Transport

Debate between Ian Paisley and Huw Merriman

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I thank all the colleagues who supported me—or told me they did—in the election for the Transport Committee, which it is a great privilege to chair. I have not done much for diversity, because I think I am the first male to chair it. There is a serious issue with diversity in the transport sector, and I recognise that I am not exactly waving the flag for that. I also want to thank the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), who chaired the Committee previously with such rigour. She was an incredibly popular Chair, and it is a delight to see her back on the Committee. She has promised not to be a backseat driver, but another formidable female politician once said the same thing in this place. I am happy to be driven from the back.

It is a delight to speak on such a wide-ranging motion tabled by the Opposition. I do not agree with many parts of it, but I welcome the fact that we are debating them, and none more so than the need to decarbonise our transport sector. We have had great success in reducing emissions by 40% since the 1990s. Pretty much every sector except transport has reduced emissions over the past few years. It has remained stubbornly difficult to reduce transport’s footprint. Surface transport accounts for 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions, and transport as a whole accounts for 33%. In fact, between 2014 and 2016, emissions from transport went up, so it is clearly the sector that needs the most focus, and I welcome the fact that it is getting that focus today.

I want to talk about some of the exciting innovations in the transport sector that we need to harness and encourage in order to meet our net zero carbon commitment.

[Ian Paisley]

Is it not interesting that the Secretary of State is the only person in the debate so far to mention hydrogen, the true zero-emission product that can help us to achieve the goals set out by the Government?

[Huw Merriman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. In fact, I was just about to talk about hydrogen, so that is a brilliant segue.

The Transport Committee visited the engineer who first retrofitted a conventional train with hydrogen technology. We talk about the need to electrify and move away from diesel, but 2% of the national grid is taken up by electrified rail, and if only 40% of energy is coming from renewables, that means that 60% is still unpleasant. We need to invest in hydrogen, and it is very exciting that we have the engineer in this country who will enable us to do just that.