High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Gillan]

I am glad to have the Minister’s reassurance; that is not exactly how I understood it from my colleagues, but I will take his word for it. Having looked at the list, I find that I have one minor change in my constituency, which accommodates a footpath change at the request of my local landowner Mr Lund. I hope it accommodates his request in full, and I repeat that I was grateful to the Minister for providing details to me. However, I am not sure that details of the changes in other parts of Buckinghamshire have been communicated to my colleagues, because when I spoke to people in their offices I was told that the details that were made available in the list that arrived in my office at 1.30 pm had not been made available to Members or their staff, so no comments on the changes could be fed into the debate. As the Minister knows, several of the changes require a permanent acquisition of land to provide services or access for HS2.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way, and she is always generous with her time. This is a poor show, because this debate was in the business statement announced to the House on Thursday afternoon. Will she name her Conservative colleagues who cannot be bothered to turn up to represent their constituents?

[Mrs Gillan]

The hon. Gentleman mistakes what I mean. Several Members of this House who serve as Ministers or in other positions of responsibility are unable to express, directly on the Floor of the House, the views of their constituents. I am sometimes permitted to make points on their behalf and at their request, which is usually the way we accommodate such matters, as he knows.

Regional Airports

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) on a real tour de force; I do not think there is any airport in the UK of any significance that he missed out in his speech. The importance of aviation to Manchester, other regional airports and the whole of the UK came out extremely clearly in his remarks. He said that in round terms aviation is worth £50 billion to the UK economy, but in fact we could not have a modern economy without aviation. While the people who measure these things put the figure at around £50 billion, if we took aviation out of the system we would not be left with the economy minus £50 billion; we would be left with a very small and primitive economy indeed.

However, as my hon. Friend hinted, there is a paradox at the centre of aviation policy in this country: if we add up all the capacity on all the runways at London and regional airports, we find that we have more than 21 times the capacity that we need for aeroplanes to land in and take off from this country, but on the other hand Heathrow is congested because aviation depends on a hub system internationally. Heathrow is our major, indeed our only, hub airport, and it is congested. Many airlines would like to get in there but cannot. Airlines have cut off routes to the rest of the UK because that hub airport is full, yet we do not have the routes that regional airports, including those in Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle and the east midlands, would like.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman asserted that airports rely on a hub system, but that is an arguable point. I gently say to him that the hub system did not come about accidentally. For about 50 years, the UK had bilateral air agreements specifying that only London airports could be used. If there is a hub system, perhaps the most logical hub would be Schiphol airport, with its five runways. However, as we know, the reality is that a huge number of political choices contributed to the hub system, and similarly a huge number of political choices have been made that are not helping our regional airports. Specifically, they are not helping on APD, as the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) said.

[Graham Stringer]

There were a lot of points in that intervention, but I do not think that the key point about hub airports is that until recently most flights needed—some still do—bilateral agreements to get into Heathrow. The real point about hub airports is that we need that efficiency of transfer traffic in order to thicken routes that would not be viable at other airports. I will come on to APD shortly.

We have this paradox; we have loads of runway capacity, but insufficient runway capacity at Heathrow. That means that our aviation industry, which is vital, is not as good as it could be. My hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East mentioned businesses such as Google moving to the north-west and having headquarters there. However, KPMG has moved its European HQ to Frankfurt because of the lack of runway capacity at Heathrow.

There are two solutions. One is blindingly obvious but has got caught up in party politics. I hope that the three political parties can keep a united front and support whatever comes out of the Davies report. However, my view is simply that we should build a third and probably a fourth runway at Heathrow, because this country is falling behind in its international competitiveness.

That is the hub issue, but what do we do about the second issue, which is the capacity we have in the regions? How do we attract extra airlines to our major regional airports? There are three things that we can do, but Governments have not been good at doing any of them. First, I can see no reason at all why there should not be a completely open skies policy in every regional airport outside London. Why should any airline in the world that wants to fly into the UK, take passengers and go wherever it wants not be able to do so? If it could, that would create jobs and benefit any airport that it operated from.

The Government have gone part way there by granting fifth freedoms to airlines coming here, but there is also the right for UK and other airlines to object to those freedoms, so that measure has not brought about the benefit that it could have had. Having completely open skies with rights for everybody and no right of objection for other airlines, whether British or not, would benefit our regional airports, particularly the bigger ones such as Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham, but also some of the smaller ones. That is the one thing that we could do that would help the regional airports.

