Oral Answers to Questions

John Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Before we come to business questions, I have to inform the House that there is an error in the Future Business section of the Order Paper. The Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill, introduced by the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar), should appear as the first item of business tomorrow. It has been corrected in the online version, and will appear correctly on tomorrow’s Order Paper.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I thank you, and indeed the Clerks, for your speedy action in resolving this? The test of an organisation is not whether mistakes happen—they do— but how quickly they are corrected. I hope that your statement will also make clear to Members who were thinking of attending tomorrow that my Bill will be No. 1 on the Order Paper, and that they will be here to speed it on its way to the statute book.

[Mr Speaker]

I think we have just had the plug and the advertisement.

Draft Strikes (Minimum Service Levels: Passenger Railway Services) Regulations 2023

John Spellar Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 General Committees

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Huw Merriman)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Strikes (Minimum Service Levels: Passenger Railway Services) Regulations 2023.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. The regulations will be made under powers conferred by the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, as amended by the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023. The purpose of the regulations is to set minimum service levels that can apply to specified services during passenger rail strikes. These minimum service levels are designed to balance the public’s need to make important journeys and the impact of rail strikes on the economy on the one hand, with the ability of rail workers to take strike action on the other. It is my hope that strike action can be avoided, but the regulations will mean that when strikes take place, the rail industry can provide an improved and more consistent service, in a way that is proportionate and fair for all parties.

Let me give some background to the regulations. Strike action in the rail sector has occurred frequently in recent years, and has a significant impact on people’s ability to travel. Since 2019, there has not been a single day when there has not been either a strike on our railways, or mandates for strikes outstanding. The result has been many periods of disruptive strike action, in some cases resulting in the suspension of all rail services on affected routes. Between June 2022 and November 2023, there have been 42 days of widespread disruption caused by strikes. That can have considerable consequences for the passengers and communities affected. People often struggle, or are unable, to travel to work. Others have difficulty accessing vital services, such as education and healthcare. Businesses and the wider economy suffer. Enabling a minimum service to operate during rail strikes is a means of protecting against disproportionate impacts of strike action.

The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act, passed on 20 July this year, establishes a clear framework for implementing minimum service levels. The Act amends the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 to give the relevant Secretary of State the power to make regulations setting minimum service levels for specified services in six key sectors, including transport. In addition, the strikes Act sets out the framework through which minimum service levels can be deployed. It gives employers the ability to issue a work notice to a trade union if a strike is called on a service specified in the regulations. The work notice must set out the staff whose are reasonably necessary if the minimum service level set out in the regulations is to be met, and the work that those staff must undertake. The trade union must take reasonable steps to ensure that the trade union members identified in a work notice comply with its requirements.

The regulations for passenger rail specify three categories of service that minimum service levels apply to, and the associated minimum service levels. Category A is train operation services. Category B is infrastructures services, and category C is light rail services.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

The Minister says that the trade union should ensure that its members comply with the work notice. What mechanism should it use to ensure that?

[Huw Merriman]

I will come back later in the debate to the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the action that we would require trade unions to take—or rather, not take—to ensure that the standard is met.

Let me explain categories A to C. Category A covers train operation services provided by passenger train operators under agreements with the UK Government, including services provided as operator of last resort, and by devolved Governments, and local transport authorities and executives. It therefore excludes services provided by open-access and freight operators; heritage and tourist services; and international train services that start or finish outside Great Britain. The minimum service level for train operation services is the provision of those services necessary to deliver the equivalent of 40% of the operator’s timetabled services, as shown in the most recently published National Rail timetable, during the strike.

[Huw Merriman]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her point. The 40% of train operation services is 40% of services across the train operator’s timetable as a whole. It applies for as long as that timetable runs. I will go on to talk about category B, because that is hours-specific guidance.

Category B covers services listed in the regulations that are provided by infrastructure managers. During strikes by railway infrastructure workers, the minimum service level is the provision of services between the hours of 06:00 and 22:00 on the priority routes that are listed in the regulations, and on certain enabling infrastructure within a 5-mile radius of the priority routes, including connections to depots, sidings, and rail freight terminals.

Category C covers train operation and infrastructure services provided on the 11 light rail systems specified in the regulations. The minimum service level is the provision of services necessary to deliver, during the strike, the equivalent of 40% of timetabled services as shown in the most recently published timetable issued by the operator of the light rail service.

We have designed the minimum service levels to address appropriately the type of strike action that we typically see, and to ensure that the levels are operationally viable for employers. The minimum service levels are intended to achieve a suitable and proportionate balance between delivering benefits to passengers and the wider economy, and workers’ ability to strike. Our work has been informed by extensive consultation and engagement, including a public consultation between 20 February and 15 May of this year, and consultation with train and infrastructure operators, passenger representative groups, unions, and a wide range of other stakeholders.

Once in force, the regulations will apply to any future strikes, even if the mandates for those strikes predate the primary legislation, which received Royal Assent on 20 July this year. That will allow employers in the rail industry to use these regulations as soon as they come into force, should they choose to do so. The Government have identified passenger rail as a priority for minimum service levels. These regulations deliver on that commitment, and deliver on the 2019 manifesto.

[John Spellar]

Will the Minister give way? He said he would.

[Huw Merriman]

I am not giving way. I said I would come back before the end of the debate on the points the right hon. Gentleman made.

The regulations mean that train operators will be able to provide the equivalent of 40% of their timetable during strikes, whereas on some recent strike days, a number of companies have been unable to run any effective service at all. During full-day infrastructure strikes, priority routes can be open for 16 hours, instead of the 11 hours provided for under the industry’s current contingency arrangements, with some additions to the routes normally provided. Importantly, this will enable industry to encompass both the morning and evening peaks, so passengers will have more certainty around getting to work and returning home in the evening. These regulations are a positive step towards addressing the impact of rail strikes in a proportionate way. I commend them to the Committee.

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank the Minister for his explanation of the purpose and content of the legislation. Labour does not support the passing of this instrument. The Government’s failed approach to industrial relations has led to the worst strikes in decades, and this legislation will do nothing to solve those issues. Last December, the Transport Secretary admitted that minimum services for rail is “not a solution”, and that the way to get a better service was to “resolve the disputes”. The Government’s own impact assessments on this legislation in the transport sector admitted that the plans could increase strikes, disruption short of a strike, and chronic staff shortages. Even the architect of the law, the former No. 10 adviser Andrew Gilligan, said the plans may

“promote more industrial action than they mitigate”,

and will not ensure smooth services. The chief executive of the Rail Safety and Standards Board said the proposals

“won’t make the slightest bit of difference”.

Minimum service levels do not stop strikes in Europe. Countries such as Spain and France lose far more days to strikes than the UK. In Spain, minimum service levels have led to messy legal battles and delayed solutions to industrial action. It often takes the courts around a year to solve disputes on MSLs.

The impact assessment for the statutory instrument was first submitted on 12 October for scrutiny by the regulatory policy committee, which found that it was not sufficiently robust and identified areas where improvements should be made. The RPC confirmed that the points that it raised would generate a red-rated opinion, if not addressed adequately. The legislation is so rushed that the RPC has not been able to provide an assessment of the updated impact assessment, which was submitted only earlier this month. Given that the legislation has safety-critical implications and involves complex arrangements, it is absolutely staggering that the Minister is refusing to produce the impact assessment before Parliament has the chance to vote on the regulations. This is dreadful policymaking practice, with potentially serious consequences.

