HS2

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Taiwo Owatemi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. I know he is a champion for his constituents in Northern Ireland.

There are many reasons to be vocal about the benefits of HS2 if it is built as initially promised. In many ways HS2 should be a green and environmentally friendly new railway. It should present an important asset in achieving net zero carbon in the UK, creating an alternative to an emission-heavy mode of transport. By shifting more commuters to rail travel, not only will carbon emissions be 76% lower than those of an internal flight, but it would compete on journey time and cost.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

We are starting to move to the nub of the question. First, HS2 was greatly flawed in its initial assumptions about the costs and benefits. The costs have escalated, but, most importantly, covid has brought a dramatic change in demand. At the moment, only 50% or 60% of journeys are made by rail. On inter-city it is probably even less. Does that not fundamentally undermine the case, and is there a need for a reassessment by Ministers? Could we ask the Minister whether he has done that reassessment?

[Taiwo Owatemi]

I hope the Minister will be able to provide an explanation to the question asked.

--- Later in debate ---

[Taiwo Owatemi]

Thank you, Mr Mundell, and I will try not to take any more interventions.

The benefits that I have just outlined are dependent on the Government following through on the entire project. As was highlighted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), earlier this summer the Department for Transport directed HS2 to stop all work on the leg linking Birmingham with the east midlands, Sheffield and Leeds. I know that the Government have made efforts to quell rumours that this leg of HS2 will be scrapped, but they have not issued any outright denial of that possibility.

That certainly brings into doubt some of the predicted economic benefits of constructing HS2. To be clear, the Government’s business case for HS2 depends upon building an entire railway network, not just fragments of HS2 for the favoured few. Failing to build that network would not only break the Government’s promise regarding the returns on HS2, but destroy their promise on levelling up the west midlands and, indeed, the midlands as a whole.

The Government must be clear about which part of HS2 will in fact be constructed, so that MPs have all the facts. As is evidenced by this petition, the potential benefits of HS2 have often been overshadowed by the controversies over how the Government have so far managed this major project. The petition refers to the extraordinary increase in the bill for building HS2. Back in 2009, the projected cost was £37.5 billion. By 2020, that figure had ballooned to £107.7 billion—an increase of 361%—and that hike is before much of the construction has even begun. That is completely unacceptable—how in the world did it even happen?

A review by the National Audit Office concluded that the key reason the price of HS2 skyrocketed was the Government’s failure to estimate accurately how quickly and cheaply they could build HS2 and the constantly changing scope of the project. In many ways, this project has clearly been mismanaged and there are no guarantees that the cost of it will not continue to rise.

[John Spellar]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Taiwo Owatemi]

Due to the time constraints, I will proceed quickly and then I will give way later on.

As I was saying, there are no guarantees that the cost of this project will not continue to rise and I am deeply concerned that taxpayers will not receive the promised returns on their investment if the cost continues to climb. The taxpayer has already seen a diminished expectation on that return. Indeed, in 2011 the initial economic case presented a benefit-cost ratio for the full train network that was nearly twice the current estimated return. The cost and benefit to the taxpayer must be at the forefront of our minds during this debate.

Separately, there is the very legitimate concern about the cost of constructing HS2, and I will also talk briefly about the cost of using HS2. One of the main reasons why I originally had some hope for the construction of HS2 was the understanding that a high-speed rail link such as HS2 would not only provide better mobility for commuters, but improve social mobility. However, if the only people who are able to take HS2 are the wealthiest among us, I cannot see how it will be used as a tool to boost social mobility—

Transport Decarbonisation

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work as the UK’s net zero business champion, promoting all these causes. He is absolutely right—I have not been to Goodwin, but yesterday I went to Bedford to see a Formula E car, which is an electric racing car. The technology is moving in about 18 months from the cars to, for example, the Nissan Leaf that I stood next to. It really is a tremendous transfer of technology from one to the other. I think that all his work in encouraging us along, working hard to push for the jet zero, the net zero, the car zero, is doing a fantastic job and holding us on the road to zero.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is certainly in Duracell bunny mode today. I share the concern of the shadow Transport Minister about the lack of focus in making transport vehicles in Britain. The Minister talked of new buses, but will the hydrogen-powered buses come from Northern Ireland and the electric-powered ones from Scotland and Leeds, or will the British taxpayer once again be subsidising jobs in China and Europe? That is quite apart from trains, cars, vans and trucks. The Government are a massive customer, so will he use that buying power to boost British industry and support British workers?