Secondly, as was mentioned both by my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East and in interventions, there should be a change in APD. Let me say clearly that APD is a bad tax. The PricewaterhouseCoopers report last year—I think it was published just before Christmas—showed that if APD was abolished, the UK economy would probably grow by 0.5%. I understand why Treasury Ministers, and Transport Ministers for that matter, say, “We don’t want to lose the revenue we’ve got”, even though other countries such as Holland and Ireland have scrapped APD and their economy has benefited as a result. Even if we cannot prove what would happen by creating theoretical models for this country, we can see what is happening elsewhere, follow the example of other countries and scrap APD; that would be the ideal way to approach the issue.

However, if scrapping APD is too much of a step for naturally cautious Treasury Ministers, we should adopt a step-by-step approach and measure what is going on. We could abolish APD for children, which would be very popular as APD is a tax on holidays as well as on business. Equally, we could abolish APD in the winter, when airlines find it difficult to make a profit; go to any UK airport in November and there will be people rattling about in it. Also, there could be a holiday—not with buckets and spades, but on taxation—for new routes, so the Treasury would not lose any money. In addition, APD could be reduced just in the regions. There are lots of different ways of approaching the problem of how to get rid of a bad tax, which would be beneficial for the regional airports. The Transport Committee looked at APD and recommended that the Government consider it in greater detail. On top of that, the Government should look at practical experience elsewhere, and adopt a step-by-step approach in this country.

The third point, already referred to by my hon. Friend and in interventions, is the importance of surface access. If we compare our airports with continental airports, many airports in north America and airports in the far east, we find that our train links are poor. Our biggest international airport—indeed, the biggest international airport in the world—is Heathrow, but apart from the Paddington link it does not have a mainline rail route going into it. In what country would one of the world’s great airports not have a mainline route going to it, so that people could not get to it by train from many other parts of the country? That is simply poor.

The Transport Committee is holding an inquiry into rail. We recently quizzed Network Rail and the Office of Rail Regulation about how they assess railway lines going to and from airports. I have been on the Committee on and off for a long time, but I found the answer pretty extraordinary: they do not assess them any differently from routes to anywhere else. We should, as the Davies commission recommended, change that approach so that we give priority to our airports. That would take traffic off the roads, help to support the airports and help to attract traffic into them.

The Committee looked at the example of Stansted, which could be part of the solution to some of the congestion in the south-east system. The rail line to Stansted is poor, and the sooner we get a decent fast rail link, the better. We can argue about whether the journey time should be 30 minutes, as Stansted thinks, or whether it can be reduced only to 40 or 45 minutes, but it should certainly be reduced; that would benefit everybody.

In Manchester, we have made our own arrangements in a sense. We have paid for the southern link to the rail system at Manchester airport, as well as for part of the northern link. With other Greater Manchester MPs, across all parties, I had to fight the Labour Government to get the tram link. All airports really should have decent surface links—preferably rail or, in some cases, rail and light rail.

I will finish on that point. Aviation is vital to our economy. It is not as good as it should be. We need to make sure we use the assets we have, invest to make them work better and certainly sort out the south-east system, which will help our regional economies as well.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Bus Services

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Westminster Hall

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) on securing this important debate. Our constituencies are in many ways different, being at opposite ends of the country, but we seem to share many of the same problems with local bus services.

My constituency is composed of both urban and semi-rural areas—towns, villages and estates spread out across the city of Sunderland—but what we have in common throughout the constituency is the fact that we do not enjoy the benefits of a rail or light rail connection. We entirely depend on local bus services, which is why I have campaigned on the issue since I was elected to Parliament.

For metropolitan areas such as Tyne and Wear, there is a solution: the introduction of a quality contract scheme—a mechanism that would allow the local transport authority to reregulate local bus services if certain criteria were met. That new system would have routes set by the transport authority, with bus operators bidding in an open competition to run services. I am proud that, despite fierce opposition from bus operators, and threats of legal action, the combined authority in Tyne and Wear continues to lead the way. I shall briefly outline why I believe such a scheme has the potential to benefit constituents in other areas, too.

I should perhaps at this point mention that, although my hon. Friend the Member for Corby and I share many problems with bus services, our views diverge when it comes to Stagecoach. I am pleased about its helpful, consensual approach in east Northamptonshire, and I hope it may take the same approach in Tyne and Wear as we press ahead with options for the future of local bus services. I am pleased at my hon. Friend’s experience and I hope that in the fullness of time I shall share that positive experience of co-operation from bus companies in trying to deliver the best to our constituents.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case for quality contracts, and I agree with her. The Souter family who own Stagecoach have become billionaires since buses were deregulated. Does my hon. Friend agree that that shows that privatising and deregulating bus services has not helped the travelling public, but has allowed people such as the Souter family to game the system and make bus services worse?

