Transport for London Funding

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) on securing the debate. I also congratulate the Minister of State on his recent promotion, and I know that he will enjoy the additional challenges it brings.

I have been asked to sum up for the third party, and I will try something quite unusual, which is to do so in a third-party way, and to be as apolitical and as helpful as I can. I want to refer to Scotland and what the Scottish Government are doing, because I believe in their approach, and I think it would be helpful to bring it into this discussion.

The hon. Member for Harrow West talked about Transport for London services being crucial to business and to people. He talked about London’s urban growth being the fastest in the European Union. I have something in common with him, because Inverness is the fastest-growing city overall in Europe. I know exactly what he is talking about, but perhaps on a different scale.

People coming into London have an interest in this issue as well as those already in London. People need to make internal connections, but external connections cannot be ignored. It is every bit as important to make sure that links such as the Gatwick Express operate properly. I hear again that it is a disaster this morning, incidentally, with two trains cancelled and another stuck for many minutes on the line. The hon. Gentleman talked about roads being under pressure, and the knock-on impact of a failure to invest. That came through in all hon. Members’ contributions, as did the point that what may have been missing is a longer-term vision and an overall view of how things should be developed.

The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) made an important intervention in which she talked about the absolute need to engage people in major decisions. That brings me to my first point about the approach in Scotland, which I feel passionate about. I think there is agreement across parties on an outcomes-based approach to development, where we take things forward towards a longer-term outcome with people in mind, rather than as an afterthought. That came through time and again.

The Minister spoke in an intervention about smart ticketing, and I compliment him on doing so. We have to make it easier for people to use different modes of transport, but it is important—we must mention this early—that smart ticketing be fair. It should be carried forward in such a way as to enable everybody to interact with it. A point was made about fairness later on, and adopting an outcomes-based approach makes a big difference to that.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) rightly mentioned the hard-working staff on the network. Too often, we forget that when we ask people to take charge of new developments and bigger challenges, those involved in their delivery will be put under pressure. The hon. Gentleman was quite right to mention those people. We should reflect in the same way on the people who work in the transport system across the nations of the UK. He made the telling point that the DLR recently had its first strike for 23 years, and that tells us something about the communication that is needed. He also made an important point about the growing need to take shipping into account.

One thing missing from the debate—I am not trying to score points, but I want to take in the context—was any discussion of possible airport expansion. Hon. Members do not know where the pressure will be in London, because the decision has not been made yet, but that must be taken into account in future planning.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

Some of us, like the hon. Gentleman, listened in the Chamber yesterday afternoon to the statement from the Government, in which they delayed the decision yet again. That was most frustrating for most colleagues right across the Chamber.

[Drew Hendry]

I agree about that frustration. As I have said, I will not try to use this debate to score points, but we must look at making decisions that are connected to others that we make. Other hon. Members brought that out in spades today.

The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) talked about Transport for London as a property developer. He asked what kind of developer it would be, and what it would do in future. The point about outcomes for people shone through in his questions, and it is important to look at what kind of outcomes there will be. If property development will be a vehicle for investment, he is quite right to say that we should know what kind of investment will be made. He asked what the point was of TfL investments if not to improve transport for people.

The hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) talked about air pollution, having the correct infrastructure requirements, and the need to see what people want to do in the future, which goes back to my point about outcomes. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is unfortunately not in his place, mentioned buses in an intervention. I want to mention Britain’s largest bus manufacturer, Alexander Dennis, in Falkirk. It would, I am sure, be delighted to supply vehicles. What is needed is an outcomes-based approach with a longer-term view. People should not, as the hon. Member for Eltham pointed out, be made to pay more just because of where they live. That should be taken into account when deciding how to take things forward.

I said I would talk about Scotland. Since 2007, more than £15 billion has been invested in transport, and the Scottish Government have adopted an outcomes-based approach to policy, through which they look for a healthier, wealthier, greener approach to development. I believe that that is now considered to be the right approach by those from across the different parties in Scotland. We have looked at sustainable transport options that will encourage people out of their cars, and made sure that we made the investments necessary to connect people.

Our conversation this morning contains a contradictory message, and I will fire back a bit of a warning to hon. Members. They cannot say, “Let’s not invest in cycling and walking” while moaning about emissions and congestion. There has to be a balance between those things. In Scotland, since 2011, we have invested in 190 km of cycling and walking routes. We have also made the largest single investment in Scotland’s transport history with the £3 billion upgrade of the A9, because it is a vital part of the transport mix, and it is what people asked for and required. I am delighted to say that it connects my constituency with Perth, and that connection is ongoing. That development was vital to the highlands economy, and it was part of our work on a mix of transport options, which included simultaneous investment in the rail links between Aberdeen and Inverness, and Inverness and Perth. Investment is not limited to those lines, however; hon. Members will be aware of the recently opened borders railway link, with which we threw off the ghost of the railway cutback and built the first new railway in Scotland since the Beeching cuts. In our rounded approach, we take an outcomes-based look at how transport has to be put together.

I will not take much more time. In summary, people’s absolute need and right to be connected fluidly to all the different transport options available came through clearly this morning. That is a substantial challenge for an organisation as big as Transport for London, but if it takes an outcomes-based approach—I fundamentally believe that all hon. Members’ contributions this morning indicated the need for such an approach—it will start to get somewhere with looking at the wider picture and the longer-term view.

Of course, if greater public investment is to be made, the public need to be involved and feel involved. It would be a good move for Transport for London to look at how it engages with people and how it will take forward conversations with the relevant communities, so that it can ensure that it carries forward in its planning the points made by hon. Members this morning. I hope that it will heed my warning and take an outcomes-based approach to such development.