Transport

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. That issue is close to my heart, as someone who frequently flies to Northern Ireland and passes through City airport. Reducing delays at all airports across the UK is something that the aviation Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), is working on. I will ensure that the hon. Gentleman’s remarks are brought to his attention and we will see what more we can do to ensure that passengers are not unduly inconvenienced when passing through that airport.

We are getting on with investing more money in our railway infrastructure than any Government have invested since they were built and that is why we are making funds available to local decision makers to restore railway lines, introduce cycle lanes and fix potholes. It is why we are carrying out reforms to make our trains and buses deliver consistent value for passengers. And it is why, from self-driving vehicles to micro-mobility to zero-emissions aviation and shipping, we are laying the groundwork and preparing today for the jobs and travel habits of tomorrow.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call shadow Minister—

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

Sam Tarry.

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Ah. The hon. Gentleman surprises me. I was expecting his colleague. I call shadow Minister Sam Tarry.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I hope that we can manage without a formal time limit. We will be able to do so if everyone keeps to around seven minutes. If we cannot, I will put on a time limit.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Scottish National party spokesman, Gavin Newlands.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

The hon. Gentleman did very well in sticking to the seven minutes that I asked for. I am afraid that more people have indicated that they wish to speak than I had originally been aware of, so I hope that we can now keep to a limit of around five minutes. I still hope that we can manage without a formal limit, which gives a little bit more relaxation—well, not relaxation; it should make for a better debate if we do not have time limits, so let us keep to five minutes and have some interesting interventions.

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[Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) and I thoroughly endorse her comments on the importance of rural bus services in our area of east Kent.

I welcome the Conservative Government’s robust action in holding P&O Ferries to account, and the work that is under way to better protect seafarers, as announced in the Queen’s Speech. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), the combined membership of the Transport Committee and the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, and Members from all parties for their support on the issue, which is so important to my constituents.

I represent an incredibly well-connected and successful area, Dover and Deal, and transport is central to both our economic and community life. We have the one and only, the original, the first of the high-speed lines: High Speed 1. It means we can benefit from trains that whiz from Dover to London in just over an hour, and there are high-speed connections right through to Deal.

Although the train line is excellent, services have not been fully restored to their pre-pandemic timetable, and the cost of tickets is nothing short of exorbitant. An anytime day return ticket to London is more than £85, which is simply not affordable for many people in my area. An off-peak return is almost £50. An annual season ticket is nearly £7,400, which means that to travel from Dover costs over £2,000 more than it costs to travel from affluent Tunbridge Wells or leafy Sevenoaks. That represents more than 23% of average earnings in Dover, compared with around 17% of average earnings for Tunbridge Wells and around 13% of average earnings for Sevenoaks —it is a pleasure to see my hardworking hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) in her place. The Dover tickets are more expensive than travelling from Cambridge, Southampton or even Birmingham to London. That cannot be fair and it does not make economic sense. Our country has invested millions of pounds in great rail services for our area. If people cannot afford to use them, we all lose out, nationally and locally.

As the House will know, Dover has a national strategic role as well as a local one. We are home to our country’s most successful and busy port of its type: the port of Dover. It is vital to ensure a balance between the national interest and the community interest—between a trade corridor and a great place to live. Kent is served by not one but two motorways—the M20 and the M2—but Dover is not. As lorries and cars thunder along the motorways, the last few miles of the approach into Dover on either side of the town are not motorways, they are A roads: the A20 and the A2.

The A2 is mostly single carriageway, peppered with residential roundabouts that criss-cross the homes, shops and workplaces of local people. The A2 is so now overloaded that planning permissions for local homes are objected to by National Highways on the basis of capacity constraints. The road has been identified as in need of an upgrade for nearly all my adult life. It is now in the road investment programme, and the upgrade really must now go ahead, because Dover is becoming as famous for its traffic queues as for its white cliffs. It is time that the road blocks were cleared. It matters for national growth as well as local growth. Geographically, we are the closest point to continental Europe, and 60% of our trade with Europe transits the short straits route. Dover alone manages up to 10,000 freight vehicles, 25,000 cars and 90,000 passenger movements a day at peak times.