[John Spellar]

In my earlier exchange with the Minister, was there not a clue to the reason why he cannot provide the impact assessment? It is because he does not have a clue what the impact will be. Fundamentally, he does not know how the regulations will work. That may not be his fault; it may be the fault of whoever drafted the regulations. I am not saying that such measures could not work, but there is nothing I can see in the documentation that indicates how the regulations could work effectively.

[Stephen Morgan]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that scrutiny, and I agree with him. This is the challenge we face with this Government: they are not willing to listen or take on board our concerns about the legislation. Where was the response to the point my right hon. Friend raised earlier? That raises the question of why the Government are not willing to wait for the impact assessment to be reviewed before pushing this legislation through; they realise how poorly thought-through these plans are.

Over the past 13 years, the Conservatives have consistently attacked rights at work, including through the Trade Union Act 2016, the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 and the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses (Amendment) Regulations 2022. Labour will repeal all of them to give trade unions the freedom to organise, represent and negotiate on behalf of their workers. A Labour Government would ensure that trade unions could get on with their job of standing up for working people, and ensuring that industrial relations are based on good-faith negotiation and bargaining. That will end the Conservatives’ scorched-earth approach to industrial relations, ushering in a new partnership and co-operation between trade unions, employers and Government, and putting us in line with high-growth economies that benefit from more co-operation and less disruption.

We need clarity from the Minister on a number of issues. First, when will he receive the regulatory policy committee’s review of the impact assessment? Why has this Committee been scheduled for today, ahead of this review being published? The rushed nature of the legislation has created significant legal grey areas, so workers and employers will be uncertain about where they stand. As the TUC has stated, that is particularly troubling because the consequences for unions and workers of falling foul of the legislation could be enormous, with unions potentially facing damages of up to £1 million.

We need clarity on how many people will effectively be denied the right to strike. The headline is that 40% of rail services will run during strikes, but delivering that is likely to require a lot more than 40% of staff, once consideration has been given to issues such as cover staff. Will the Minister confirm how many staff will be denied the right to strike by the legislation? How will the issue be managed across the network? For example, what happens if there is a strike by multiple operators and Network Rail on the same day? How many signallers would be needed to ensure that 40% of those operators’ services could run? All sorts of safety concerns could be created. In theory, could all signallers be given work notices on a strike day? What would happen if a driver named on a work notice refused to operate a service because of safety fears, such as severe overcrowding? Would such a refusal be treated as a breach of the work notice?

Finally, will the regulations extend to the freight sector via the back door, given that freight services and workers are often used by passenger operators and Network Rail to ensure a good service on the network—for example, on recovery services?

This statutory instrument is being rushed through without proper scrutiny and raises far more questions than answers. Labour has been consistently clear that this shameful assault on the rights of working people will do nothing to stop industrial action on the network, and we oppose it. Indeed, as the Government themselves admit, it could make industrial action worse. This unworkable legislation could have very serious safety implications, which the Government have steadfastly refused to address.

The fact remains that only the Secretary of State getting around the table will solve the ongoing rail dispute—something he has refused to do this whole year. Rather than launch yet another attach on workers’ rights, is it not time that the Conservatives showed some responsibility, went back to negotiations and sorted out this dispute?

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I very much look forward to hearing the Minister’s full response to the questions from the Labour Front Bencher. Also, given the intervention from the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), will the Minister say whether Chelmsford is covered by the priority routes in the regulations? I will stand corrected if it is, but I have looked through the routes a couple of times and cannot see Chelmsford. I do know whether that will help the right hon. Lady’s constituents.

A breakdown in industrial relations in a train operating company can, as elsewhere, result in disruption for the long term, as workers who volunteer for rest-day working decide to take their rest days, overtime is knocked back, and good will disappears. No doubt some service managers think that they will be able to use the regulations to bully staff back to work, but the fact is that they would cause longer-term damage to the rail network and the industry. The Government are facilitating that damage through their legislation and the regulations that are before us.

Do the Government seriously think that when the industrial action is over, the workforce will be keen to go back to working under the managers and decision makers who threatened them with criminal charges if they did not comply? It does not take an expert in industrial relations to work out that the legislation could only harm relations between management and staff, and in turn harm our rail network and the wider economy. Perhaps that is why the industry has repeatedly expressed its reluctance to get involved. While the primary legislation was passing through Parliament, the Rail Freight Group told the Transport Committee—after the Minister’s time as its Chair—that

“our members who are private companies wish to manage their relationships with the trade unions directly rather than with any legislative overlay.”

Transport Focus said:

“There is no substitute for good, modern industrial relations in any industry where changes and terms and conditions are negotiated, and agreement is reached. You want to have workers who want to come to work.”

The Government have repeated their proportion of 40% in order to give the impression that the majority of striking workers will still be able to avail themselves of their human rights, but given the nature of work on the railway network—signalling, station management and maintenance, dispatch, ticket gates, public safety and so on—the reality is that far more than 40% of staff will be ordered to work.

The Scottish Government continue to regard the legislation as unnecessary, unwanted and ineffective. It seeks to undermine legitimate trade union activity and goes against the principles of fair work, the interests of the Scottish public, workers and employers, and the delivery of public services in Scotland. The UK’s record on employment rights, and indeed basic human rights, is exemplified by the International Trade Union Confederation’s annual report on workers’ rights, which this year ranked the UK alongside such champions of workers as El Salvador, Angola and Qatar.

Further to the points about the efficacy of minimum service levels in other countries, let us say hypothetically that the Scottish Government supported this idea. A look at the priority routes I mentioned to the right hon. Member for Chelmsford proves that Mick Lynch was right when he said the Government and the Department for Transport do not care about Scotland or Wales. The most northerly station covered by these priority routes is Cowdenbeath, which is barely one third of the way up mainland Scotland and 170 miles as the crow flies, or 270 miles and three train journeys, to the most northerly station, in Thurso. Therefore, even if we supported these priority routes, they would mean nothing to vast swathes of Scottish passengers.

To be crystal clear, the Scottish Government are not interested in using any of the powers the UK Government have grabbed for themselves. The Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy has made it clear that the Scottish Government will not co-operate in establishing any minimum service orders in Scotland over which Holyrood has competence, which is nearly all of them.

I am grateful to the Government for highlighting through their regulations the continued illogical control of Network Rail in Scotland by Westminster and the DFT. The UK Government cannot impose minimum service levels on ScotRail or the Caledonian Sleeper, because both are under the auspices of the Scottish Government—better still, they are publicly owned by the Scottish Government. However, because Network Rail remains undevolved, these regulations can be applied to track and infrastructure. So we have laws being applied to force employees to work, and trade unions to take part in that coercion under pain of criminal penalty, in order that train tracks, signalling and stations remain open and semi-functional to serve trains that will not run, because the Government who run them actually respect individual human rights. What complete nonsense! It is another nail in the coffin of the idea that Network Rail in Scotland should remain outwith the control of Scotland. Given that no services will run on all the routes I have just mentioned, will the Minister confirm that a higher proportion of Network Rail staff in Scotland will be able lawfully to withdraw their labour compared with their counterparts south of the border?

The truth is that the overwhelming consensus in Scotland—among three quarters of Members of the Scottish Parliament, over 85% of MPs, and trade unions serving Scotland—is that these work regulations are wrong, like much of the UK Government’s attitude to workers’ rights. Indeed, polling shows that the strongest opposition in this island to minimum service levels comes from people in Scotland. So when Ministers say that this legislation is what the people want, I am not so sure that that is true south of the border, but it certainly is not true in Scotland. That is just one reason why we will vote against the regulations this evening.

[John Spellar]

rose—

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Either one—you are both charming. [Laughter.]

