Old Oak Common Station

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr Efford; thank you for chairing this debate. I thank the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) for securing the debate. We can see by the level of activity and the number of people who have wanted to speak and intervene how important this is for the region, and how enlightening the debate has been. There has been a huge amount of unanimity about the criticisms and suggested solutions for the upcoming interruptions to the service to the south-west and Wales.

The hon. Member identified three different areas: mitigation, improving services for the west in the long run, and how to make Old Oak Common useful for passengers travelling on GWR. The hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) also focused on the mitigation sum, and wondered whether the £30 million identified by the Government would be enough adequately to compensate and mitigate those users who will have their travel disrupted for the next five years as a minimum. The hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies) noticed that the Welsh rail network has only 7% electrification, and she was essentially demanding Barnett consequentials for the HS2 project. The hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) was one of a number of Members who highlighted that all trains were due to stop at Old Oak Common, and that that would add between four and seven minutes, depending on the estimates, to everyone’s journey. He also highlighted the need to spend a portion of mitigation sums on the Dawlish works.

The hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) highlighted what he described as under-investment in Welsh railways, largely because of the designation of HS2 as an England and Wales project, rather than just an English project, and the consequential lack of additional payments under the Barnett consequentials.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) focused on the need to reassess the use of the £30 million compensation payment scheme. Since the debate on this subject in this place last week that she and I participated in, the Government have provided further information on how they intend to use that £30 million. She believes that the money is being focused on the wrong areas. As if it made the point for her, she also highlighted the need for better communication of delays and other changes. She made a very interesting point when she put a question to the Minister, and I hope that the Minister will reply to it in her response to the debate. My hon. Friend also asked who will pay for the delay repay scheme—will it be the taxpayer, or is there another mechanism for funding those compensatory payments?

The hon. Member for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine) again focused on better mitigation. The hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) did too, and he made an interesting point—that it is no longer correct to say that Sunday is an exceptional day of transport; it is actually part of the general use of the railways. Finally, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) questioned the need for every train to stop at Old Oak Common.

I will return to the issue of Sundays. The Christmas period is coming up and we know that there will be a very significant impact on GWR trains. They will terminate at Ealing Broadway and then the passengers are supposed to use the Central line or District line. There will be no Elizabeth line and there will be a reduced service between Ealing Broadway, Reading and Heathrow. All of that will happen only if everything goes according to plan, because the assumption is that GWR will be able to run a full service, as planned, during the Christmas period, but that relies on ASLEF train drivers volunteering to work overtime. I assume that the Government have plans to make sure that happens, because this is now a Government problem; it is not a GWR problem. It is a Government problem because it was the Government who intervened in the pay negotiations with ASLEF and awarded train drivers a pay increase of £9,000 with no conditions attached. In addition, because that pay award was backdated, I understand—from social media, at least—that train drivers have received a payment of £16,000.

One would have thought that when the Government awarded that very significant pay increase, they would have made sure that holiday services were secured in return, but that is not the case. Nothing was secured in return. In fact, the Government intervention has made the situation worse, because if media reports are to be believed, there has been a reduction in the number of train drivers agreeing to volunteer to man Christmas and overtime services. So, because this is a problem created by the Government, I should be grateful if the Minister would tell us what the Government’s solution to it is over Christmas, new year, and indeed every Sunday in future.

That is in the short term, but there is also a need for long-term mitigation. Speaker after speaker today has focused on the inadequacy of the £30 million that has been identified for mitigation payments and questioned how the Government intend to spend that money. Therefore, my message to the Minister is this: listen to local representatives. They know their area, they know what is important to their constituents and they know much better than departmental officials how mitigation funding can be spent. If anything is to be taken away from this debate, it is that the local representatives who have stood up for their constituents in this debate have repeatedly highlighted the areas that need to be focused on to mitigate some of the worst impacts on their constituents and the rest of the travelling public.

