Road Safety and Active Travel to School

Joe Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mrs Hobhouse. I congratulate the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage—and possibly for the Netherlands—(Olly Glover) on securing this important debate. In just an hour of Westminster Hall, we have had many contributions, far more than normal, including from the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), who I served on the Transport Committee with in the last Parliament, and who of course now chairs that Committee, and from the hon. Members for Melksham and Devizes (Brian Mathew), for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley), for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae), for South Devon (Caroline Voaden), for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury), for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord), for Reading Central (Matt Rodda), for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), for Mansfield (Steve Yemm), for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone), for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer), for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman), for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper), for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and, of course, my constituency neighbour the hon. Member for Henley and Thame (Freddie van Mierlo).

I saved that one for last because the hon. Member for Henley and Thame spoke of the Haddenham and Thame greenway, which I have always supported. A significant chunk of it falls in my Mid Buckinghamshire constituency, from the village of Haddenham through to the Oxfordshire border. I believe we have a meeting coming up to discuss how to progress that. It is a project that should go ahead, for many of the good reasons that have been outlined by others in this afternoon’s debate, but it has a potted history of falling over at various hurdles, most recently as we came out of the pandemic. I gently say that it was actually Oxfordshire that pulled the funding plug on the project at that point, but I am delighted that it is back on track and that we are making progress.

The importance of road safety and how we improve it is something that we should all consider very carefully. There are always improvements that can be made to road safety, not least outside schools, and it is important that we reflect on those tragedies that some Members have spoken about that have occurred outside schools. Any death or injury of a child is one too many, and we must all take steps to prevent those. Indeed, nowhere is road safety more important than outside schools. To declare an interest of sorts, with three children—two at primary school and the youngest due to start primary school this coming September—it is something that I consider very carefully.

It is through that rural lens that I will make my first comments. It is undoubtedly the case that in many rural communities, no matter how much parents, or indeed the children themselves, may want to cycle or walk, the practical realities of not having a school in every village, of 60 mph country lanes with no pavements connecting villages, often going some distance, mean that many parents simply have no choice but to insist that they drive their children to school or that their children get the bus—where such a thing is still available. Indeed, although I do not want to set off the grammar school debate, in counties such as Buckinghamshire that have grammar schools, there is some considerable distance for that age cohort of pupils to travel—going from the edge of the county to get to the grammars in Aylesbury or Amersham, for example—where cycling or walking simply would not be practical.

While I want to encourage those who wish to cycle or walk to school, for some, driving is a necessity due to time. People have busy lives; all our constituents have busy lives; we have busy lives. To accompany a child, particularly of primary school age, on a walk or cycle to school may take significant time out of that parent’s, carer’s or guardian’s day—time that they may not have. It is therefore important for us not to judge those parents who make the choice to get their children to school by a different route.

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

I hope the Opposition spokesperson can do me a favour: a charity in my constituency headed by David Dixon, the bicycle mayor for Tynedale, and supported by No. 28 Community House in Hexham, is trying to get Northumberland county council to support a pretty innovative cycle to school initiative in Hexham. However, it is falling on deaf ears with the Tory group in Northumberland County Hall. Could the hon. Gentleman possibly have a word with some of his colleagues there?

[Greg Smith]

I think I am grateful for that intervention. I am not sure whether I have any contacts in the Conservative group on the hon. Gentleman’s council, but I will gladly see if I can get that message passed to them.

In the limited time we have available, I would like the Minister, when she sums up, to consider a few practical points about how we might start making this problem better. I will start with getting the basics right. When I drop my middle child to school—a rural primary school in a village—I watch a particular taxi driver pull up on the zig-zag lines every single morning. The dirty look I give him does not appear to be doing very well in stopping that behaviour. If we cannot enforce the basic rules that we already have outside schools, what hope do we have of making it better? I ask the Minister to reflect on how we can better enforce those rules and implement the important points that many hon. Members made about yellow line parking and pavement parking.

I also ask her to consider the physical infrastructure near schools, such as narrowing sight lines, which force drivers to slow down; there is a lot of evidence out there about those and other physical infrastructure such as chicanes. On the question of speed—I promise that I will draw to a conclusion very quickly, Mrs Hobhouse—we have heard examples from the Netherlands, but I have seen examples in France and some parts of the USA of variable speed limits outside schools at drop-off times. Can that be considered in this country, perhaps to answer the very good challenge laid down by my hon. Friend the Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth)? There is a lot more that can be done in this area, and I urge the Minister to get on with it.