[John Spellar]

No one has ever said that about me before.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Spellar]

I thoroughly agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington—people do not hear that very often.

I may be being a bit unfair to the Minister but, as colleagues have indicated, there is a question as to whether his heart is in this, or whether it has been dreamed up by political pointy-heads in No. 10 who think they can run the next election on “Who runs the country?” I merely caution the Minister that the historical precedents for that are not encouraging. That is exactly what Ted Heath did in 1974, to which the response of the Great British public was, “Not you, mate.” These things can blow up, and what are thought of as weapons turn out to be boomerangs.

My right hon. Friend rightly identified one of the core problems, but the other is the way in which the railways were privatised. I am not getting into the argument about whether they should have been privatised, although, interestingly enough, Margaret Thatcher did not privatise rail, for the very good reason of all the practical complexities that it would entail. The creation of separate companies meant that negotiations dealt with one company after another and that, in fact, rail workers’ wages went up significantly. The Government seem to be trying to deal with that by sitting behind the negotiators—not at the table, but behind the curtain—and putting the arm up the back of the rail companies, preventing them from reaching an agreement that, as I understand it, they would not be averse to. The Government seem to want the dispute to go on, possibly for political reasons, even though they have settled in other parts of the economy. This measure would actually bring the Government right into the negotiations. Why not do things in the sensible way, by being part of the negotiations to try to reach a settlement, especially given that, as was mentioned, the industrial action seems to be largely receding?

I come back to the question I posed to the Minister: how does he think this will work? Even during the second world war, with the Defence of the Realm Act 1914, order 1305, all the powers and a national emergency, the Government could not to prevent strikes from taking place. When there were strikes in the mines, it was rightly said that we could not dig coal with bayonets. That does not mean that we should not try to resolve the strikes or that we should give in to every strike, but the blunt instrument of legislation has proved ineffective time and again, partly because of the ingenuity of the members, who will find ways around it, and partly because it starts to run up against the public’s concept of fair play. We saw that with the Pentonville five and the docks dispute, for example. I come back to my question, and I hope the Minister has had a note to tell him how this legislation will work—he can even intervene if he wants. What mechanism is the trade union supposed to use to ensure that enough workers attend to get to the 40% service? Is it expected to expel members, who will then go off and form an independent union? We would then have more multi-union competition going on.

The Minister will be pleased to know that, because I have a bad cold and my voice is giving out, I am about to conclude. The final point I will make is that the Government put a lot of weight in their relationship with the United States, including the possibility of a transatlantic trade deal. Given that this is the most pro-union Administration since Franklin Roosevelt’s, if the Government think that introducing anti-union legislation will in any way endear them to the US Congress and the White House, they have another thing coming.

High Speed 2

John Spellar Excerpts

Monday 18th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Holden]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Spades are already in the ground for HS2, with over 350 active construction sites, and with high-speed services between London and Birmingham Curzon Street due to start between 2029 and 2033. However, I will pass on his comments to Treasury colleagues, as always.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Frankly, it is a real shame that we have to put up with an ill-prepared office junior instead of the boss, because these are really significant decisions. Let us be clear: the case for HS2 was always flawed, but ballooning construction costs and changing business travel patterns post covid now make it unsustainable. I understand that it would be hugely embarrassing for the Government, and for the Minister’s Department, to write off somewhere between 10 billion and 15 billion quid, but surely that is better than spending £100 billion on this ill-fated project.

[Mr Holden]

I thank the right hon. Member for his thoughts; I will take them back to Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Holden]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and it was a delight to visit some of his constituents not that long ago in Sandy to discuss this and Biggleswade roundabout on a route I use regularly. We will continue to keep all these schemes for the long-term improvement of our strategic road network under review. They are very important, particularly when it comes to road safety, and I look forward to having further discussions with him in future.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

12. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of changed patterns of rail travel on the planning assumptions for HS2.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Mark Harper)]

Before I answer the right hon. Gentleman’s question, I hope you will give me permission, Mr Speaker, to inform the House, if it has not already noticed, that HS2 Ltd announced yesterday that Mark Thurston, its chief executive officer, will stand down in September. I want to thank him on the record, in the House, for his work over the last six years on progressing Britain’s most transformative rail project. He successfully oversaw the start of construction, and he ensured that HS2 has created tens of thousands of skilled jobs and apprenticeships across the country. The Government and I are grateful for his exemplary service.

To answer the right hon. Gentleman’s question, HS2 is a railway for the country’s long-term prosperity, and it is already bringing significant economic benefits to his constituents in the west midlands, where businesses have already won £1.7 billion-worth of work delivering HS2.

[John Spellar]

I thank the Secretary of State for that waffle. I actually asked him about the basic planning assumptions for this project, because the ongoing case for HS2 would have had to be based on estimates of future passenger numbers, particularly for business travel and inter-city commuting. Following the pandemic, we all know there has been a major change because of video conferencing and working from home. What are his Department’s latest projections of inter-city passenger numbers, and how do they affect the viability of the HS2 project, quite apart from the escalating construction costs? Will he publish those figures?

[Mr Harper]

I think the right hon. Gentleman fundamentally misunderstands. First, HS2 is a railway for the coming decades, not for the next few years. What happened during the pandemic should not affect the case for HS2. Also, he assumes that business travellers are the only people who will use HS2. It is true that business and commuter traffic is down following the pandemic, but we have seen leisure services rebound very strongly, with passenger numbers higher than they were pre-pandemic.

When I was in Japan recently, I saw that high-speed trains are not only used by business users; they are used by everyone who uses the railway. HS2 will free up enormous capacity for the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents on the west coast main line, and it will get more freight off the roads and on to our rail network. He should welcome all those things.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

T3. Can I go back to the astonishingly feeble answer from the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), about Heathrow, which is a major international hub, a major export centre, the biggest single site employer, with, I am pleased to say, a well-organised union workforce, and vital for west London? How can the Government not have a view or a policy on this vital national infrastructure, or is it just another case of they haven’t got a clue?

[Mr Harper]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman likes to hear from me, so I will answer this question. He can then think of a way of insulting whatever I say in response. The point that my right hon. Friend was making is that any proposal for a third runway at Heathrow will be a private sector proposal from that airport and, as last time, we would expect it to be funded by the airport. He knows that, if it brings forward such a proposal, the Government would have to take a quasi-judicial planning decision, which is why it is important that I do not take a pre-judged position so I can take that quasi-judicial decision appropriately. At the moment, however, we have not seen such a proposal from Heathrow. If it has one in due course, we will respond accordingly.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Minister, I think we have got the message. Can I just say to Members that this is about equality in going from one side to the other? I know it is important, and I am sure if you catch my eye during topicals you may have a chance of getting in then, but do not glare at me because I am trying to be politically right for both sides.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Keynes said, “When the facts change, I change my mind.” It is quite clear that patterns of business travel have changed dramatically post covid, yet when I asked the Minister this week about the balance between first class and standard class travel in the north and the midlands, not only did he not know, but he did not even seem to be interested. Will the Minister now, with these changing business patterns, re-examine the case for HS2, or is he just frightened of the answer?

[Huw Merriman]

I am not frightened of the answer at all. I am an advocate for HS2 because, as I have mentioned, it will level up the country, interconnect our great cities, reduce the time for a train to Manchester by 54 minutes to one hour and 11 minutes, and deliver not just jobs for this country, but jobs we can export to other high-speed rail lines across the world.

Transport

John Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful case on behalf of his local rail line. I know that the rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), is looking at that. Of course, we have a programme to increase the amount of lines that are electrified across the UK. We have a good record on electrification over the past 11 years, but we want to go further and faster as we decarbonise the railways across the UK.

