High Speed 2 Compensation

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) on securing the debate. We have already heard from the first two speakers how people’s lives have been impacted by this scheme. Many of us, right across Staffordshire, were delighted when we heard the news back in October that the Prime Minister had taken the right decision in cancelling phase 2 of HS2. Many of us had been campaigning for that and we were so delighted to hear the news.

HS2 had already spent £208 million on the purchase of land for phase 2a alone, and that was even before the major construction work was to start. There was a hope and a belief that the land that had been purchased would be returned to the owners and it would all be resolved incredibly quickly. I am afraid to say, however, that even though the announcement was made in October, there remains an enormous amount of uncertainty, an enormous amount of concern and a total lack of clarity for many people who are impacted by the scheme.

As the new year begins, we need clarity on when land will be returned. We need to have an understanding of when the selling of land by HS2 is to start. We need to have an understanding about those people who have had their homes taken from them. When will they be in a position to buy back their homes? When will they be in a position to know what the rules are and what their future may hold?

I appreciate that the Minister has, just today, lifted the safeguarding on phase 2a. I think all of us very much welcome that, but it still leaves many questions that need urgent clarity. I understand that the Department for Transport has said that the return of land will

“take time because the Department for Transport needs to make sure the programme provides value for money for taxpayers and does not disrupt local property markets”.

It also says:

“there remains a significant amount of work to do”.

I am sure there is a significant amount of work to do, but there has been a considerable period of time to do that work, and people’s lives are on hold and their nerves have been frayed. Many people just do not know what their future holds. They cannot move on until the Minister and HS2 give them the certainty and the clarity that is required.

I want to touch on a couple of examples that have been sent to me. There is, sadly, a lot of fear among many Staffordshire residents about how HS2 acts. It acts sometimes in quite an imperious manner, without necessarily the care, consideration or consistency that one would hope for from a Government-owned organisation.

One example relates to a farming business. Temporary possession started in 2022, with HS2 taking around 3 acres for environmental mitigation. The family objected to the land being taken on a temporary basis, as they did not want to be responsible for the future maintenance of all the things that were being put on it. Further grazing land of approximately 100 acres was taken under temporary possession in January 2023. A proportion of that land was purchased in July 2023. Meanwhile, preparation for the diversion of a high-pressure gas main began in March 2023. Fencing was erected, hundreds of metres of hedges were ripped out and a compound was built, before work was halted in May 2023. Following the announcement of phase 2a’s cancellation, the family expected the compulsory purchase order to be cancelled and the land to be returned. However, further land was purchased in November 2023. Last time I checked, November definitely came after October, so that was after the Prime Minister announced that the scheme was not continuing.

What are the impacts on these farmers? They are considerable, because HS2 has a very different understanding of the concept of the purchase of land. If any of us in this place, or any of our constituents, wants to purchase land, usually we enter into an agreement, then we pay money, and after we have paid the money, we may get the land. It works very differently for HS2. It can purchase land and never pay for the land. Those affected then have the problem of having to work around HS2, which will never actually build anything on the land.

Here we have a business, a farm, with a 400-cow dairy unit. Because of all the infrastructure changes that HS2 has made, such as removing access to parts of the grazing area, it is difficult for the farmers to move livestock around. It is difficult for them to gain access to land for which they have never been paid, or of which HS2 has taken temporary possession. All this is creating an additional workload, and they have not been compensated and are not clear about when that will happen.

Another example is a small nursery business whose owners depend on people knowing where it is. HS2, which has placed a charge on the land through the Land Registry, will not allow them to cut the hedges that it now owns but has never paid for, but it is willing to charge them, at an incredibly high rate, for the freedom to cut the hedges so that people know where their business is.

This is not the way in which we expect a Government-owned company—a company owned not by some multi- national, but by the Secretary of State for Transport—to be able to proceed. I wonder whether, if I pass on the contact details of those two businesses and other detailed information, the Minister will ensure that their cases are examined closely and that a resolution is found.