Road Maintenance

Joe Morris Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Lamont]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and the local press in Northumberland is full of stories of people who are effectively trapped.

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Lamont]

I will come to the hon. Gentleman—patience. The local press is full of stories of people who are trapped as a consequence of this Labour Government’s choice not to invest in the A1.

I will now happily give way to the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris), who will perhaps explain why he supports the cancelling of the A1 upgrade.

[Joe Morris]

I remind the hon. Members for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) and for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) that Northumberland now has four Labour MPs as a result of the neglect and contempt in which the county was held by the last Conservative Government. I also remind them that the Government in which they served were very much responsible for misleading the people of Northumberland by promising the A1 dualling without providing any money for it. Is that contempt not at the heart of why they lost Northumberland in such spectacular fashion?

[John Lamont]

The hon. Member for North Northumberland is no longer in his place, but he made an intervention earlier. He was very clear in his election leaflets that he was absolutely committed to upgrading and dualling the A1—a promise that has now been ripped up. I suspect the people of Northumberland will remember that when the next election day comes.

That A1 is crucial to North Northumberland and to my constituents. Its road safety is terrible. Forget the economic arguments; the safety arguments make it all the more important. [Interruption.] Labour Members can shake their heads all they want, but it is a choice that this Labour Government made, that Labour Members made, having told the electorate the complete opposite before the election.

My concern is that this Government and the SNP Government in Edinburgh sadly assume that everybody lives in a big city or a big town. They assume that people have access to buses or trains. For those of us living in Coldstream in my constituency, it is 14 miles to the nearest station, and the regular bus—the busy bus—comes every two or three hours. Unless we have access to a car and a good-quality road network, we are stuck.

It is regrettable that this Government are not prioritising the A1, which supports my constituency to a certain extent. More importantly from my perspective, it is regrettable that the SNP Scottish Government are not investing in the roads of the Scottish Borders in the way they should—and I remind the House that SNP Members are not in the Chamber today to stand up for their communities who want investment in their roads.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak about road maintenance and the importance of safe, accessible roads in Northumberland and western Newcastle.

Under the last Government, the condition of the county’s roads was neglected, ignored and disregarded, which damaged the basic infrastructure and social fabric of my constituency. Throughout the constituency, I am regularly confronted by roads that have been left in a state of disrepair—for instance, the B6307. I could name many more, but in Hexham, Prudhoe, Acomb, Anick, Hepscott and Haltwhistle, and even in smaller villages such as Ogle, crumbling surfaces, erosions and deep potholes are rife. When I speak to local people on the doorstep, the first thing that they generally ask me about is a fault in their local road. Quite small roads in Northumberland experience industrial traffic, and potholes can cause real damage and danger.

It is a disgrace that the safety of residents in my constituency is being jeopardised by poor road surfaces that not only put the wellbeing of residents at risk, but cause considerable damage to vehicles and inflict expensive repairs on drivers. One example is the road in Newton village, which is only wide enough to fit one car at a time, requiring drivers to pull over regularly. Because of the erosions on the sides of the road, drivers are experiencing significant damage to their vehicles and, as a result, increasing financial burdens. Because of rampant flooding on the road, the county council’s attempted patch repairs are often undone within minutes. When I visited the area with members of Newton by the Sea parish council, I saw with my own eyes the repairs being carried out and, within minutes, the potholes being flooded.

Residents driving to pick up their children from school, young people driving to access employment, people driving to the shops and those cycling to explore the wonderful landscape that makes north-east England the best place in the country to visit should not have to regularly encounter safety hazards or experience vehicle damage because of those road surfaces. This is inhibiting access to opportunities throughout the region, but the Conservative administration in the county council have taken their eyes off the road. They are failing to communicate timeframes for repairs, and failing to improve the condition of local roads. Even where basic repairs have been provided, they are slapdash. Lawrence O’Donnell, the Labour candidate for Prudhoe North and Wylam, tells me that on Wylam bridge the same pothole has been patched eight times in 12 months. It seems to me that the council is disregarding the basic welfare of residents and letting down residents across Northumberland, and on 1 May we will have the opportunity to vote it out. The community should not be neglected owing to the Conservative majority’s ignorance of rural life and affairs and its contempt for the people of Northumberland.

