Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Joe Robertson and Keir Mather

Thursday 16th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Keir Mather]

I join my hon. Friend in extending my thanks to CROs across the country for the incredible work that they do. We want to ensure that CROs are tret with dignity and respect, and that they are empowered to carry out their incredible duties. Having listened to the views and testimonies of CROs at first hand, I can confirm that the plans to move to the expenses-only volunteer model in September will not go ahead, and that current arrangements will remain in place. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend and Members across the House to make sure that we get this right.

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

I thank the Minister for pausing the MCA’s brutal decision about coastguard rescue officers, and for convening meetings on cross-Solent ferry transport to the Isle of Wight, which will start next month. It is of some concern, however, that I have received a letter—not from him—telling me certain things that I was not allowed to discuss, including evidence of ticketing and reliability going back more than 10 years. I am sure he understands that the world did not start in 2016, and I will not be told by anyone how to best represent my constituents, or what I can or cannot say.

[Keir Mather]

The hon. Gentleman of course knows best how to represent his constituents on these important matters. I believe that the dynamic he is pointing to is the dynamic of when dynamic pricing was introduced prior to 2010, and the need to be able to compare and contrast the impact of that on pricing. Evidence about that is of course important, and I hope it is factored into the ongoing work.

Maritime and Coastguard Agency

Debate between Joe Robertson and Keir Mather

Wednesday 8th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Keir Mather]

My hon. Friend has given me an opportunity to reiterate that CROs, their lived experience and their views on these changes must be at the heart of what happens next, which is why the meetings that were scheduled to take place this week are not taking place this week. I want to take the time to reflect on what hon. Members have told me, and also what CROs have had the opportunity to tell me about how these changes will affect them. Nowhere is that more important than in rural communities like the one that my hon. Friend represents. Let me build on that point. As the local Member of Parliament, she should be able to engage with her CROs on this matter where it is most convenient to do so—perhaps at the station itself—so that she can represent them. It is also important for trade union representation to be factored into ongoing engagement with CROs, so that we can make sure we get the details right.

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

The boss of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency told MPs in person that 93% of CROs surveyed were happy with moving to an unpaid volunteer model. That was false: the survey data shows that in many areas across the UK, nearly half would reduce their hours or quit. I am amazed that the Minister has any confidence in the boss of the MCA. Will he now confirm that the decision will not take effect in September and that he will consult properly himself, and will he say if he does have confidence in the boss of the MCA?

[Keir Mather]

We need to ensure that the CROs who are affected by these changes have an opportunity to carry on raising their concerns, but also to raise other instances. The hon. Gentleman has argued forcefully that the worker model is an appropriate way in which to continue, and that could be true in a great number of cases, but it is not true in every case. Indeed, I spoke to a CRO in Southampton for whom it is not the case.

We need to tease out the detail of all these matters. We need to listen carefully to CROs, and we need to create the space to allow that to happen. I am not going to say specifically what options I may or may not take in the coming days, but by pausing the sessions that were meant to happen this week I am creating the space that will make it possible to weigh up those options dispassionately and ensure that we can get them right, so that CROs can continue to share their views and we can make decisions that reflect the incredible contribution they make.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Joe Robertson and Keir Mather

Thursday 11th June 2026 Commons Chamber

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

T7. Coastguard rescue officers are brave men and women who work on the frontline to save lives, keep our coastline safe and, at times, arrive on the scene of small boat crossings. It is therefore shameful that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency has decided to strip them of the small payment they receive and rehire them as unpaid volunteers. Will the Minister meet me, my constituent Martin Groom and other brave frontline CROs to discuss a way forward and save the coastguard as we know it from collapse?

[Keir Mather]

I would be happy to meet the hon. Member, with whom I work productively on a number of issues in this space. He will be aware that the MCA is responding to a Court of Appeal judgment that made it clear that the current arrangement could not legally continue. We believe that protecting volunteering preserves one of the most valuable forms of public service, which he outlines. I look forward to working with him to support those volunteers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Joe Robertson and Keir Mather

Thursday 12th February 2026 Commons Chamber

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

Hard-working men and women in the coastguard, such as Bembridge resident Martin Groom, do vital work securing our borders, including, in some cases, intercepting small boats. The coastguard treats them as volunteers, but the Court of Appeal has disagreed and said that they are workers. Will the Government do the right thing and afford them all the rights, protections and fair payment that their worker status entails? The security of our nation relies on them.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)]

The Government are currently considering the judgment handed down in the Groom case and the next steps that we will take with His Majesty’s Coastguard. In the meantime, we are grateful for the contribution of volunteers across wider society. They are a crucial part of how this country comes together and delivers for the common good.