[Bridget Phillipson]

It is my view that deregulation has failed in my area. I am not opposed to bus operators making a profit, although I think the profits made by operators in my region, particularly Stagecoach, are excessive. I want some of that profit to be reinvested into the region and into subsidising services that my constituents depend on to get to hospital, school and other places. I have been disappointed by the approach taken by Stagecoach, but I appreciate that there is much at stake. As my hon. Friend the Member for Corby mentioned, many people are paying careful attention to see what Tyne and Wear will decide, and no doubt Stagecoach has been motivated in its approach by that clear factor. I hope that we will find a way forward.

An investigation in 2011 by the Competition Commission was highly critical of deregulated bus services. It found that there was limited competition between operators, which tended to result in higher prices and lower quality for passengers. The report also found that head-to-head competition for services was unlikely between dominant operators. There was heavy criticism because some bus companies were accused of colluding to avoid direct competition altogether, which resulted in geographic market segregation, including in my area. Just as in the energy market, a small number of companies dominate the bus market; we all know them. A quality contract scheme would create a level playing field, allowing new entrants to break into the market; it would open up competition and deliver better value for the taxpayer and passengers.

Such a scheme would also provide long-term security to bus operators, their staff and bus passengers. Too often, bus companies change or even scrap routes, which frustrates passengers and leaves people isolated and cut off from vital services. It also puts jobs at risk. A clear example of that can be found at the Doxford international business park in my constituency, which houses thousands of staff, many of whom are employed in contact centres. Businesses and staff have told me of their concerns that buses run infrequently after the main evening rush hour and that services do not fit with shift patterns. That leaves staff who work shifts with little choice but to travel by car or risk waiting for an infrequent bus service.

On Friday I visited EE, one of the major businesses that employs staff at Doxford, and heard at first hand what the situation means for staff: those who finish shifts at 8 pm run—literally—out of the door and catch the bus at five past 8. If they miss it, they face a lengthy wait for the next bus. Often staff must come to work far earlier than their shift start time, because unless they catch the hourly bus service they risk the consequences of being late for work. No doubt that affects staff retention as well as business growth and our ability to support the growth of jobs in the region. As we know, the north-east still faces big economic challenges and is the region of the country with the highest unemployment rate. We need to support business growth and job creation, but a public transport system that can support that is essential.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Corby about the challenges for disabled passengers, and particularly those who are blind or partially sighted. I recently took part in a guided walk, which was facilitated by Guide Dogs, to get an understanding of how difficult and disorienting it can be for blind and partially-sighted passengers when they try to access bus services. I travelled on a Go-Ahead bus that was fitted with audiovisual information. I recognise the importance of extending that facility, which is quite unusual in my area. The bus was one of the express bus services that offers it, and although it was far from perfect it is a step in the right direction. Bus operators must do far more to recognise many passengers’ additional needs and make sure that public transport is accessible to everyone.

We have a long way to go on fares and ticketing. A benefit of a quality contract system would be the possibility of introducing a London-style Oyster scheme. Passengers would then have the best fare worked out for them automatically. At the moment there is a huge array of options, with a confusing price structure and different operators offering different fares and tickets that do not work across buses. That discourages people from using buses. Far more must be done to encourage people to use buses, but if that is to happen fares must be affordable and simple. Integrated ticketing is also vital.

Understandably, there is a national focus on our current rail infrastructure, and I agree with that. However, very little attention has been paid to what happens when commuters reach their final rail stop and are confronted with the reality of local bus services or, indeed, to what happens when there is no rail link, only buses, as in my area.

I believe deregulation has failed. Bus companies have a social responsibility to local communities, but, sadly, too many fail to deliver. They vehemently oppose solutions in my area that would give local people a greater say. Their negative campaigning, scaremongering and threats of legal action have gone far beyond rational opposition and are irresponsible. We need action now to help communities and to grow the economy. It is clear to me that that can best be achieved through a quality contract scheme and I hope that later this year Tyne and Wear will be the first area to proceed with one.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) on securing the debate. He described in some detail the circumstances in his region, Northamptonshire, demonstrating the trueness of the phrase “All politics is local”. The information that he drew on came from the excellent freedom of information request made by the shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who discovered that Northamptonshire was the hardest hit of all boroughs, with 55% of its funding for local bus services cut since the coalition came to power in 2010.

My hon. Friend the Member for Corby also made the point that the issue truly is a national one. He discussed the challenge faced by the most vulnerable—the elderly and the disabled—as well as issues relating to quality of life, and spoke eloquently of a constituent who saw a new bus stop outside his house when no bus had gone past for years.

I also pay tribute to the other two Members who spoke. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) underlined the fact that bus services are truly a United Kingdom issue and eloquently described the effect on those in rural and sparsely populated areas in his constituency.

My hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) championed the idea of the Tyne and Wear combined authority taking forward a quality contract system. She rightly made the point that constituencies that are urban and semi-rural and that have no light rail connections are particularly vulnerable to the problems in the current context. As she said, we want companies to get a reasonable return on their money, but what is actually delivered is often not reasonable. Excessive profits must be reinvested into the community. Her reference to the Competition Commission report reminded us of some of the issues at stake.

[Graham Stringer]

Does my hon. Friend accept that it is an indication of the exploitation of the travelling public that goes on outside the regulated system in London that the profits made by private bus companies in places such as Tyne and Wear, Greater Manchester and Merseyside are between 25% and 50% greater than for the same companies operating in London? That is indicative of a failed system that is exploiting the travelling public in the English regions.

[Mr Marsden]

My hon. Friend serves with great distinction on the Transport Committee. He highlights a key issue for us all to ponder. If things can be done in London, they should certainly be examined elsewhere, particularly in areas such as Greater Manchester—I speak as a native Mancunian—where the tradition of good, strong, integrated public transport is sometimes hobbled by practices he mentioned.

All regions have seen support for local services stretched as never before in recent memory, losing an average of 25% of bus funding since 2010. Yet buses remain the most frequently used mode of public transport. Their use is widespread and important outside of as well as in London and our major cities, where media coverage of transport issues is sometimes focused. They are vital in both urban and rural areas, and are a lifeline for groups such as the elderly and disabled people. They also offer opportunities for all passengers to expand their horizons and engage socially in local areas and further afield.

The previous Labour Government showed an unprecedented commitment to strengthening bus services throughout the country. In 1997, the overall level of Government subsidy for bus services—including public transport, the bus service operators grant and concessionary fares—stood at less than £1 million; by the current decade it had risen to more than £2.3 billion. The present Government did not inherit a situation in which buses were a second-class service with a disintegrating network and fleet of vehicles, but, sadly, their cuts to the local government grant and lack of forethought about their effect on local transport demonstrate that they have reverted to an isolated and siloed vision of what public transport can do, rather than seeing it as the environmentally friendly, efficient and inclusive driver of economic growth that it should be.

Campaigning groups such as the Campaign for Better Transport have done some excellent work, particularly in highlighting the value of supported bus services. Such routes are not believed by operators to be independently viable, but often serve the hardest to reach and most isolated communities. The CBT’s research, published earlier this year in the report “Buses in Crisis”, highlighted that in 2013-14 almost 50% of local authorities cut supported bus services, at a total loss of £17 million. Since 2010, more than £56 million has been cut from supported bus services, with many routes and services being cut completely. No wonder that in his foreword to the report the chief executive of the CBT, Stephen Joseph, highlighted the impact of those cuts on two particular groups:

“young people unable to access their place of education or training”

and

“older people who are left in isolation after their lifeline to the outside world has been cut.”

Supported services are particularly important for the elderly. The difficulty of accessing health services can mean that conditions go untreated and undiagnosed, or that the taxpayer ends up paying more for ambulance trips and unnecessary overnight hospital stays because of a lack of transport options. The difficulty of maintaining social links where public transport is poor reduces quality of life and can anger families, especially those in rural areas who cannot easily see their elderly relatives.

The local economy also suffers as shopping centres and services are made inaccessible. Age UK’s report, “Missed opportunities: the impact on older people of cuts to rural bus services”, brings into stark relief the many facets of isolation that the elderly can experience when services are cut; in some places a taxi to the theatre could cost 10% of their weekly pension. People with disabilities also rely on bus services and are hardest hit when support routes are closed, for many of the same reasons. I will come later to other approaches that can improve the services used by disabled people, but the fundamental point is that the service must be operating in the first place.

As we have heard, young people also suffer when services are cut: jobs and training in hard-to-reach areas can no longer be pursued. Young people are among the biggest users of bus services, as the National Union of Students has pointed out. More than 2 million young people come from low-income households, and 64% of jobseekers either have no access to a vehicle or cannot drive. The role that the bus can play is clear: a joined-up network allows aspirations to thrive and prevents young people from being unable to take up job opportunities. It also boosts their productivity, and it is estimated that £1 of public investment in buses can provide between £3 and £5-worth of wider benefits.

We all know from our experience in our constituencies that bus travel is key for young people. My hon. Friend the Member for Corby referred to his experience, and recently I have had a number of meetings with young people in which they have all said that the issue is not simply not being able to get about socially; bus services are a lifeline to their college, as well as to get to job interviews and eventually to take up work. It really is a key issue. My hon. Friend was right to highlight the inconsistency of requiring young people to stay in education until they are 18 when they do not have the wherewithal to do so.