I am pleased that this Labour Government have committed additional money to delivering vital road schemes to fix our local roads. While the Minister is here, let me echo the calls from my hon. Friend the Member for North Northumberland (David Smith) for the Government to consider the urgently needed safety work on the A1, and, this time, to ensure that any work that is done is properly funded. Let me also make my own pitch for the A69 to receive similar treatment. It is clear that ours is the only party that will prioritise local roads, and that we need a Labour-backed council in Northumberland to ensure that that happens.

There are a few more points that I hope the Minister will address when she responds to the debate. I have recently met quite a few local farmers who have told me that they want electric vehicle charging points in their farm shop car parks, but are finding it difficult to obtain grants from the Department for Transport. They are being told that these are only available for service stations, but there are not a huge number of service stations on the A69. Putting charging points in farm shop car parks would be a great way of boosting our net zero credentials and ensuring that more people throughout Northumberland access farm shops and put more money into the local rural economy.

It is easy to play a hackneyed political game in this context, but it is not just politicians who benefit from potholes being fixed. It is the public—the people doing the school run and the people driving to work, whether they are going to work at Egger or Essity, or whether they are travelling to Newcastle or to Carlisle across my vast constituency, the biggest in England.

Let me use my last 15 seconds to describe my visit to Newcastle airport, where I saw the runway being relaid with tarmac from—I was told—my constituency. It would be great to see some of that knowledge, skill and expertise put to use to fix the roads of Northumberland.

Road Safety: Schools

Joe Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship for the second time this afternoon, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth) on securing this important debate on road safety around schools, which is an issue that regularly comes up in my mailbox.

I have raised the issue of safety of children travelling to and from school in a debate on school transport in this place before. Every child in Northumberland deserves safe access to the best education; no child’s safety should ever be jeopardised in the process of achieving that. From Queen Elizabeth high school in Hexham to Haydon Bridge high school, Haltwhistle primary academy, Sele first school and Darras Hall primary school, every child in my constituency and beyond travelling to, from and around school should be safe. Yet between 2019 and 2023, some 1,414 young pedestrians and cyclists in the north-east were injured. Of those, 286 were seriously injured and six were fatally injured.

I will use my time to highlight one particular situation. There are three schools situated on Callerton Lane in Ponteland: Ponteland high school, Ponteland community primary school and Henry’s Hut pre-school. Insufficient signage on Callerton Lane to indicate the school zone in which there are not one but three schools continues to jeopardise the safety of students, teachers, parents and local residents. I am sure that every single Member from any party can agree that traffic calming measures, better road surfaces and clear signage should be one of the greatest priorities in local areas.

In rural regions with a higher rate of car ownership, the need for better signage and road conditions is even more pressing. Conducting speed surveys is a necessary first step, but, as is the case for Callerton Lane, they must be done in the correct place and the correct manner to ensure complete accuracy. I have urged and continue to urge Northumberland county council to reconduct some of the speed surveys around Callerton Lane to achieve total accuracy in determining accurate speed limits for the local schools of Ponteland.

Road safety education is just as important as improving road safety around schools and children should receive a comprehensive education to improve road awareness. I acknowledge the vital work of Road Safety GB North East and its new campaign to improve awareness on road and traffic safety for young people. I am pleased to see the pledge to fix 1 million potholes and give vital funding to improve our roads and elements of the travel journey to and from school. Through those local campaigns to raise awareness, urgent attention to the condition of my roads, which has already been pledged by this Government, and improvement to the signage around schools, our young people can receive the safety and security that they need and deserve.

I will briefly highlight one of my constituents, Rory, who wrote to me. He is very concerned about road safety on his street near his first school after his garden wall was knocked over by an Asda van. I will be writing to his local council to ask that signage on his street is improved.

Oral Answers to Questions

Joe Morris Excerpts

Thursday 21st November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

T8. I am regularly contacted by constituents of mine who are concerned about delays and cancellations on the Tyne Valley line, which is so fundamental to my constituency. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss delays and improvements to that line?

[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend is right that Northern rail services on that line are very poor. That is exactly what we are addressing through continued negotiation on rest-day working agreements. My noble Friend the Rail Minister will be happy to meet him.