Railways Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Debate between Joe Robertson and Keir Mather

Committee stage
Thursday 5th February 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Keir Mather]

It is my pleasure to speak to this long-awaited group of amendment to what are arguably some of the most critical aspects of the legislation. Clause 60 will require GBR to set out its proposal for the best use of its infrastructure, while clause 63 will require GBR to retain sufficient capacity to run its own passenger services and carry out engineering work.

First, I will explain how the Government have reached that conclusion. We are here because the current system for allocating capacity is clearly not working; it is designed so that each part of the railway acts and takes decisions in isolation. There was a four-year delay to the implementation of the new east coast main line timetable that was finally achieved in December 2025. Meanwhile, there is no single body with a clear vision for the best use of the network, and therefore no clear statement of the capacity that can be made available for different users of the railway. As a result, open access operators have expended considerable effort and resources in developing proposals for access to the network, many of which have ultimately been rejected by the ORR.

Both freight and open access operators would benefit from a single body empowered to provide that clarity about future opportunities for them to grow their presence on the railway. The only possible answer to fixing that is GBR, which can take decisions strategically, making the very best use of the limited capacity that we have. Only GBR can review the network holistically with a view to creating more space, which will benefit open access operators where they can show that their new services constitute best use of the network. That will benefit every hon. Member’s constituents, because there will be more opportunity for connectivity and more co-ordination to avoid disruption and delays.

In our new system, the process of allocating capacity starts with clause 60. The infrastructure capacity plan will set out GBR’s view of the best use of the network, showing how capacity can best be allocated between GBR’s own services, freight services and open access services. In creating that plan, GBR must have regard to the need to accommodate all types of services. The clause is one of the most crucial in the Bill, because it is where GBR—having consulted carefully with existing and prospective operators and other interested parties, and taken account of its statutory duties—will set out its view of the best use of the network. Once established, the plan will provide much-needed certainty for operators contemplating investment in new services.

I will be crystal clear for the benefit of the Committee: the capacity duty mentioned in clause 63 does not apply to the creation of the infrastructure capacity plan. Under clause 60, GBR will make its best-use assessment on the basis of the duties in clause 18 and other general duties in the Bill only. At this stage, it will not have any basis to refer to the duty as described in clause 63. It will take the decision fairly and transparently, in line with its duties, with the need to allocate paths for freight, open access and itself in mind.

There is absolutely no intention for other operators to be unfairly pushed out or disadvantaged by GBR. We want the best service for passengers, freight users and the public on every part of the route, to enable the best possible connectivity, quality of service and overall economic benefit. That is the goal, regardless of who provides those services. Were GBR to mistakenly apply the capacity duty at the capacity plan stage as part of its determination of best use, that would be grounds for appeal to the ORR.

[Joe Robertson]

I note the Minister’s assertion that there is no intention to squeeze out other operators, but given the way in which the Bill and the clause are drafted, that surely is an inevitability regardless of whether he intends for that to happen. It is the outcome that matters. If it will not enable open access and competition, that is in itself a problem, notwithstanding he might not intend that to be the case.

Railways Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Joe Robertson and Keir Mather

Committee stage
Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Keir Mather]

These direction powers, as drafted, replicate those in many other pieces of legislation, which are fit for purpose in making sure there is democratic accountability for the functioning of institutions, while not being overly onerous and overbearing. We see them with the Oil and Gas Authority, Great British Energy and Great British Nuclear. Only one direction has been given to the Oil and Gas Authority in the 10 years the legislation has existed. In government, the Opposition included the precise same direction power for GBR in their draft Rail Reform Bill, so they clearly believed it was necessary at the time. I therefore believe that it strikes an adequate balance.