The provision of transport in rural areas, which has already been touched on, can also become a matter of inequality. Recent research by the Centre for Social Justice showed that people who live in rural areas can spend between 20% and 30% more on transport than those in urban households. Such areas therefore have more to lose than most when support for local bus services is reduced. As a former shadow further education Minister, I know how crucial that can be for young people in rural areas who want to access college courses. Campuses in rural areas often require a five to 10 mile journey, as opposed to a one to two mile journey in urban areas.

We also have a right to expect quality provision from bus operators because public subsidy accounts for 45% of bus operators’ revenues. The comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South on the situation in Tyne and Wear are pertinent. Virtually all the major bus companies have pointed out that cuts at that level have inhibited their ability to provide services. The example of her county council is not isolated. There has been a 50% subsidy cut in Suffolk, a 40% subsidy cut in Hertfordshire and a 30% subsidy cut in Somerset. They are all Conservative-controlled authorities in which issues of social cohesion for the elderly and economic opportunity for the young have not been sufficient to retain the subsidies. Those authorities’ own Government have made their ability to do so even harder.

I commend colleagues who have stood up for their local services, and I commend my hon. Friends who have spoken today. My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs Riordan) has been fighting for bus services in her constituency, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) has been vocal about services in his area.

What other pressures do local authorities face, and what powers do they have to respond? The LGA has raised concerns that funding has been cut by £261 million and that often it cannot do much about it. Concessionary fares and supported services must work in tandem, rather than competing for an ever-reduced pool of money. People continue to receive the benefits of the bus pass, but we must ensure that its funding reflects the effects of social and independent living. We want actively to explore what more we can do to incentivise and extend bus support for young people so that we make a further impact to bridge the gap to jobs and skills and, incidentally, to make a real impact on economic growth.

Current contract arrangements give little power or incentive for local authorities to have mechanisms to maintain protected services, and the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby on quality control are highly relevant. We would increase the amount of money devolved to regional bodies, which would be a major driver of new initiatives and transport projects to improve the quality of services and the transport network for people across those regions.

We must also consider what we have to do to make access a reality for people with disabilities. In the House, we have raised the issues of bus driver training and audiovisual systems. They will not go away, particularly when loud voices from consumer and public organisations are saying that it is time that Ministers heard the clarion call to take a lead on access.

Government at all levels must never lose sight of the fact that bus services not simply are the preserve of bus operators but exist for their passengers. Public transport must never be relegated to the status of a second-class service. A well funded and prioritised bus service can be a key driver of economic growth. The Government need to be fully committed to those ideals to make them a reality, rather than sidelining millions of people to what my hon. Friend’s constituent eloquently characterised as curfew living.

High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I have three points to make on this important Bill: one about the economic analysis, one about the capacity, and one about the speed of delivery of the project.

We have heard a lot about the benefits, or lack of benefits, from the project. All sorts of different studies have been done, but the one thing we can almost guarantee is that when the project is brought to completion it will be found that none of those studies is accurate. They are studies that the Treasury demands before it agrees to expenditure. So what we need to do is look at the real world scenario and see what people who are running cities and people who have experience of projects like this one are saying.

Those people who do not think HS2 is worth doing and that it will not benefit cities in the north should produce evidence that there is a single leader or mayor of a major city in this country who wants slower connections to anywhere else in the country. The case being made by my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) and for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) is not that the project is bad and will not bring economic benefits; it is that they would like their areas to have the economic benefits from the project—and there will be economic benefits in many areas.

[Robert Flello]

My hon. Friend is probably aware that there is a KPMG report that says Stoke-on-Trent will lose to the value of £78 million a year. That is a finger in the wind, but it is a very damning figure.

[Graham Stringer]

It is a relative figure from a general uplift.

We should look at the experience of countries that have high-speed lines, such as France, Spain and Germany. The most direct comparator is the line between Lyon and Paris. When the Transport Committee went there in 2011, it found, and was told by the director-general of SNCF, that both cities had benefited from it. All the economic benefit had not been sucked out of Lyon and into Paris; both ends had benefited. The same is true of the lines between Frankfurt and Cologne and between Lille and other parts of France. That does not just happen because the line is built, however; it happens if there is a strategy of the Government and the city governments to make sure there is benefit from that high-speed route. It relies on active involvement from local and city government to make sure all the benefit of that investment is captured.

[Damian Collins]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Graham Stringer]

No, as I have given way once and many Members want to speak in this debate.

There are people with genuine and serious constituency interests in this debate, but some of the interests lined up against the project are vested interests. Referring back to what the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) said, I wrote an article recently about HS2 in which I guessed that when the railways started, in the early and mid-19th century, they would have been opposed by the stagecoach owners and bargees at that time. The editor of the journal I wrote the article for found a cartoon of the 1830s depicting horses that were unemployed queuing up. So there are vested interests against this project, as well as constituency interests.

