Summer Adjournment

Debate between John Grogan and Alex Sobel

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who spoke with great authority about a large number of international issues, as well as about his local buses; I always instinctively trust a Member of Parliament who knows about his local buses. It is also a great pleasure to take part in a debate started with such panache by the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess).

It was Lord Hague of Richmond who said that early-day motions in this House were “parliamentary confetti”. Although he is a distinguished Yorkshireman, I disagree with him—for me, they are the bread and butter of our Parliament. I want to bring to the attention of the House, before we adjourn for the summer recess, three early-day motions that just happen to be in my name, which the House may have missed while other things have been happening over the last few days.

Early-day motion 2649 calls for a review of the Heathrow expansion decision. It is supported by nearly 30 hon. Members—including some Labour Front Benchers, which I was pleased to see; I hope that it will be supported by the Labour leadership. Things have changed over the past year: we have declared a climate emergency, and we now have a target of net zero. In the north of England, it has become very apparent that, given our net zero target, any expansion of Heathrow will choke off any possible expansion of routes in the north of England. The Prime Minister famously said that he would sit down in front of the bulldozers to stop Heathrow expansion. I am not asking him to do that, but I do think that a review is the least that we can expect.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend and neighbour is making an excellent speech. It is vital that we cancel the third runway at Heathrow and that we share the reduction in aviation emissions right across the country, so that we do not play airports against each other.

[John Grogan]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. There is express provision for such a review in the Planning Act 2008, so it would not be difficult.

I move on quickly to early-day motion 2650, which is about commercial local radio and Bauer. Although it stands only in my name at the moment, I am confident that at least a dozen MPs will sign it overnight. It deals with an important issue of commercial local radio, to which two things have happened in recent years. The market has consolidated: Global and Bauer now own over half the market. Furthermore, Ofcom has weakened the regulations so that local radio stations now have to have only three rather than seven hours of local content on a weekday and local content can come from regional centres; it need not come from the area of the franchise.

Bauer is trying to buy over 30 local radio stations in four different groups. The good news is that yesterday the Competition and Markets Authority stood up to it and said that there was a clear competition case to answer. There will be a phase 2 investigation of these possible purchases of Bauer’s. The fear must be that local advertisers will be taken out of the market, all the advertising will become national and Bauer will follow Global in closing local studios; Global has already closed 10 local studios. If the purchases go through, Bauer will own exactly 80% of the Yorkshire commercial local radio market: 16 of 20 stations. I fear for stations such as Stray FM, which covers part of Keighley constituency. I fear that, ultimately, programmes will be made just from Leeds and London.

The third early-day motion to which I want to draw attention, Mr Deputy Speaker, may be to your taste: it is to do with cricket and football World cups and free-to-air TV. It is EDM 2608. One thing that the retiring Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport did in his last few days in office was to announce for the first time in about 20 years additions to the list of events that must be shown on free-to-air TV. He said that he wanted a consultation on future women’s World cups and future women’s FA cup finals and that they should be listed just as the men’s events are. Some 11 million people were inspired by the football World cup this year, and that will now also be true for future women’s football World cups: women will have equal status with men when it comes to great sporting events. The right hon. and learned Gentleman also suggested that the Paralympics should be added. I would like his successor to go further and to add the cricket. We cannot just have one game every 15 years, courtesy of Sky and its owners Comcast—at the very least, England internationals in the cricket World cup and in the T20s, as in Australia, should be free to all the nation, to inspire them.

Finally, I want to preface an early-day motion that is not yet on the Order Paper but will be in September. It is to do with the private security industry. One of the great benefits of being an MP is that, courtesy of Mr Speaker, we can see in the new year on the Terrace. I was coming to do that last year and met Mr Michael Thompson, who turned out to be from Keighley. He was outside the Palace. I kept in touch with him over the months that followed. He told me that the firm he was working for, 24/7 Security, have not paid a lot of people—not just on that occasion but on others, including the Leeds festival and so on. The security industry is very heavily regulated for the individual security guards but not when it comes to the contracting companies. Under the Private Security Industry Act 2001, there is provision to have such regulation of the contracting companies. I hope that, as we approach the 20th anniversary of the Act, we will review the situation.

Finally, I wish you a happy summer holiday, Mr Deputy Speaker. Particularly in view of the county of your loyalty, I wish you a happy Yorkshire Day on 1 August next week.

Train Operating Companies: Yorkshire

Debate between John Grogan and Alex Sobel

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[John Grogan]

Let us make it a joint letter, sending Christmas wishes to Germany.

Without delaying the House too much longer, it would be remiss not to mention the strike, which is causing difficulties for the Yorkshire economy. There was some good news when it appeared that Transport for the North and, I think, the Government acknowledged that there would be a second person on all trains, but there seems to be an issue about the detail of what that second person would do. In Scotland, a deal was done where the guard would continue to have a safety-critical role—the driver would open the doors and the guard would close them. There are compromises that can be reached. Having beer and sandwiches at No. 10 is perhaps out of fashion, but we need Minsters to get the different parties together to end this strike and have proper negotiations.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many of my constituents travel from Otley to my hon. Friend’s constituency to catch the train on the Wharfedale line, and they all find that the trains are overcrowded. Without the guard, they would really struggle to use that service, particularly as the bus and train times are not compatible with each other. They need that additional support when they reach train stations on the Wharfedale line.