So many messages have been sent to me about the manner in which HS2 has conducted itself—about the delays that people have had to suffer, about the uncertainty, and about people having to put their hands in their own pockets and spend tens of thousands of pounds on land agents and consultants to try to get some money back from HS2, but still not receiving anything. So many people have had land taken from them—land that they no longer own, but for which they have never received a single penny.

We need to have clarity. We cannot wait months and months more. I hope that the Minister, who I know is a diligent and caring Minister, will give that clarity today, or, at the very minimum, give a clear timeline for when everyone who has been impacted by HS2 will know the rules by which it is playing, and ensure that there is fairness for the people in Staffordshire who have been affected.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) on securing this important debate and thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the time. I also thank the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson) and the hon. Members for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green), for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen), for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), for Buckingham (Greg Smith) and for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) for contributing to the debate.

The stories we have heard, and those that have been reported over the years, show the very real consequences of this Tory HS2 fiasco—[Interruption.] There is some muttering from Conservative MPs. If the civil service and the Department for Transport were not involved in the decision to cancel that was announced by the Prime Minister in Manchester—it was done on the back of a fag packet, which has been used today, all day—it is no wonder that we got this type of fiasco.

We have heard of people having to leave the family home that they worked hard for, businesses having to pack up and leave their premises, towns and villages seeing homes targeted after they were bought and later left to rot, and farmers being forced to move or unable to use their land for years because of more and more delays to HS2., We have heard of cash-strapped councils such as Cheshire East Council, which the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich told us paid out £11 million. I commend the Labour spokesman Connor Naismith on his campaign to have the council reimbursed for the money lost.

Communities have had their future put on pause for years and families have found getting compensation to be a painful and drawn-out experience. Lives and businesses have been disrupted for a decade, and for what? A staggering £65 billion high-speed train line that will now not even reach the communities that have been impacted—a train line that, according to the chair of HS2, will result in fewer seats and longer journeys for those travelling north of Birmingham. What a result for the people living in those communities and across the north.

All that is even before we consider how much taxpayers’ money has been spent on the compensation. According to reports, almost £423 million has been spent buying up 424 properties on the western leg from Birmingham to Manchester, and £164 million spent buying 530 “blighted” properties on the eastern leg to Leeds. Today comes the news that the Government are lifting safeguarding on the land; not content with cancelling high-speed rail to the north, the Prime Minister has now decided to salt the earth. If we were not aware already, that must be the final nail in the coffin for levelling-up.

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

Can the hon. Gentleman clarify whether, in the unfortunate and unlikely event of a Labour Government, they would reimpose safeguarding on phase 2a?

[Mike Kane]

Like Napoleon out of Moscow, it is routed through the poisoned-earth strategy with the lifting of the safeguarding today. We have to be responsible. We will have to see what the books tell us if we are to enter Government in the weeks or months to come.

We have seen 14 years of promises to the north and the midlands broken. In the Prime Minister’s desperate, failing attempt to rebrand himself as the change candidate at the next election, he decided to rush through an alternative plan at the party conference—a plan that mentions places such as Crewe, which, as the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich rightly said, would have greatly benefited, but a plan that the Prime Minister admitted was only “illustrative”. Illustrative? The Network North plan announced fantastic news for my Wythenshawe and Sale East constituency—a new Metrolink line to Manchester airport. It opened in 2016. That illustrates the chaos and the confusion of that announcement.

The now Foreign Secretary was not alone on the Conservative side in criticising the decision. Two former Chancellors warned the Prime Minister that his actions were “huge economic self-harm”, while the Tory Mayor of the West Midlands described it as “cancelling the future”—a great line, if I may say so to the hon. Member for Lichfield. In what is a consistent theme for this Government, this whole mess has been created by not consulting the communities affected, not speaking to our Metro Mayors and not listening to the businesses across the country that were depending on the project.

After 14 years, communities have had enough of the broken promises from this broken Government. Labour will not repeat those mistakes—mismanaging major projects, turning people’s lives upside down, taking their trust for granted, impacting their businesses and livelihoods and failing to deliver.