My second point is about capacity. The point has been well made that this project is driven by capacity issues and it will have economic benefits. The question that people who want to stop this project have to answer is this: are they really saying to our country that, by the middle of this century, we are going to be relying on railways that were built in the middle of the 19th century and motorways that were built in the middle of the 20th century for our transport infrastructure? There has been very little investment in any of our transport infrastructure—motorways, roads and airport runways—over the last 30 or 40 years. That would be a disgrace to the United Kingdom and it would mean that we fell further behind our competitors.

The final point I want to make has two aspects. I sympathise with the arguments made by those Members who have constituency interests and are opposing this Bill, and I hope the Secretary of State will listen carefully, because my experience of being involved in more than one major infrastructure project is that if we pay more and earlier in compensation, we save in the long term and the projects happen more quickly. A lot of the resistance comes from people who think they are being treated unfairly. So I hope the Secretary of State will listen.

The other side of the coin has already been referred to. The Higgins report calls for the project to be speeded up and I agree with that, but I think we can do still better. Building north to south as well as south to north and speeding up the project would bring more immediate benefits. Whatever we say about the cost-benefit analysis, all the analysis shows it is not the actual quantum of money—£25 billion, £30 billion or £40 billion—that counts; it is that we will get more economic benefit back than the money we put in. So the quicker we do it, the better.

High-speed Rail

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

My right hon. Friend has never lost an opportunity to make that case for Hillingdon, and I assure him that I will look into it. I reassure him that I hope to say something about compensation in the very near future.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

These are two excellent reports, and the Secretary of State is right to talk about ensuring that rail links help to provide the economic benefits from the high-speed links. When lines in the north of England are electrified, can he guarantee that, following the fiasco of the TransPennine Express, there will be electric trains to run on them?

[Mr McLoughlin]

Before we start talking about fiascos and the TransPennine Express, I chide the hon. Gentleman for not pushing a bit further and getting more electrification when he sat on the Government Benches, and getting more rolling stock—[Interruption.] He says he did, but he did not succeed. We are doing it, we are succeeding, and we will order the rolling stock.

Rolling Stock (North of England)

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Angela Smith]

I myself used TransPennine Express only the other week and when I got to the station I found that one of the carriages on the train had been removed, and a significant number of people had to stand from Sheffield to Manchester. In fact, that is a regular experience for people using that line, the Hope Valley line, and it is just the same for people using the Leeds to Manchester line. This is a pressing issue.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend; she has gone right to the heart of the issue. Does she agree that this situation is not only a consequence of the west coast main line fiasco but a long-term consequence of the Government’s not investing in enough rolling stock throughout the whole country?

[Angela Smith]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend; he, too, always gets to the heart of the debate quickly. I will refer to that point later in my speech.

In his remarks about last Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s questions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) made an important point, because one of the consequences of what is happening is that at least the Prime Minister will benefit from a better service when visiting his constituency at weekends, even if the same is not true of my constituency and my right hon. Friend’s constituency.

It is also clear that the process that has led to the transfer of these trains has the fingerprints of Ministers all over it, with DFT Ministers clearly involved in the chain of events that has led us to where we are now. In fact, what we are seeing, as I have already said, is the end result of the botched failure of the west coast main line refranchising, which incidentally cost the tax payer £55 million, and Ministers cannot deny that they were at the heart of that process.

The other factor that has played a part in creating the situation that we are discussing today is the Government’s ideologically driven desire to privatise the east coast main line before the general election next year. To achieve that aim, the Government decided to negotiate costly franchise extensions with many incumbent operators, such as First TransPennine Express, being given a 10-month extension from April 2015 to February 2016. That is at the heart of the decision to transfer these carriages to Chiltern Railways.

Stansted Airport

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Lammy]

I agree that that is one direction of travel. It has been interesting to see Newcastle airport recently open up huge new routes with huge new carriers, including flights to Dubai. That supports the hon. Gentleman’s point on regional airports.

The new owners have already signed up new airlines at Stansted, announced an £80 million redevelopment of the airport, launched a campaign to attract long-haul carriers to Stansted and signed deals that will add more than 11 million passengers in the next 10 years. That underlines all that has already been said. With ever increasing use and committed and forward-looking new owners, the future of Stansted looks bright.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

There is no doubt that Stansted is doing well, but does my right hon. Friend agree that the Davies report has not given Stansted a fair analysis, because the analysis stops at 2030? If the Davies report had looked at runway capacity and airport capacity in the south-east until 2050, as we wanted, it might have given a different view on Stansted’s future, which is thriving.

