Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gavin Newlands and Jesse Norman

Thursday 26th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

I am still astonished at the Secretary of State’s claims that the English EV charging network is on track—absolutely no one thinks that in this country.

Pushing back the date for the ban on petrol and diesel cars by five years, combined with removing what was already one of Europe’s worst EV purchase incentive schemes, means that this Government are sending all the wrong signals to consumers. Mike Hawes of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said that consumers required

“a clear, consistent message, attractive incentives and charging infrastructure that gives confidence rather than anxiety. Confusion and uncertainty will only hold them back.”

I have no doubt that this decision was thoroughly assessed, so can the Minister tell us how many extra millions of tonnes of carbon will be emitted due to this Government’s back-pedalling on net zero?

[Jesse Norman]

Was it P. G. Wodehouse who said that it was not difficult to see the difference between a ray of sunshine and a Scotsman with a grievance? How true that is in this case! The truth of the matter is that there has been enormous progress in this area. Let me remind the hon. Gentleman that £6 billion of new private investment is being planned by ChargeUK. That has not been affected. One of the leading global mandates has been laid. We have just done this excellent work on charge points, and I am pleased to say that the independent National Infrastructure Commission of this country has stated that if the roll-out continues to grow at the current rate, we will meet our target of 300,000 public chargers by 2030.

West Coast Main Line Franchise

Debate between Gavin Newlands and Jesse Norman

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the contractual and operational situation of the west coast main line franchise—and I congratulate the Minister on his promotion.

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

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his congratulations. The Minister of State, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), continues to represent His Majesty’s Government today in Poland to support UK train companies, among others, at a major international trade fair, and I am therefore replying on his behalf.

The Department has awarded a new national rail contract to First Trenitalia to continue to operate the west coast partnership, providing west coast train services as Avanti West Coast. The national rail contract will have a core term of three years and a maximum possible term of nine years. After three years the Department can terminate the contract at any point with three months’ notice.

In October 2022 and March 2023 the Department approved the award of short-term contracts to First Trenitalia operating as AWC to continue to operate services on the west coast main line. Awarding short-term contracts allowed the Department to monitor progress by AWC in improving performance following the withdrawal of rest day working before considering whether it would be appropriate to award a long-term contract. Avanti’s performance has improved significantly during this time, and taking into account other relevant considerations, the Secretary of State has decided to award a longer-term contract, as announced in today’s written statement.

Over recent months Avanti has made significant progress in recovering from the poor reliability and punctuality delivered in the latter half of last year. In line with its recovery plan and since the introduction of its recovery timetable in December 2022, performance has steadily improved, with cancellations attributed to AWC falling from 13% in early January 2023 to as low as 1.1% in July 2023. Over 90% of trains now arrive within 15 minutes of their scheduled time, an improvement from 75% in December 2022.

[Gavin Newlands]

Another day, another blow for passengers who use the west coast main line. Fresh from the negative cross-party reaction yesterday to news that High Speed 2 phase 2 is on the chopping block, we have the Department for Transport on the last day before recess—shock, horror—sneaking out the extraordinary award of up to nine years for Avanti West Coast and up to eight years for CrossCountry.

Despite improvements in Avanti’s service, it is still not running a full timetable, and the Minister cannot ask us and passengers up and down the west coast main line to simply forget the last few years of horrendous performance. The Avanti service was on the brink, run into the ground by mismanagement and poor labour relations. In his letter to MPs the Secretary of State says that “Avanti is the most improved operator where performance is compared to the previous year.” Well, that would not be particularly hard—talk about setting yourself a low bar. This award will be seen by most people as rewarding failure.

My criticism of Avanti is in no way reflective of the staff, who have been first class when I have used the service. I was not overwhelmed with confidence, however, when it took me several attempts at last week’s Select Committee to get Mr Mellors to tell me just how many jobs he proposed to cut by closing the Glasgow ticket office.

Given the variable standards delivered by Avanti, we need full transparency. So can the Minister tell me the exact criteria Avanti will have to consistently meet if the extension at the end of the core contract is to be granted? What engagement has the Department for Transport had with trade unions and the Scottish Government in making this decision? What alternatives did the Department consider? Was the operator of last resort considered?

Does the Minister not understand that this award will be seen as Tory “private best” dogma? We have piles of evidence through the operator of last resort and Scotrail that publicly owned and operated railways work. Moreover, with its stake in Avanti, First Trenitalia might well be able to reinvest in Italian rail infrastructure. Is it not time to follow Scotland’s lead and put our railway back into the public sector, where it belongs?