[Grant Shapps]

This Duracell bunny says yes.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands – Crewe) Bill

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con) [V]]

There is less justification for this grossly overpriced project than there was when Labour first proposed it. It is the most expensive way to destroy lives and homes, and tear apart the environment. It also ensures that highly paid HS2 personnel continue to bulldoze through this unpopular project. Public polls show it is an unpopular scheme, and Chris Packham’s petition to halt it in its tracks has already attracted over 136,000 signatures. It is a shame that the Government and this Minister, excellent though he is, do not have the courage to cancel it or suspend construction.

Turning to the Lords amendments, because three minutes really is not enough, Lords amendment 2 applies to all phases of HS2, including the one that tears through the heart of Chesham and Amersham. It covers all ancient woodland, but I am not sure it goes far enough. For example, there has been an ancient oak tree on a property of one of my constituents, but it was on land that was only potentially required during the construction of the railway. It was cut down. There was not the accompanying consultation and the destruction was probably unnecessary, but HS2 did it because it could. That, for me, is not good enough. I hope that Lords amendment 2, now accepted by the Government, will at least go wider and ensure that consultations do take place. I hope that individual trees will be covered and that the reports the Minister gets will include how wildlife is affected, such as the barbastelle bats that have been disturbed at Jones’ Hill wood in my constituency. When HS2 was told it had to stop cutting down trees, it immediately put up very powerful lights at night so that would cause damage to the bats and the environment—so thoughtless and such a cavalier attitude to this rare species.

Turning to Lords amendment 3, the Minister mentioned the cost of £350,000. Let us get that in proportion. It is less than half a year’s salary of the chief executive of HS2. I hope the consultation further up the track will be superior to that exhibited in phase 1 in our area. Our local Chilterns Conservation Board experienced the superficial engagement from HS2, which alienated communities and risks designs, such as that for the Amersham vent shaft, being foisted on our community. They are going to build a headhouse that will stand out like a sore thumb in perpetuity. If that is what consultation means for HS2, beware all of you on the phase 2 line of route. So far, consultation has proved to be poor and inaccurate. On this and on many other parts of the construction, HS2 has failed to inform, consult, communicate and engage meaningfully with the people in communities affected by this wasteful project. At a time when our financial resources should be directed to the benefit of the whole UK, it is a project that is to the detriment of the many and of benefit to the highly paid few.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

To follow on from the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan), I find it slightly bizarre that at a time when rail travel has been upended and changed dramatically, there was no mention of that in the Minister’s comments. Keynes said, “When the facts change, I change my mind.” The pandemic has certainly changed the facts even more than those who questioned the original rationale of this project could have anticipated. It has especially highlighted the contrast between the grand projet—the great project—and the incremental improvement of capacity. That is what the Eddington report, produced back in the early 2000s, highlighted. It should have been listened to much more.

That is to some extent on the supply side. The impact on the demand side has been dramatic. The question is whether that is a blip or an oscillation, or a structural seismic shift. Has it, in fact, changed travel patterns for good, both for conurbation commuting and for inter-city travel? One factor will be possible annual recurrences of the pandemic, as with flu. It may not be as dramatic in a future wave, but it will certainly have an impact.