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

The Minister says Great British Railways, not the Department for Transport, will run the railways. He says that is different from the set-up for the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England. Was that not exactly the reason NHS England was set up, albeit not by his Government: to run the NHS so that the Department did not have to? I do not see the conceptual difference here at all; what I do is see the inconsistency in the Government getting rid of NHS England because that model does not work and bringing in GBR in the context of transport.

Railways Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Joe Robertson and Keir Mather

Committee stage
Thursday 29th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Joe Robertson]

I do. It is not difficult for me to agree and accept that the way Wightlink, which was part of British Rail, was dealt with was more than a missed opportunity; it was a bad decision. Locally, I work cross-party with the hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) on that.

This Government have an opportunity. I thank the Minister for the work he is doing and I hope he will be prepared to intervene in a way no Government have done. There are clearly opportunities to make small improvements to the Bill, and accepting the amendments would do that not just in my constituency, but in others. I will leave the Minister with a question: if he does not support the amendments, how else might he use powers in the Bill, or would he be prepared to introduce amendments of his own, to improve connectivity for other modes of transport that do not have any formal regulation?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)]

Good morning, Mr Western. It continues to be a pleasure to serve under your chairship.

I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions and for the clarity and succinctness with which they delivered them. I am afraid I will not be able to follow in their footsteps when responding to what is a chunky group of amendments and new clauses, so they will have to bear with me for this section of our deliberations. Clause 15 has been of considerable interest to members of the Committee and to the rail industry more generally, as we heard during oral evidence. I am thrilled that so much enthusiasm is being expressed for the strategy both verbally and in amendments, each of which I will now address.

Amendments 134 and 25 relate to the timing of the strategy. Amendment 134 would require the strategy to be set for 30 years. The Government have already confirmed that the strategy will cover a 30-year period. Setting that in legislation, however, is inflexible and unnecessary. Although the Government’s ambition is for a 30-year-long strategy, we need to provide for the ability to make reasonable changes to that term when needed.

Amendment 25 would remove the ability for the strategy to be amended within a 15-year period. That would fundamentally limit the railway’s ability to respond to unforeseen circumstances such as the covid-19 global pandemic. I hope the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham agrees that such a circumstance, or any number of other possible events, would clearly require the strategy to be revisited within a timeframe of less than 15 years.

Railways Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Joe Robertson and Keir Mather

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Keir Mather]

I thank the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for West Dorset for their amendments, all of which look to amend the Secretary of State’s statement of objectives.

First, amendment 120 would require that the statement of objectives contains standards for GBR to meet when conducting its railway activities. I agree that we need to measure GBR’s performance against clear standards to ensure high-quality delivery. However, the statement of objectives, which is a document to set direction and inform the funding process, is not enforceable, and consequently it is not the right place to require standards.

The original drafting provides flexibility, letting the Secretary of State specify what standards should be achieved by GBR when delivering against the objectives in the statement. This allows for circumstances in which providing a standard helps to better articulate the strategic vision for GBR over the five-year funding period.

However, it may not always be appropriate for an objective in the statement of objectives to be accompanied by a standard, particularly when an objective is straightforward or high level, such as a requirement to have regard for security threats or to support economic growth. The Bill contains other mechanisms, including the business plan and the licence, to ensure that there are robust and enforceable measures against which to hold GBR to account.

There is a similar case to be made on amendment 121, which seeks to set a structure for the statement of objectives, and amendment 123, which proposes to expand the list of potential objectives to include a section on productivity and efficiencies. The amendments would change the list from illustrative objectives to a set of requirements. It would fundamentally not be appropriate to impose such a structure on the statement of objectives, which needs to be able to take a different approach each time it is made, in response to wider environmental concerns and socioeconomic circumstances. The intention is that the list serves as a guide to future drafters, and I believe that the flexibility to allow adaptation to circumstances that we cannot predict will ensure that this legislation remains fit for purpose into the future.

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

I understand, although I do not agree with, the argument the Minister is making on amending “may” to “must”—he says it would be unenforceable—but he seems, unless I have misunderstood, to have conflated that argument with his point about amendment 122, which seeks not to make a discretionary provision a mandatory one but to expand the considerations. The explanatory statement says:

“This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set the objective for…increasing passenger and freight journeys.”

Perhaps I have misunderstood.