[Jesse Norman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his flurry of questions, and I shall address what he said. He asked for the release of the criteria of the contract awarded; that is a commercial matter and we are not going to discuss that, but I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that the Minister of State my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle has met very regularly with the entire industry and has been working on a weekly basis with officials and with Avanti, and therefore has had the matter very much in hand.

On the performance the hon. Gentleman describes, I am astounded that he is not agreeing with the Secretary of State and celebrating the improvement over the last nine months, and six months in particular: cancellations were as low as 1.1% in July; 90% of trains arrive within 15 minutes; over 100 additional drivers have been trained and brought on since April 2022. Each of those is a significant achievement.

It is all very well for the hon. Gentleman to talk about engagement, but the hon. Gentleman has not exactly been shy in writing to the Department, so I asked my officials to scan the letters we have received and I do not think there was a single one from him in the last year mentioning Avanti. If that is an indication of how content he is with the service, I am delighted to hear it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gavin Newlands and Jesse Norman

Thursday 13th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

In answer to my written question, it was confirmed that active travel was down to just 1% of departmental spending last year—but that is positively lavish compared with 0.4% this year and 0.5% next year. The Scottish Government will spend £320 million—10% of their transport budget—which is greater than the active travel budget for the whole of England. Will the Minister urgently review active travel spend to ensure that the poorest, who rely more on walking and wheeling to get around, are not disproportionately impacted during this Tory cost of living crisis?

[Jesse Norman]

The fact of the matter is, through both covid and the Barnett formula, the Scottish Government have been funded at levels that vastly exceed those available in England. If one is a Herefordian, as I am, one looks with astonishment at the increased levels of spending north of the border and wishes that, in many ways, a similar rural landscape such as our own were supported as well as that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gavin Newlands and Jesse Norman

Thursday 8th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

I associate those on the SNP Benches with the Secretary of State’s comments on the horrendous rail incident in India.

Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) and I visited the Cromarty Firth, Aberdeen and Orkney to see the real progress in Scotland’s renewables and transport decarbonisation sectors, including the public charger roll-out, where Orkney has the highest number per capita in the UK—four times the English rate outside of London—and Scotland has twice as many rapid chargers per head. Surely that shows the fundamental role of Government in driving transport decarbonisation. The low numbers in England outside of London highlight the danger of leaving it to the market.

[Jesse Norman]

I do not accept the premise of that argument. We have discussed it in the Select Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) was right, because he highlighted the different technologies that can be used rapidly to extend charge points, including gullies and pop-up charge points. We are in the process of rapid expansion and change, and the House would expect that to continue. The amount of private sector investment that we have already triggered or will be triggering through the mandate once it is on the statute book will drive that process still faster.

[Gavin Newlands]

What the Minister says ignores the reality that the gap between Scotland and England on chargers is widening, rather than narrowing. What we have seen in Scotland is a party that believes in the power of Government to benefit transport. We have EV infrastructure outstripping England, a publicly owned rail service scrapping peak-time fares, many times more zero-emission buses ordered and on the road, and active travel spending increasing to more than £300 million while budgets here are butchered. Is it not time that the Government admitted that the Thatcherite deregulation model has failed completely and instead got to work helping the state to build a transport network fit for the 21st century?

[Jesse Norman]

I do not accept that at all. It is inevitable with a change of this magnitude that it will be essential for state interventions to trigger private investment. That will go in the first instance where it can trigger additional growth in the market. We use the LEVI fund and other mechanisms to ensure equity across the country.

Heathrow Airport Expansion

Debate between Gavin Newlands and Jesse Norman

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jesse Norman]

I do not have much time, but I think the Chamber knows that the funding per head and the sources of revenue that exist in London are vastly greater than in other parts of the country, and it is appropriate that that money should be properly invested alongside any other support that can be given.

We are not going to be distracted from this important topic. On a more constructive point, it is noticeable that the Opposition’s position on the issue of Heathrow expansion is not so very different from that of the Government. It is important to explore what the Government’s position is.

Hon. Members will recall that, in 2015, the independent Airports Commission’s final report concluded that a new north-west runway at Heathrow airport was the best solution to deliver the future additional airport capacity the country required. The Government considered the commission’s recommendation and announced in October 2016 that they agreed with the conclusions.

