Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Giles Watling and Chris Heaton-Harris

Thursday 12th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

T2. Greater Anglia, which runs the trains round our way, is currently introducing a £1.4 billion fleet of brand new trains—very good. Among other benefits, that will support the local economy and tackle social exclusion. However, the great eastern main line needs to be upgraded quickly. What steps is the Department taking to ensure that key upgrades, such as the Bow junction remodelling, extra loops between Chelmsford and Colchester, and the provision of digital signalling, are delivered within the next five to 10 years?

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)]

The new Greater Anglia train fleet will certainly deliver many benefits, including extra passenger capacity on the great eastern main line. I am particularly interested, too, in seeing the results of the great eastern main line taskforce study work on the upgrades my hon. Friend mentions, and the renewal of the strategic outline business case and wider economic benefit studies so we can move forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Giles Watling and Chris Heaton-Harris

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I hear what my hon. Friend says. There is an argument for open access on our railways. The Williams review, which will report in the near future, will provide an opportunity to debate the issue at quite some length. I very much look forward to having that debate with my hon. Friend because he has some positive ideas.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

15. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should extend contactless payment throughout the south-east, and perhaps even out to the coastline of Clacton?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. Yeah, why not?

Draft Heavy Commercial Vehicles in Kent (No. 1) Order 2019

Debate between Giles Watling and Chris Heaton-Harris

Tuesday 8th October 2019 General Committees

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

It is a bit of both. Some are new staff being recruited and some are being transferred from other functions across the United Kingdom.

I hope I have answered most of the questions; I will come back to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover on those I have not. We have a forum later today with Kent MPs and I will have the answers to any questions I have not answered.

My hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil asked me what we are doing to make lorries compliant. I hope I answered that in my comments on the comms campaign. We hope to be using the pop-up sites to tell drivers that they are border-ready. Currently, the message is about making sure that they understand what they need to do. Where the sites are popular and being used properly, and when we get to 1 November, we hope to move on to messages around, “Yes, actually that is a border-ready document; you should move down to Kent and you shouldn’t have too much of an issue to maintain flow.”

I want to give hon. Members a rough idea of the numbers of vehicles that could be in the Brock process in Kent. The slip road at Eurotunnel has capacity for 450 vehicles. The holding area at the Port of Dover has capacity for roughly 1,100 vehicles. The capacity of Brock M20 will be up to 2,000. Manston airfield will hold around 5,800. The Dover traffic access protocol has capacity of about 300, and if we needed it, the Brock M26 would hold 1,700 or so vehicles.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

The plans for many thousands of lorries to be parked as part of Operation Brock are well and good, and I understand that the plans are for the worst-case scenario, as is much of Operation Yellowhammer. I recently made a trip to the continent and I have seen the lanes cut off for Operation Brock up and down the M20. If something goes wrong or something does happen, as happened to me on my way to France, all the traffic that would have been on the M20 will go through the lovely lanes of Kent. What is in place to prevent that happening across rural Kent?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Brock will be in place to stop that happening. The powers we are discussing today will be the powers that the police and the representatives of the highways authorities will be using to stop lorries from doing exactly that. That is why we are here today to examine this statutory instrument and the other two with which it is associated. There are powers that can be used in bits, but, realistically, this is the law that the Kent Resilience Forum and others have been calling for, to stop exactly what my hon. Friend has described in his intervention happening.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Giles Watling and Chris Heaton-Harris

Thursday 19th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Departments’ plans are well developed and designed to respond to all scenarios, including the unlikely possibility that we leave the EU without a deal. Some contingency plans have already become evident and more will become public over the coming weeks.

[Giles Watling]

If, in the end, there is no deal, can my hon. Friend assure me that the Government’s contingency plans will take into account often overlooked areas, such as Clacton?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Clacton, Mr Speaker, is never overlooked by its Member of Parliament.

The Government are engaging with businesses and other stakeholders in every region of the United Kingdom in order to understand the challenges and opportunities that may have an impact on them. Later this year we will consult on the new UK shared prosperity fund, which will give us an opportunity to consider carefully how we should address barriers to growth and tackle inequalities faced by all parts of the country, including rural and coastal areas such as my hon. Friend’s Clacton constituency.