Contrary to what the doomsters and gloomsters said, when Brexit transition finally came, the sky did not fall in, the seas did not rise and there were not hundreds of miles of tailbacks to the midlands and beyond. But there are days when the traffic grinds to a halt—there were before we left the European Union and there are now—because of weather, strikes and many other reasons. This is part and parcel of having a major transport hub in a constituency—be that a port or an airport. However, the fragility of the road network has increased in recent decades as the activity and growth—international, national and local—has soared, and the roads are long overdue for investment.

The Kent road system currently operates with a sort of sticking plaster—or should I say a series of sticking plasters? They are called Operation TAP: the traffic assessment project; Operation Stack; Operation Brock; and the euphemistically named active management protocol, which involves police standing on the corners of the main arterial roads, directing traffic. Yes, I am talking about a few traffic lights and police in high-vis jackets to manage local community traffic, those 10,000 lorry movements and up to 90,000 passenger movements at peak times. This sticking-plaster and piecemeal approach is letting down Dover and it is letting down UK plc. We need proper investment and I renew my request for urgent planned strategic investment to keep Dover clear and to make the most of Britain’s opportunity to trade with the world.

Finally, Dover and Deal is a wonderful place in which to live and work. I want to see our area thrive, develop, grow and prosper even more. Getting the right infrastructure in place will deliver for our community and for our nation alike. In these financially constrained times, it is more important than ever to put national investment where it can deliver most bang for the buck. That means investing in Dover and Deal.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Please let us keep our speeches to five minutes or else I will have to put on a time limit.

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[Mr Dhesi]

I would love to take an intervention, but Madam Deputy Speaker has said that I have only nine minutes, and I want to get all this off my chest.

It is time for the Government to step up and stand up for local communities with a commitment to restoring services to pre-pandemic levels and a genuine plan of how to get there. Right now, they are brazenly breaking the promises that they made to communities. Just three months ago, they claimed that they would protect and improve services on existing lines, that they would not neglect shorter-distance journeys and that levelling up could not wait, yet passengers are suffering the consequences of those broken promises. Ministers may claim that cuts have been made because there has been no increase in passenger numbers, but that is simply not true. In Yorkshire alone, we are told that passenger numbers have surged back to more than 90% of pre-pandemic levels, so cuts on that scale will force passengers on to crowded and congested services.

The truth is that under the Conservatives, passengers are paying more for less. When the Minister comes to the Dispatch Box, will she tell us what plans the Government have to bring back those lost services and provide passengers with a future in which rail travel is better value for money? I hope she will ensure that their manifesto commitments are upheld.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Before I call the Minister, I would like to make it clear that I have observed, in case no one else has, that neither the Minister who opened the debate nor the shadow Minister who opened the debate are present for the wind-up speeches. That is unacceptable and it is discourteous to the House. I would not like to think that any new Members would take that as acceptable behaviour, so I make the point clearly and positively that if someone has opened a debate or taken part in a debate, they must be here for the winding-up speeches. That is a simple matter of courtesy. It is not some archaic old-fashioned rule, or me being difficult on a Thursday afternoon, but a matter of courtesy, and it is quite appalling that neither of those hon. Gentlemen are here.

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[Trudy Harrison]

I am sorry; I cannot.

With EVs being cheaper to own, run and maintain than their petrol and diesel equivalents, which means that drivers can save hundreds of pounds by going electric, it is no wonder that their market share has doubled compared with last year.

The future is not just electric; it is also active. The Government are committed to ensuring that half of all journeys by 2030 are cycled or walked. That commitment will be delivered by the first dedicated Government cycling and walking body, Active Travel England. Its role will be to ensure that walking and cycling is the easiest choice for local journeys, to help design the right infrastructure and, ultimately, to usher in a golden age of active travel. I thank the hon. Members for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) and others for their enthusiasm for active travel.