The Government then developed a draft airports national policy statement that provided the framework and criteria against which a development consent application would be judged. The draft statement was published for consultation in 2017 and scrutinised by the Transport Committee, before being laid before Parliament. In June 2018, the airports national policy statement was designated, following Parliament voting overwhelmingly in favour of the north-west runway proposal, by 415 votes to 119. That is an overwhelming majority in favour of the north-west runway proposal. Following its designation, the airports national policy statement was subject to a number of legal challenges, which have been heard in the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. The legal challenges concluded in December 2020, when the Supreme Court unanimously concluded that the airports national policy statement is lawful.

Challenges against the statement, however, did not end there. The Planning Act 2008 requires the Secretary of State to review a national policy statement whenever they consider it appropriate to do so. Between 2019 and 2021, the Department received numerous requests from third parties to review it. When the Supreme Court determined that the airports national policy statement once again had legal effect, those review requests were considered. In September 2021, the then Secretary of State for Transport decided that it was not appropriate at that time to review the airports national policy statement. The Government said that the matter would be considered again after the jet zero strategy was published, and that the timing of re-consideration would need to have regard to the availability of long-term aviation demand forecasts.

The jet zero strategy was published in July last year and sets out the Government’s approach to achieving net zero aviation by 2050. The idea that the Government have not thought at length and in depth about this, and set out a strategy for achieving it, as was raised earlier in the debate, is nonsense. The jet zero strategy and its accompanying documents set that out. The strategy focuses on the rapid development of technologies in a way that maintains the benefits of air travel while maximising the opportunities that decarbonisation can bring to the UK. It creates a strategic framework for aviation decarbonisation.

It is clear that the Government continue to support airport growth where it is justified, and that expansion of any airport in England must meet our strict climate change obligations to be able to proceed. The Government’s approach to sustainable aviation growth is supported by analysis that shows that the country can achieve net zero emissions by 2050 without the need to intervene directly to limit aviation growth. The jet zero strategy set out a range of measures to meet net zero. I will touch on three of those.

First, we are supporting the development of new, zero-carbon emission aircraft technology through the Aerospace Technology Institute programme. An example of that is the announcement last week by Rolls-Royce that it has commenced the testing of its UltraFan technology, which will enable efficiency improvements in current and future aircraft and is 100% SAF compatible.

Secondly, this year the Government have conducted a call for evidence on implementation of a 2040 zero-emission airport operations target in England. My Department is currently considering responses and will publish a Government response shortly. Thirdly, the suggestion that this country is behind its international competitors on sustainable aviation fuels is entirely wrong. We have published a consultation on the SAF mandate, and that is currently available for discussion.

[Gavin Newlands]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jesse Norman]

I have no time, I am afraid. I have to stop in half a minute in order to allow the hon. Member for Putney to wind up the debate. I wish I had more time, but I am afraid that interventions and other speeches have not allowed for it.

Turning quickly back to covid-19, Members will be aware that covid-19 drastically revised the use of air transport. Almost overnight, most of the country’s aircraft fleet was grounded. Thankfully, the UK is now on the way to recovery, but we have not yet returned to the demand before the pandemic, and uncertainty remains around the long-term impact that the pandemic has had on aviation demand. Further work therefore needs to be undertaken before any future forecasts can be developed.

I think I had better wind up there. I apologise, Ms Elliott, for having to truncate my speech owing to the pressure of time.

Decarbonising Rural Transport

Debate between Gavin Newlands and Jesse Norman

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Westminster Hall

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

What a delight it is to see you in the Chair, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on securing this debate on decarbonising rural transport. I am very aware of this issue as a constituency MP; in Hereford and South Herefordshire, we have many of the issues that have been described. I do not mean to disappoint my hon. Friend at the outset, but I am not going to make Treasury policy here and, least of all, as a former Financial Secretary to the Treasury, a few weeks before a Budget. Nevertheless, a wide range of issues have been raised and it is important to engage with them all.

As my hon. Friend rightly noted, buses are at the centre of the public transport network, but even more so in rural areas than in many urban areas. I and colleagues recognise their important role in providing sustainable transport options and independence to people who live in the countryside. They also have an essential role to play in achieving net zero by 2050 and in creating the cleaner and healthier places to live that we all aspire to have.

On decarbonisation, I am sure that my hon. Friend will join me in celebrating Devon’s recent success in joining the Government-funded ADEPT Live Labs 2 programme for decarbonising local roads in the UK. I am delighted that Devon will carry out a carbon-negative project on the A382, including the Jetty Marsh link road. That is part of a suite of corridor and place-based interventions, trialling, testing and showcasing applications in connection with the Wessex partnership, an exciting project that will be provided with more than £12 million for the three-year programme.