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend cuts to the chase. Long-term aviation strategy has been handed to the Davies commission, but it will not report until after 2015, so I do not want to stray too far into second-guessing what it might say. I am sympathetic to what my hon. Friend said, because I was somewhat surprised that the new runway at Stansted was not even included in the Davies report’s preliminary shortlist. Given the scope for development there, the predicted increases in passenger numbers and the airport’s ever-evolving success, it is surprising that that runway did not warrant further consideration as an option. I understand that that was in part due to Davies not taking into account the full passenger forecasts or the recent deals that have been signed under the new ownership at Stansted.

I am pleased that the commission, in highlighting the possible need for a new runway at Stansted by 2050, indicates that it at least accepts that the airport has long-term value. Either way, Davies has concluded that the choice over a new runway by 2030 is effectively between Heathrow and Gatwick. My priority for this debate is not what happens in 2030 or 2050, but what happens now. Regardless of what Davies eventually recommends, we have an immediate problem, which is that London urgently needs more air capacity. The prospect of any new runway is at best 15 years away, and those are 15 years that we do not have. London cannot afford to wait and should not sit by as the likes of Frankfurt, Schiphol and Charles de Gaulle surpass us and steal the benefits that accompany better connectivity.

Transport Infrastructure

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I understand the passion that she and other Members feel about this issue. It is right for us to try to look at and address these issues. We have to see what is happening with aviation noise and how it should be judged. That is why I am very interested in some of the commission’s interim proposals. It will take longer to take a view on that, but I hope to be able to come back in the spring to announce the way forward. This is a very difficult job because these issues have been around for some time. It is right to conduct a proper investigation and, I hope, come up with the right alternative at the end of the day.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

As Government after Government have ducked this issue, our main European competitors have built many runways, while our new competitors in the middle east have built even more of them. Does the Secretary of State agree that the only way to break this logjam is for both the major political parties represented in this Chamber to give a commitment to accept the conclusions of the Davies report?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, who served for a long time on the Transport Select Committee. I certainly agree with him that it would be good if we could reach a consensus on this matter. Whatever option we come up with will impact on people’s lives and communities. We need to try to do everything we can to address and relieve it, but we also need to look at the options for the longer-term future offered by quieter aeroplanes, for example. An overall consensus would indeed be the best way to move forward on big infrastructure projects.

High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Ellman]

Again, I think it is for the Minister to answer those questions. This specific amendment deals with networks. The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue about the costs and the contingencies and how they will be put together, but that is a matter for the Minister and for broader debate than for discussion on this specific amendment.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

When the Transport Select Committee went to France to look at the economic impact of high-speed rail, we found that there was a huge economic benefit in Lille and most other cities. The fact is that the Department for Transport assessments do not capture that economic benefit. Talking about people working on trains really misses the point about the economic impact and the economic benefit that will come from high-speed rail. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Mrs Ellman]

I do agree. When the members of the Select Committee went to France and elsewhere in Europe to look at high-speed rail there, we were struck by the success of the system and by the enthusiasm with which it was greeted by people living in the areas that it served. Indeed, what struck us was they wanted more: more stops, more stations, more access to high-speed rail. That made a considerable impact on us.

Aviation Strategy

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the extremely erudite and knowledgeable speech by the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst). I learned most of what I know about aviation and Stansted during the air inquiry in the run-up to the 1985 White Paper on aviation. At that time, as leader of Manchester city council, I was a director of Manchester airport. We put together solid arguments against the expansion of Stansted airport, which we believed would contribute to a continuing imbalance in the country’s economy. I should tell him that I have not shifted far from those views, although some of my then colleagues, who could not have envisaged that Manchester airport would end up owning Stansted, have shifted quite a long way from their views. That is for a more detailed future debate.

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman—I shall put it in slightly different words—that this country has been hopeless, not only in aviation infrastructure, but all infrastructure. We have the lowest motorway density in what used to be called western Europe; we have one small high-speed line, which, symbolically, goes out of the country; we have built one new runway—at Manchester airport—in the whole UK since the second world war; and we have poor broadband speeds. We have been very poor indeed at infrastructure.

I believe that the recession was caused by bankers and the euro—Government Members might have a different perspective—but, nevertheless, productivity has fallen, and if we are to earn our living in the world, it must increase. One way in which the Government can support industry and jobs, and the country’s competitiveness, is by ensuring that we have good infrastructure.

That brings me to the main point in the Transport Committee’s aviation strategy report. We have been through some of the arguments, but there is no shortage of runway capacity in this country. Figures in the written submissions to the report show that, at the main airports, only a third of runway capacity is used, and that, throughout the UK, we have 21 times the runway capacity we need. However, we are extraordinarily short of hub capacity. Heathrow is full, and what happens there cannot easily be replicated directly at Gatwick, Stansted, Birmingham or, unfortunately, Manchester.