We have also seen work patterns change. We see that here, with many people working from home. They may not continue to do that all the time, but they may well be working split weeks. That will have an impact on demand. Far more meetings are now conducted by Zoom. That process has accelerated dramatically in a way that nobody, not even the founders of such companies, anticipated. If those meetings patterns change, what will that do to daytime inter-city travel? Will there actually be the demand? Will having the west coast main line and HS2 not actually mean that both become unviable?

I have to ask the Minister, in the light of those developments, whether the Transport Department has actually reassessed the fundamentals of the project—what work has it done on it? While considering the Lords amendments, and given the astronomical sums involved, should there not be a pause and a reassessment, which could require a complete rethink of the project? We may have sunk a few billions—the sunk costs argument is always attractive and seductive but fundamentally wrong—but do we really want to continue to spend tens of billions more?

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con) [V]]

It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate. I begin by thanking the noble Lord Rosser for taking up the cause of my constituents in the village of Woore, a small village where Cheshire, Staffordshire and Shropshire meet; Woore actually means boundary. It comprises a strip of about a mile and a half entailing Ireland’s Cross down to Pipe Gate, with a footpath that crosses the road three times. The road is already inadequate for modern traffic, yet perversely, HS2 has decided to go on three sides of a rectangle to take, at the peak, 300 heavy goods vehicles per day—a total of 130,000 extra heavy goods vehicle movements over seven years.

That road is completely inadequate as it stands, and I take my hat off to the parish council and Mr Cowey, the chairman, for battling for those who live in Woore. It is now really urgent, and I welcome the fact that the Government have endorsed and will adopt these amendments, because we have to move rapidly. I will be in Woore again tomorrow morning talking to HS2 and Shropshire Council. We proposed 38 mitigation measures and are down to 33. These are now really important. They mean more than just turning the crossing into a pelican crossing or having a lollipop lady at busy times, when 65 children try to get to their school. I am seriously concerned for the safety of my constituents. The construction phase will begin shortly; it sadly looks as though this project will go ahead.

It really is important that we have a proper consultation and that the Minister, as he is bound to by Lords amendment 3, listens carefully, and that he ensures that those mitigation measures are pushed through and financed by HS2. We plan to spend, apparently, £80 billion, according to the House of Commons Library. It was £30 billion when I was in the Cabinet. I was told we were going to link it up to HS1 and go to Heathrow, but we are not; we are going to somewhere called Old Oak Common. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) and the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) said, this project is now completely out of date. We can use Zoom and Teams. It would be far better to spend £30 billion of that giving every single household in this country top-class superfast broadband.

However, sadly, this project has its own momentum. If I had the chance tonight, I would vote against it again. I thank the Minister very much for adopting Lords amendment 3 and taking on this consultation, but will he absolutely promise my constituents in Woore that those 33 proposed mitigation measures will be financed by HS2 and will be implemented before those 300 trucks a day start pounding down the narrow lane and past that footpath that crosses the road three times?

--- Later in debate ---

The right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) questioned the reason for moving forward with HS2 at the current time. As he will be aware, the Government’s top priority at the moment is dealing with the covid-19 pandemic, but this is ultimately a project for the long term. Phase 1 of the railway is not expected to be opened until 2029 to 2033. Whatever projections we come to about the impact of covid on the business case, this is a long-term investment that is about transforming rail journeys in the UK and freeing up the existing network.

[John Spellar]

rose—

[Andrew Stephenson]

In case it pre-empts a point that the right hon. Gentleman is about to make, I will just add that the revised business case will be published when we make an investment decision. While I cannot come out with a revised business case today, before the Treasury commits, there will be a revised business case based on that investment decision, and similar to phase 1, we will publish that business case for all to see and scrutinise.

[John Spellar]

I thank the Minister for that helpful reply. Are the Government undertaking an assessment of whether patterns of travel have structurally changed or whether this is just a temporary blip? If patterns of travel have changed, the whole basis of this scheme may have done as well.

