Scotland: Transport Links

Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (in the Chair)]

Order. As hon. Members can see, lots of Members want to speak in this debate. Could you please stick to an informal four-minute time limit, so that everybody gets in?

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (in the Chair)]

Order. To ensure that all hon. Members get in and we have the Front-Bench contributions, we are going to need to impose a three-minute time limit.

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[Graham Leadbitter]

I accept the point about ferries, and I would rather they had arrived on time and that the overspend did not exist, but we can compare that with High Speed 2, which is billions of pounds overspent, and the benefit to Scotland has diminished to near zero. There are other examples, including the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh, which was signed off by a Labour Government and was massively overspent. It was not the MSPs who supervised or had oversight of that, so there are examples from across all parties of issues with infrastructure projects. The important thing is obviously to learn from them and stop them happening again, which I fully support.

Looking to the south-west of Scotland, I stayed in Galloway for a couple of years and I know very well what the A75 is like. It is a vital link to Northern Ireland, through the port of Cairnryan, and there is ongoing work there. I welcome the cross-party work on that and hope it can continue, with design improvements to the road. I very much support that, and I know that colleagues in the Scottish Government do as well.

There has been a lot of work and discussion between the Scottish Government and the UK Government on rail issues. I very much welcome the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024, which we fully support. Rail was already in public ownership in Scotland but, in fairness, that legislation has enabled us to ensure that that will continue—public ownership was the operator of last resort, so there was no surety about that, but now there is. There is a lot of mutual interest in getting this right, so will the Minister give an assurance that there will be strong engagement with the Scottish Government as the legislation develops? I hope that much of that can be addressed prior to publication.

Finally, it is vital that we retain the protected slots at the key hub airports, which are critical to our onward connections to the rest of the world. Also, to pre-empt a question of mine that has been selected for tomorrow, and to use this opportunity to give a bit more context, EGNOS, the European geostationary navigation overlay system, is very technical—

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (in the Chair)]

Order.

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[Kirsty McNeill]

As I said, I would be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman and colleagues from the Department for Transport to follow up on that. Furthermore, I am pleased to say that the Scottish Government have confirmed their commitment to the feasibility study on the A75 changes to progress that work. That is our reset in action.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bathgate and Linlithgow (Kirsteen Sullivan) helpfully anchored this debate to what it is all about. Of course, it is about growth and the maintenance of the Union, but transport is also fundamentally about people. It is about women, disabled people, and families living with the cost of living emergency. That is why, when families are so up against it, it remains inexplicable that it is cheaper under the SNP Government to fly from Edinburgh to London than it is to go from Edinburgh to Glasgow on a ScotRail peak fare.

That is why this Government have already fulfilled one of our key manifesto commitments and passed the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024 to bring railways back into public ownership—we are committed to functioning railways. The Act will stop the taxpayer footing the bill for more than £100 million each year in fees to private operators, which provides no benefit whatsoever to passengers or to the taxpayer. It will also ensure that ScotRail is kept in public hands permanently, pave the way for the creation of Great British Railways and end the fragmentation of the franchising system, which will improve our railway network and strengthen connectivity to and from Scotland, including via the vital west coast and east coast main lines.

The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine asked a number of questions on air passenger duty, which I am delighted to answer. As he will know, we are trying to support a fairer and sustainable tax system, and taxation on the aviation sector must be put on a sustainable footing. That is why we are consulting on a proposal to extend the scope of the higher rate of air passenger duty to all private jets, including business jets. That is driven primarily by the Government’s commitment to ensuring that operators of and passengers on such jets contribute fairly to the public finances. As he will well know, air passenger duty rates have fallen behind inflation, and private jets are relatively undertaxed, so in 2026-27 the Government will adjust all air passenger duty rates to help to correct for below-inflation uprating in recent years.

Because this Government are committed to supporting working people, we have frozen fuel duty and extended the temporary 5p cut for one year. That will benefit an estimated 3.2 million people in Scotland, supporting hard-working families and businesses and saving the average car driver £59 in 2025-26. I am sure I do not need to remind colleagues that the cost of living remains high, so these measures are vital to support working people across the UK.

As I mentioned earlier, none of these decisions can be taken piecemeal: they must form part of a coherent and ambitious plan. That is why this UK Government is mission-led, with long-term objectives that will deliver our plan for change and spread prosperity across the UK.

I once again congratulate the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk on securing the debate and thank all hon. Members for their contributions. I am sure colleagues across the House will agree that it is essential that we continue to do all we can to strengthen our transport network, ensuring that communities in Scotland and across the UK remain connected and play their rightful role at the heart of this Government’s ambitious agenda.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (in the Chair)]

Before I call the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) to wind up, I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their kind words. It is indeed a pleasure to be in the Chair.