Transport in the South-East

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I congratulate the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) on introducing this important debate. I have a direct solution to her problem of traffic queueing up to access the wonderful beaches at the Witterings. There is an alternative: those road users could stay on the road to Southsea, jump on the hovercraft and visit the wonderful beaches in Ryde, Bembridge and Sandown on the Isle of Wight. She is welcome to put my offer to her constituents in her next newsletter.

The south-east is a great economic engine of the UK. It is home to 7.6 million people and 368,000 businesses, and contributes £228 billion in gross added value to the UK economy. If the south-east slows down, Britain slows down. Its connectivity is therefore essential to supporting the economic growth that the country needs, which has been so lacking in recent months. As we have heard, the region hosts some of the most strategically vital transport infrastructure in the country: Heathrow, Gatwick, Southend, the M25, the M4, the Eurostar, the channel tunnel and the ports of Dover and Southampton. The Dover strait alone is the busiest shipping lane in the world, with more than 500 vessels passing through every single day. Responsible for more than 60% of the UK’s trade with Europe, the south-east’s geography makes it fundamental to the success of British trade, too.

To ensure that we can maintain connectivity, the Government must reverse their approach of imposing ever increasing costs on our transport infrastructure. Those costs are inevitably passed on to passengers, like national insurance increases and business rates. Earlier today, a Delegated Legislation Committee approved the emissions trading scheme for the maritime sector, which will add costs to domestic ferry services to the Isle of Wight. Scottish islands will be exempted, but not our own island in the south-east of England. As we have heard, there has been a long-standing assumption that, because the south-east is perceived to be prosperous, it can somehow cope with less spending or, at least, tolerate greater disruption. That approach is misguided. As many Members from the south-east would acknowledge, that is often London-focused, ignoring the areas around Greater London.

We know that east-west connectivity across the south-east remains weak. Productivity suffers when journeys are slower, freight is delayed and supply chains are less reliable. Spending decisions should not be judged on crude, per-capita formulas but on whether they reduce congestion, cut journey times, increase productivity, support net zero and strengthen economic resilience. Nowhere is that clearer than on our roads, yet our road network is being allowed to deteriorate. The one-off cost to clear the national road maintenance backlog is estimated to be £16.8 billion, and would take 12 years to complete.

In 2024, the Department for Transport reported that 4% of local A roads, 7% of B and C roads, and 17% of unclassified roads that should have been maintained were not. New Road in Brading in my constituency is closed for one month, and buses will not visit the town, notwithstanding the fact that there is another road and viable route into it. That raises another issue many of our constituents experience: the frustration that when roads do get upgraded, closures are often badly planned and key transport, such as buses, which constituents, particularly those who need to access healthcare or have mobility issues, rely on, is not adequately catered for.

Instead of fixing the roads we already have, the Government’s instinct appears to be to make driving more difficult. Only recently, plans were quietly published on the Government website that encourage narrower roads, under guidance from Active Travel England. Narrower roads risk slowing traffic, increasing congestion, making overtaking more dangerous, delaying emergency services and inflaming tensions between motorists and cyclists. That is not pragmatic transport policy, and it risks costing the economy billions of pounds. As Edmund King of the AA rightly said, UK roads

“have evolved since Roman times”

and they

“require…give and take which can’t just be ironed out by regulations.”

Those plans come on top of decisions such as the introduction of charges at the Blackwall tunnel after nearly 130 years of free use, which is yet another example of the Mayor of London making it more expensive and difficult to drive, particularly affecting those with no realistic alternative. Motorists already feel heavily taxed, heavily restricted and increasingly ignored.

Turning to rail, East West Rail is a project that both Labour and the Conservative party have supported and funded in principle, but delivery has been painfully slow and deeply disappointing. Despite being completed in late 2024, services remain unused; East West Rail has admitted to the most basic of design failures. The Government have set out their support for East West Rail, but prospective passengers understandably want the service now. In October 2025, the answer the Department for Transport gave to a parliamentary question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden) offered no clear timetable. Passenger services to Bedford are now not expected until 2030, with Oxford to Cambridge services delayed until the mid-2030s. That is not the progress that our constituents want and deserve.

I will again touch briefly on maritime transport. The Government have proposed that they support my constituents to access cheaper, more reliable ferry travel by setting up a local group with an independent chair appointed by the Department for Transport, which is progress, and which I welcome. However, at the same time, the Government are putting cost on to the Isle of Wight through their emissions trading scheme. That is not an example of the mission-led Government they claim to be, nor an example of joined-up Government. They have exempted ferries to Scottish islands from the scheme, and that is an example of the pervasive view that the south-east will somehow cope, where other parts of the United Kingdom should have a special exemption.

Ports and ferry routes in the south-east are critical national assets, yet ferry services remain uniquely under-regulated and expensive. Rail and bus operators face obligations on pricing, performance and transparency, but ferry operators do not. Cross-Solent ferry operators are unregulated and controlled by private equity interests that fund overseas pension funds. That would not be acceptable in any other form of public transport, and it should not acceptable in ferry transport. That imbalance harms communities and undermines connectivity.

Integration across road, rail and maritime transport is essential if we are serious about resilience and fairness, and I urge the Government to give the maximum possible powers to new mayoral combined authorities to ensure joined-up, integrated transport, regardless of whether that transport is currently regulated or not. The south-east does not need grand gestures or experiments in public transport. It needs practical spending and proper maintenance directed towards how people actually travel—fix the roads, stop penalising motorists, and deliver infrastructure properly, effectively and efficiently. That is how we will keep the south-east and the UK moving.