[Andrew Stephenson]

We can all see that patterns of travel have changed in the short term, but we are not sure how long that will last. The uncertain end of covid-19—we will get through this, but we are not sure when—means that it is quite hard to predict how long the impact will be. Many studies are going on into this—many academic studies and lots of thought. My personal view is that the global trend we have seen across the world of urbanisation and of people wanting to live in cities and commute between those cities is something we will continue to see. We have seen that in parts of the world that have been affected by previous pandemics and virus outbreaks.

I still think that many people in this country will want to live in cities. When I was growing up, Manchester was like a ghost town and Leeds was similar. Now they are thriving cities and places where people want to live. Therefore I think that projects such as HS2, which is about connecting up the largest cities, still hold sway. As I say, this is an investment for the long term, and phase 1 will not be opening until 2029 at the absolute earliest. I think there is still a strong rationale for it.

I am happy to commit to continuing to keep the House updated. When I was in front of the Transport Committee earlier this month, I committed to informing the House of our thinking about HS2 in my six-monthly report to Parliament. The next six-monthly report on HS2 will be in April, so I intend to give more of the Government’s thinking then. Also, if there is a general debate on this issue, when I am sure lots of these points will be made, I am sure I will be much more closely challenged on the broader point.

[John Spellar]

Is one of the main drivers not peak-time capacity and daytime capacity? Inter-city travel is very much driven by business travel. We have seen how remote conferencing—Zoom we call it, but there are all the other companies as well—has changed the ways in which people are undertaking those meetings. Might that not really drive down use, so that we do not need that peak-time capacity? In the evenings, there is no problem at all, and that may be when people travel for leisure. Has there not possibly been a significant change?

[Andrew Stephenson]

This matter really needs its own debate—I am sure it will get one—where we can go through these things in some depth. What I will say is that if we look at the aspirational growth plans of some of the cities we intend to connect, we see that Leeds, for example, intends to double the size of the city centre. We are going to see different people wanting to use transport. We are certainly going to see changes. How long those last for, who knows? We have all in this House spent many months now on Zoom. I cannot wait for us to return to normality and to get back to face-to-face meetings. This is a debate for another day, however, and with your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will try to get back to the topic and the amendments in hand. I am more than happy to debate this topic with the right hon. Gentleman at another stage.

Turning to the comments from my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) about the village of Woore in his patch, and the impact on that particularly affected parish, I am more than happy to commit to meeting him to discuss the challenges in that area, as well as the undertakings and assurances that have been given, to ensure that we continue to mitigate where we can the impact on his local residents. While the Bill contains numerous undertakings and assurances, it is an ongoing process, and we need to ensure that we are continually looking at the best available evidence of the impacts and mitigating wherever we can.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) spoke with passion about his constituency. He has met me many times about this topic. He is one of the directly affected line-of-route MPs on the 2a route. I am very keen to visit his constituency. He has invited me a number of times to meet specific residents and some of the directly impacted local groups. I am very keen to do so when it is safe for me to do that.

The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) talked about environmental reporting and his concerns that, if HS2 does that via a sustainability report, there could be an element of HS2 marking its own homework. I want to be clear that that is something about which I am very passionate. I want to see HS2 setting a good standard—a new standard—for environmental sustainability reporting. I touched on that point in my last six-monthly report to Parliament. I hope to provide more details in my next six-monthly report.

