Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Grant Shapps and Barry Sheerman

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

The whole House recognises the irony of an SNP Member talking about ships being delivered late. The whole House will want to welcome the extraordinary work done by those on HMS Prince of Wales who got the ship ready to leave not at 30 days’ readiness, which is what they were ranked for, but in eight days. I would have thought that congratulating the ship’s company would be the right thing to do.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Secretary of State remember that the British Army used to be the biggest trainer of young men and women in the country and that we produced so many skilled people? When can he take us back to those balmy days?

[Grant Shapps]

Since 2014, we have been training 60,000 Ukrainian troops, proving that we know how to get troops trained. We still train extraordinary numbers. I think I am right that, on all forms of training more broadly, we are breaking some of those records. We will ensure that we have armed forces that are fit for the 21st century.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Grant Shapps and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We come to the final question, from Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Secretary of State, and do the Government, agree that leisure centres are critical to all our communities, and especially to young people? I understand that the cost of the energy for heating pools is hitting even the Prime Minister, with his very large pool in north Yorkshire. May we have some emergency action to help communities with energy bills that are likely to bankrupt them?

[Grant Shapps]

The energy support that we have been providing, including through the energy bills discount scheme, is designed to do exactly that, but we will keep a close eye on it to make sure that it helps in the right places. We are all suffering as a result of high energy costs. The reason is Putin, and we should never forget that while we build our own energy security in this country, with the cheapest wholesale electricity prices by the middle of the next decade.

Energy Security

Debate between Grant Shapps and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I am pleased to report that, notwithstanding things like terrorism or developments in the war in Ukraine, we have confidence about both our supply and European supply this winter. The weather has been better than might have been expected and gas supplies are full. I should also point out that the rough storage supply has been brought back online, which has increased our own storage by about 50%. I think that in all expected, imagined circumstances, we will be okay this winter.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

This morning the Secretary of State and my Opposition Front-Bench colleagues have spent a long time tilting at windmills. Does he agree that when it comes to getting the right energy and keeping people warm this winter, all of us need to have more courage? Energy from waste could fulfil 20% of our energy needs. Good energy from waste schemes can heat the whole of a town or city, such as Sheffield. Is it not about time that we took energy from waste really seriously?

[Grant Shapps]

The reality of energy supply is that anyone who thinks there is a single silver bullet—I am not accusing the hon. Member of that at all—is typically wrong. Almost any energy source or supply has its vulnerabilities and its shortcomings. Certainly, energy from waste has its place—we are active in that space—as does ensuring that, for example, we are using energy as efficiently as possible. That is why we announced yesterday that there will be an £18 million campaign about doing straightforward things such as ensuring that the boiler flow is set correctly on people’s boilers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Grant Shapps and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

No, I do not agree. It has taken 50 years for a UK Government to come along and reopen the lines that were closed under Beeching and successive Governments. We are the ones reversing that and paying to reverse it, and Britain is proud of that.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

If we are really going to celebrate the 200th anniversary, it would be good to open even more lines. You will know, Mr Speaker, that not far from your constituency, the first person to be killed on the railway was a Member of Parliament and Minister when the Rocket was being trialled. We should remember that.

If we are serious about marking the anniversary and bringing the old lines back into use, will the Secretary of State look again at Yorkshire? We feel absolutely bereft. Here is this opportunity, with a Government commitment to raise standards and level up, at a time when the Government have smashed the integrated plan for Yorkshire rail.

[Grant Shapps]

Huddersfield massively benefits from the £96 billion plan—the biggest plan that any Government have ever announced on railway funding. By the way, it is bigger than the plan that President Biden just announced for railways in his package, even though the United States has a population that is five times bigger than ours. I would have thought that people in Huddersfield would be celebrating in the streets.

Integrated Rail Plan: North and Midlands

Debate between Grant Shapps and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 18th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

One of the big announcements today was about smart ticketing, which will make journeys much easier and more convenient for people, and will also enable fares to be capped. If someone—perhaps one of my hon. Friend’s constituents—uses the train several times a week, on more days than they originally budgeted for, and has no season ticket, this version of smart ticketing will enable a contactless system to repay the person’s credit card at the end of the week.

It is true—I want to be completely up front—that not every single town, city and village in the country will benefit from the plan, but this is not the end of it. We still have the rail network enhancements pipeline—the RNEP—which my hon. Friend the Rail Minister is working on, and, of course, many other programmes, including Restoring Your Railway, which will bring further opportunities.

I should be happy to organise a meeting between my hon. Friend and the Rail Minister—and let me, for the sake of clarification, repeat to the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) that his request for a meeting was accepted.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

My priority for so many years has been the connectivity of the towns and cities across the north-west of England, and Yorkshire in particular. It would be wrong of me not to say that there was some good news in this morning’s statement—I believe that there are some advantages for Huddersfield—but the problem is that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) has said, there is a hole in the middle of this plan. It is not strategic enough, it is not integrated enough, and it is not ambitious enough. There is some good stuff in it, but will the Secretary of State go back and have a rethink about the boldness and the timescale?

[Grant Shapps]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s tone. I know that he was never a fan of HS2 originally. He is right to say that there are many benefits for Huddersfield in this plan—for example, journey times to Birmingham Curzon Street will be cut, there will be more trains to Leeds, and services will improve. However, he is right about the importance of ensuring that this can be stitched into the wider rail network. I think that once he has had an opportunity to read the integrated rail plan, he will find answers to many of his queries, and I welcome his at least tacit support for some of these measures.