HS2 Cancellation and Network North

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) on securing this debate.

I congratulate the Minister on making the right decision to cancel HS2 phases 2a and 2b. HS2 is absorbing £1 in every £3 spent on transport in this country. Many of my constituents and many people right around the country feel that that is the wrong priority. Mr Davies, I know that you have long campaigned for the bypass around Shipley. The cancellation gives us the opportunity to spend the money in areas where it is required. I will touch on a number of those areas.

A couple of decades ago, we saw the reopening of the Chase line, which serves not just Cannock and Rugeley but Landywood station in South Staffordshire. We have seen a transformation in communities. With the electrification of the line, passenger numbers have grown. That has also resulted from the change of timetable on the Birmingham to Shrewsbury line, with a large increase in the number of passengers. By getting investment right in local services, as opposed to white elephants such as HS2, we can transform communities and transform people’s lives.

I ask the Minister to take the opportunity to look at some recent changes that have been detrimental to communities. An example is the Birmingham-Stoke-Crewe line, where there has been a cut in services because of timetable changes. I would appreciate the Minister looking at that, because it is having a detrimental impact on many local stations along the line. With the money that will be freed up from the cancellation of this service, there are opportunities to make further improvements to our network. We could see the extension of the Manchester-Stoke service all the way to Stafford, which would have a real benefit for many stations across north Staffordshire.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South mentioned the north Staffordshire railway link. Improving east-west connectivity is absolutely vital for moving freight transport off the busy west coast main line, to ensure it goes to places it needs to and gets more freight on rail and off our roads. It would be wrong not to mention our roads; I am delighted to see that, as a result of the cancellation of HS2, Staffordshire has benefited by an extra £4.4 million.

Let us be clear: the people of Kinver, Codsall, Wombourne, Great Wyrley, Brewood and every place across south Staffordshire want to see the potholes eradicated. That extra £4.4 million will go a long way towards blitzing some of those problems. I appreciate that it is not in his portfolio, but I ask the Minister to go back to the Secretary of State for Transport and say that we want more money to deal with those potholes right across Staffordshire. This cancellation can make a real impact, delivering better services in every community across Staffordshire, but let us make sure that that money is well spent.

Walsall-Rugeley Line (Electrification)

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing a debate on the electrification of the Chase line, which is the line from Walsall, just outside Birmingham, to Rugeley in my Staffordshire constituency.

The Chase line is actually a key section of a longer rail route running from Birmingham New Street up to Rugeley Trent Valley, but whereas the section from Birmingham New Street to Walsall is electrified—taking in Duddeston, Aston, Witton, Perry Bar, Hamstead, Tamebridge Parkway, Bescot Stadium and Walsall—the section from Walsall to Rugeley is diesel only. Hence the onward journey to Bloxwich, Bloxwich North, Landywood, Cannock, Hednesford, Rugeley Town and Rugeley Trent Valley is considerably slower, with poorer passenger service and fewer, older trains.

It goes without saying that this is the key rail route for my constituents. Thousands of them use the line daily to commute to and from work—usually in the city of Birmingham—and many commute to Walsall for work as well. At weekends, it is the main route into Birmingham for shopping, leisure and social life. Birmingham is the second city of this country, and fast, frequent and reliable services to and from that vital economic hub are essential to the economic growth of towns such as Cannock, Hednesford and Rugeley, just 15 miles away.

Let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to Keith Fitch and the members of the Cannock Chase rail promotion group, who have campaigned tirelessly over many years for the reintroduction and, now, for the development of passenger services on the Chase line. I also thank John Morgan, the principal planning officer at Cannock Chase district council, who is responsible for the railways and is a long-time campaigner for the electrification of the Chase line. It is a cliché nowadays to say that people have worked tirelessly for a cause, but the work that John has done over the years with successive council administrations and Members of Parliament has been far above and beyond the call of duty. It can really only be described as a labour of love, stemming from his passion for the railways. John is watching in the Gallery tonight. After some 35 years of commitment to the railways and the electrification of the Chase line, it would be a fitting end to his career for him to see his goal finally realised.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that people have been campaigning for the electrification of the Chase line because they know that it will bring massive economic benefits to his constituency as well as mine and many others?

