High Speed Rail (Crewe - Manchester) Bill (Instruction) (No. 3)
Debate between Jim McMahon and Gavin Williamson(6 months, 1 week ago)
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Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the debate so we can reflect on the importance of high-speed rail, the Northern Powerhouse Rail project, and connecting our towns and cities.
When we talk about connectivity, we always talk about the great powerhouses that are our cities, but our towns matter too. In many cases, towns have been the first to see cuts and the last to see investment. We need to use this opportunity to talk about our communities in the round. Generations to come will look back at this period in our history with regret at a missed opportunity to invest in the future of our country. When previous generations planned the infrastructure we see today, and in many ways take for granted, whether that is the canal, railway or motorway network that we enjoy, people had foresight. They planned well ahead, understood that in order to create a connected country they had to plan for a connected country, and took decisions for future generations, not only the current one. In that spirit, the cancellation of HS2 from the midlands to the north is a matter of serious regret.
The proposals have been pitched to say, “Well, the north of England can now have Northern Powerhouse Rail. Isn’t that good news?” Of course the £12 million investment connecting Manchester and Liverpool is welcome, but London did not have to choose between HS2 and the Elizabeth line, which cost £19 billion. If London does not have to choose, why on earth should the north of England have to choose on the same basis? Again, it is because the north of England has been shortchanged when it comes to investment.
Local leaders and Mayors across the midlands and the north have been working hard to try to rescue this decision and make some sense of what it can mean for future investment. We owe a significant debt of gratitude to our great council leaders, our Mayors and our transport authorities—particularly the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, Transport for the North and the local transport bodies—for the work they have done.
None the less, there are serious questions about the proposal on the table. Why do the Government seem to want to close the door completely on the idea that a midlands to Manchester link of HS2, funded by private finance, might be an option in the future? If the Government do not want to fund it today, why close the door for a funding model tomorrow?
Why has Manchester Piccadilly been told that it cannot have tunnelling that would take the platforms underground instead of overground, when the whole of the south of England is more or less tunnelled from the centre of London outwards? Why is a tunnel good enough for a field in the south of England, but not for one of our major cities in the north of England?
Manchester Airport station is a significant hub not just for Greater Manchester, but for the whole of the north of England, so why is Greater Manchester and its taxpayers being asked to make a local contribution to that scheme, when it is essentially a national project?
Why not use this as an opportunity to look at transport in the round? Heavy rail is important, and all the benefits of HS2 were well-rehearsed: they were about capacity, passenger transport, taking freight off the congested motorways, increased frequency and reducing costs. The whole project was also an opportunity to look at transport in the round—multi-modal transport, including bus, trams, trains and other airports. Why not use this as an opportunity to look beyond the cities to our towns? It is a significant frustration in Greater Manchester that most of our transport relies on the centre of Manchester to go in and out, because the cross-borough connectivity is so poor. Why not use this as an opportunity to bring forward plans to have an orbital tram for Greater Manchester—for the north-east of the conurbation—connecting the Bury line to Middleton and on to Chadderton and Oldham and through to the Ashton line, which, under these plans, faces a two-year closure during engineering works at Manchester Piccadilly. Why not use this as an opportunity for that?
Why not use this scheme as an opportunity to reinvigorate plans for reopening some of the lines closed by Beeching? It would be fantastic to reopen the Middleton Junction station on the Rochdale to Manchester Victoria line, serving new communities that have been rebuilt around the Foxdenton Lane area in Chadderton. Why not use it as an opportunity to have a joined-up transport system? FirstGroup, through the Lumo brand, has suggested a potential 2027 connection from Rochdale to London Euston. It will pass through Mills Hill in Chadderton and Moston, which serves Chadderton, without stopping to say hello. Why not look at that in the round and say that, since the light rail system was introduced in Oldham, there is no longer a heavy rail station for Oldham town centre. The nearest that we have is Mills Hill, so why not have that national connectivity at Mills Hill, joining up to Victoria and on to London Euston?
Sir Gavin Williamson
The hon. Gentleman is making an incredibly powerful argument, but he is also making an argument as to why this should be a wider discussion; it should not just be shunted upstairs. Does he agree that we need to open up this debate so that we can have bespoke, clear legislation to make this happen?