We do not underestimate the scale of the challenge that families currently face as part of the cost of living challenges. That is why we recently launched the Great British rail sale, which saw over 1 million tickets sold and saved the public about £7 million. We are taking action on fares, too. Not only did we delay this year’s fare rise, but we kept it far below the current rate of inflation. We are taking action on rail fares, ensuring a fair deal for taxpayers, and ensuring that we can continue to invest in our railways. It is worth reminding the House that rail fares rose on average faster under the last Labour Government than they have under the Conservatives since 2010.

Similarly, we are improving local bus services, spending £2.5 billion on bus priority lanes and cutting fares across 34 local transport authorities in England. Work has started on transforming rail journeys as part of our record £96 billion integrated rail plan. That will deliver 110 miles of new high-speed line, 180 miles of new electrified lines and increased capacity. It means more passengers across the midlands and the north will benefit from faster trains more quickly, and to more places.

Members will soon have the opportunity to scrutinise the first piece of legislation that we intend to deliver—the High Speed Rail (Crewe-Manchester) Bill—which will create the transport spine that will serve towns and cities across the north-west as well as helping trains travel further to Scotland.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Prior to introducing that Bill, will the Minister assure the House that the Department has examined the change in working patterns with more people working from home, the impact that that has had and is likely to have on demand for inter-city travel, whether that has impacted the core case for High Speed 2 and whether, even with several billion already spent, there is a case for spending another £100 billion in the light of those changes?

[Andrew Stephenson]

The right hon. Gentleman and I will have to continue to disagree on HS2. I, and people across the House, see it as a long-term investment in the future of our country. Undoubtedly, passenger demand has been impacted by the covid pandemic, but we are confident that it will rebound. Part of the strategic outline business case, which we published when we deposited the Bill in the House, sets out our view that there is still a value-for-money business case behind getting on with investing in HS2, and not just phase 1, which is currently under construction—22,000 people are employed and 340 active construction sites are under way at the moment—but phase 2a to Crewe, taking those trains further and, with the new Bill, from Crewe all the way into Manchester.

[John Spellar]

I thank the Minister for giving away again. Can I bring him back to the point about whether there has been a long-term sectoral shift in demand for peak hour inter-city travel as a result of working from home and Zoom conferences. Has the Department analysed whether and why it thinks that demand will return to previous levels?

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his further point. We have done and continue to do the analysis and look at all the evidence. If we look at parts of the world that have been through pandemics before, we have still seen growth in the cities in those countries. We have still seen a desire for people increasingly to live in cities and to commute between those cities. HS2 is an investment in the long term, bringing the cities of this country closer together and, with phase 1 due to open at the earliest between 2029 to 2033, there is sufficient time for passenger demand to recover.

As a country, we have come very late to high-speed rail. Many other countries around the world—France and Italy in particular, along with Japan—have helped to pioneer high-speed rail services. It is long overdue that a Government in this country get on and invest for the long term. That is why I am proud that HS2 continues to have cross-party support in the House. I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman and I will continue to disagree, but many other Members do see the benefits of us getting on and investing for the long term.

[John Spellar]

Will the Minister publish that analysis?

[Andrew Stephenson]

We published a strategic outline business case updating the business case for HS2 when we deposited the Bill. We will continue to publish further analysis whenever investment decisions are made.

I need to make some progress. While there will be differences of opinions across the House on many issues—hopefully not too much on HS2—I hope that the transport Bill announced in the Queen’s Speech last week will receive broad support. After all, I hope that we can all agree that we want a rail service that delivers day in, day out for passengers: one that provides comfortable, affordable services that run on time. I am sure we all agree that the current model is not working. I therefore hope that hon. Members will support our plans to fundamentally reform the rail sector. We will create a new body, Great British Railways, which will act as a single guiding mind for the entire network, get a grip on spiralling costs, replace franchising with passenger service contracts, improve the passenger experience and simplify the ticketing offer.

The Bill also paves the way for the transport of the future, putting the UK at the forefront of new low-carbon technology. It will help the transition to electric vehicles by installing 300,000 public and private charge points across the country by 2030. It will set new safety standards and assign legal responsibilities to introduce self-driving vehicles on to our roads. That market, which is worth tens of billions of pounds and set to create 38,000 jobs, is a matter of when, not if, and UK consumers need to be reassured that the legal protections are in place. Similarly, rules are needed to improve the safe, legal use of smaller, lighter zero-emission vehicles such as e-scooters, which are only growing in popularity.

I hope that hon. Members will recognise that the Government are finally correcting the historic wrong that has long denied seafarers the same rights and protections as workers on land. That was ruthlessly and shamefully exploited by P&O Ferries earlier this year. My right hon. Friend the Secretary for Transport pledged swift action at the Dispatch Box, and I recall that his plans received support from both sides of the House. The harbours seafarers’ renumeration bill will make it a condition of entry for ferry services to pay the equivalent of the national minimum wage to seafarers while in UK waters. It is not right that workers plying their trade in and out of British ports, carrying passengers or vital freight, are denied the rights that the rest of us enjoy.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Wendy Morton)]

My hon. Friend tempts me, but, as he will know, the competition closed yesterday. We have seen some fantastic bids from local authorities represented by Members on both sides of the House. There is real enthusiasm, and not just in my hon. Friend’s constituency. The shortlist will be announced in due course.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

T7. The Secretary of State talked about electric buses earlier, but there is also the option of hydrogen. We have a groundbreaking hydrogen industry, while the Chinese have a real grip on electric bus technology. The West Midlands wants to buy hydrogen buses, and Northern Ireland wants to build them. The blockage seems to be the negative attitude of the officials in the Department. Can the Secretary of State sort that out, not only to help the environment in the west midlands but to give a much-needed boost to an emerging British industry?

[Trudy Harrison]

I am delighted to hear of the right hon. Member’s enthusiasm for hydrogen, which I share. We are committed to rolling out a decarbonised transport economy, and I can assure him that there is equal enthusiasm in the Department. As for the scheme to which he refers, I will look into it, chivvy it on, and get back to him.

Draft Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

John Spellar Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 General Committees

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I look forward to serving under your chairpersonship, Ms McVey.

I hope the Minister will answer a few questions. I would like to pick up on the last few words she uttered. Frankly, in my time in this place I have never known an SI to be suddenly found to be technically legally correct. I wonder if the Minister could explain exactly what technically legally correct is when, clearly, the SI is not correct in any shape or form. We will be going against the Public Passenger Vehicle Act 1981. In the letter that the Minister sent out about the disruption, it seems that it may affect around one case a week. How will it affect that one case a week? The Minister indicated that she wished to see the updated SI completed before this SI comes into being, but, I have to say, with the devastation of the new highway code that was introduced and the fact that nothing was done to warn people until after it had become law, I do not have much confidence that this SI will go through as quickly as we would like. If it does not go through as quickly as the Minister has indicated, what exactly will happen to those who are going to be affected, and what compensation can people access to mitigate this complete mistake by the Government? I am happy for the Minister to address that at the end.

I want to pay tribute to HGV and LGV drivers nationwide. They ensure that our supermarket shelves remain stocked and that vital medicines reach our pharmacies. During the coronavirus pandemic, they have been unsung heroes and deserve our deepest thanks. Goods drivers have been working under considerable pressure of late due to significant problems in the supply chain. Delays in transporting goods in and out of the UK meant that the intricate timescales to which they work were disrupted anyway. The problem has not been helped by the fact that we have a shortage of more than 85,000 HGV drivers in the UK. The Government have failed to address both the short and long-term factors behind this shortage. That has caused immense destruction and been a hammer blow to our economy.