HGV Driver Shortages

Debate between Grant Shapps and Barry Sheerman

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to stress, again, the need to have those facilities improved. The answer to his question is yes, I will certainly do that. In fact, I am already doing it. It is very important that there are decent facilities for people to stop at. We have an opportunity to do that now, and I am looking forward to working with him and Members across the House to identify such sites.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I beg the Secretary of State to think of the health and welfare of the drivers? Recent Loughborough University research commissioned by the NHS finds that the average life expectancy of drivers is 14 years shorter than the general population. Why is that? It is because these drivers drive on the filthy, polluted roads in our country. Not only that, the research shows that that filthy, polluted air gets into the cabs. This is a major health problem. Even at £50,000 and £60,000 a year, men and women are reluctant to enter the profession. Let us get our priorities right—keep these men and women who drive for us safe, and do something about the filthy pollution on the roads in our country.

[Grant Shapps]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we want to drive up the standards, but he somewhat misrepresents the picture of improving quality of not only our roads, thanks to our enormous £27 billion investment in our roads, but of air quality as the standard of trucks gets better and better. He may have missed it, but I recently introduced a consultation on the ending of the sale of diesel trucks in this country. We will be one of the first countries, if not the first country in the world that manufactures to do so. I will welcome his response to that consultation, which will help clean the air up for everybody on our roads.

Transport Decarbonisation

Debate between Grant Shapps and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about our stance. We are not against the car. We want people to have access to cars; indeed, in rural areas they are often the only way for people to get around, although obviously we want to improve bus services and the rest of it. We intend to carry on investment to make sure that cars can run without damaging people’s health and the environment. That makes sense.

I am afraid that too often the Mayor of London gets the wrong end of the stick with all this. He seems to spend his time working out new ways to introduce boundary taxes and the like to try to charge people who are not his constituents for the cost of running his administration in London. It is not on.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

The Secretary of State probably will not know that I am very much involved in the Optimised Waste Logistics group and the Westminster Commission for Road Air Quality, but does he know, as I do from consultation with the industry, that the people in it think the report is not ambitious enough? Since the report was leaked, or came out, they have had a good idea what is in it, but they want to move much faster. The technology is there, especially for heavy goods vehicles, which are 4% of the wheels on the road but 25% of the pollution. The industry is saying to Ministers, “We can do it faster.” Hydrogen technology is far more advanced than the Secretary of State has been saying today. If he gives industry the nod and the incentives, it can deliver much better targets than 2030 or 2040.

[Grant Shapps]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for this agenda and his work on logistics and clean air. As far as I am aware, this is already the world’s most ambitious plan to decarbonise the transport economy. He will be pleased to hear that I will say more about experimentation with things like hydrogen trucks and electrifying trucks, not just with internal batteries but potentially with overhead wires.

I hope he will agree that rather than coming here today to spring an announcement on the HGV sector, it is absolutely right that we make it clear we have a plan and that we then consult on it. That is why Logistics UK, which is far and away the largest haulier logistics representative organisation in the UK, has said that the plan gives

“confidence and clarity on the steps…on the pathway to net zero”.

HS2

Debate between Grant Shapps and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

As I say, I am not short of advice on this, and Doug Oakervee will definitely have heard my hon. Friend’s words.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I will try to be brief, Mr Speaker. I have always been against this. I was reviled by Ministers when I said that the cost would end up at £100 billion. I wanted the investment in a network across the north of England in preference to this. Will the Secretary of State assure me that we will learn the lessons? This is a great sector that we do wonderful things in. We built the Olympics on time, and it was magnificent. I understand that there are 12 gagging orders for senior former employees of HS2 Ltd. Can they give evidence to this inquiry, and can we ensure that we learn the lessons? We are good in this sector, so why has this gone wrong?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Grant Shapps and Barry Sheerman

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)]

The housing strategy outlines a range of initiatives designed to get the house building sector moving again and to provide opportunities for everyone. In particular, our NewBuy and Firstbuy initiatives are helping young people into home ownership and we are supporting that with institutional investment in the private rented sector.

[Mr Sheerman]

Is the Minister sure that that will help 18 to 25-year-olds? There is a crisis out there of young people with nowhere to live. The issue is not just about housing benefit; I believe that all benefit should be linked to education and employment. But the fact is that there is a crisis and there does not seem to be much imagination on the Minister’s part.

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to point out that the crisis is very real and we believe that it has been brewing over a long period. By the way, it is about a lot more than simply housing; if we look at the lives of people in chaos, we always find educational problems and family breakdown, and often financial crises are involved. A lot of work is going on across the Government, including the ministerial working group, which brings together eight different Departments. Our next report, which the hon. Gentleman can look forward to, will be published before the summer and will tackle that exact issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Grant Shapps and Barry Sheerman

Monday 31st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is one thing to release brownfield land; it is another to get it built on. That is why we introduced the innovative build now, pay later regime, which will get homes on those sites quickly, with developers paying for them only when the receipts start to come in. That will do a great deal for social mobility, as will the home swap direct scheme, which was launched last week, and which I noted the Opposition criticised.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister will probably guess that I was against the abolition of regional development agencies. Some of us are worried about the arrangements that were made to enable staff to start social enterprises, with generous endowments from the RDA, who then go into competition with existing players in the third sector.

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Gentleman need not be too concerned. We believe that the best way of getting homes built—and the most built—is proper free competition between different providers, different developers and different organisations, which would range from co-ops to registered social landlords and commercial developers. We see no problem with that, and we have gained some sense that it is working. After all, more affordable homes for rent were built in the first year of this Government than at any time since John Major was in power.