Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Spellar and Mark Harper

Thursday 13th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[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

Debate between John Spellar and Mark Harper

Thursday 27th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

1. What assessment she has made of the effects of the under-occupancy penalty on disabled people.

[The Minister for Disabled People (Mr Mark Harper)]

The removal of the spare room subsidy is just making sure that the same rules apply in the social housing sector as apply in the private sector, as implemented by the previous Labour Government. To deal with difficult cases, the Government have made available a significant amount of discretionary housing payment to give local authorities the flexibility they need to deal with cases where disabled people need more support.

[Mr Spellar]

According to the Government’s own evaluation, 68% of those hit by the bedroom tax are themselves disabled or have someone in their household with a disability. Is the Minister not ashamed of that figure? When will the Government scrap that cruel and unfair tax?

[Mr Harper]

I note that the right hon. Gentleman did not deal with the point that I made. We are treating people in the social housing sector in exactly the same way as the previous Government treated them—[Interruption.] I hear someone heckling on the Labour Benches. Disabled people do not get a spare room subsidy in the private sector. Those rules were implemented by the previous Labour Government. This is a matter of fairness. The £345 million we have made available to local authorities over the past two years for discretionary housing payment gives them the flexibility they need to deal with individual circumstances.

Public Procurement

Debate between John Spellar and Mark Harper

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I have answered the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone about the procurement process and I am not going to go into specifics about a particular procurement decision because I have not seen the detail and I was not involved in making that decision. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about such procurement contracts being significant and complex and there is a need to get the specification right in the first place. There has been a considerable amount of controversy about that particular case.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Will the Minister generously give way?

[Mr Harper]

I will probably regret it.

[Mr Spellar]

First, as a previous Transport Minister may I tell the hon. Gentleman that the Germans always buy German trains and the French always buy French trains? They make it very clear how they do that. Secondly, going back to police cars, I do not know what he does on a Saturday night but if he watches any of the police series from various European countries, he will notice that if they are from any country that produces cars they always drive their own vehicles. I do not want to get into specifics, but this is about the mindset of our civil service. The French, German, Spanish and Italian civil services back their industry. What is wrong with the culture of our civil service that it is always trying to do British industry down?

[Mr Harper]

That is a very good point and I will leave it hanging. I have not seen any evidence that our civil servants are always trying to do our industry down. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman will respond by giving me evidence of that on another occasion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Spellar and Mark Harper

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. He will know that we are introducing individual voter registration before the next general election, which will mean that everyone who wants to cast an absent vote, a postal vote in this case, will have to register individually and provide their identifiers to their registration officer in order to make the register more secure.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Conservative Members are very prone to making rash statements about alleged postal vote fraud, and not just in this House, but in another place. I have been in correspondence with the Minister and regularly asked the Leader of the House whether he can get Baroness Warsi to retract her statement that the Conservative party was robbed of a majority at the last election because of electoral fraud on behalf of the Labour party, particularly in the Asian community. Although a Cabinet member, she resolutely refuses to reply. Will the Minister do so now on her behalf?

[Mr Harper]

The right hon. Gentleman raised this matter at business questions. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House drew it to my attention, as I am the Minister responsible for that policy area, and I replied as quickly as possible and gave the right hon. Gentleman a full answer. If he wishes to raise it with me again and ask me anything—[Interruption.] If Labour Members would actually listen, they might hear my answer. If he would like to ask me anything that I have not already answered in my letter, I would be delighted to write to him again.