[Mr Burley]

The short answer is absolutely, and I shall say more about that later. One of the startling facts that I discovered when researching for my speech was that the electrification of the line has been a project for various council administrations and Members of Parliament of all colours since the early 1960s—20 years before I was even born. It really is a project whose time has come.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Norman Baker]

These matters are devolved in London. The hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not get involved in some sort of beauty contest between Boris and Ken.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

2. What steps she is taking to encourage local authorities to improve local bus provision and services.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

Bus services are an important part of our plans to help create growth and cut carbon, and they provide a lifeline to essential services for many people. The recent paper, “Green Light for Better Buses” sets out a comprehensive and balanced set of measures to help local authorities play their part in providing better, greener and more innovative bus services—new funding, better regulations, revised guidance and reformed subsidy arrangements. These proposals have been carefully formulated to attract more people on to buses, to ensure better value for the taxpayer and to give local transport authorities more influence over their local bus networks.

[Gavin Williamson]

South Staffordshire district council and Staffordshire county council are shortly to launch South Staffordshire Connect, which will provide local transport for people to get to bus routes in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is the type of initiative that we need to promote right across the country?

[Norman Baker]

I do agree. That is the sort of initiative that I am pleased to see some councils adopting, given the freedom that the Government are providing. Buses are a lifeline for people who do not have access to a car. I would be delighted to help my hon. Friend launch this scheme on 13 June.

Rail Reform

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We are not further fragmenting the industry; we are encouraging it to work collaboratively and more effectively. If by talking about fragmentation the hon. Gentleman is criticising our proposals to decentralise some decision making, I think that he is wrong.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

The ticket office at Codsall station was closed a number of years ago and has been replaced by the fantastic Codsall station pub. My right hon. Friend has talked about allowing post offices the opportunity to sell tickets, but will she look at letting the Codsall station pub sell tickets?

[Justine Greening]

That sounds like a good idea that my hon. Friend’s local community might like to take forward. I encourage him to look through the document, which contains a section on how we want to see stations improve more generally.

Transport and the Economy

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I am a Northern Ireland MP and transport is a devolved matter, but I have some questions for the Minister.

I welcome the money that will be spent on the transport infrastructure. Only one person has been injured during the construction of the Olympics stadiums and other works, and no one has been killed. The road and rail links with the Olympic village and facilities must be addressed, however. In that regard, does the Minister believe the necessary transport infrastructure is now in place for pedestrians as well as for road and rail users?

In Northern Ireland the spend on road maintenance is about £2,800 per kilometre, compared with £12,000 in England and £7,500 in Wales. Reconstructing a road can be four times more expensive than the cost of maintaining it. How much of the investment that has been announced will be spent on new roads and how much will be spent on resurfacing existing roads? Northern Ireland has a policy of resurfacing roads every 25 to 30 years, and if the work is done right the first time, the road will be okay. I understand, however, that some roads have had to wait for as long as 68 years before being resurfaced. Is that situation unique to Northern Ireland?

The Northern Ireland Executive have said that they will spend £500 million on creating and improving crucial transport routes from Belfast to other major cities and towns. That shows that they recognise the importance of our transport infrastructure. They also recognise the importance of our construction sector. The hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) mentioned construction, and it is important to create apprenticeships and other opportunities within that sector. I acknowledge that the Minister does not have direct responsibility for that, but does he have any input?

I have recently been serving on the Civil Aviation Bill Committee, and that experience served to remind me of the importance for airports of good road and rail links. That can generate considerable economic benefits. Has the Minister considered increasing expenditure on projects around not only major airports such as Gatwick and Heathrow, but provincial airports on the UK mainland? That would also benefit Belfast City and Belfast International airports.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

The Government have reduced air passenger transport duty for Northern Ireland. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that gives Northern Ireland a fantastic opportunity to market itself and to develop and promote its aviation industry and airports?