Jim McMahon
The problem is that there was no debate or legislation when the Prime Minister woke up one morning and decided to cancel HS2; it was done on a whim. All those manifesto commitments, all those promises to the business community and to the public that we would see this through, because we had a generational responsibility to plan for the future, were scrapped overnight. I have no faith that any further parliamentary process will ultimately deliver better transport in the north of England. In the end, it will be used by people who have another interest, which is to stop it entirely.
Town Centre Safety
Debate between Jim McMahon and Gavin Williamson(11 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
The reason why we are all in the Chamber for this debate is that we understand the importance and significance of our town centres and high streets. They are our community, they are our economy, and in large part they are the heritage of our place—that is why we hold them so dear. Every town centre is different, unique in its character; even within constituencies, we recognise that. I see it myself in Oldham, Chadderton and Royton: each has its own identity, its own place in history, and its own role in the community.
Over the past decade or more, though, we have not just seen the usual changes that take place over a lifetime. Town centres have always had to change: they had to change when the rise of the shopping centre changed the traditional long high street, when the retail parks opened and when online retail took off. They have always adapted and changed, but now it feels like a combination of factors are undermining the potential of our town centres to thrive and have a place in the future, and some of them come at the direct behest of the Government. If we accept that our town centres are important for our community, our economy and our heritage, those are the things that will be affected if we do not take action.
Let us list some of the changes that will be familiar to every single community—almost nowhere in the country is protected from these changes. Banks, including banks that were bailed out by the taxpayer and are owned by the state, are closing high street branches. In the past 10 years, nearly 8,000 branches have closed, which of course affects local jobs, but also reduces the footfall in town centres and high streets. In some cases, if people cannot go to the bank, they do not have a reason to go into town at lunchtime. There are some exceptions—Nationwide, a mutual, has made a commitment to ensure that its branch network is maintained—but we do not see the same commitment from many high street operators. That is undermining our town centres.
Sir Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is making a very important and valuable point. The development of banking hubs in some towns, such as in Stone following the loss of Lloyds bank, will have a big impact. Does he agree that banking hubs should be rolled out across many more towns in his constituency and mine?
Jim McMahon
I do agree with that—in fact, it is Labour party policy to create those banking hubs—but we should not have got into this position to begin with. It should have been required by law that the last bank in town has a community responsibility. There is not a single bank in Royton or Chadderton district centre; we would have to build a hub from scratch, because when the Lloyds and Halifax closed in the respective towns, the Government took no action to say, “Hang on. We have already lost five, six or seven banks. We need to make sure at least one remains, so that there is consumer choice.” There will be a lot of making-up to do when the election comes; it will be done, but I am afraid we will be starting from a very low point. However, I accept the right hon. Gentleman’s generous point about the importance of those banks.
We have had 9,000 shops close in the last decade, affecting 125,000 jobs in their communities: 41% of those were clothing shops, 19% sold household goods and 10% were convenience stores. Thinking about convenience stores, whether it be the local Co-op, Tesco Express or Morrisons, where will the cash machine be after the bank closes? The bank closes, the post office closes and the convenience store closes, and there is no cash machine for people to take out money from the bank, leading to financial isolation in many places.
Pubs are the beating heart or the anchor of many communities, and the place where people can get together to tackle loneliness and isolation. Particularly in industrial towns such as mine, the buildings of significance on the high street—where the heritage is really brought out and we get the character of the place—are the church, the pub and the town hall. In many places, those big assets are under threat. Some 13,600 pubs have closed in the last 10 years—the numbers are down 22%.
If we look at the public sector, in my town of Oldham—a town of a quarter of a million people—thousands of jobs are being taken away from the town centre. Those are people who do not go out to lunch to buy a sandwich and do not support local retail. More than that, it removes a sense of identity and of belonging in a place, and it has an impact on how safe people feel there. The Government have not just closed our county court and our magistrates court, but caused the closure of so many police stations that there is not a single custody cell in our town. Even if somebody was arrested for violence against a shop worker, they would be taken out of town to be processed. The chief superintendent in my town says that that has a material impact on the decisions officers take about arrests being made and people being taken to custody, because they cannot afford to take a whole day out from the frontline on the beat for that. It is having a material impact.