[Keir Mather]

To my knowledge, I am not conflating the two amendments. My point is that setting objectives that are so closely tied to discernible and prescriptive standards would, in effect, contravene the original intention of the schedule, which is to provide flexibility in setting objectives over the five-year period. If, in the hon. Gentleman’s view, I continue not to meet that intention, I will happily give way again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Joe Robertson and Keir Mather

Thursday 20th November 2025 Commons Chamber

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

9. What steps she is taking to help improve the integration of public transport in the Isle of Wight East constituency.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)]

I thank the hon. Member for his continued advocacy for this issue on behalf of his constituents. Soon the Department will publish its integrated national transport strategy, setting the long-term vision for domestic transport in England. It will focus on creating a transport network that works well for people so that they can get on in life and make the journeys they need to make easily, wherever they live.

[Joe Robertson]

Does the Minister accept—and, indeed, do the Government accept—that public transport will never be truly integrated for the Isle of Wight while it continues to rely on unregulated, unlicensed ferry services that are owned by private equity groups making bumper profits? He would not accept that for any other community in the UK; why should the Isle of Wight be left in a different situation?

[Keir Mather]

Again, the hon. Member makes a powerful point on behalf of his constituents—it is right to be frustrated by the affordability and reliability of ferry services to the Isle of Wight. I agree that urgent action needs to be taken to resolve the issues that he and his parliamentary colleagues are campaigning on. That is why it is incredibly important that we get a cross-Solent chair in place quickly, so that they can grip this issue. Fundamentally, though, we must work together to get the data necessary to create a single version of the truth, so that we can assess how to deal with these problems in the round on behalf of the hon. Member’s constituents.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Joe Robertson and Keir Mather

Thursday 11th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Minister—welcome.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

This year, our Department will publish the integrated national transport strategy outlining our long-term vision for transport in England. It will set out how the transport sector, Government and local leaders should work together to improve people’s everyday journeys however they choose to travel, including how people access ports and airports. We look forward to providing more information in due course.

[Joe Robertson]

I welcome the new maritime Minister to his place—it comes to something when Isle of Wight ferry company Red Funnel is operating ferries that are older than the new Minister. Will he speak to his new colleague in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Minister responsible for English devolution, to ensure that the new Mayor for Hampshire and the Solent actually has regulatory or licensing powers over transport across the Solent? If the Government create a new local leader without any powers over integrating the island that I represent, as the Member for Isle of Wight East, into the mainland, they will have failed to deliver any form of genuine integrated local transport for my constituents.

[Keir Mather]

The hon. Member speaks with passion about the state of ferry services in his constituency. It is an issue that I am keen to engage with him on further; I know the former maritime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), was very engaged in this work, too. I am looking to meet the hon. Gentleman next week, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley), to take this conversation forward. On stakeholder engagement with the ferry operator itself, that local engagement is something I will be taking part in through the Department. I look forward to engaging with the hon. Gentleman as I take that process forward.

Crime and Policing Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Joe Robertson and Keir Mather

Committee stage
Thursday 27th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Keir Mather]

Q Thank you very much for your evidence, Dr Newport. I want to look back to something that you said at the beginning of your remarks about encouraging citizens to use CCTV in their homes to better allow the police to prosecute crimes. One issue that does recur, even when CCTV is available in people’s homes and they can say to the police, “Look, I’ve got this here for you to be able to use to catch who perpetrated this burglary”, or whatever else, is that the CCTV is not always used in the way people would like. I wonder if you could speak to that.

I think there is also a bit of a regional inequality point. In my part of Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, there is live access to CCTV in York. That can be important in allowing people to deal with crimes in the moment, as they find them, and to direct police forces to the right spot. In Selby, however, our CCTV looks like it comes out of the 1970s; it is too blurry and grainy to use half the time, and it poses major challenges for the police. Can you point to how those practical realities affect your earlier remarks?

Dr Newport: That is why home CCTV is so useful. Cameras now are vastly cheaper than they were even 20 years ago when a lot of this infrastructure was put in place. You can get high definition cameras now on your doorbell in a way that 20 years ago would have been obscenely expensive. For the price of £30, homeowners with one of those cameras can probably outcompete, in a lot of ways, the national infrastructure or otherwise that was put in a long time ago.