I have significant concerns about the impact of the proposed legislation on operators of light goods vehicles. Under the EU-UK TCA, the Government are obliged to implement these new rules to mirror the new EU regulations. It is for that reason that the Opposition will not oppose this SI. However, the Government must ensure that it is implemented in a way that is fair and that does not place extra regulatory burdens on businesses and disrupt our economy even further.

I must also highlight the sheer length of this statutory instrument. It contains 135 regulations. In all my time in Parliament, I have never come across a statutory instrument that even comes close to that size. I understand the powers Ministers have given themselves under the EU withdrawal Acts to bring forward these changes, but I am concerned that these regulations are not being given the proper parliamentary scrutiny they require.

Turning to the content of the regulations, I am concerned that the Government are downplaying the impact they will have on business. In the explanatory memorandum accompanying this SI, the Government state that these requirements should

“not impose any particular burden on business.”

However, it is difficult to work out how exactly they have reached that conclusion. In the Government’s own consultation, 17 respondents objected to the changes on the grounds that they would increase regulatory burdens, while 18 were in favour. Some 12 organisations even said that it was likely that they would have to cease or reduce operations due to these regulations. That represents over 10% of total responses. Why then have the Government failed to complete a full impact assessment? Why have they blindly concluded that these regulations will not be a burden on businesses? What is the purpose of running a public consultation if the Government ignore the outcome?

For operators coming into scope for the first time, these new regulations will have a significant impact on their finances. They will cost them £658 each over the first five years and then £401 each for the subsequent five years. Firms operating LGVs are already working on razor-thin profit margins, and without the necessary Government support, they risk collapse. I urge the Minister to consider extra support to ease the transition, beyond the lacklustre support in this SI.

More widely, efforts must be galvanised to bring more people into the logistics sector. Long-term structural problems cannot be swept under the rug any longer. The workforce of drivers is ageing rapidly, with just 1% of HGV drivers under the age of 25. New regulations like these and the extra costs they bring risk alienating people from the industry even further.

The Government must improve working conditions in the sector. That includes investing in new, better-quality facilities for drivers so that they can rest, eat and sleep with dignity.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Is there not also a problem that when younger drivers have qualified, the insurance premiums when they start work, before they have two or three years’ experience, are huge? Should there not, therefore, be a Government scheme to encourage people in to spread that load and encourage more young people into what should, essentially, be a younger person’s industry, but very much has an older workforce?

[Gill Furniss]

I absolutely agree with everything that my right hon. Friend said. If we are to get on the right path to our economy growing, we must do everything possible to encourage new people into the industry—and new start-up businesses, too. As I said earlier, it is just another example of a barrier put in the way of achieving what we would like. The extra £32.5 million announced to upgrade driver facilities is, of course, welcome, but it is just a drop in the ocean for fixing the problem.

Another area that the Government must get right, if these regulations are to be successful, is publicity. It is right that the new licences will be available to apply for from tomorrow, but three months is a tight timescale for operators to become compliant. I therefore ask the Minister what steps she is taking to contact operators and firms impacted by the changes to ensure that they know exactly what they need to do. That also includes the earlier issues referred to by the Minister, which I have asked for answers on.

Unfortunately, raising awareness of important changes has not been a priority for the Minister’s Department; when significant changes to the highway code were implemented earlier in the year, it waited until over two weeks after they were in force to launch a publicity campaign. The same mistakes cannot be repeated as these new rules come into force.

I will finish by once again paying tribute to HGV drivers, LGV drivers and everyone else in the logistics sector. Their work is vital but, all too often, they are under-appreciated. As operators adjust to the new regulations, the Government must work with the sector and trade unions to provide the tools they need to make the transition as smooth as possible. That is essential for the longevity of the sector, all the jobs it supports, and our wider economy.

Smart Motorways

John Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Third Report of the Transport Committee, Rollout and safety of smart motorways, HC26, and the Government response, HC 1020.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. It is the Government response that I am particularly pleased to be discussing; Select Committees scrutinise and then put forward our recommendations, and in this particular instance, it is a great pleasure that the Government have accepted all the key recommendations—and gone further. I am grateful to the Minister, who is taking my thanks on behalf of the Department.

I also want to mention the previous incarnations of the Transport Committee and the work that they have done. I thank our former chair, Dame Louise Ellman, who chaired the Committee in 2016. I was a member of that Committee when a number of recommendations were made. For reasons that I will mention later, I believe that if those recommendations had been carried forward then we might not be where we are now. I also thank my predecessor, the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), who continued to shine a light on some of the failings of smart motorways. It has been a collective endeavour—a mission over the last six years—but I am pleased that progress is being made. It is also important to ensure that the Committee continues to focus on those assurances, and ensure that they are scrutinised and, ultimately, delivered. We will do so.

It would be remiss of me not to explain more about smart motorways and what their design and technology is there to do. It is there to control the flow and behaviour of traffic. There are three types and often people are baffled by the differences; I hope that I can explain them.

First, there are all lane running motorways, which tend to get the most focus because they do not have a hard shoulder at all. They rely on a series of emergency areas for motorists who become stranded. In 2019, there were 141 miles of all lane running motorway network. The fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles, which is measured from 2015 to 2019 for the purposes of this speech, was 0.12%.

Secondly, there are controlled motorways. These have a permanent hard shoulder at all times, but still have the smart technology. In 2019, they also accounted for 141 miles, with a lower fatality rate of 0.07%.

Thirdly, there is a dynamic hard shoulder motorway concept, which is where the hard shoulder is switched to a lane at busy times during the day. There are just 63 miles of this design, with a fatality rate of 0.09%. In comparison, there are 1,564 miles of conventional motorway, without the smart technology, which have a fatality rate of 0.16%.

The data shows that between 2015 and 2019, all three forms of smart motorways had lower fatality rates than conventional motorways. However, many are concerned because the data from 2019 alone shows that the reverse is true: smart motorways tend to be less safe.

The Transport Committee launched its latest inquiry in February 2021 and reported in November, with the Government responding this week. I will summarise what the Government have agreed to do.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Surely, to put it in context, it is best to start with why one would want to do this scheme in the first place. It is about traffic management and, in particular, reducing congestion in very crowded parts of our motorway network, especially at peak hours when people are going to work and with lorry traffic moving through. It is an enormously important part of our economy, particularly around the midlands motorway box where, I think the hon. Member would agree, the M42—the original smart motorway—works extremely well.

[Huw Merriman]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman and take his point on board, although it is a bit difficult to go back to the start and do as he has suggested. However, it is a familiar topic about smart motorways that will come up later. He is absolutely right. If the design guide had followed the prototype—I intend to refer to the M42 and where things then moved—we might have found ourselves in a very different place.

The right hon. Gentleman touched on the reason for this scheme, which, again, is to create the extra capacity that is needed to get people off the more dangerous A and B roads and on to the motorway network. Unfortunately, because of what has happened, there is a danger that the opposite is true, and if he will allow it I will expand on that.

There are seven key points in the recommendations that were accepted. First, there will be a pause of the roll-out of all lane running motorways yet to commence construction until five years of data is available for the smart motorway network built before 2020.

Secondly, the Government will pause the conversion of dynamic hard shoulder motorways to all lane running motorways and revisit the case for controlled motorways. Is it all about all lane running smart motorways or are other smart motorways better?

Thirdly, emergency refuge areas will be retrofitted to existing all lane running motorways to make them no further than 1 mile apart, for which the Government have announced £390 million of funding.

