European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Jim Fitzpatrick and Martin Horwood

Friday 29th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Martin Horwood]

I will not give way, because I have given way to the hon. Gentleman already and I think the Bill needs to make progress.

I will not press the amendment to a vote and I will not move it, but it raises important issues and I would like to hear the Minister’s response to them.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to contribute briefly to the debate. I should say at the outset that I support the Bill but I also support the European project and the European Union. I do not think that we have anything to fear from a referendum, whenever it happens.

Let me run through the amendments. I have already told my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) that I do not support everything that he has proposed. I support amendment 52, oppose amendments 53, 55 and 17, support amendment 5, and say no to amendments 6, 7 and 16, and yes to amendment 61. I would be interested to hear the explanation from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas), who is on the Front Bench, for amendments 64 and 84, which we have not heard yet. I am not entirely convinced by the proposed wording. I oppose amendment 85. As for amendment 65, tabled by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), which he has said that he will not press to a vote, I think its tone was defeatist about Scottish independence and the referendum so I was going to vote against it in principle, as I think we will win the referendum for Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom.

Transport (CSR)

Debate between Jim Fitzpatrick and Martin Horwood

Thursday 25th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I, too, commend the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) for leading this debate.

The overall context of this debate is the comprehensive spending review and the need to tackle the country’s deficit. The overspend inherited from the previous Government is so great that one could cut the entire Department for Transport budget—every penny of Government money spent on buses, trains, roads, tube lines and so on—10 times over and still be overspending. That is the scale of the task faced by the Government in trying to rebalance the economy.

In that context, for the Department to have achieved a cut of only 15% over four years is to be genuinely celebrated. It is well below the average for Government Departments, and is reflective, I hope, of a good and robust case put to the Treasury. It certainly reflects the importance of transport to this Government, which is very much to be welcomed. From a Liberal Democrat perspective, the importance of transport is that it will help to improve the economy again, and it will also help us to achieve the boldly stated aim of being the greenest Government ever. Those two in combination should lead to a model of more sustainable prosperity, which is very much to be desired.

Some of the expectations of the comprehensive spending review have genuinely been confounded. We spoke a little about the bus service operating grant. Any cut in it is to be regretted, and I am sure that Ministers regret it as much as I do, but it was widely discussed as potentially 50%. A cut of only 20% is relatively benign, and I believe that bus service operators have assured Ministers, including the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), that it can be absorbed, hopefully without increases in fares. I shall return to the bus service operating grant later.

Comment in the transport press has been favourable. Local Transport Today, a newspaper that I am learning to read avidly, commented in an editorial:

“Philip Hammond will be a happy man this week...The DfT’s 15% budget reduction over the next four years is lower than the 19% Government average and the Department’s reduction in capital funding (11%) is far better than the 29% average.”

That is all to the good. As part of the package, there are new Government funding lines that are particularly to be welcomed. The local sustainable transport fund of £560 million over four years reflects the importance of localism to this Government, and has an explicit link to the reduction of CO₂ emissions, which is very welcome. I hope that grants made under that scheme are for measures to increase the importance of cycling and walking at a local level, as well as for more traditional travel projects.

As the Secretary of State confirmed in an answer to me earlier today, there is also the use of the new methodology for calculating the future cost of carbon. One of the most disastrous calculations by the previous Government was their use of an adulterated version of what was recommended by the Stern review to calculate the future cost of carbon emissions, which is, in effect, the value of future lives lost by climate change. They so heavily discounted that rate that projects such as the third runway at Heathrow looked economic when the cost of climate change was taken into account. It took only a change in the calculation for the idea of a third runway to look as bad as it does, and for the project to be rightly stopped. I am pleased that the new methodology will be adopted in calculations relating to all future projects.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

Notwithstanding how carbon is calculated—I do not for a second accept that the methodology was in any way, shape or form flawed—does the hon. Gentleman actually believe that if Heathrow ceases to be a hub, aviation will decrease? Does he not accept that logically Schiphol, Charles de Gaulle or Frankfurt would become the European hub, which would probably be welcomed by Brussels, and that the UK economy would then be in disbenefit?

[Martin Horwood]

I am rather surprised that the hon. Gentleman thinks that the methodology was not flawed. It was changed in March, and the now leader of the Labour party, the former Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, rightly presided over that change, which this Government, who took office shortly afterwards, took up. I think that the hon. Gentleman needs to be careful about his calculations.

As far as the other airports are concerned, it is very important that aviation is constrained across the European Union, and indeed around the world, as part of our assault on the threat of climate change. Unless the hon. Gentleman is challenging the methodology used by Sir Nicholas Stern—now Lord Stern—in his review, which was commissioned by the previous leader of the Labour party and Prime Minister, he will have to explain what methodology he would use to reflect the true economic cost of the threat of climate change. The methodology has been widely accepted in business and by investors and is now part of business calculations, and the use by the previous Government—until they changed their mind at the very last minute—of an incorrect and adulterated version of the cost of carbon, deviated from good business practice, apart from anything else.

On assessing project impact, I recommend that Ministers look carefully at the new approach to appraisal—NATA—assessment framework, and ensure that environmental and quality-of-life benefits are properly reflected. My noble Friend Lord Bradshaw in another place has made some very valuable and typically learned critiques of NATA, and I commend them to Ministers.

