We are seeing record levels of investment—both private and public investment is at a record level. Perhaps I should point out to him that his party’s policy is to nationalise the railways, which will result in more cash required from the Government, but of course the Labour party has not yet said where it might come from. We are focused on delivering the enhancements to the network, which will meet our aspirations for a high-capacity, environmentally clean rail network underpinning the UK economy. Therefore, I am afraid that I cannot really agree with the premise of the question.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Is there any progress internationally in discussions to include maritime and aviation emissions?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

When it comes to maritime emissions, we can look at the work of the International Maritime Organisation, which is opposite us on the Thames. A huge amount of work was done earlier this year to look at driving down greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050. It is interesting to note that this Government led the high-ambition coalition to get that agreement made, so we are not only leading nationally, but driving down greenhouse gas emissions internationally as well.

No-Deal Brexit: Cross-channel Freight

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

As usual, we have the customary stream of nonsense from the hon. Gentleman. This issue has been scrutinised, and will continue to be scrutinised, by members of the National Audit Office, who are the appropriate people to do so. I will not comment on ongoing legal matters, except to say that the Government vigorously disagree with P&O and will defend themselves to the hilt. I really do not think that he listened to what I said today, or that he has listened for the past few times that I have talked about this in the House. The fact is that he has disagreed all along with the steps that we have taken. Let me read to him a small excerpt from a letter that I received last month. It said that my officials

“have also asked that critical exports should be given priority access to the additional ferry capacity secured by the UK Government where this is not required for essential supplies.”

That request, clearly recognising the need for that capacity, came from the Cabinet Minister in the SNP Scottish Government.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

We would not have had to spend the money had the party of the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) voted for the agreement. Is my right hon. Friend looking forward to the return of duty free on the ferries as much as I am?

[Chris Grayling]

It is very much my hope that we do reach an agreement and that duty free will not be necessary, but I am sure that if it becomes necessary, my right hon. Friend will have that opportunity. None the less, he makes a good point. To Members across this House who complain about the money that we have rightly spent on an insurance policy against a no-deal outcome, I say that the way of preventing that money being spent would have been to vote for the deal. Opposition parties have systematically refused to accept that what is before this House, and what has been before this House, is a sensible deal to deliver a sensible future partnership with the European Union. It is just a shame that they have always been unwilling to accept that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is wrong, because a new regulation is now in place that guarantees aviation between the UK and the EU in all circumstances, and it does not include any kind of cap.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

14. What bilateral arrangements will be in place if we leave next Friday with no deal?

[Chris Grayling]

We had done a lot of work on ensuring that we had good plans for bilateral arrangements, were they to become necessary, but I can tell the House that in the past few days the European Council has confirmed and ratified a regulation to ensure that across the whole European Union flights will continue as normal this summer. That means people can go ahead and book their holidays with impunity and enjoy a good time in their normal destinations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I hope that the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) enjoyed either his breakfast or the rare benefit of a lie-in—I know not which. No doubt we will hear from him in due course.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

2. What plans he has to repair the A35 at Redbridge.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Jesse Norman)]

As my right hon. Friend will know, the A35 is a local road. As such, it falls to Hampshire County Council as the local highway authority.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

It is a strategic route and, at £25 million, this is too much to expect of a county council, isn’t it?

[Jesse Norman]

I can only admire my right hon. Friend for the extreme brevity of his question. Hampshire County Council did receive an entirely unexpected £11.9 million as a result of the budget settlement of £420 million for local roads, but I take his point. The Government are allocating the council £168 million until 2021, and the council can use that as it sees fit. There is also the possibility for it to apply to other schemes, including the major roads network scheme, which, as my right hon. Friend will know, requires some national transport body agreement. If that is secured, we would be happy to look at the matter later in the year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I think that the aviation sector will continue to grow and develop as it has in recent years. We will continue to have connections across Europe, as we do at the moment, and, of course, with the plans for the expansion of Heathrow airport, there will be a real opportunity for apprenticeships in the sector and to open up new routes around the world, for example to emerging markets in Asia. I see the next 10 years as ones of great opportunity for the aviation sector.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

The EU’s contingency arrangements are welcome, but what estimate has the Secretary of State made of the prospects for airports such as Bournemouth that want to increase their routes to Europe over the next year?

[Chris Grayling]

The European Union has said that it wants to keep flights at the current levels, and I suspect that they will find that that is not a universally held view among member states.