[Huw Merriman]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the expertise he brings to this debate. He makes some fascinating points. I am interested in whether the advice was followed by Highways England, as it then was. This was a new concept. Our recommendations included giving Ministers and the Department a little more independent advice from the Office of Rail and Road—the roads regulator. Had that been the case, there might have been checks and balances in the system, so the advice that he received might have been better for him. He rightly makes the point that if the build-out had been followed as he approved, we might not be where we are.

The fourth point was the granting of powers to the Office of Rail and Road to evaluate the Government’s smart motorways project plan. Starting this year, the regulator will report on progress annually, and carry out an evaluation of stopped vehicle detection technology and other safety measures.

The fifth point, which comes with a consultation requirement, is to introduce an emergency corridor manoeuvre into the highway code to help emergency services and traffic patrol officers to access incidents.

Sixthly, the Government will investigate the granting of new road safety powers to the roads regulator before changes to design or operational standards are implemented on our motorways and key roads. Again, Ministers would then have that independent four-eyes approach when their advice comes through.

Finally—this is important—we need to revisit the entire business case and rationale for smart motorway conversion. It is interesting that the expectation was that for every £1 spent on smart motorways, £3 would be delivered back, because we would be creating more capacity. There have not actually been that many studies of whether that has been achieved, because a longer assessment period is needed, which is now consistent with the safety assessment. However, one project on the M25 was delivering almost £3 back, although it is fair to say that the experts’ view is that it dissipates after a year, as more people use the motorway network.

The headline is a pause on new smart motorways, but the aspect that I am really determined to ensure that the Committee follows is all the retrofitting work that is needed to make the existing smart motorway network safer. That means vital work has to start on reducing the width between emergency refuge sites. We have seen that if a car is travelling at 60 mph and the distance interval is 2.5 km, it takes 75 seconds for that car to get to the emergency refuge areas. Some 40% of all breakdowns occur in a live lane, and that has to be impacted by the fact that the emergency refuge area is too far for the cars to get to, so it is essential that this is delivered.

I will touch on the stopped vehicle detection technology, which the Government are committed to ensuring is rolled out on the existing network by 2022. The Government are right to say that it was originally planned for 2023, so it will happen a year earlier. The Committee’s frustration is that we were given assurances by Highways England, the predecessor to National Highways, in 2016 that “going forward” the stopped vehicle detection technology would be put in place in the delivery of all new smart motorways. That has not occurred. When we heard from National Highways, as it now is, in our current inquiry, we were told that “going forward” actually meant “after two years”, whereas, to me, going forward means “immediately”.

Of course, the challenge now—it will be a funding challenge as well as an operational challenge—is that once those motorways are open and running, it is a lot harder and more expensive to retrofit the technology in place, which we have been told will be one of the blockers. In my view, that is precisely the reason they should have been put in to start with. I know the Government are now committed to ensuring that whenever they finish the existing smart motorways—which, rightly, cannot be stopped because they are almost there—they cannot open until the technology is in place.

[John Spellar]

Maybe a future programme for the hon. Gentleman’s Committee is why such bad advice is being given to Ministers inside the Department. Given that the M42 already had a system that worked and delivered much more predictable journey times, reduced fuel use, reduced pollution and, incidentally, reduced accident rates—that is all in the data from the M42 experiment—why did they cut corners after that? In the same way, they saved about £10 million on the paper licence, but it is costing about £100 million a year. Is there not clearly a systemic failure in advice and capability inside the Department for Transport?

[Huw Merriman]

I would be interested in hearing from former Ministers and the current Minister, but from my study of the matter over the last six years, I think the answer is that the culture has been about creating the capacity. That makes perfect sense, because if we create the capacity on the motorway network, we take traffic off the more dangerous roads. However, the difficulty is that we have then not focused on ensuring that the new roads are as safe as they can be. If we had the refuge areas at shorter distances and had the stopped vehicle detection technology, that could be done.

It was quite interesting that when we spoke to then chief executive of Highways England and asked why some of the motorways were open, notwithstanding the measures that had been put in place, he maintained that drivers wanted to try the road once the tarmac had been delivered. He stated: “We get a lot of negative feedback from the public, who say, ‘We know this is a smart motorway and you’re opening it. Why can’t we use that lane now?’”. I think it is that that has driven the feeling of, “Let’s get on and move it,” and then the safety measures and the design side seem to get cut.

I think there was a mentality in the agency that it designed this, so it became very defensive about it and tried to stretch it as much as it could. I would say that the safety bit got somewhat left behind and was not given the prominence that it should have been given. We know that the agency has a zero-harm policy: it aims to reduce harm, in terms of deaths, to zero by 2040. That is a lofty target, but it is also one that should be focused on every bit as much as creating the capacity.

I will end with this summary, because it is important that everybody else has the opportunity to speak and that we hear from former Ministers, with their ministerial expertise—there are two here to provide that. It is welcome that the Government have agreed to these recommendations. I applaud them for doing that, but it is essential that we now crack on with the safety measures that should have been there in the first place. They have not been there, but we now need to focus on getting them delivered as soon as we can.

It is vital that we use the Office of Rail and Road more, as it is the regulator and is able to challenge some of the assumptions. I welcome the acceptance of that recommendation, but the Office of Rail and Road is going to have to change as well. Of 350 employees inside that organisation, only 19 are dedicated to roads. It used to be the Office of Rail Regulation, but has been extended to cover roads; in reality, it is about rail. We do not want to get to a situation in which the culture is such—as perhaps it is with rail—that safety becomes the only issue, and we cannot ever get on and deliver innovations, because that might not be 100% safe; nothing is. We need to ensure that we still have a road-building programme in place.

Ultimately, it is really important that the Government look to whether they will continue with smart motorway build-out by assessing the data over this paused period. I very much hope that if the safety measures are brought in, that will strengthen the case for smart motorways, because the final point that I want to send to the public is that smart motorways are safe. The motorway network in this country is one of the safest in the world. People should be encouraged to use the motorway network. But we can make those smart motorways even safer, and I very much hope that this report and the Government’s response to it will help to that end.

--- Later in debate ---

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I appreciate your calling me in this debate, Mr Hollobone. It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

I begin by commending the work of the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), and the way in which he has not only gone about the gathering of evidence for the inquiry, but actively promoted the response from the Government and the conclusions of the Committee. He is to be commended for that. I would also like to record, on my behalf, and, I am sure, that of all members of the Transport Committee, our thanks to the members of staff, the subject specialists and all the support staff who have been involved in preparing this third report of the current Session.

As I believe the Chair of the Committee has already pointed out, this is not the first Transport Committee report scrutinising all lane running motorways. Although I welcome the Government’s acceptance of the Transport Committee’s recommendations, safety risks on all lane running motorways, such as those raised by our predecessor Committee in 2016, should have been addressed before those motorways were rolled out.

My own party and I personally have long felt that the Government needed to halt the roll-out of smart motorways. The Committee identified considerable evidence that there are serious flaws. It is a tragedy that so many lives were lost before action was taken.

[John Spellar]

There is a slight danger of conflating smart motorways and all lane running motorways. There are smart motorways that work, as with the M42, which is a key part of the motorway box around Birmingham and vital to the economy of this country. We therefore need to differentiate, and to look at what has worked and at why that was not followed through on. It is enormously important not just for those travelling to work, but—given that this country and its economy runs on its trucking industry and its drivers, as we found out recently—to keep things flowing. We have to look at extending that, rather than wrapping all those together in one framework.