Public Services
Debate between Jim McMahon and Gavin Williamson(5 years, 1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
I would like to say how much I enjoyed the tone at the start of the speech from the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) when she praised the work of public services. We all feel, on both sides of the House, that it is important they deliver for everyone in our country.
It is an honour for me to close this debate. I thank Members on all sides who have contributed to it. They made many passionate points, raising issues that are important to them and to their constituents. As we all know, the Government are working hard to deliver Brexit and honour the will of the British people when they voted for us to leave the European Union. However, our ambitions do not end there. At the same time, we are pursuing a bold programme of domestic reform that will protect and improve our public services, from strengthening our beloved NHS and making our streets safer, to giving our primary and secondary schools the biggest funding boost for a decade so that our children have the world class education that every single one of us in this House always wants to ensure they receive. The Gracious Speech is a contribution to, and a part of, that approach.
Let me pick up on a number of the issues raised by hon. Members. The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) raised relationship, sex and health education. The Government are absolutely committed to it. It has our full backing and we want to be there backing schools. We recently announced a £6 million fund to develop a programme of support for schools. We very much want to ensure that all schools teach about Britain as it is today.
Gavin Williamson
I would like to make some progress, if I may, because time is short. I will take interventions later.
The hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) raised the national school meals programme. That is a very important programme, which we are very proud to have introduced. We will very much be supporting it going forward.
I would like to pay tribute to my right hon. Friends the Members for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and for Guildford (Anne Milton), but especially my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead. She has always done so much in the area of mental health, ensuring that it was a centrepiece of what the Government do and ensuring that we talk about it, not just in this Chamber, but much more widely in society. They have both played an important role in making sure that it is addressed in schools. We remain committed to doing that.
I highlight the points raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead, and the hon. Members for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) and for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) on death by dangerous driving. They spoke from the heart. We have all seen the consequences of dangerous driving. It rips families apart and destroys so many lives. I will certainly reflect the comments that were made in this House to the Secretary of State for Justice.
There was much in what the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) said that I agreed with on the importance of closing the attainment gap between those from the most disadvantaged families and those from more privileged families. We have been doing that in both primary and secondary schools. That is because we are reforming how we teach and deliver education, and the children from the most disadvantaged families are benefiting.
The hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) talked about raising standards. That has been at the heart of everything that this Government do, because we recognise that continuing to raise standards in every single school for every child is how we give them the very best opportunity in life. I will give a bit of advice to the hon. Gentleman: scrapping Ofsted is not a way to raise standards in our schools.
Gavin Williamson
I will make some progress, thank you ever so much.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair), who raised the issue of post-study work visas. Conservative and Unionist MPs from Scotland have been raising that consistently, as have MSPs, and we are very glad to be able to deliver on it.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) spoke eloquently about his time working in further education and on the importance of technical and vocational education. Both main parties in this country have recognised that for a long time. We will deliver on it and make sure that we deliver the type of change that is needed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) spoke about how important it is that we level up funding, raising it especially for some of the areas that have been persistently underfunded. This has been talked about for 20-plus years and we are delivering on it, thanks in no small part to his campaigning to make sure that it happens. He also spoke about the importance of special educational needs funding. I had the great privilege of visiting the hospital school in his constituency and seeing the important work that is done there.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) highlighted the fact that his constituency was one of the areas that always had some of the lowest funding. We are changing that and delivering more money for every single school in this country.
What can I say about my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes)? There is so much I could say. He spoke with passion about giving youngsters ambitions and dreams and delivering on them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) has done so much to deliver the borderlands deal for not only his constituents, but many constituencies in England and in the Scottish borders. It will deliver prosperity and employment on both sides of the border.
It would be remiss of me not to thank the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd). I particularly liked his bringing some levity into the Chamber with the prospect of a Liberal Democrat Government. It was an opportunity also for Labour and Conservative Members to unite in the thought of what a dreadful idea that would be.