That brings me, finally, to communication. We know that delays are inevitable. This is a huge infrastructure project and everyone—at least everyone who has participated in this debate—recognises that some delay is inevitable. What is important is that changes to services are well communicated so that passengers are informed well in advance, alternative services are run effectively—they run on time and have sufficient capacity to take the number of passengers who will be using them—and the Government supply adequate compensation for poor and reduced services, not just for a day or two, but for years.

Compensation can come in a number of different ways. As some hon. Members have suggested, fares could be reduced over that period to take account of increased journey times and unpredictability. Alternatively, increase the mitigation payments significantly above the current £30 million that the Government have identified, not as an additional cost but as a recognition that the quality of service to the travelling public in the south-west and Wales will be adversely affected. We need to do as much as we can to prevent that, but what plans does the Minister have to reduce prices or to increase the bucket of compensation to reflect the reduced services?

The key takeaway for the Minister is to listen to local Members of Parliament, hear their concerns about the impact of the reduced service on their constituents, and take very seriously their recommendations for mitigation.

Rail Services: Devon

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Wednesday 11th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see you in your position, Mr Pritchard. You remain an ornament of the Bench.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Exeter (Steve Race) on securing the debate. I have learned a lot about the rail possibilities in Devon. A huge number of issues were raised, including both threats and opportunities for the area. I will read just a handful of those I have written down: the Dawlish sea wall works; the success story of the reopening of the redundant Exeter to Okehampton line; Old Oak Common, which I will talk a little about; accessibility challenges at stations; platform lengths, and the cancellation of the restoring your railway plan. However, that was all mentioned within the framework of the hon. Member’s initial assessment that rail is an enormous success in the area, and that is overwhelmingly due to the benefits of privatisation.

From the heyday of the railway, which is generally considered to be the early 1950s, participation trended inexorably downwards—people voted with their feet; the direction of travel was a straight line downwards—until privatisation, when it reversed. That is because of the enormous investment that privatisation allowed to be brought into the railway, and passenger numbers have doubled as a result. I therefore question what the Government’s position on renationalisation will do for passenger numbers and who will stand up for the passenger under the new system—but most of that is for another day.

I will touch on two of the issues that were raised, the first of which is Old Oak Common. There is deep concern in the region about the impact on GWR services, with diversion of services from the south-west, reduced track operations, closure of access to London Paddington, occasional redirection to London Euston—but when, and will it be predictable?—longer journeys and a reduced quality of service. I am sure the Minister recognises that, and the need for disruption is understood. My question is whether people will have to pay similar prices for a noticeably worse and disrupted service, and when they will have certainty about the timetable—not just a printed timetable, but one in which they can have confidence sufficient to book and rely on the service being delivered.

The other issue with GWR is Sunday performance, which is reliant on voluntary overtime from unionised drivers and other train operators. That is an extraordinary position to be in. I recognise that this is a long-standing issue, so I am not having a particular go, but how can we possibly have a mandated schedule that is reliant on people volunteering to staff it? I look for a Government response on that. Early signs are not particularly encouraging. The no strings attached £9,000 pay rise to ASLEF train drivers, with no Sunday working agreements or any productivity enhancing characteristics, is not a good start. I fear that nationalisation of the service as a whole will only make it worse. My question to Minister is: when the system is nationalised, and there is no incentive to go after extra customers, who will stand up for the customer experience? When the Minister for Rail—the noble Lord, Lord Hendy—says that he continues to press for resolution of the Sunday working issue, I ask the Minister how. We all wish it, but what active steps will the Government take?

Secondly, in my last 30 seconds, I want to talk about restoring your railway. The first thing the Government did in July was cancel it. It was an enormously popular project and we have seen how effective it was from Exeter to Okehampton. The Tavistock to Plymouth service is just as important. However, in his letter yesterday, Lord Hendy is now saying that the Department is looking at it again. Is that a U-turn? If they needed time to stop and think, why did the Government not do that, rather than take the precipitate decision to cancel the entire project back in July? If their answer is “Well, there was no money”, that is not correct. There was the entire £150 million of funding for that project, which was coming from the cancellation of the second leg of HS2—[Interruption.] If that has been gobbled up by something else, perhaps the Minister can tell us what has happened to the money.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. I just remind Parliamentary Private Secretaries that they do not usually intervene, either officially or unofficially, if they do not mind my saying so.