We are certainly not wasting any time. Only last week, we announced a £200 million investment to boost the take-up of cycling and walking. One hundred and thirty-four schemes will create new footways, cycle lanes and pedestrian crossings across 46 local authorities outside London. Nineteen authorities, including in Nottinghamshire, Hull and Manchester, will receive funding to develop the “mini Holland” feasibility studies. We will also accelerate the take-up of electric cycles by offering short and long-term loans.

Active travel is one of the best returns on investment decisions that the Government can make. It makes us healthier, saves the NHS up to £1 billion a year, reduces congestion on our roads and makes our economy more efficient. It is a zero-carbon way to travel, cleaning up our air and reducing emissions. We saw that happening in the pandemic and that is why we are investing £2 billion in our active travel fund. We are determined to ensure that the recent rise in cycling and walking is not a passing fad.

Hon. Members have raised important themes throughout the debate. The subject of electric vehicle charge points was raised by the hon. Members for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) and for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney). As I have said, we plan to have 10 times the amount of EV charge points, as was set out in our EV infrastructure strategy.

Several Members raised the levels of rail service across the UK, including my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), who also celebrated Crossrail’s opening. That was great to hear. My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe) championed SELRAP to join Yorkshire and Lancashire together over 13 miles of newly instated railway, which was a problem from the Beeching cuts. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson) also raised the rail service.

To ensure that people could get to where they needed to be during the pandemic, the Government committed £16 billion of support throughout the pandemic to keep rail services running. Demand continues to recover. We are working with operators to ensure that services are fit for the future, carefully balancing cost, capacity and the performance that passengers rightly expect to see on their railways.

In the Wakefield and Yorkshire area, Members will, I am sure, be aware of the £830 million awarded to the West Yorkshire Combined Authority under our city region sustainable transport settlement. That will help to strengthen public transport across the area.

A number of Members asked about bus services. I commend the consistent and fantastic championing of Wrightbus by the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley). I have had the joy of visiting it in Ballymena, including only last week at a heavy goods vehicle launch, where we committed to a £200 million zero-emission road freight programme. Other Members, including one from Southend city, my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth), and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), also mentioned the importance of buses. We have provided more than £2.5 billion in new funding to support improvement of bus services, and are on track to meet our commitment of £3 billion for bus service transformation.

Members have noted the level of fares on rail and bus networks. Regulated rail fares increased in line with inflation—by 3.8%—on 1 March. As in 2021, we temporarily delayed the fares increase, enabling passengers to purchase tickets at last year’s prices throughout January and February 2022. The spending review settlement agreed last autumn will see the Government invest £360 million in rail fares, ticketing and retailing, delivering a major overhaul of the way in which rail travel is bought and paid for. Last year, we also announced new flexible season tickets, which are helping to reduce the cost of rail travel for commuters.

I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder). He is a real champion of the rail industry but he also mentioned freight and the work that we are doing with freight operators up and down the country. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) for how she champions her area and the way she manages the balance between local, national and international interests.

Many Members are concerned about the cost of living. As the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle outlined, we recently launched the Great British rail sale, available throughout the network and across a wide number of routes, including cross-border journeys with Scotland and Wales. Those tickets support business and commuter markets and help to drive leisure demand. That promotes local economies at destinations in scope, which receive a boost from the increased activity. More than 1.3 million tickets were sold in the sale, offering about £7 million-worth of savings for passengers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) is the most fantastic advocate and champion. He scrutinises our work but also supports the changes that we need to make. We are providing more than £525 million for zero-emission buses in this Parliament, and we have supported the funding of nearly 2,000 zero-emission buses in England so far.

In conclusion, we cannot begin to tackle some of the most pressing challenges, be they the cost living, levelling up or climate change, without a world-class transport system. We were elected to be a reforming Government, unafraid to make the big decisions to shake up our transport industry so that it drives economic growth. That is exactly what we are doing, across road and rail, sky and sea, delivering world-class infrastructure, ambitious reform and record investment.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We are running six minutes over schedule—not the Minister, but everyone altogether. Those taking part in the next debate can curse those in this debate if they do not get long enough.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered transport.