I am also grateful for the clarity that the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) provided in confirming that the Labour party supported a trophy hunting Bill. That is good news, particularly for the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson), who is always trophy hunting the head of the leader of the Labour party. It was disappointing, however, that she could not make it clear that Labour would also support the Windrush Bill, the police protections Bill, the extradition Bill, the Domestic Abuse Bill, the serious violence Bill and the foreign national offenders Bill.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has set out ambitious plans for transforming law and order. Her exciting plan to get 20,000 more police officers on to our streets will deliver for every part of this country. It is also positive that she understands that she needs the money behind her to deliver those extra police officers, and that is what she has secured from the Treasury. She understands, too, that 20,000 more police officers will cost more than £30,000. In addition, we recognise the importance of defending victims and ensuring the legal framework to support the most vulnerable in society, and that is what the measures in the Queen’s Speech will do.
Another service that our whole nation relies upon is our wonderful NHS. We are doing everything we can to protect this great national institution, which for 44 of its 71 years has been under Conservative stewardship. The Government have committed to a £33.9 billion per annum increase in the NHS budget by 2023-24. We want to make sure that this extra money makes a real difference on the frontline by bringing down hospital waiting times, reducing the time it takes to get a GP appointment and saving lives.
Jim McMahon
Lots of people in the NHS say that they want to see the funding go to adult social care, because the pressures that build in the system when the funding is not there has an impact on the NHS, so where is the Green Paper and the funding for our hard-working councils so that people can get the care they need?
Gavin Williamson
As the hon. Gentleman will know, we outlined extra funding for that in the spending review.
Young or old, we are all increasingly dependent on the internet, and people of all ages across the UK will benefit from one of the greatest eras of infrastructure investment, starting with legislation to help accelerate roll-out of full-fibre broadband right across the country.
As we exit the EU, it is vital for our country’s future that we deliver the world’s best education system. Our reforms over the last nine years, initially done with the Liberal Democrats, have seen standards rise across the country. We are doing better and delivering more for every single child. It is concerning, therefore, that the Labour party seems willing to scrap free schools and academies—schools that deliver the very best. Just last week, I visited Everton Free School in Liverpool, where a football club had decided it wanted to put something back into its community, working with teachers who wanted to deliver something better. It is shocking that the Labour party wants to get rid of that. We want to deliver the very best. In technical education, in vocational education, in every single school, we are driving standards ever higher. We are putting the money behind it. We have delivered the reforms that are required. It is a shame that the Labour party has such a lack of ambition for every single child in the country. We are the party that wants to deliver for every child—to level up, not level down as the Labour party wishes to do.
I very much commend the Gracious Speech to the House.
Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Rebecca Harris.)
Debate to be resumed tomorrow.
Deferred Divisions
Ordered,
That, at this day’s sitting, Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply to the motion in the name of Secretary Julian Smith relating to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act.—(Rebecca Harris.)
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Jim McMahon and Gavin Williamson(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State for Defence (Gavin Williamson)
Since becoming Defence Secretary, I have asked the Department to develop robust options for ensuring that defence can match the future threats and challenges facing the nation. Shortly, when the national security capability review finishes, the Prime Minister, with National Security Council colleagues, will decide how to take forward its conclusions, and I would not wish to pre-empt them. However, as the Prime Minister made clear in the speech at the Lord Mayor’s banquet late last year, we face increasing and diversifying threats to this nation. Although the detail must wait until the NSCR concludes, I can assure this House that as long as I am Defence Secretary we will develop and sustain the capabilities necessary to maintain a continuous at-sea deterrence; a carrier force capable of striking globally; and the armed forces necessary to protect the north Atlantic, to properly support our NATO allies and to protect the United Kingdom and its global interests. That is why I continue to work with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to secure a sustainable budget for defence to deliver the right capabilities, now and into the future.
Finally, I wish to thank all those service personnel who gave and did so much over Christmas and new year to make sure this country remained safe.
Jim McMahon
I thank the Secretary of State for his belated acceptance speech.
The Army recruitment centre in Oldham closed before the recruitment contract was handed over to Capita. Last year, only 7,000 of the 10,000 new entrants needed for the Army were recruited. Will the Department review the closure of those local offices to see whether it has affected the number of new entrants coming through?