Rural Cycling Infrastructure

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

It is lovely to see you in the Chair, Ms Vaz, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Henley and Thame (Freddie van Mierlo) on securing the debate. We have heard from many of the speakers today about the enormous benefits of cycling, and let us start with the most important one: it is enjoyable. It is healthy, and it gives people cardiovascular exercise, which leads to a better quality of life. Then there are the public sector aspects of it, which are reduced traffic congestion, reduced public transport crowding and reduced emissions in our hunt for net zero. However, it is not all positive, as there are a couple of negatives. One is the examples of road entitlement that we get from some aspects of the cycling community. I am a member of that community, and I hope I am not too entitled when I am on my saddle. The worst one, of course, is that we are exposed to MAMILs around our constituencies. I threatened my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) that I would namecheck him in that regard, because I saw him just this morning in his Lycra.

However, on balance, it is a huge net positive to us as individuals and to us as a society that we encourage cycling. That is exactly what the last Conservative Administration did, despite the brickbats thrown at them in a number of the speeches we have heard this afternoon. For example, the Liberal Democrat spokesman, my neighbour the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone), said that there were ruthless cuts to the active travel budget. However, he did not give credit to the previous Government for creating the fund in the first place, back in 2017. Yes, as the current Administration are beginning to find out, there is a need to take difficult decisions—I have heard that phrase more than once in the past few weeks—about how to spend public money, because it can only be spent once, but the previous Government invested £6.6 billion from central Government funding into active travel from 2016 to March 2025. That helped to create the national cycle network, which is some 12,000 miles of specialist cycle routes, but there is more to do. In my constituency, we have great cycle routes such as Marriott’s way, the Weavers’ way and the Peddars way—which was not mentioned earlier, but also links into our local community—but there are also frustrations. At the moment, we are dualling the section of the A47 in my constituency. A cycle route has been planned beside the dual carriageway, but with just a few hundred yards from North Burlingham, it could be linked into Acle and a much wider network. There is definitely more work to be done, because that was not part of the original scheme.

I welcome the Budget announcement that £100 million will go into cycling and walking infrastructure, but I am slightly concerned that that will happen only if the funding is confirmed in the Department for Transport’s business planning process. The same goes for any funding over the two years after that. What will happen as a result of the spending review? I should be very grateful if the Minister would expand on his commitment to be a strong advocate for active travel with His Majesty’s Treasury when it comes to the spending review. Can he confirm that that is one of his Department’s key objectives?

It is not just cycle routes, though; we also use roads in the rural community. In fact, the vast majority of us who cycle regularly in the countryside use our roads—typically our B roads—as the mechanism for doing so. Because of changing weather patterns, potholes are an ever-increasing scourge. The last Administration spent £8.3 billion on road repairs, but I am the first to admit that there is plenty more work to be done. Potholes have a particular impact on cyclists, who typically ride towards the edge of the carriageway; that can be a real challenge for us as riders. Can the Minister also give reassurance that he will continue to advocate for increased investment in road infrastructure to support active travel and safer, well-maintained roads for all users, including cyclists?

I again congratulate the hon. Member for Henley and Thame. He is right to highlight the benefits and challenges of cycling in the rural community, and I look forward to the Minister’s response, in which he will no doubt tell us all the things he will do to support that important activity.

Draft Aviation Safety (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 General Committees

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Huq. I join the Minister in his words about the poor pilot of the DHL plane that crashed in Vilnius. If we needed further reminding of the importance of aviation safety, that provides it.