[Jim Shannon]

I entirely agree. We campaigned for that, and it has given a great boost. We are grateful to the Government. Problems could arise, however, if airports in other parts of the UK ask for the same measure.

We should also consider our ports and ferry links. Will the spending that has been announced benefit any of the UK mainland’s ports? If the road links to Liverpool and Stranraer are good, that will be good for Northern Ireland. When I visit the United States of America, I am always struck by the ease and speed of road travel. That shows that infrastructure investment can greatly benefit people and the economy.

We want good infrastructure to be put in place and the construction industry to benefit—and apprentices to benefit from that. We believe that better transport infrastructure will be good for regional economies and will make the roads of the United Kingdom safer.

Noise Reduction (M54)

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I compliment the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), on his management of the previous debate, and I hope that he feels a lot more comfortable with this one, which is far more firmly within his brief. It is a great privilege to have secured this debate in Westminster Hall, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), who inspired me to request it, by pointing out what the Government could do to reduce the negative impact of road noise in many constituencies, including mine.

Often, when we talk about new developments such as motorways and railways, people who object to them are accused of being nimbys—not in my back yard—and of not wanting the developments because they are not concerned about the national interest. However, the fact is that they are often concerned because they are not fully confident that the Government, of whatever political colour, will do all that they can to mitigate the effects of noise from roads, railways or other major infrastructure projects.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and neighbour on securing this debate. I completely agree with him, and I re-emphasise how much the Government can do. In my constituency, the resurfacing four to five years ago of the M6 between junctions 12 and 13 greatly improved the lives of people living round and about who were plagued by the noise from the old surface.

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. It is not that the Government are unable to act or incapable of doing anything to improve the lives of people who live close or adjacent to motorways; they can have an enormous effect and make enormous improvements in people’s lives.

One of the key reasons for requesting this debate was the fact that road noise had once again been highlighted in my constituency, on the back of some very good and positive news: the announcement by Jaguar Land Rover that it is to build a major new engine factory on the i54 South Staffordshire industrial estate. That is fantastic news, because the new factory will bring many jobs and great prosperity, not just to my constituency, but to my hon. Friend’s constituency of Stafford and many others right across the west midlands. However, to secure the development, our local authorities—South Staffordshire district council and Staffordshire county council, working in conjunction with Wolverhampton city council—had to put money forward for a direct link between the i54 site and the M54.

Any such major construction project will have an effect on local residents, and in this case the residents of Coven Heath village adjacent to the motorway are particularly affected. Residents of not just Coven Heath but neighbouring villages up and down the M54 have raised many concerns about the impact a Jaguar Land Rover plant will have, with increased traffic movement from heavy goods vehicles and from the many people who will visit the site every day. That has focused many people’s minds on the inadequacies of the M54 and on the failure of many Governments in the past to take action to reduce the impact of noise on local communities.

I am not sure whether hon. Members have had the pleasure of driving along the M54 regularly, but perhaps I can tell them a bit about it. The Minister will probably correct me if I make a mistake, but I believe that the motorway was one of the first to use the construction method of concrete slabs. That was a revolutionary idea, and it became incredibly fashionable in motorway construction throughout the country, but unfortunately, as with many things that were fashionable in the 1970s, with the benefit of hindsight, the idea was not such a good one. Concrete construction causes excessive road noise, much more than the tarmacadam system used on many motorways, and the problem has been recognised often, including by the 1994 royal commission and the 1997 addition to that.

Road noise has a very detrimental effect on many people’s lives, and the Government have recognised both that and the need to reduce its impact on people living near motorways, as outlined in the Hansard list back in, I think, 2000 or 2001. It is my firm belief that the M54 meets the criteria of that list because the noise coming off it causes sufficient disturbance to the many communities not just in South Staffordshire but in Wolverhampton and across the county boundary into Shropshire.