As colleagues will know, the national bus strategy was published in March 2021, with the long-term aim of making buses more frequent and reliable, easier to understand and use, and better co-ordinated and cheaper. The strategy asked all local transport authorities to develop a bus service improvement plan, setting out how they would improve services. It also stated that local transport plans must be clear on

“how interventions across local transport modes will drive decarbonisation in their area.”

I am delighted that Devon received £14.1 million in BSIP funding, £1.87 million of which is being targeted at bus priority measures that will benefit routes into Barnstaple and to North Devon District Hospital. I was also delighted to hear about GWR’s work in my hon. Friend’s constituency, where a bus-branch line has been introduced between Barnstaple and Lynton and Lynmouth, co-ordinating bus and rail timetables to offer a more integrated travel experience for passengers. I hope that there will be more to come in the following year.

The bus strategy makes it clear that the needs of rural transport users should be given equal consideration to those of users in urban areas. However, I recognise that it can be challenging to provide conventional bus services for rural areas, which have widely dispersed populations and consequent travel patterns that are hard to cover effectively. That is why demand-responsive services, which have been discussed today, can be used in some places to meet their needs, and work is under way to assess whether that can be more effective than traditional public transport solutions.

Colleagues will be aware of the £20 million rural mobility fund, which supports 17 innovative demand-led minibus trials in rural areas. They use app-based technologies so that passengers can book a journey through their smartphone, and intelligent software then works out the right route to pick up and drop off passengers, given the demand. The Department has made sure that the services use accessible minibuses and can still be booked through a website or with a phone call so that no one is excluded from using them.

As the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) pointed out, demand-responsive services are not the perfect solution to every challenge. Other schemes need to be trialled, and have been, but have proven not to be sustainable. A balance needs to be struck between providing a useful service that is responsive and frequent and running too much mileage cost-ineffectively, with too few passengers. That is why it is so important that each scheme should participate in a detailed monitoring and evaluation process, so that the Department can learn about the most effective approaches.

Some of the pilots use zero-emission vehicles. The scheme in Essex has been electrified since day one, providing a zero-emission demand-responsive service to rural areas around Braintree, and Surrey County Council has started to roll out its electric minibus route on its Mole Valley connect service.

On buses more broadly, colleagues will know that, in 2020, we committed to introducing 4,000 zero-emission buses and, ultimately, to achieving an all zero-emission bus fleet. It is nice to hear the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) rightly supporting the superb achievements of Wrightbus in Northern Ireland with regard to not just electrification, but its work on the Hydroliner, using hydrogen technology.

The approach to zero-emission buses will support our climate ambitions, improve transport for local communities and support green jobs across the country. Since 2020, the Government have funded an estimated 3,452 zero-emission buses across the UK, some 1,400 of which have been supported by funding from the zero-emission bus regional areas, which has rightly been highlighted. Great progress has been made, with more than 500 buses ordered so far under the ZEBRA scheme, including 117 electric buses that have been ordered for four different local authorities, as announced in the House last week.

Buses are not the only zero-emission vehicles on our roads. It is right to think about the question of zero-emission vehicles more widely, as well as the charging infrastructure network, mentioned by several colleagues, that needs to be as accessible, affordable and secure in rural areas as elsewhere. Last March, the Government published their electric vehicle infrastructure strategy, which set out plans to accelerate the roll-out of the network. We expect at least 300,000 public charge points to be installed across the UK by 2030. There are already over 37,000 open-access public chargers on UK roads, with more than 600 new chargers added to our road network each month on average, and public charging devices have more than tripled in the past four years. That is in addition to the hundreds of thousands of charge points in homes and workplaces. We believe that we are on track to meet local expectations.

[Gavin Newlands]

I like the Minister’s comments on the ZEBRA scheme, even though it has been an utter shambles from start to finish. Scotland has more zero-emission buses on the road in a country that is a tenth of the size.

On chargers, the Government launched Project Rapid, and the Labour Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Simon Lightwood), mentioned the number of chargers in the UK. Scotland already has 73% more rapid chargers per head than the rest of the UK. In the last quarter of last year, the number increased by nearly 15%, more than double the rate at which England increased its rapid chargers—the east and west midlands rate was 4.3%, Yorkshire was 5% and the south-east was 3.3%. Project Rapid needs to change its name, does it not?