The draft regulations are not contentious and I reassure Government Members that I do not intend to call a Division on them. They are eminently sensible. We could go through them regulation by regulation, but in essence the Civil Aviation Authority has got out of step with the International Civil Aviation Organisation and its SARPs, the consequence of which is that, without the regulations, UK-registered aircraft cannot use more sophisticated systems and equipment. That applies both on board the aircraft, for the management of fuel and other systems, particularly to deal with low-visibility landing, and in respect of the ability to take advantage of infrastructure on the ground at aerodromes to assist in those processes.

Chapter 1 of part 2 of the draft regulations deals with instruments used for flying in poor visibility; chapter 3 deals with improvements to mandatory crew training that are associated with the relevant activities; and chapter 4 includes regulations to require improved aerodrome facilities for low-visibility conditions. There is also provision relating specifically to the use of helicopters and related infrastructure. They are all good improvements and will they help to keep the UK up to date internationally and maintain our reputation as being at the forefront of aviation safety. For those reasons, the Opposition will support the draft regulations.

There are, though, inevitably a few questions on which I would like further information from the Minister, and I will be grateful for his response. First, will the Minister have a look at the rationale behind the impact assessment of the reduced fuel load required? One of the key rationales for the regulations is to allow for more efficient flight plans and, as a consequence, for the carrying of less fuel, as a safety factor, while maintaining the same or increased levels of safety. Because there is less fuel in the aircraft, it has less weight and therefore burns less fuel.

In the cost-benefit analysis that accompanies the draft regulations, it is assessed that, across all operators of UK-registered aircraft, only £12.3 million-worth of fuel is likely to be saved. I had a quick google to find the fuel cost just for British Airways in 2023, and that single operator spent £3.83 billion on fuel. If it is estimated that the entire sector is to save just £12.3 million, it appears that the regulations, while well meaning, are not going to have any significant effect at all in what we want, which is a reduction in carbon burn, a reduction in costs and an increase in efficiency. Will the Minister confirm whether it is his understanding that the benefits are de minimis? Or is there scope for further improvement that the impact assessment does not identify?

Secondly, on the same issue, does the Minister recognise that if it is true that only £12.3 million will be saved through incremental changes, a much greater saving of both carbon and fuel costs would be achieved by a reorganisation of air traffic control routeing? I think particularly of minimising, or ideally preventing, the issue of stacking around airports and the associated congestion.

Thirdly, I will come back to congestion around airports in a moment, but before that I turn to section 14(5) of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023. Paragraph 6.10 of the explanatory notes says that

“where changes are made to secondary assimilated EU law using section 14 of the REUL Act, the overall effect of the changes made by it under that section…should not increase the regulatory burden.”

The majority of the section 14 provisions relate to the imposition of criminal offences under the draft regulations, and the impact assessment confirms that they do not significantly increase the regulatory burden. But there is a lacuna in the impact assessment, because it identifies that there are some section 14 provisions that do not impose a criminal sanction, yet there is no assessment as to whether the rule requirement under section 14(5) is satisfied. Will the Minister confirm that there is no increased regulatory burden as a result of the non-criminal sanction provisions affected by clause 14(5)? That seems rather technical, but it would be useful to make sure that we are compliant with the existing legislation.

Finally, the Prime Minister has just returned from COP29, where he burnished his international credentials—in his view—by committing to an 81% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2035. Now, that is all very well, but in the sixth carbon budget the Climate Change Committee identified that if we are to reach that target, it can be done only by the restriction of passengers and airport capacity. Will the Minister say whether it is now Government policy to restrict any net increase in airport capacity? If it is, which airport that is currently in operation will be further restricted to allow for the increased capacity anticipated by the expansion of London City airport, which the Government have just allowed?

[Mike Kane]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham on his elevation to his current position and look forward to working with him over the years to come. I had quite the turnaround in my three years of opposition, so I hope he stays longer than some of his his predecessors. It is great to welcome him. I recently spent some time with him in Northern Ireland, where we had an extraordinarily good fact-finding trip and did some relationship building with the Executive there. He should always be proud of the work his father did as Secretary of State to bring peace to our islands.

