Road Safety and Active Travel to School

Debate between Joe Morris and Greg Smith

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.

Farming and Inheritance Tax

Debate between Joe Morris and Greg Smith

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Joe Morris]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. She and I must have a slightly different view of a very long time. A few weeks ago is not a very long time for me. I am talking about years in which local farming communities were ignored.

The botched Brexit deal that the Conservative party secured did not do any farmer any favours. Labour is the only party that is genuinely serious about countryside renewal. We cannot pack communities across Northumberland in aspic and pretend that they do not need houses or services. That is why the Conservatives lost. That is why I am here.

[Greg Smith]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Joe Morris]

I have taken plenty of interventions in a short time.

Ultimately, the Government will be judged on the success of our record and whether we can get the farming budget into the pockets of farmers. I have every faith that the Government and DEFRA will do that. I do not believe that the Conservative party could honestly say that it ever trusted its DEFRA Ministers to do the same.