[Jesse Norman]

There is no doubt that the question of how we get lots of rapid chargers into motorway service areas and other parts of the trunk network is complex, because it requires long-term solutions based on translating large amounts of electricity through distribution network operators and the national grid into those areas. I was slightly surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman bragging about the Scottish Government’s achievements. He may want to look at the Daily Business published in August last year, which said that Scotland was “bottom” of the EV charging league for growth and described that as

“an embarrassing blow to the country that hosted the COP26”.

The hon. Gentleman should look not just at the number that have been installed, which perhaps is not surprising given the level of income per head that Scotland receives under the Barnett formula. If my county of Herefordshire was miraculously and sadly disentangled from its current place and floated north to abut on to Scotland, the rate of funding per head would go up by over £2,000, so perhaps it is not so surprising that the funding settlement is different and that has different effects. The Scottish record is not one to be proud of as regards the growth of charge points, and he may want to look again at the numbers he described.

We have also been looking at public and industry funding to support local authorities with the roll-out of charge points. Just last month, we announced a further £56 million of public industry funding. In Devon, there are currently 442 public charge points, of which over 100 are rapid and above, which is pretty much in line with the UK average per person and possibly even slightly higher in relation to rapid charging. That is a good start, but there is plenty still to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gavin Newlands and Jesse Norman

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

Although we support a zero-emission vehicle mandate to accelerate the switch to zero-emission driving, the Government need to get a grip on it. Businesses—be they manufacturers, dealerships or fleet purchasers—cannot plan, and consumers are in the dark. That chimes with the overall approach to zero-emission driving, with just over 7,000 EV charging installations last year when 33,000 are required annually to meet the 300,000 target. Will we hear more about the mandate, the charger network expansion and equalising the VAT levied on home charging versus street charging in the upcoming Budget?

[Jesse Norman]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that I will not comment on the Budget; as a former Financial Secretary, I will certainly not attempt to trespass on the Treasury’s prerogative on tax issues. What he will know, of course, is that the vast majority of that investment is coming from the private sector. Of course, that will itself be massively boosted by the zero-emission vehicle mandate. I met one of the largest charge point operators only this week, and they were perfectly clear that the one thing that will do more than anything else, not just to reduce carbon but to support the development of that industry and that transition, is the mandate, which we will publish, as I say, in the near future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

Decarbonising aviation is difficult, and no one would say otherwise, but there are quick wins to reduce carbon, such as airspace modernisation, which is likely to cost under £30 million, and sustainable aviation fuels, which will be the bridge fuel until future forms of propulsion are introduced. The Government have provided some funding for SAF plants in England and Wales, but the support is dwarfed by support offered elsewhere. Without a CfD model in place to support SAFs, the Government will not get their five plants operating by their target date, and they are nowhere near their long-term targets for SAF use, are they?

[Jesse Norman]

It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman raises the question of airspace modernisation. He may not be aware that the environmental benefits are already in place. The introduction of free route airspace in 2021 over Scotland is estimated by National Air Traffic Services to save the carbon dioxide equivalent of the power used by 3,500 family homes every year. He is right that this is a complex issue, but it is also one on which the Government are taking a wide range of energetic measures, and we will continue to pursue those, as we have described.

Economic Outlook and Furlough Scheme Changes

Debate between Gavin Newlands and Jesse Norman

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the really heartening things about the early phases of the crisis was precisely the response from distilleries in producing hand sanitiser. I was delighted to be able to make very quickly the changes to the tax regime that supported that. As we go forward, we will continue to review and seek to address the concerns that he raises. It is not by any means a straightforward matter, but the key thing is to continue to push, on a very wide variety of fronts, as rapidly and forcefully as we possibly can.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

Many companies have used the job retention scheme to save cash while they planned redundancies, British Airways being one. BA has threatened over 40,000 staff with redundancy but about 30,000 would be rehired on vastly reduced terms and conditions. Last week I introduced a Bill to make that form of employment practice illegal to protect all employees. Does the Minister think it is fair that any employer should be allowed to make employees redundant from roles that are clearly not redundant and then rehire them on reduced pay— yes or no?

[Jesse Norman]

I will refrain from commenting on a specific situation; the hon. Gentleman has identified one. But I will say, having not been aware of it, that I will look at his Bill with great interest, and I thank him for drawing attention to it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gavin Newlands and Jesse Norman

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

It is hard for me to comment on whether the council has any excuse, since I do not know the circumstances it is under. All I can say is that it has a share in £420 million more than was expected at the end of last year.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

5. What steps he is taking to reduce potential disruption to travel in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.