When people leave the M6 and turn on to the M54, they immediately drive on a tarmacadam road until junction 2. Unfortunately, it is not a low-noise-impact surface, and as soon as they pass junction 2, there is a concrete slab construction all the way to Telford. We all know that rather than absorbing noise, concrete sends it out, causing local residents great concern.

I appreciate that finances are tight, and I do not imagine that the Minister has a bottomless pit of money—if he does, I am keen to hear about it—but I urge him to look at the issues on the M54, not just in connection with the Jaguar Land Rover development on the i54 site, which, I emphasise, all my constituents welcome. We do not stand in the way of progress in South Staffordshire; we embrace it and make it happen, as we have been doing with the development on the i54. However, we look to the Government to reduce the impact of such developments, and I ask the Minister to look very closely at junction 2 and the flyover that will be constructed from the i54 to the M54 and to reassure my constituents that the Government will do all they can to reduce the impact of noise, light and other pollution, including by ensuring that sound barriers are constructed.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way again. Does he agree that when the M6 managed motorway scheme that the Government recently announced, for which I am extremely grateful—I thank the Minister for his part in that—is being progressed, improving sound insulation, in particular between junctions 13 and 14, as the M6 passes right through the middle of Stafford, could be looked at, for the benefit of my residents who live right up against the motorway?

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Where motorways cut through urban areas or pass close to communities, the Government should be duty bound to do everything within their power to reduce the impact. If they wish to cultivate a positive image of infrastructure improvements—that they need not have a detrimental effect on people’s lives—they should take every step to ensure that the effects are minimised at every level. I must confess that I would like the barriers, which my hon. Friend mentioned, to be in place from the start of the M6 all the way past Manchester, but I am unsure whether the Minister will give so generously of sound barriers. Local communities often demand them, and the Government should always do everything within their power to ensure that local communities get them. I particularly ask the Minister to ensure that such measures are put in place for junction 2 and the flyover, along with noise-reducing or whisper tarmac.

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, which is so important to his constituents. It is typical of his approach that, having been at the forefront of the campaign to deliver the Jaguar Land Rover investment for his constituency, with colleagues including my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), he now follows through to ensure that it happens in a way that benefits his constituents most effectively. In the Department for Transport’s forward spending plan, £310 million was taken out of resource funding for road resurfacing and management, but £150 million is being invested in capital spending. Is that capital spending not exactly the sort of spending that my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) is calling for to improve the road and deliver a better quality of life for the constituency he so ably represents?

[Gavin Williamson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments. He makes a valid point; there is a danger that the Department for Transport wants to spend all its money in the Chilterns, and we do not want that. We want to ensure that it goes to the west midlands and further afield. I hope that the Minister will assure us that some money will be spent on the M54 and many other such schemes in the west midlands.

I ask that the Minister assures my constituents that everything will be done to protect residents during the construction phase of the flyover, not only in Coven Heath, but much further afield, so that the impact of the Jaguar Land Rover plant and the i54 is minimised at all costs. Will he urgently look at the whole motorway, from the M6 to junction 2 onwards, to assure my constituents that low-noise, low-impact whisper tarmac will be used when the road surface is replaced, to ensure that they do not have to hear the roar of the M54? Will he ensure that we do not have the travesty of a concrete slab motorway surface all the way from junction 2 to Telford? Will it be properly surfaced with low-noise, low-impact tarmac, thus enhancing and improving the lives of many people, not only in my constituency, but along the length of the M54?

I hope that the Minister can assure me that the use of silent or low-noise tarmac along the whole motorway will be considered in the maintenance schedule. When will that be planned over the next few years? Those assurances will give my constituents hope that the Government will act to improve their quality of life.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Williamson]

I would like clarification of the Minister’s remarks about when concrete-topped surfaces need repair. Will he confirm that when the road needs repair, it will not be repaired with more concrete but with a low-noise surface?