[John Grogan]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. His constituents are very welcome at Burley in Wharfedale, Menston, Ilkley and so on. I believe in the critical safety role of the guard.

I will move on to talk about Boxing day trains. One consequence of the disruption on Northern and TransPennine is that they are not fulfilling their promise—it was in the franchise—to run Boxing day trains. Northern and their franchise were meant to run 60 Boxing day trains this year, and TransPennine were meant to have proposals that would be funded by Government. There are no Boxing day trains in Yorkshire, but there are four lines in the south-east of England that will be running Boxing day trains. The following football teams have home games in Yorkshire: Leeds United, Sheffield United and Barnsley. Harrogate are playing against Halifax—a big local derby in the lower leagues—and I will be watching Guiseley play against Bradford Park Avenue.

There is demand for public transport and trains on Boxing day. Buses now run in Leeds, Bradford and some other Yorkshire cities, whereas they did not a decade ago. Some people cannot go home for Christmas from London to Yorkshire, because they have to be at work on 27 December and they cannot get a train back on Boxing day. There are also the issues of the environment and of loneliness—not everyone relishes being at home for 72 hours at a stretch, in some cases on their own. I appeal to the Minister: let us have Boxing day trains, as in the franchise, on Boxing day 2019. I think he can be the man to deliver that.

We have not yet heard much of London North Eastern Railway in this debate. I understand that it has promised to have seven direct trains to London, which were meant to start in May 2019—previous transport Ministers have assured us that they would. My understanding is that they will now start in the autumn of next year, and I wonder whether the Minister can confirm that today. Lots of businesses in Bradford are really looking forward to those direct trains to London.

Finally, I want to share a railway success story, which is about the role of heritage railways. They will be running across Yorkshire during the holiday period. My distinguished predecessor Bob Cryer was instrumental in saving the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, and my distinguished predecessor Ann Cryer is president of that railway. I have to report to Members that its “Santa special” on Christmas Eve is completely full—even the local MP cannot get a ticket. I am assured that if there are any cancellations, tickets will be available on Facebook.

Channel 4 Relocation

Debate between John Grogan and Alex Sobel

Thursday 10th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

This is an exciting process, is it not? It is a great pleasure to follow the inspirational speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), and I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) on his paean of praise for the great city of Glasgow.

I will make a couple of opening remarks before concentrating on the Leeds city region. It is worthy of note that, for the first time since I was originally elected to the House in 1997, it is uncontested across all political parties that Channel 4 is best in the public sector. To paraphrase Sir Michael Grade when he was chief of Channel 4, Channel 4 can be in the public sector with a public broadcasting remit or it can be privatised, but it cannot be both. The fact that this process is taking place at all is testament to that; long may it remain so.

Another point worthy of note is that the new management of Channel 4 have embraced the process. A year ago, when I was re-elected to the House of Commons and had my first contacts with Channel 4, there were doubts about whether it could possibly come out of London and whether the talent would be available, and we heard about moving schools and all the same sorts of excuses that were made in the debate about the BBC 10 or 15 years ago. I am very pleased. I congratulate Ministers and shadow Ministers on keeping up the pressure; I think Channel 4 management are now behind the process.

Channel 4 is a great British institution. There are few that are similar in other nations in Europe, except perhaps ZDF and ARD in Germany. To have two great public service broadcasters, and Channel 4 with its particular remit, is something that makes me proud to be British.

Moving on to the Leeds city region’s bid, my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen made the very good point that, although people say that their cities are like Channel 4, we have learned politically over the last few years that the United Kingdom is not just about cities. That is one of the strengths of the Leeds city region’s bid. Public investment in television in England and Wales over the last 30 or 40 years has all been in the west of the nation. There is a big gap in the east of the country where there has been no big investment in television and film.

There are obviously two bids here from Leeds and Sheffield, and both have strengths. As the new Mayor of the Sheffield city region, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), progresses in that role over the coming years, Sheffield will develop magnificently. At the moment, as an impartial judge from Keighley, I say that Leeds probably has the edge in terms of its creativity and of its being in the fastest growing area for television production throughout the country, and probably in terms of transport—until the new Mayor has had his full impact on improving Sheffield’s transport links. I would probably just about give it to Leeds.

However, I think we agree that it would be outrageous—I use that word advisedly, Sir Graham—if there was no representative from God’s own county on the shortlist that Channel 4 draw up. That is inconceivable, particularly given the investment record in the east of the country. I hope that, whether it is Leeds or Sheffield—unless both progress to the next stage—if only one Yorkshire city or region is on that shortlist, we will all unite behind it. This is a marvellous opportunity.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

To further make the case for the Leeds city region, we have the infrastructure, we have Sky, we have Perform and we have Yorkshire TV. We have Rockstar Leeds, the makers of Grand Theft Auto, which has sold more than 250 million copies around the world. We have Pace and ARRIS in Saltaire, which power internet and TV for hundreds of millions of people globally. We have the people and we have the infrastructure, does my hon. Friend not agree?

[John Grogan]

I do agree. One thing I admire about my hon. Friend is that he is much trendier than I am and is so much more in touch with the creative hub that is Leeds. He is right to say that Leeds has not only the history—Yorkshire Television and so on, which led to the spinning out of many production companies—but also this whole new phase and new generation of talent. I very much hope that Channel 4 recognises that.