I am committed to ensuring that the project starts the reporting in a way that looks at all the material impacts and in a way that is seen as credible by stakeholders, and not just greenwashing or something else. The board of HS2 Ltd has now formed an environmental sub-committee chaired by Allan Cook that is looking at this, among other issues. I really want to get environmental sustainability reporting right: it needs to be at the heart of this increased transparency from HS2 Ltd. I am therefore more than happy to meet hon. and right hon. Members to discuss the details of how we get it right, not just on reporting about ancient woodland but on reporting about a whole range of environmental impacts.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) again questions the demand for HS2. I think we have covered that quite well. I am more than happy, obviously, to write to him. As I said, I hope to shed some light on that in my next six-monthly report, but I am sure it will also be the focus of future debates.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) talked with passion about her constituency and the need for the consultation provided for under amendment 3. She lobbied me very hard about amendment 3, as she has about a number of land and property cases since being elected to this House. I pay tribute to her as a doughty champion for her constituents.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) talked about the benefits to his area—comments that were echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), who sees the benefits to Crewe. I was pleased to be able to visit Crewe prior to the start of the pandemic to meet my hon. Friend and the local council leader to talk about the benefits for regeneration in Crewe. Amendment 3 is important for further consultation with residents in Staffordshire and in Cheshire to ensure that we are taking all people’s views into account. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) also talked about amendment 3 and the importance of consulting with Staffordshire because, again, he recognises the benefits.

The Bill itself concerns 36 miles of track between Fradley in the west midlands and Crewe in Cheshire. At its conclusion, the Bill is accompanied by over 17,000 pages of environmental assessment and a register of undertakings and assurances that make over 1,500 individual commitments to petitioners and other interested parties about matters they have raised during its passage. The Bill has been scrutinised carefully by both Houses and improvements have been made to it.

I am sure that the wider debate about HS2, on which we have been slightly exercised tonight, will continue for many months and years. I look forward to further engagements as we prepare for the next stage of HS2—the hybrid Bill taking HS2 from Crewe into Manchester. It is right that we debate this project because it is of such significance nationally, and also so costly at a time of so many pressures on the public finances.

At its heart, though, HS2 is a project that will connect people and places. It is a project that will help the country to level up and help us to build back better from the coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, it is my view that we must get on with it. We must equip our people with the training and education needed to undertake the highly skilled roles in planning, in engineering and in constructing this railway. We must offer the jobs promised and get shovels in the ground. This Bill is a small part of a bigger project that will create much-needed capacity on our rail network. I believe that opponents—they may disagree—are short-sighted.

It is right that people stay at home now and we reduce travelling to an absolute minimum, but this will not last forever, as we will defeat the virus. The pandemic will end. People will travel again, both for business and for leisure. When that time comes, I want people to be connected. I want this House to have thought about the long-term future of our country and to have planned for it. I want to join up the west midlands and Crewe. I want us to drive investment in infrastructure, in skills and in growth across a whole levelled-up country. In short, I want this Bill to pass.

Lords amendment 1 agreed to.

Lords amendments 2 to 12 agreed to.

International Travel

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am a great champion of the aviation sector, as he is, and it breaks my heart to see it suffering, jobs being impacted, and the second or third greatest and biggest aviation sector economy in the world being affected. He is absolutely right to ask whether I will keep my eyes and ears open for absolutely everything that we can do. I have my officials working on that all the time, and I will return—a number of Members have asked when—to the House the moment the scientists provide the information we need to be able to take further testing forward.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Finally, the Secretary of State, in this last answer, actually acknowledged that we have a major aviation sector which is hugely important to Britain and to Britain’s place in the world. There was no acknowledgment of that in his statement, nor any acknowledgement of the 10,000 jobs that have already gone and the 100,000 jobs that are at risk. Also, frankly, the Secretary of State seems to be focusing on seeking complete risk avoidance rather than intelligent risk management. He needs to recognise that unemployment kills and poverty kills. We need to be getting Britain back to work as we go into autumn facing a national jobs crisis and, in particular, a crisis in the aviation industry. When he is going to get a move on?