On railways, Ministers can be very happy indeed. The overall balance of investment in the Department will shift from 49 to 60% for rail by 2014-15, and that is exactly the right direction of travel. I am delighted that major projects such as Crossrail, Thameslink, the tube upgrades and, of course, High Speed 2 are all secure and that High Speed 2 in particular will, assuming that it is extended to Scotland, in the very long term deliver substantial reductions in aviation within the UK. I take the points made by other hon. Members on this earlier, but High Speed 2 is a very important contribution to rebalancing and making more environmentally friendly our whole approach to transport; that has been the experience of high-speed rail wherever it has been introduced around the world in competition with aviation.

Today, significant investment in new rolling stock was announced, with 600 new carriages for Crossrail and 1,200 for Thameslink, which in turn will free up hundreds of electric carriages for redeployment on newly electrified routes elsewhere and help to make the case for those new routes economic, which is very important. That, in turn, will free up diesel rolling stock for other routes, and help to support their economics. We have had additional announcements on developments at Reading, Birmingham New Street and other stations, on the east coast and midland main lines, and in Manchester and south Wales, and the confirmation, which is very important to colleagues in Scotland, that the inter-city express programme has been narrowed to two options, both of which include absolutely through services, and do not therefore raise the prospect of parts of Scotland being cut off by the need to change trains.

I would also welcome the schemes previously announced by the Department, which are reflected in the settlement for light rail, trams and ultra-light rail schemes. Those mentioned are Greater Manchester Metrolink, the Blackpool and Fleetwood tramway upgrade and the Tyne and Wear metro upgrade, and there are plenty of others that we could consider. The hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) made a very powerful case for Leeds, and the Leeds new generation transport scheme is in the development pool, which means that it has a fair chance of success. I wish him well in putting forward a strong case for the Leeds light rail system.

There are other schemes even further into the future, and I must mention the ultra-light rail system being fought for in Gloucestershire. We recognise that it is a long way off in terms of public funding, but important steps can be taken to support it. Most obviously, since it is intended that the system will reuse railway lines that were closed down by Dr Beeching, Ministers could look, perhaps with the Department for Communities and Local Government, at the new planning framework to ensure that nothing is done that prejudices such development. That would be an important way to support the future development of ultra-light rail.

On roads, I welcome many of the announcements, including the confirmation that support for electric car-charging infrastructure will go ahead. With the possibility of “hybrid hybrid vehicles”—those that run on electric batteries until the batteries run out and then revert to more conventional hybrid vehicle technology—we might be within sight of escaping the chicken and egg situation, in which the car-charging points cannot be rolled out until the electric vehicles are there to produce the demand for them, but the demand for the electric vehicles cannot be there until there are charging points. There is now the prospect of beginning to move forward in the electric car market, and the Government’s clear support for that is very important.

I am pleased that the main focus of the Department’s spending is shifting more towards maintenance and away from new roads, but the Liberal Democrats might have gone further and looked rather more critically at many of the other new road projects. I was very interested in what the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) said about the M60 project. It certainly sounds as though the Highways Agency’s consultation process has left a very great deal to be desired in that case, and could be critically looked at again. I also suggest that Ministers cast a particularly critical eye over the suggested upgrade of the junctions between the M4 and the M5 in my part of the world. I travelled the M4 and the M5 recently by car, and found no particular problems at the junctions or with the interaction between the two motorways, so I am not sure what the justification for the project is. I urge Ministers to keep all new motorway projects under very close review.

Not all road projects are bad, however. The Mersey gateway bridge project, which is in the supported pool and is therefore certainly being given a fair wind by the Government, could substantially reduce carbon emissions by increasing walking and cycling and considerably shortening car journeys in Merseyside. It would obviously also bring economic benefits. One last comment on roads is that with snow and ice possibly being a topical issue even before the end of the week, it is very welcome that the Local Government Association reports substantial extra investment in the provision of grit by local authorities, but I urge Ministers to keep a weather eye on that because we have seen some disasters in the past, when grit has run out. Grit suppliers particularly need to be encouraged to maintain supplies to local government as a high priority.

I am concerned about buses. I agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside, who emphasised the importance of the number of bus users in the country. Some 5 billion to 6 billion bus journeys are undertaken a year. The bus sector faces a potential triple whammy from the CSR. There is an admittedly modest reduction in the bus service operator grant, but the maintenance of the concessionary fares scheme is an important political commitment, which I support in principle. In fact, I should like it to be extended to 16 to 18-year-olds, in line with the policy of the UK Youth Parliament. That scheme is imposed on local authorities in a way that is inflexible for them and they have no way to control its costs. Its incorporation into the formula grant in future will lead local authorities to make some difficult choices about how to spend money locally. Since local authorities also subsidise many bus routes, those three things could combine and put a lot of local bus services at risk. That would damage our commitment to public transport and greener transport and would put rural bus services in particular at risk, which would not be welcome. Will Ministers meet their colleagues from the Department for Communities and Local Government and local council leaders from the Local Government Association, urgently to discuss the likely impact of the CSR on the bus sector?

Some responses could be made to the threat to the bus sector that do not involve spending large amounts of public money. It is instructive that bus journeys in London are on an upward trend, whereas bus journeys in the rest of the country are on a downward trend. Those of us outside London might mention the probably well deserved but quite generous subsidy that public transport in London gets relative to the rest of the country. But we could also mention the Oyster card and the use of smart technology, which makes it easier for people to use buses in London and the enormously better marketing and provision of information about routes in London at every bus stop and online. Certainly, that is in sharp contrast to the situation in Gloucestershire and many other parts of the country, which makes buses virtually incomprehensible and difficult for consumers to use reliably.