I thank Members for their consideration of the draft regulations. The hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham asked me a number of questions, the first of which was about impact assessments. A full impact assessment was submitted with and published alongside the explanatory memorandum on the Government legislation website, so I direct him to that. It assesses the impact of amending the legislation to align with the latest ICAO SARPs concerning fuel planning and management.

The hon. Member asked about fuel. We do not think there will be significant carbon savings based on this SI, because only a few large operators will take advantage of the new fuel schemes, and only in some limited circumstances. However, I direct the hon. Member to our manifesto commitment on sustainable aviation fuel, for which we have already laid the mandate for 2%, starting on 1 January 2025, which I signed into law just the other week. That will start to grow a sustainable aviation fuel industry in the UK and begin to decarbonise our skies.

On the stacking issue that the hon. Member rightly talked about, our second key manifesto commitment was on airspace modernisation. If only we could get our planes to fly in a straight line and not in circles, we would immediately begin to decarbonise our skies. There is an easyJet plane that flies from Jersey to Luton and probably emits about 35% more carbon than it should because of the route it has to take, because we have an analogue system in a digital age. The Government are hugely committed to our two key manifesto commitments on decarbonising our skies.

On section 14 and the regulatory burden, we consider that the overall effects of the changes made under this IS will not increase the regulatory burden in this particular area. New Members should know that this is a “take back control” SI. We were a member of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency but we came out of it, and now we have to do the typos ourselves. That is the power we now possess. It would have been done elsewhere and on somebody else’s dime.

On the Prime Minister’s huge commitment on the 81%—I said at a conference the other day, “Where did he get the 1% from? Where’s that particular saving?”—the Government have embarked on an ambitious project with our missions, and we have to do it because the climate is changing. I run the lighthouses in this country, and our operatives could spend less time at sea. Storm Bert this week meant that my journey took four hours instead of two, because of flooding and damage. We have emitted trillions of tonnes of carbon. We cannot afford to begin to emit that much again. We have to change. I am sure Members from all parties agree that the international situation is getting more dire by the day. We have to become energy secure. The commitment to do that by 2030 is hugely key.

The safety of aviation and the travelling public is a priority for this Government, as it is for every Government—

[Jerome Mayhew]

I know the Minister was trying hard to answer all my questions, but he may have forgotten to clarify the Government’s position on airport capacity, so I will give a second opportunity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Thursday 21st November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

We will all miss John Prescott. He was a titan of our politics, and a man not afraid to come out swinging for what he believed in.

The figures show that capital spending on transport is not rising under Labour; it will fall by 3.1% in real terms next year. We have huge tax rises and a more than £70 billion increase in tax. Labour’s black hole myth has been debunked by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Financial Times and the Institute for Fiscal Studies—all real economists—so why the cut in capital spending? The Secretary of State was out of her depth when she negotiated a £9,000 pay rise for ASLEF train drivers with nothing in return. Was she out of her depth when she negotiated with her own Chancellor?

[Louise Haigh]

This Budget delivered £1 billion funding for local bus services and transformational capital investment in infrastructure projects, such as the trans-Pennine route upgrade, the A57 and, of course, East West Rail. This Government are committed to investing, investing, investing in transport, transport, transport.

Transport Infrastructure Projects: Elizabeth Line

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

It is reassuring to have a friendly, if entirely impartial, face in the Chair, Mr Vickers, surrounded as I am by Members who are my opposition. I thank the hon. Member for Reading Central (Matt Rodda) for securing the debate and for the tone in which he led it, including his generous sharing of congratulations for the work behind the creation of the Elizabeth line. There have been excellent contributions, which I will leave the Minister to highlight because that is his role and not mine.