[Grant Shapps]

I may have taken the rather presumptuous position of thinking that the House knew how much I love aviation, but I will put it on record again. As a qualified pilot for 25 years, I absolutely think it is a terrific industry. However, the right hon. Member is right about the balance between getting people back to work—he knows how hard we are working to persuade people to go back—and doing it in a safe way. I do slightly take issue with him over the idea he expressed when he talked about the risk-benefit ratio, and it is very important that we do not see another spike. We are seeing the numbers creeping up, and I think it would be unforgivable if, having got on top of this virus, we re-imported this disease back in again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We have now appointed the head of the new aircraft noise body, which will monitor noise levels at airports and inform the Civil Aviation Authority when it needs to step in and use its enforcement powers. Of course, with the transition to a new generation of lower noise, lower emission and lower fuel consuming jets, the noise footprint around our airports is now considerably lower than it was a few years ago.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to support UK transport-related industry after the UK leaves the EU.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)]

My Department is working closely with the transport industry to ensure that businesses and passengers are prepared for EU exit. We engage frequently with stakeholders to understand their needs, and we have taken action to ensure that we are prepared for all possible outcomes. We have agreed contingency regulations with the EU to ensure that flights continue and that hauliers have access to the EU marketplace in a no-deal scenario. We have also set up new UK safety certification regimes so that we have proper safety standards and rules in place in all eventualities.

[John Spellar]

Unfortunately, the Secretary of State did not refer to the manufacturing industry in that answer. As Brexit looms, his civil servants will no longer have their lame excuse that they are unable to prefer trains built locally—an interpretation of European regulations that is not shared by any other major country in Europe. Even when a firm built a factory in the north-east, it disgracefully lost a contract to a firm that will build the great majority of those trains abroad. Will this Brexit-supporting Secretary of State finally show some backbone and instruct his civil servants to buy trains made in British factories by British workers?

[Chris Grayling]

Of course, the contract to which the right hon. Gentleman refers, which was won by Siemens rather than the other bidders, including Hitachi in the north-east, was in fact let by the current Labour Mayor of London.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones]

We are making sure that we are dealing with the disability issue. We want to make sure that the rail network offers smooth, easy journeys for people with disabilities. With regard to the rolling stock coming on to the midland main line, of course, we will deliver it as soon as possible.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I wish to follow the line of argument of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I do not know whether the Minister has read the very authoritative transport study produced for the previous Government by the British Airways chief, Rod Eddington, which clearly made the case against grand projects and advocated widespread incremental improvement. Would we not be better served if the Government funded not only rolling stock but many other transport improvements by scrapping the ever more expensive, budget-busting HS2?

[Andrew Jones]

Again, I give the answer that I gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis): we are doing both. It is not a question of one or the other. We are delivering HS2, which is required to add capacity into our rail network, and, at the same time, we are also delivering, in control period 6, maintenance and enhancements worth £48 billion across our classic rail network. So we are doing both, not one or the other.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I am sure that the Secretary of State can chew gum and walk at the same time, so while he is dealing with future viability with our leaving the EU, will he also deal with the current crisis over drones affecting airports? May I give him the opportunity to answer the questions that he did not answer earlier in the week? Were contingency plans agreed with the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office to protect our airports from drone incidents and others, and if not, why not? Were such plans not activated in time because of dithering? Why did they not work? Was that the fault of the Secretary of State’s Department, the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office or, indeed, the Cabinet Office?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I listened to the right hon. Gentleman’s question with great interest. It was tangential to the substantive question, and I just say gently to him that I had been thinking of offering him an Adjournment debate on the matter, until I realised that he had, in fact, just conducted one.

Drones: Consultation Response

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I know how strongly my right hon. Friend feels about the matter. Of course, the same issue would arise whether expansion took place at Gatwick, Stansted or Heathrow. The reality is that Heathrow has been ahead of most other airports in providing protection against drones, but even Heathrow has not had the perfect solution. That is why the systems that we now have in place could be deployed at Heathrow at short notice to provide protection for the airport.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I think it was Peel who said that the absence of crime, not the apprehension of criminals, was the test of a good force. What the hundreds of thousands of travellers wanted was for the disruption to be stopped. May I ask some very specific questions? Were there contingency plans already agreed with the MOD and the Home Office to protect our airports from drone incidents and others? If not, why not? If there were such plans, why did they not work? Were they not activated in time because of dithering, and was that the fault of the Secretary of State’s Department, the Ministry of Defence or the Home Office—or, indeed, the Cabinet Office and the Cabinet Secretary in No. 10? Which is it?