[Mike Penning]

There is a difference between repair and replacement. I cannot guarantee that that will be the case when the road is repaired—in other words, when potholes and so on are fixed—but what is needed to repair it will be done. I will come on to replacement in a moment.

We do not have a huge amount of concrete road, but a lot of local authority roads are concrete, and for maintenance, the longevity of the investment is an issue. My hon. Friend is right about the rest of the tarmac on the M54; low-noise surfacing, which reduces noise by about 50%, is not on that part of the motorway. I have never heard it called “whisper” tarmac, but developing that would be fantastic for everybody. The i54 development, with which he was involved, will lead to significant changes to junction 2 and the slip road, which I know the local authority has planned carefully. We will work with it to ensure that the project works for the local community and Jaguar Land Rover. I can categorically say that all the new parts of it will be low-noise.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was told by the European Commission—not many good things have come out of the Commission over the past few years, but this is one good thing—that it should do a noise survey of the whole country, including the road network. I am sorry to say to my hon. Friend that this particular part of the M54 does not fit the criteria for being excessively noisy. That offers no comfort or solace to residents in his constituency, but think about how bad the problem is on the road network in other parts of the country. Interestingly, the A449 going north from junction 2 meets the criteria and will be resurfaced imminently with low-noise tarmac. It already needs replacing, but it is deemed to have a significant problem with noise.

That is nearly all the bad news. The tarmac on the M54 where the concrete stops is also in good condition. We do not predict that we will need to replace the tarmac on the M54 for approximately four years. Although there will be new tarmac on the new roads—new, low-noise tarmac on the A449—it will be a considerable time before the M54 concrete-tarmac is resurfaced. However, I assure my hon. Friend that, when that is done, low-noise tarmac will be used on the concrete as well as on the existing tarmac.

The solution might seem simple—as I have asked my officials, surely we can lay the tarmac on the concrete, because it provides a strong sub-base—but that is not the case. It will have to be broken up and created as a sub-base, and the tarmac will then have to be re-laid in great depth on top, because the product is flexible, not rigid. Wear can cause so many problems.

My hon. Friend has alluded to the debate that is taking place, rightly, in all our constituencies throughout the country. I hold up my hand—it is happening in my constituency, where I have had exactly the same discussions. I have to look at the money available for maintenance and for capital projects that will keep the country going, and I must spend that as wisely as possible. I do not have the bottomless pit of money to which my hon. Friend has alluded, and in many ways I am pleased that I do not, because it gives me the opportunity to study carefully where our money is being spent. That makes me popular in certain parts of the country. I am pleased that the M6 widening project will be popular. It will give us capacity, and road safety will be significantly enhanced.

As an ex-fireman, I was very sceptical about managed motorways, because they were taking away the hard shoulders. Then I thought back to my time in service. Where did I see the major, serious fatalities on a motorway? It was on the hard shoulder. One of the first incidents that I ever went to involved an ice cream van parked on the hard shoulder. It is not the most robust of vehicles, because of the chassis, engine and fibreglass on top. It had broken down, pulled over to the hard shoulder and been hit by a lorry. The driver thought he was safe. Fortunately, he had left the vehicle to walk to an SOS phone. The vehicle resembled a skateboard—we would never have known that it was an ice cream van. It had been completely wiped out. If people’s vehicles break down on the motorway, they should pull over to the hard shoulder and then get out and on to the other side of the barriers, which is where they will be safest. Modern technology on the motorways means that assistance should get to them quickly. SOS phones are available and mobile phones have enhanced safety enormously on our roads.

Managed motorways have rescue areas and sanctuaries that allow us to sweat the existing assets. We do not have to go through planning all over again, because the motorway has already been built and the hard shoulder is up to road standard. It is interesting that, while hard shoulders were built to road standard all those years ago, we are only starting to use them now. The M42 pilot project showed that it works and road safety on such roads has been enhanced. We can get more vehicles on and it is much easier to control the flow of congestion. If we look at the M42, we see that there are far fewer traffic jams and stationary traffic. I would much rather see traffic running at 40 or 50 mph than it being stationary before rushing off at 70 mph and having to stop again later.

