Transport in the North-East

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) on securing this very important debate. Transport in the north-east has a massive impact on the economic prospects of the region, as well as on the quality of life of all our constituents.

The transport infrastructure in the north-east is in an abysmal state. It is the only region of the country that is not connected to the rest of the nation by a motorway. Going north to Scotland, the road is in some cases a single carriageway. Going south through Yorkshire, the last Labour Government had a scheme for widening the stretch between Leeming and Barton. This Government put it off, then brought it back. The delay means that we will not get the widening scheme till 2017.

Looking from east to west, as the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) said, we have the same problem on the A66. If the Minister is not interested in what Labour Members from the north-east say, I hope that he is listening to the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), who is also concerned about the state of the A66. It means that an exporter in Middlesbrough who wants to sell something to a person in Liverpool has to send their lorries through a 30-mph zone, through the suburbs of Darlington. This is no way to run an economy.

Some people were rather shocked to discover that dualling the A1 to Berwick would cost £42 million, but the fact is that this Government are perfectly able to give the Mayor of London a £1 billion guarantee to extend the tube from Victoria to Battersea—a journey of a mere two miles—yet, when it comes to our region, the settlements are totally inadequate. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer switched money from public services to capital infrastructure in 2011, we got a grand total of 0.1% of the capital. That is completely inadequate, and I want to know what the Minister will do about the state of these major route arteries. The answer that I had from him to a parliamentary question was completely uninformative. I hope that today he will say a little more.

I concur entirely with the comments from colleagues about bad experiences. There are people in my constituency who are offered jobs but have to turn them down because they simply could not get to work. There are villages where there is only one bus a day. Evenwood, Cockfield, Ramshaw, Woodland, Lynesack, Copley and Softley are all phenomenally badly served because the Government cut the bus grant.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr John Hayes)]

For the benefit of my summing-up, I just want to be clear. The hon. Lady said that she completely concurred. Does she completely concur with the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), who introduced the debate, or with the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who made criticisms? I did not understand what she was concurring with.

[Helen Goodman]

I am concurring with the comments about the abysmal state of the service. That is what I am agreeing with. It is terrible, dreadful and completely unacceptable, and it obviously needs more money put into it—money that this Government have taken away.

There is a similar problem with potholes. Durham county council did a survey and found that the cost of mending the potholes on the unadopted roads in our county would come to £600 million. Obviously that cannot be done overnight, but this Government have cut Durham’s Government grant by 40%, so we are now going backwards, not forwards. The Minister may think, “Oh well, what do potholes matter?” Potholes do matter, because they mean that people get mud in their houses. Women have to clean their carpets totally unnecessarily. There are big holes in the streets. They flood. [Interruption.] They flood, and water gets into the house. The whole thing is like something from an 18th-century painting. It is completely unacceptable.

Finally, I want to say something about airports —my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) has tempted me to do so. I am not in favour of a third runway at Heathrow. I think that we need to bolster the regional airports instead. That seems to me to be a much better idea. It would be better for us and better for London. Will the Minister do something about restoring the London link, either to London Heathrow or to London Gatwick, from Durham Tees Valley airport? Will he address that with the Civil Aviation Authority?