The example given by Heathrow—we are not falling for its public relations—was the Seattle service. There are insufficient passengers in London to provide a daily service to Seattle from London. The British Airways Seattle service flies daily because of transfer passengers. Approximately a third of passengers at Heathrow are transfer passengers. I have chosen the Seattle example, but there are many others. Heathrow enables routes to connect London and the UK to the rest of the world.

The constraints on the hub capacity come in because, when we consider the number of serious destinations served, we realise that it is not just a numbers game. At the time of the report, Heathrow served 128 destinations, although there might be fewer now because it is declining all the time. At the same time, Amsterdam served 131 destinations; Frankfurt served 149; and Paris served 155. It is not good for the business of this country if our European competitors are connected to more parts of the world.

In the emerging economies, it is not the cities to which London and the UK are connected that stands out, but the fact that we are not connected to places such as Jakarta and Manila. We are not connected to huge mega-cities in China, such as Nanjing, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Xiamen. One thousand more flights go from Frankfurt to China per year than from this country, excluding flights to Hong Kong. That cannot be good for the business of the UK.

On the alternatives, I think “mad” was the word that some professionals used to describe spending £30 billion on an airport in east London, with all the environmental problems that that would cause. It is said that fewer people would be affected by noise, and that would be true to start with. However, once an airport is built out there with all the jobs that would be created, people would, as the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden said, go to live near where they work and be affected by the noise. An estuarial airport costing at least £30 billion is therefore not an alternative.

Another alternative, which I think has been dealt with, is joining up airports. That has been tried in Toronto, Tokyo and Glasgow and it simply has not worked—people want to transfer within one airport.

There is no alternative but to expand Heathrow, otherwise this country will lose out. When the Roskill commission sat the figures would have been different, but all the arguments about having a major hub airport in London were before them. We are now in the commission’s future and we still have not dealt with the problem. We need to deal with it as quickly as possible.

Yesterday, there was a debate—I do not intend to repeat it—on air passenger duty. The Economic Secretary said that she did not accept the figures in the PricewaterhouseCoopers report, which indicated that if air passenger duty was abolished completely the Treasury would collect more finance and 60,000 extra jobs would be created. I accept that in any report consultants know who they are working for and include assumptions that are often helpful to the conclusion. The Minister said that she did not accept the assumptions, which is fair, but she needs to explain why, and that was not part of the debate. I hope that the Minister responding to this debate will explain why the assumptions are not acceptable, because it is difficult to understand why a report that states that more jobs could be created with less tax—an attractive proposition to Conservatives—is being rejected.

A report by York Aviation has also been mentioned, and I would be interested in a response from the Minister. The report did not look into the current situation, but it did study how many more passengers could be attracted to airline travel in long-haul, interregional, non-congested airports if there was an APD holiday. For Manchester—there are similar cases for other regional airports, such as Birmingham and Bristol—routes to Bangkok, Hong Kong, Delhi, Mumbai and Beijing would become viable if there was an APD holiday for two or three years. There would be no loss to the Treasury, just gain when people arrived in this country and spent money, because the routes do not currently exist. Will the Minister respond to the detail of that report, either now or at a future meeting, because that should also be an attractive proposition for a Conservative Government.

During the passage of the Civil Aviation Act 2012, I regularly questioned the then Transport Minister, now the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers), about why so many extra costs and regulations—in terms of security and extra red tape—were being imposed on airports. She said that they were not being imposed, but when the Civil Aviation Authority came before the Select Committee, it admitted that the costs had gone up, and now we find they have risen again. Will the Minister look at why these costs and burdens on airports have almost quadrupled since the Bill became an Act, contrary to the assurances from the then Minister?

Finally, many people make an environmental argument against aviation. We have heard about the perverse situation of air passenger duty, which is huge for people travelling from China and for those on other long intercontinental routes, forcing people into Paris and thus losing us business, but it also forces people to multi-ticket. For a long journey, it is much cheaper for someone to take a plane from Stansted, Gatwick, Heathrow, Manchester or Birmingham to a major European hub and then to fly on. By doing that, a family can save hundreds of pounds, but it leads to a 5% to 16% increase in carbon dioxide output and an increase in NOx gases, most of which are produced on take-off and landing. If someone changes in the middle east—increasingly a major competitor to Heathrow, alongside the European hubs—on their way to the far east, the result is a 37% increase in fuel usage. The case, therefore, for constraining airport capacity to improve the environment is actually having a perverse effect.

I should, at the beginning of my speech, have congratulated the Minister on his appointment. We worked together on the Transport Select Committee at one time, and I wish him well and look forward to his responses. I know he cares about aviation, which is not a well-understood part of the transport industry, but I genuinely believe that the Government’s policies are severely restricting what could be a genuine growth industry that could create many jobs in the country.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—