I completely agree that it is extremely frustrating that a lot of the time, even when there is CCTV, it is not being looked at or used. There are several ways of encouraging that and making it easier. One is that there should be clauses on the procurement of artificial intelligence systems that could scan that footage. It is extremely likely that current systems can do that, and future systems will certainly be able to do it. Give a system indications of what to look for, and it can highlight that to officers within seconds. We should have that, and the fact that it is not used at all is astounding.

It should also be the case that officers have training so that they look at footage in the most time-efficient way. For example, with binary searches, rather than viewing the whole footage on fast forward to see an incident, if you are looking for a bike missing, for instance, you watch the bike. You check in halfway through the footage—is it there or not? If it is, you check at 75%—is it there or not? You keep doing that in halves, and you can do an extremely fast search. It might take you minutes, when otherwise it would take you hours to go through footage. Some officers are still going through hours and hours of footage rather than simply using methods that we know work extremely well.

[Joe Robertson]

Q Solving a set of issues in a given day depends on well-worded law that is targeted at the problem it is trying to solve. Can you share your views on backing that up with the appropriate resources, be it money or technology, for the police to be able to deliver on the law? Over the last decades, we have seen more and more criminal law come into being without necessarily the resource to back it up. Can you comment on the interplay between well-worded law and the resources for police to be able to act on it?

Dr Newport: On the resources point, some of my ideas here have been around CCTV procurement and AI. I think those things would help to reduce police time and costs. It should also be ensured that the public can see the effects of these things—that they are transparent and we are able to check on them, which at the moment we do not seem to be able to do. The fact that I have to try to ask an MP to ask a question in Parliament about the Connect system and still cannot get a response—there is still no way of checking—is completely and utterly unacceptable.

It is also the case that the British public, in survey after survey, put healthcare as the thing that they want to see the most funding to. Education and criminal justice are joint second and third. Government funding is nowhere near the public’s priorities on this. That is what I would point to on the funding question.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Mather]

Q I want to ask about the confidence that individual farmers will have in these measures. We are in an unenviable situation at the moment. Farmers in my constituency deal with criminality frequently, and they have to step up themselves and put themselves in danger. I was speaking to a farmer in Brotherton the other month who had chased a gang of people on off-road bikes across his farm, putting himself at personal risk and danger. Do you think that, if implemented correctly, these measures will provide individual farmers with reassurance that they will not have to put themselves in similar danger in the future?

Sam Durham: I hope so. In general, the rural community and farmers have a good relationship with the police. They recognise the challenges the police have with low numbers, but where forces have a rural crime team, they build a link with the local community and the farming community. When I go to meetings around the country, I hear that rural crime is a big issue, but they support the police; they just want to give the police the tools to deal with the criminality they are having to deal with themselves.

Certainly, the link to organised criminality is worth investigating as well. The theft of a quad bike from a farm may seem a low-level crime, but it is potentially funding bigger networks. On the fly-tipping side, there is evidence that waste crime is linked to organised criminal activity as well.

Putting the picture together—I have given you a long answer—I think farmers will be reassured that the Government are taking this issue seriously. Alongside some of the other legislation, on equipment theft and livestock worrying, the Bill shows that rural crime is being taken seriously.

[Joe Robertson]

Q May I take you back to fly-tipping? We heard earlier how it is a problem for local authorities, but they are clearly more resourced than private landowners, who often own the sites where rubbish is dumped. Is there any opportunity missed in the Bill to try to tackle fly-tipping, particularly for people who, through no fault of their own, have waste dumped on their private property?

Sam Durham: The guidance to local authorities is key, and there are some really good examples of local authorities that are bringing all the agencies—the Environment Agency, the police and so on—together and having a co-ordinated approach to tipping. That means that members of the public know who to go to when they see an incident. There is not a general approach to that across the country, so if there is any way of legislating for that approach, or putting it in the local authority guidance, to make that happen, that would be key.

For the victim—the landowner—it is about knowing where to report, so having a single reporting mechanism that gets to the right people. They cannot view a tip and say, “That’s hazardous waste; that’s the Environment Agency’s responsibility”, “That’s the local authority’s responsibility” or, “That’s just rubbish thrown out of the back of a car.” They cannot judge that. A single reporting system that allowed them to log it and then found the right person to deal with it is something we would be campaigning for.