[Grahame Morris]

That is a reasonable point. I certainly do not disagree with my right hon. Friend. I point out that our third inquiry was launched in response to concerns that the Committee had received about the increasing number of fatalities and to criticism by professionals, including coroners, about the risks that arise when we do not have hard shoulders, or when they are used as an additional lane.

As we heard in the Chair of the Committee’s opening remarks, the number of miles of motorway without a hard shoulder increased from 172 to 204 between 2017 and 2019. Over those two years, the number of deaths on motorways without a permanent hard shoulder increased from five to 15. At least 38 people have been killed on smart motorways in the past five years. On one section of the M25 outside London, the number of near misses has risen twentyfold since the hard shoulder was removed in April 2014.

Thanks to the dedication of bereaved families, the roll-out has been paused. As part of the Committee’s inquiry, we heard some of the most harrowing and moving evidence from the families of those who, tragically, have died on smart motorways. That testimony, I believe, was very valuable and I thank all those who gave evidence in person and in writing.

All lane running motorways were primarily a money-saving exercise. We skirted around that issue earlier. In the rationale, they were introduced to add capacity while delivering savings on capital, maintenance and operational costs compared with previous smart motorway designs. The aim was to achieve the savings required by the 2010 spending review while maintaining Highways Agency safety standards. Clearly, those motorways could reduce the costs of implementation by up to a quarter.

It is now evident, however, that cost-cutting has played a part in the utterly inadequate roll-out of smart motorway features. That has put lives at risk. Many of the problems with the safety of all lane running motorways remain, years after the original Transport Committee report.

Russia’s Grand Strategy

John Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

My right hon. Friend is completely right. They are ruthless about pursuing what they regard as their own interests and disregard any other risk. Indeed, they are very far from being risk-averse, and the west has been far too risk-averse to compete with that. I will come to that later, but I thank my right hon. Friend for reminding us about the Poseidon torpedo, which is a nuclear-tipped torpedo—another escalation in the arms race.

Russia has also been rearming the Serbs in the western Balkans, including the Serb armed forces and the police in the Serb enclave of Bosnia, with the intention of destabilising the fragile peace that NATO achieved 30 years ago. Russia has stepped up its activity and influence in north and central Africa and has even started giving support to Catalan separatists in Spain. Russia uses its diaspora of super-rich Russian kleptocrats to influence western leaders and exploit centres such as the City of London to launder vast wealth for its expatriate clients.

Following the shaming chairmanship of Gazprom assumed by the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, so Russia has now recruited former French Prime Minister François Fillon to become a board director of the massive Russian petrochemicals company Sibur, with its headquarters in Moscow. The Russians must have contempt for us for being so gullible and corruptible. Our unilateral withdrawal from Kabul also vindicates their narrative that the west is weak, pointing out that we failed to stand by our moral principles or our friends.

Closer to home, look at how Gazprom has gradually and quietly reduced the gas supply to Europe, running down Europe’s gas reserves and causing prices to spike, leading to quadrupling gas and electricity prices in the UK. If Putin now chokes off the supply, it would take time and investment to put in place the necessary alternatives, which the Russians will seek to frustrate, as they already have in Algeria. Algeria was in a position to increase its supply of gas to EU, depending on the existing pipeline being upgraded, but a successful Russian influence campaign aimed at Germany and France prevented that from happening. Gazprom is enjoying its best ever year, so Putin can not only threaten western Europe’s energy supplies, but get the west to fund his war against the west.

Moreover, as gas supplies to Germany through Ukraine seem less reliable, so Germany continues to support Nord Stream 2, the pipeline that will bypass Ukraine, strengthening Russia’s hold over both countries immeasurably. At least we have the option of re-exploiting our gas reserves in the North sea. For as long as we require gas in our energy mix, we should be generating our own, not relying on imported gas from Europe.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman’s last statement will be very much welcomed by workers in the gas and oil industry, but was it not also remiss of the Government a few years ago not to continue with the gas storage facility in the North sea, which would have provided us with some resilience? We should also have been working with other countries to build up their reserves, to diminish the ability of the Kremlin and Gazprom to blackmail us.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

All I can say is, do not start me on the lamentable incoherence of 20 years of UK energy policy, because it is a disgrace, and something that we could have done so much better and that this Government are starting to repair, but it will take some time.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

As we made clear earlier, there is considerable concern about the rapidly deteriorating situation in Ukraine, particularly on its frontier. In today’s debate, as has been well introduced by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), we need to look at that on a much broader spectrum—basically one of a revanchist Russia that is seeking to rewrite the end of the cold war. It is seeking to recreate the Soviet Union; to increase its influence, if not its direct acquisition—I do not think it would rule that out, however—of the former Soviet Republics; and to establish hegemony over the former countries of the Warsaw pact, as well as to keep Finland in a state of neutrality and to have considerable influence in the western Balkans. That is very clear. Most of those countries are members of NATO and of the EU, and some of them are members of both. I think that explains the Kremlin’s enormous hostility to both those institutions, as it seeks to do everything it can to undermine them.

We need to recognise the nature of that threat, to which the hon. Gentleman drew attention very effectively. It is not just a military threat. We talk about the 100,000 troops on the border, and that is significant, although there might be a tendency to overestimate the efficacy of much of Russia’s equipment. Although Russia may be making advances and developments in hypersonics and so on, quite a lot of its other equipment—we see this particularly with its surface fleet—is distinctly substandard. We need a strong evaluation of that, and that would be much easier had Whitehall not dispersed so much of its Russia-watching capability after the fall of the Berlin wall, leaving a great gap. There may be some attempts to recreate that, but I do not think we have anything like the ability we once had to observe and understand what is going on.

That is also tied to integration. The hon. Member described very well the integrating mechanisms within the system—it is very reminiscent of the Soviet system during the cold war—to integrate all areas: cultural life, political life and industrial espionage, so that they work together in a co-ordinated way. If I asked the Minister where in Whitehall was the UK’s integration along those lines—I am not aware of it—I think he would be hard pressed to put his finger on it. What frustrates me enormously is that in the past, we had quite a good record on this. During the second world war, the Political Warfare Executive—headed up, interestingly enough, by Richard Crossman, subsequently a Labour Member of Parliament and Labour Minister—pulled together journalistic and psychological expertise, and it had an extremely effective record.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I want very briefly to relay two conversations that I have had about strategic thinking in Government. One was with a person who is now the former Prime Minister, who said, “Oh, Bernard thinks we should have a strategy, but I think we should remain flexible,” completely misunderstanding what strategy is. The second was with a Minister who is now serving in a very senior capacity in this Government, and who said, “What is our strategy? We think we have to work with NATO.” In this country, we are so far behind understanding what strategy is that we have a very great task in front of us.

[John Spellar]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. Of course, many people quote Eisenhower as saying that all strategic plans break down on first contact with the enemy. Of course, they forget the next sentence: nevertheless, it is still necessary to plan, and to have a framework.

It is also necessary to look at this issue, as our opponents do, in a broad spectrum to see how all the areas interlink. That is the problem that we faced for some years with industrial espionage, for example, although people are waking up to that to quite a degree. Traditionally, all the way through, there has been industrial espionage by the Russians, and more recently by the Chinese, but there has been a reluctance and a failure to see it in such a way. Many of those who criticise such an approach say, “You are trying to recreate the cold war.” No, we are not. The cold war has already been restarted.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

As far as I can see, President Putin reanimated a sense of hostility—people can call it a cold war, or whatever they like—in his Munich conference speech in 2007. Since then, what has been so blindingly depressing about western Governments, and specifically the UK Government, is that we desperately tried, really until 2014, to pretend that that had not happened. I am afraid that that just shows that it is better to face the reality, however uncomfortable it is, than to behave like an ostrich.

