Transport (CSR)

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) on securing this debate. I do not intend to speak for very long, as the hon. Lady has comprehensively covered the issues that the Select Committee on Transport is considering and, as a member of that Committee, I do not wish to go over the same ground. For the same reason, I do not intend to comment on the specific projects announced in the comprehensive spending review or subsequent announcements.

I welcome the success of my right hon. Friend the Minister and her colleagues in securing the assessment in the comprehensive spending review. I have to say that I feared it would be much worse and that transport would be one of the easy victims of the cuts that, sadly, must be made. By their very nature, transport projects are long term. If cuts are made, the impact is not always immediately felt. It was very bold and brave of the Government to give priority to the schemes that are for the long-term benefit of the country.

I want to focus on what follows the CSR period. As the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside mentioned, one of the Transport Committee’s current inquiries is into transport and the economy. As we are in the middle of that inquiry, I do not want to prejudge its conclusions, but I want to put on the record my concern and desire that we should take a longer-term perspective on transport planning in this country. We should take a more strategic, joined-up view. We have had plenty of laudable policies, schemes and reviews of individual modes of transport, whether rail, aviation, roads or maritime. However, historically, we have not taken a joined-up view and considered different modes of transport and how they fit together.

High Speed 2 is a classic example. I will not revisit the debate we had in Westminster Hall earlier this week, but we should not consider that sort of project in isolation. In considering the economic benefits, we look solely at what High Speed 2 can deliver, but such projects should be considered in conjunction with a long-term aviation policy for the United Kingdom. Before we fix the route of High Speed 2, we ought to consider how it should join up with airports in the south-east and the rest of the country. Germany has a multiple airport hub that is well connected by high-speed rail services. High Speed 2 is a multi-billion pound, long-term project and we will get one shot at making it right. Before we commit to a specific route and a vast sum of public expenditure, we ought to make sure that it is thought through strategically.

[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Gentleman makes the valid point that the project needs to be carefully considered in a strategic context. However, if the logic of high-speed rail is, among other things, to compete with aviation and draw people away from aviation to reduce carbon emissions, surely there is not a terribly strong strategic logic to the scheme making it easier for people to get to airports.

[Iain Stewart]

I am afraid I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. There will be competition between high-speed rail and short-haul aviation, and I would like the United Kingdom to be part of a Europe-wide high-speed network, so that it is feasible to travel by rail from Birmingham to Paris or Frankfurt. However, it is an inescapable fact that the demands on medium and long-haul air travel will increase and, until an engineer comes up with a solution, we cannot yet take trains across the Atlantic or other expanses of water.

As part of the Transport Committee’s inquiry, we visited Birmingham airport a few weeks ago. The people who work there are excited about the High Speed 2 line, because the journey time from the London area to Birmingham airport will be less than 40 minutes. That opens up the prospect of having longer-haul flights from Birmingham and relieving the capacity pressures on south-east England airports. That might not be the only answer, but it is the sort of long-term consideration that transport planning should include.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

Can I take it from the hon. Gentleman’s remarks that he accepts the principle that the UK needs an international hub airport, as well as airports that function for shorter haul, and that he believes Heathrow is very important to the UK economy?

[Iain Stewart]

The United Kingdom certainly needs a hub airport in the broadest sense. I will not go into the relative merits of all the options in this short debate, but if my right hon. Friend the Minister wishes to promote me to the Government, I would be happy to make such decisions. At the moment, I am afraid such decisions are above my pay grade and that of the hon. Gentleman.

We need to think strategically about what we want the long-term aviation policy of the United Kingdom to be. That might involve Heathrow—although from all the evidence I have seen, I suspect not—or a broader south-east hub and Birmingham, Manchester or other airports in the United Kingdom. The point is that such a long-term view should be considered in conjunction with other strategic projects, such as high-speed rail.

If I may anticipate the comments that I believe my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) will be sharing with us in a short time, we should consider specific transport projects in different locales around the country. There are exciting projects in the Leeds area involving trolley buses and other local schemes, which should also be factored into this country’s long-term planning. As a small aside, I shall mention that it is my hon. Friend’s birthday today. As a birthday present, perhaps the Minister can announce something helpful on the Leeds trolley bus scheme. However, I shall not press that matter any further.

In this country, we are poor at long-term transport planning. Part of the problem is that the tenure of Secretaries of State in the Department for Transport has been very short. Let us consider the average time for which Secretaries of State have served in the past. In the 18 years of Conservative Governments between 1979-1997, there were 12 Secretaries of State for Transport. Under the previous Labour Governments, there were seven Secretaries of State in 13 years—they did not last much longer on average. Transport needs to be pushed up the priority list in government. Again, it is way above my pay grade to determine ministerial appointments and tenure, but I hope that an individual is given the necessary time in post and the flexibility to develop a long-term view.

Those are the main points I wish to put on the record. I have the great pleasure of representing the Transport Committee at a European conference on transport and infrastructure this weekend. I am not a great fan of most things European, but Europe has had a comprehensive, strategic transport plan since 1990. I would like us to replicate that domestically in the United Kingdom. The settlement that my right hon. Friend and her colleagues have secured is, as I have said, very welcome in the context in which we operate. I hope that it will be a sound basis on which we can build a truly long-term national strategic transport plan.