Department for Transport

John Hayes Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 27th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Governments are usually driven by events—events that are unpredictable and therefore unpredicted. Events can sometimes seem pivotal but are often momentary, yet they have the capacity to absorb a great deal of Government resources, time and effort. It is important that Governments step back from events and think in themes. A thematic concentration that allows Governments to plan strategically is critically important in the area of transport, in particular.

This Government have a reasonable record, as did their predecessor, on trying to address some of those themes, yet there is more to do. In the longer version of my speech, which for the convenience of the House I will place in the Library, so that people can be edified and informed by it, I set out the detail of those themes. For the sake of the time that we have available, I will highlight them in this way: it seems to me that there are three.

First, what is the purpose of travel? Over recent years, the blithe assumption has been that it is desirable for people to travel more and more. My contention is that this is not necessarily so. People are obliged to travel further to work, school, leisure, shops and so on. I am not sure that that is compatible with their wellbeing, and we need to think creatively about policies across Government which create that kind of obligatory need to travel, rather than to travel by choice.

Secondly, if we are going to invest in infrastructure, of course it is about what we do in terms of plant, but it is also about people. Equipping people with the necessary skills to make infrastructural investment happen, and to make it work, is vital. The Department for Transport has a good record in this respect. Two reports have been produced—one in 2016 and a review in 2017—that chart the number of skilled people that will be necessary to deliver the ambitious plans for road and rail investment, but we need to be mindful, because the pace of change is considerable. The second of those reports states:

“Our work shows that in the coming years in the roads and rail sectors, we will require a trajectory reaching 5,000 to 8,000 apprentices per year.”

That is an enormous step change in the level of skills and we will need to monitor closely whether we can meet such ambitious targets.

Beyond people and purpose, the third theme is pace. Technological change will alter where we travel, how we travel and in what we travel. It is necessary for any strategy to be sufficiently dynamic to take account of that technological change, which will by its nature alter some of our core assumptions. Purpose, people and place: those are the themes that this debate gives us chance to consider in greater detail and at further length as we reflect on this early dialogue.

My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) spoke about the need to be ambitious in transport debates. Let me end with this point. Chesterton said:

“The centre of every man’s existence is a dream.”

Let us dare to dream about what transport can offer, and let us measure the effectiveness of all we do in respect of popular wellbeing. When each feels valued, all feel valued. If we want to build the common good and to use transport to help to do so, we must measure all we do in terms of wellbeing.

[Several hon. Members rose—]