I cannot promise to put up sound barriers all along the motorway. I have made a note—and my officials are present—to look specifically at junctions 13 and 14, as my hon. Friend has asked me to do, and I will write to him about that.

[Gavin Williamson]

I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for being so generous in giving way again. I welcome his reassurance that low-noise, low-impact tar will be used across the whole stretch of the M54 when it is resurfaced. He has pointed out that the road between the M6 and junction 2 already has a tarmacadam, or flexible, surface. Can he give my constituents and me an idea of when the resurfacing will realistically happen? Will it happen in my lifetime or in my daughter’s lifetime? My top priority as a constituency Member of Parliament—I am being selfish; there are no Members from Shropshire present—would be from junction 2 to Telford and on to junction 3. When could that happen?

[Mike Penning]

It will be during my hon. Friend’s time as a constituency MP for his area—he is going to be there for a long time, because he is such a hard-working constituency MP. The time scale for the expected replacement of the tarmacadam part is four years from now. It may wear out slightly earlier than that, or—I am crossing my fingers—it may last a little longer. The longer it lasts, the more money we will have in the pot. I fully understand that that would be good news for my hon. Friend, and it would be good news for me regarding the budget. The faster it is replaced, the faster the low-noise tarmac will come in.

Sound screens will also be used and some are already up. They help, but they are not, under any circumstances, the answer to the problem. Mounding or bunding is another option—I know that that has been done in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Trees help, but they have to be placed at such depth. They have to be at about 10-plus metres before they can provide any tangible benefits. They look pretty, but if people stand on the other side of them—as I have done on many an occasion—they will see that they do not really help. We will put in sound-proofing, particularly wood-panel sound-proofing, where we can, but it is not feasible to do so across the motorway network and the A-road network.

We are looking at specific areas. On areas where we are doing new works in particular—this is why I touched on the M6—it is built into the project that we look at the issue. I am sure that that has happened with junctions 13 and 14, but please do not think that that is not also true of the A15, A16 and A17—we probably have done it. It is a massive advantage that, if we can sweat the assets, it leaves us some money elsewhere to do the sort of advanced projects to which my hon. Friend has alluded.

On the concept itself, the i54 project is so important not just to my hon. Friend’s constituency—I fully understand that—but to the country as a whole. It sends a message that this country is open for trading and investment. I was lucky to be on the Thames estuary when DP World announced a £1.5 billion investment in the newest port—it is huge—in the United Kingdom, just at the time when people were saying how difficult the situation was. Yes, the situation is difficult, but there are people who are willing to invest, and that will lock straight into the M25 and give us an opportunity.

Even though I have not said that this issue will be resolved imminently, works will be done soon in relation not only to the local authority and the i54 development, but to the A449. When the roads wear out, we will resurface them with low-noise tarmac. The estimated time is four years for the tarmac and 10 years for the concrete. I stress that the concrete is a major job and not something that can be done overnight, because the expense will be huge.

Question put and agreed to.

Concessionary Travel

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Karen Lumley]

I agree. There are obviously swings and roundabouts across the whole country and it would be nice if we had a uniform scheme whereby everybody could benefit; it would also be nice if we had the money to do that. However, I understand that we are in very difficult times and we have to make very difficult choices.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and I thank her very much for giving way. On that point, some of the current schemes that have been discussed are incredibly penal against rural district councils and we could actually see many services just being totally destroyed, such as those in my district council of South Staffordshire. We must have consideration for those authorities in the future, a point that she has been explaining fantastically well in this debate.

[Karen Lumley]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

Part of my constituency is rural and part of it is urban, so the problems facing those two parts are very different. That is one of the reasons why I wanted to speak today, because it is probably easier to get a bus in Redditch than it is to get one in Wychavon, which is the rural part of my constituency. So, as the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) said, it is only right that we treat people as fairly as we possibly can.