[Chris Grayling]

As we are hearing from around the world, protections against such a deliberate and disruptive attack are few and far between. The reality is that the Government and different Departments, including the MOD, moved very quickly to assemble a response of a different kind from any previous one, and they did so in a way that is now being looked at very carefully around the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

I can certainly confirm that we will be consulting shortly on E10 and that we are looking closely at the issue of fuel labelling, which, as the hon. Gentleman knows, has to be addressed relatively quickly.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept that what is really needed is an overall, measured, strategic approach to the propulsion mix for vehicles? That will rightly include E10, but it will also include diesel. What has been so damaging to that industry has been the Government’s war on diesel, which has been hugely damaging to our automotive sector, as well as our engine manufacturing.

[Jesse Norman]

I can only salute the right hon. Gentleman’s expertise in crowbarring a question about diesel into exchanges about E10. We are taking a strategic approach. We introduced changes to the renewable transport fuel obligation earlier this year. We have changed the status of the crop cap. We are pushing for the increased use of waste-based biofuels, and we are supporting the introduction of higher-performance fuels in other sectors of the transport world.

National Policy Statement: Airports

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald]

I will make some progress, because I am aware that many Members want to speak.

This has not been a great year so far for the British transport system, with meltdown on the railways and growing frustration across the transport industry about the Government’s “It will be all right on the night” approach to Brexit. Last week’s news from Airbus struck like a thunderbolt, so the proposal to undertake a large-scale infrastructure project in the UK should be a good news story. The expansion of our hub airport should be very good news indeed—except it is not.

The Government have not done the work to support the development of this project. Their case is riddled with gaps and is fundamentally flawed. Yet again, this Secretary of State has made a complete shambles of a vital national project. Yet again, he is not putting the relevant facts before Parliament. Today’s vote has been scheduled just days before the Government’s own advisory body, the Committee on Climate Change, is due to publish a report that is expected to warn that increasing aviation emissions will destroy Britain’s greenhouse gas targets. It appears that the vote on the national policy statement has been planned for today so that hon. and right hon. Members are left in the dark about how much the Secretary of State’s plan will obliterate the UK’s climate change commitments. That is not only reckless, but shows contempt for Parliament and for the environment.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Is not my hon. Friend slightly missing the point? Aviation—across the world and into Europe—will continue and grow, so the real question is whether it will be going into Schiphol, Frankfurt or Charles de Gaulle airports, or whether we will create investment, protect the well-paid, unionised jobs at Heathrow, and create opportunities for the youngsters of the future.

[Andy McDonald]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention but, of course, we must always ensure that any growth is delivered sustainably—that has to be the point.

Hon. Members will not have the opportunity to see the hugely important Committee on Climate Change report before they vote. Global warming is the single most important issue facing the world, yet Members of this House are being asked to vote today without full knowledge and without the full set of facts.

That is outrageous behaviour from the Government, and from the Secretary of State in particular. The Justice Committee said last week that his multi-billion pound reforms to the probation service in 2014 will never work. In his two years as Secretary of State for Transport, he has laid waste to the railways, slashing and burning and leaving a trail of scorched earth. Rail electrification cuts, franchising meltdown and timetabling chaos have caused misery to millions. His mismanaging of airport expansion, as he has mismanaged other areas of transport, will present much bigger risks, with immensely more serious consequences.

The Transport Secretary has consistently demonstrated poor judgment and a reliance on incomplete, unreliable and non-existent evidence, yet he stands here today and expects the House to take his word for it—to take a leap of faith with him. Labour has been clear that we will support airport expansion only if the very specific provisions of our four tests are met. We are not against expansion; we are against this option for expansion, as presented.

The north-west runway is too risky and it may be illegal. There are simply too many holes in the case. There are too many hostages to fortune for the taxpayer and for any future Government.