[John Spellar]

Such behaviour, I am afraid, has been a regular feature. Everybody should be very clear. Putin only recently described the break-up of the Soviet Union as

“a disintegration of historical Russia under the name of the Soviet Union”.

We should remember that he previously called its collapse the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. Oh that mine enemy would write a book! He has made it very clear where he stands, and therefore we have to respond to that effectively. We look at the troops in Ukraine, and talk about the little green men. We must also look right the way through the middle east and north Africa, and indeed further down into Africa. The Wagner Group is a so-called private sector operation, but it is licensed by, closely related to and deeply embedded in the Kremlin, and operates on its behalf and at its behest.

Slightly diverting from the Political Warfare Executive, in the post-war period under Ernest Bevin the information research department was created at the Foreign Office, precisely to run a full spectrum influence war in order to shape opinion in the UK and more widely in the western world and, as part of that operation, to look at and operate on the structural weaknesses within the Soviet bloc. If Soviet communism is an effective way of seizing power, it is a lousy way of running economies and societies. We therefore have to take the fight to them.

That is not just about agitation, propaganda and trying to mirror the disinformation and lies; one of the most effective weapons against such authoritarian and dictatorial regimes is to tell the truth about what is going on in their societies. We should always remember why the Russians, the Chinese and others are so afeared of their own populations knowing and understanding the truth. There is ample historical evidence from the last 100 years that many of those who run such societies and their secret police know much better than we do how unstable those societies are, and how thin is the level of support. That does not mean that they are not dangerous, because one of the ways of trying to mask that is external adventurism and trying to create the prospect of a threat abroad.

It has been rightly said that NATO is not an offensive alliance; it is a defensive alliance. I do not understand—I put this to the Minister—why we are not providing defensive equipment to the Ukrainian forces, not in order to take the fight to Russia but to allow them to defend themselves effectively against any incursion. Military doctrine should say that the defender has a significant advantage. We have seen, for example, in a number of recent conflicts that heavy armour can be severely impacted by the use of quite cheap drones.

I am not trying to create such an expertise, but merely questioning whether we are looking at providing defensive equipment to protect a sovereign country—a country guaranteed by the Budapest agreement, signed by Russia and ourselves—and why we are not supporting it in maintaining its independence. This is also because of the signals to elsewhere in the world, which others have talked about, such as the other countries formerly in the Soviet Union, particularly the Baltics, which have been feeling the pressure both of military exercises and indeed of intelligence operations for a very considerable period.

I am mindful of your strictures on time, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I would just like to say this in closing. Some of those countries will be saying that this is destabilising. Actually, I think that recognising the nature of the system and being not aggressive or assertive but robust, while indicating that we stand by our rights and by our friends and negotiating in a proper and effective way with the Russians on that basis—not giving concessions just for having talks, but trying, as we did in the cold war, to reach containment and a modus vivendi—is the route ahead. However, that requires robust action, and, in the words of someone who was involved in those discussions previously, “Trust, but verify”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

At the beginning of March 1946, less than a week before Churchill delivered his iron curtain speech in Fulton, Missouri, the joint intelligence sub-committee of the chiefs of staff concluded:

“The long-term aim of the Russian leaders is to build up the Soviet Union into a position of strength and greatness fully commensurate with her vast size and resources.”

The JIC admitted that firm intelligence was difficult to obtain, as

“Decisions are taken by a small group of men, the strictest security precautions are observed, and far less than in the case in the Western Democracies are the opinions of the masses taken into account.”

Whilst

“likely to be deterred by the existence of the atomic bomb”,

of which the Americans then had a temporary monopoly,

“in seeking a maximum degree of security, Russian policy will be aggressive by all means short of war.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? “In brief,” the JIC warned

“although the intention may be defensive, the tactics will be offensive, and the danger always exists that Russian leaders may misjudge how far they can go without provoking war with America or ourselves.”

That was in 1946. Here we are, many decades later, but one can see resonances and the relevance of that analysis to the situation that we face today.

We have had two excellent speeches from Labour Back Benchers—I am only sorry that there are not more Opposition Members here, although I am hopeful that, if there were, they would have been largely singing from the same song sheet. However, it is one thing for us all to agree on a bipartisan basis on the analysis of what is wrong and quite another for us to be able to take steps to ensure the safety of the west, which seems to be imperilled rather more than at any time I can think of since at least the 1980s, when there was a huge movement to try and disarm the west of nuclear weapons unilaterally. What are we going to do, what steps are we going to take, and have we got confidence in the leadership of the western world to stand up for the values that seem to be common to all participants so far in this debate?

We have heard a masterly summary of the way in which Russia has been issuing ultimata to the west that are truly extraordinary. I must make a slight disclaimer at this point and say that I am speaking entirely in my capacity as a former Chairman of the Defence Committee, and certainly not as the current Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Nothing that I say in this debate is predicated on anything that I have read, heard or discussed in that more recent capacity.

What I am about to say is the same message that so many of us have been trying to put forward for many years, which is that there is no real defence for Europe without the involvement of the United States. I was very interested to hear the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) about the fact that people should not denigrate the cold war. The cold war was a strategic success for democracy. There were two alternatives to the cold war: one was surrender and the other was nuclear war, so of those three, I think I know which was the preferential outcome. I also agree with the earlier observation that all the talk about grey zone warfare, and all the rest of it, is a sign that we are already involved in a cold war. It is a good thing, if we are faced by adversaries, to confront them, to stand up to them, and hopefully to prevent that from escalating into an open war: a hot war; all-out conflict.

How best can we do that? Well, it worked rather well from the mid-1940s until the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union in 1991. It was a mixture of two concepts: deterrence and containment. Deterrence involved two main elements: the involvement of the US, as I said, in European security, and the fact that there was a nuclear umbrella that might not deter all forms of aggression but could certainly protect us from nuclear blackmail. The point about containment is that, if you are not going to go to war with your adversary but you want to stop him taking you over and destroying your way of life, then you have to be prepared to hold him in check for decades on end. What a pity that somebody did not explain this recently to President Biden, who kept talking about “forever wars”. Are the Americans involved in a forever war in South Korea? Should they withdraw their limited military presence from South Korea? What do we think would happen then?

[John Spellar]

Surely that is exactly the wrong analogy. In Korea there is a stalemate and there are two societies. That is very different from fighting a forever guerrilla war in unfavourable territory. It is more about President Biden’s predecessor, who gave everything away to the Taliban in the same way that he encouraged Putin.

[Dr Lewis]

All analogies are risky and no analogies are perfect, but in one sense my analogy stands up: if North Korea now knew that America would not be prepared to go on indefinitely defending South Korea, does one honestly think that South Korea would have much of a future in the face of the regime that it faces across that parallel? Of course it would not.

I am not being partisan about this, because I believe that we are speaking on the very anniversary of ex-President Trump’s disgraceful behaviour in relation to the riots and the invasion of the Capitol, but I am very concerned that we are now faced with the prospect of someone who is manifestly not up to the job of taking on a ruthless, villainous gangster like Vladimir Putin and is going in to negotiate with him on the basis of an ultimatum put forward by Putin that effectively states that the NATO alliance has a take-it-or-leave-it offer: either it withdraws all its troops from the territory of any country that has joined NATO since the end of the cold war or it faces the prospect of military action in Europe. I believe that the great American people and the great American political system depend on more than any individual in the top job, but all I can say is that, if there are wise strategists around President Biden, they had better brief him a lot better, a lot more quickly and in a lot more depth than they did in the run-up to the disastrous unilateral withdrawal from Afghanistan.