Income tax (charge)

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

I was pleased to be here this afternoon to listen to a number of maiden speeches from colleagues. Before I talk about the need for infrastructure to level up opportunities, I want to address the immediate challenge of coronavirus. I applaud the exceptional dedication of our health service workers and medical experts in delivering a professional response to an international emergency. We all need to play our part, heeding medical advice, but also supporting those who are most vulnerable in our communities, whether it be neighbours or relatives.

I am pleased to see measures in the Budget to support smaller businesses and high streets in the difficult times ahead but I hope that we will be able to go further. It is vital to support employers most affected by this situation and all necessary steps must be taken to preserve jobs for people to go back to. Disruption to transport and travel is particularly acute, and I welcome the measures being undertaken by the Government and by operators. Once the situation is resolved, it will be vital to get the country back on track and refocus on the investment in infrastructure that was promised as part of the Budget.

We in north Staffordshire are well connected to the national infrastructure. The M6, A50, A500 and west coast main line all serve Stoke-on-Trent and, in future, there will be High Speed 2 connectivity. But local transport in Stoke-on-Trent and north Staffordshire is very poor, with chronic congestion on our roads. The A500/A50 currently operates at 110% capacity and often resembles a car park. Incredibly, there is a great dependency on cars, despite 30% of the city’s population having no access to one.

Everyone struggles to get around the conurbation, which limits access to employment, education and leisure opportunities. It also has a dramatic impact on local air quality. The city is currently under ministerial direction to improve dangerous levels of air pollution. It is time to level up. Road congestion and poor connectivity are a major barrier to employment for one of the most disadvantaged parts of the country; it already struggles to access better opportunities. Improved local public transport would support wider developments in the area, unlocking sites that are currently unviable for housing and economic regeneration.

The decline of bus use across the Potteries has been at some of the highest levels in the country, with more than 1 million fewer bus journeys in Stoke-on-Trent in the last year alone. The main reason for that, according to operators, is a lack of reliability and delays caused by road congestion. Perversely, that has led operators to run fewer services at rush hour than during off-peak times.

I am encouraged by the Transforming Cities fund commitment to delivering a multi-modal transport hub at Stoke station, but it is essential that Stoke-on-Trent gets the full ask from that fund. I will be pressing Ministers, and the Secretary of State, on that point. A multi-modal hub at Stoke station is needed, but it also needs to be well connected to local communities across the whole area. It is vital that we see improvements to bus services across the city as well as to smaller local stations. I hope the Government will also give serious consideration to our superbus bid, which would focus on restoring routes, increasing frequency and capping fares, creating more bus priority measures and reintroducing cross-city routes.

In my constituency, I am campaigning to get a station restored at Meir on the existing north Staffordshire line, as well as to reopen the mothballed Leek to Stoke line, with a station at Fenton Manor. With HS2 serving Stoke-on-Trent via the promised Handsacre link, it is imperative that local feeder lines and local feeder stations are opened to spread the benefits of HS2 connectivity across the whole of north Staffordshire. I hope we receive support for our bids to the reopening of railways and stations fund.

On roads, I am grateful that my stream of letters to Transport Ministers and Highways England about M6 junction 15 has not gone unnoticed. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) mentioned, we are delighted that the second road investment strategy—RIS 2—will work up a scheme for junction 15 so it can enter its development stages in the RIS 3 pipeline. The Government are delivering the largest ever investment in strategic roads, and I will work with local partners to build the case for much needed local improvements.

I must also mention potholes. I am glad that Stoke-on-Trent has been promised more money to address the decades of under-investment in road maintenance by previous Labour councils. The council is now putting more in, and extra help from the Government means we can replicate elsewhere schemes that have been delivered in New Inn Lane, Anchor Road and Times Square in my constituency over the last 12 months.

I know that the Government are determined to deliver for Stoke-on-Trent, which, as the Prime Minister himself put it to me last week, is

“the crucible in which the future of this country will be forged”.—[Official Report, 11 March 2020; Vol. 673, c. 274.]

I am delighted that we are in the running for transport investment from the Government, and I hope they will give us their full backing to truly level up opportunity in Stoke-on-Trent.