High-speed Rail

Debate between Julian Lewis and Louise Ellman

Thursday 19th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Ellman]

My hon. Friend draws attention to the great importance of local, and indeed regional, work being conducted to ensure that the potential benefits of High Speed 2 are enjoyed in all parts of the country. Initially, the responsibility for doing that is being taken up in some local areas—I know that a lot of work is being done in the west midlands and in the Manchester area—but it is not good enough to leave that entirely to those local and regional authorities. In the Committee’s future questioning of Ministers and High Speed 2 itself, and specifically Sir David Higgins, I intend to pursue that issue so that, as well as individual authorities taking their own initiatives, there is some kind of national oversight of what is being done. After all, this is one of the biggest national investment decisions to be taken for a very long time. There has to be some responsibility from the Government as well as from localities to ensure that its benefits are felt and that the work to ensure that that happens is carried out.

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

On a day when the newspapers are full of reports of the Chief of the Defence Staff’s concern that the armed forces are being hollowed out, does the hon. Lady understand why some of us feel that such a costly project betrays a warped sense of priorities? In particular, has her Committee devoted any attention to the fact that even in the short time that the project has been in the public domain the estimated cost has increased from about £30 billion to about £50 billion? What concept does she have of our being able to stick even to that higher figure?

[Mrs Ellman]

The report emphasises that costs must be controlled and that the whole programme must be actively managed to ensure that there is good value for money. In looking at value for money, we must consider the impact that the investment can have and the consequences of not making it. The consequences for the nation would be that our national network would not be able to deliver the results that are required for a prosperous economy that can benefit all parts of the country.

National Policy Statements

Debate between Julian Lewis and Louise Ellman

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Select Committee on Transport published its report on the national policy statement on ports when the last Government were in office. We reported in March 2010—indeed, it was the first national policy statement to be reported on. The cross-party Transport Committee is not influenced by which party is in power. We reported at the time of the previous Government and we registered several serious concerns, and concluded that, unless proper consideration was given to our recommendations, the national policy statement was not fit for purpose. We therefore made a very clear statement then.

Considerable time has elapsed and several changes have been made. We are now looking at the revised national policy statement, so my comments will refer to some of our criticisms and also to some of the changes that have been made since we produced our report.

The key change since that time is the decision to abolish the Infrastructure Planning Commission. It was decided that, following consideration by the infrastructure planning unit and the Planning Inspectorate, the Secretary of State would make the decisions. It was also decided to abolish regional economic strategies and regional planning strategies. Some of our criticisms were of the planning process and the lack of clarity. The changes bring more clarity to the system whereby decisions are made. The background against which the planning statement is being assessed is therefore now rather different.

Time has resolved another major criticism that we made. We were extremely concerned that the policy statement was made before the Marine Management Organisation, which was to examine port development below the threshold for the infrastructure commission, had actually been set up. The Marine Management Organisation has now been set up and consulted, so that major criticism and concern has been addressed.

We expressed several concerns about environmental issues, and the Government’s response states that our concerns have been considered in a different part of the statement—in the documents appended to it. We register the Government’s response. We still have some concerns, but we accept that the Government have pointed out another way of addressing them.

We were very worried that the Government were not providing an update on ports’ traffic forecasts, which are extremely important. There was some dissension about the forecasting of ports traffic that was proposed as a basis for the ports statement. The Government’s response has not been to accept the precise form in which we wanted those forecasts to be updated, but it states that they will provide

“new forecasts in the near future”.

In a spirit of reasonableness, we accept that that concern has been addressed. We will wait and see how those new forecasts are provided.

Those major concerns have therefore been addressed, at least in part. The changes go some way towards dealing with some of the major concerns that we, as a Committee in the previous Parliament, had when we stated that we did not think that the statement was fit for purpose.

It is very important that the ports policy statement is correct. As hon. Members have pointed out this evening, ports are extremely important: 90% of the UK’s trade by tonnage and 512 million tonnes of freight go through our ports, and ports traffic contributes £17.9 billion to GDP, taken together with the employment that it generates. Indeed, the direct employment is at least 132,000 jobs, with many more indirect jobs. The ports sector is extremely important and that is why having the correct ports policy matters.

I want to deal with some concerns to which we have not received a satisfactory response. I think it is important to register them. One is the absence of a definitive ports policy, other than to say that the Government’s policy on ports is market-led. The Committee in the last Parliament felt that that was not good enough, because ports are such an important part of a thriving economy. Little progress has been made since in defining a ports policy. In fact, the ports policy such as it is was defined in an interim policy set out in 2007, and the Government have now said that that interim policy, together with additional statements that have been made, is their definitive ports policy. I suppose that we could look at it that way, but it does not meet in full the point of concern that the Committee has raised, and I hope that we can see further progress on that.

The Committee also raised the concern that the policy statement on ports seemed to concentrate almost wholly on container traffic. While that is the basis of the ports’ trade, we are concerned that other developments, such as offshore wind, were not considered properly. I am still unclear where such additional developments feature in the Government’s statement.

I reiterate the concern that the Committee raised about the absence of national policy statements on national networks at the time that the ports policy statement was put forward. I accept that some progress is being made. We are now being told that the national network statements will be laid in January. That is progress, but it would have been better if it had been done before we approve the ports policy statement. At least we have had some assurances that those statements are coming.

It is important that we know the Government’s plans for other transport networks apart from ports, partly because of the economic importance of ports, but also because their impact on the economy, including the regional economies, is affected a great deal by how goods are transported to and from those ports. It is therefore necessary to look at road, rail and inland networks, and at the issue of multi-modal transport, and how that can be encouraged. It is important that we know how that will be addressed, and I hope that the Minister can give us some more information on that basis.

We heard evidence during our inquiry from the northern ports that they felt that southern ports were very much at an advantage because of the extensive public investment in road and rail networks around them. The Committee in the previous Parliament felt that that was a very important issue, and this Parliament's Committee is of the same view. I noted the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) this evening about the application from Liverpool for a turnaround cruise facility at the port. The application has been made because the possibility of such a facility, and the return of the cruise ships to Liverpool, is so very important to the regeneration of the city. I hope that when a decision is made on this issue—and there has had to be a consultation, as is proper—a reasoned approach will be taken, and recognition given to the fact that Southampton currently has 65% of the market for the turnaround facility, while Liverpool has only 5%.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

The hon. Lady of course has a constituency interest in this matter, and I represent a constituency close to Southampton. Does she appreciate that what is really worrying is that Liverpool received a great deal of both European and public money in order to build its port of call facility, and it gave undertakings that it would not use that facility as a turnaround point to start and end cruises? It now appears that it never had any intention of sticking to those undertakings, so if it were—bizarrely—to achieve retrospective permission to do what it promised not to do, surely it should have to pay back all the money and not just a quarter of it over a very long period, as is proposed.

[Mrs Ellman]

As a constituency MP I recognise the supreme importance of the turnaround facility to Liverpool. However, I also recognise that a reasoned judgment has to be made on the proper way in which to go ahead. The statements that the hon. Gentleman made about Liverpool’s intentions are not accurate, but this is not the place in which to pursue the detail of that. I hope that a reasonable decision is made. Liverpool City council has made an offer to deal with the very point that the hon. Gentleman has made, but that is for somebody else in another place to address. I simply ask for reason to be applied to resolve the issue.