There is lots to celebrate in our transport network, but we need to go further to increase connectivity and to react to demographic changes and changing work practices. That is something the Conservative Government tackled head-on. People may not have realised it from the tone of some of the contributions today, but over the last period more than £100 billion was invested in our railways, and under the Conservative and Conservative-led Governments some 1,265 miles of line was electrified. I will spare the blushes of the hon. Member for Reading Central, but were he to ask at his Christmas quiz how many miles were electrified under the previous 13 years of Labour Government, the answer would be not 1,265, nor even 65, but 63. There has clearly been a step in the right direction over the last decade.

There has also been investment in the midlands rail hub, Northern Powerhouse Rail and the Access for All programme—I will talk about some of those in further detail later—but we are here primarily to celebrate the Elizabeth line, which has been a huge success. It was a courageous, large-scale project that has actually delivered and continues to deliver, and I hope it will continue to deliver for many years to come, not just for the residents of London, but for the south-east more generally and for UK plc.

I mention in passing that the Elizabeth line did not have to be over time and over budget. When it was managed by the previous Conservative Mayor of London, he left it on time and on budget, and if the project no longer followed that path, perhaps we should ask Sadiq Khan about the quality of his project management. Nevertheless, the Elizabeth line has created, as the hon. Member for Reading Central said, £42 billion of economic benefit in just two years, creating 8,000 jobs and leading to the building of 55,000 homes. That is unequivocally a success story for London and the greater region.

The next project for London and the south-east is the lower Thames crossing. We have huge bottlenecks at the Dartford crossing. The previous Government had been progressing with the crossing, but the current Government have now kicked it into the long grass. That is a genuine cause for concern regarding connectivity in the south-east, and I fear that it may lead to the next step, which is cancellation. Will the Minister take this opportunity to reassure the House, and the many people who are no doubt watching this debate, that the lower Thames crossing is still very much on course and part of the Government’s projections for infrastructure development in the south-east?

It is not just in the south where the new Government are generating delay and doubt. Labour is potentially failing in the north as well, because Network North funding is now in doubt as we wait for the Government’s infrastructure strategy. People may ask themselves what the Network North funding is. Well, it is £19.8 billion of investment in Bradford’s new station, and in a mass transport transit system for Leeds and west Yorkshire; it is £12 billion of investment in stronger connections between Manchester and Liverpool; and it is £9.6 billion of investment in the midlands rail hub and in improving 50 stations in the midlands.

It is not just in rail where doubt is creeping into our infrastructure development projects, for the Government have already cancelled major road improvements in their first few months, including the A5036 Princess way scheme; the A358 Taunton to Southfields scheme; the A47 Great Yarmouth Vauxhall roundabout, close to my home; and the A1 Morpeth to Ellingham scheme. The restoring your railway programme has been cancelled. That is a terrible start in just a few months.

Is it the Minister’s intention to follow the example of his colleagues in Wales? Is it the Government’s intention to deprioritise road infrastructure? Is it the Minister’s intention to have a “no new roads” policy? It is beginning to sound like it. If that is not the policy, will he explain why that would be a bad idea, both in England and in Wales? Will he move against the imposition of 20 mph speed limits without local consultation? Will he put in place the updated guidance, which has already been drafted, on how such schemes should be introduced? It was prepared by the previous Government and is ready to go. If the Minister will not introduce it, will he explain why not?

On the record so far, St Francis of Assisi could have said—he probably did not—that Labour brings doubt where there was direction, indecision where there was investment and delay where there was dynamism. What have we got instead? We have inflation-busting pay rises with no working practice reforms to the unions. Paid for how? By debt? Yes. By increased taxes on poor pensioners? Certainly. By jacking up bus fares by 50%? That is true, too. And by delaying critical infrastructure.

The Government need to think again. This excellent debate, which I again congratulate the hon. Member for Reading Central on securing, has given the Minister the opportunity to provide clarity, to focus on transport users rather than just the unions, and to recommit to key transport infrastructure investments throughout the country.