Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

In his autumn statement, the Chancellor said:

“We have shown in this Parliament that we can deliver spending reductions without damaging front-line public services if we are prepared to undertake reform.”—[Official Report, 3 December 2014; Vol. 589, c. 309.]

Today, in two short phrases, he said that to achieve his £30 billion-worth of savings he would cut £13 billion from Government Departments and £12 billion in welfare savings: no more details and no discussion of the misery that this means for many of my most vulnerable constituents. His cuts to front-line services have damaged residents in Bolton West and will continue to do so. People used to say that when the tide rose it lifted all the boats, but this Government have proved that now it only lifts the yachts. Constituents in Bolton West will be £1,600 worse off at the end of this Parliament than they were at the start. On top of the £100 million cut in its budget, Bolton council now has to find a further £43 million in the next two years. Social care is harder to get, youth provision is down, roads are full of holes, and the voluntary sector is cut.

The Chancellor talks about £12 billion savings in welfare. A consortium of northern housing providers, including Wigan and Leigh Housing and Bolton At Home, has undertaken a survey of the impact of welfare reform on their tenants since 2012. Its latest report makes frightening reading. Average debt has tripled in two years and now stands at £3,500. One in two households is regularly unable to meet its weekly debt repayments, which are averaging just under £35 a week—88% higher than at the start of the study just two years ago. People in 23.5% of households are unemployed—the highest level of unemployment since the start of the study—and fewer than one in five is in full-time work, while 69% of those in part-time work want more hours. After their bills are paid, they have just £2.53 left per day. After bills, more than six in 10 households have less than £10 for the week’s spending money. One in five households has used a food bank. Although £3.63 per person is the average spend on food, three out of 10 families have less than £2.86 per day to spend on their food. A total of 53.8% of people say that they cannot heat their homes to the level they need, and 44% have said that their health has deteriorated since the start of the study just two short years ago. Tell those people that we are all in it together; tell them that Britain is walking tall again; tell them that the plan is working. Britain needs a better plan. The Tories will never understand that Britain only succeeds when working families succeed.

Young people have borne the brunt of many of this Government’s decisions, with tuition fees trebled, the education maintenance allowance abolished, Connexions got rid of—so they cannot now get the careers advice they need—and youth services about to become the first statutory public service to disappear altogether. The most vulnerable young people are being hit hardest, with 1,000 sanctioned every day. The YMCA has reported on many of the young people that it works with. Those who have been sanctioned say, for example:

“I was unable to eat and it was lucky that the YMCA could help.”

A young woman said:

“It’s how long they left me with no money for food knowing I was pregnant and had to buy my own food.”

Another young person said:

“I went 3 months living on food parcels which is really degrading because you lose all your dignity. It’s not just physically hard, it’s mentally hard.”

Sanctions are supposed to help young people into work, but one young person said:

“My focus turned to survival rather than gaining employment.”

Yesterday evening, Liam Preston from the YMCA told me of its serious concerns about the rise in poor mental health among young people, compounded by the cuts to child and adolescent mental health services and to youth services and other support services. Unless we look after the most vulnerable and make sure that ordinary families succeed, we will never succeed as a country.

A couple of weeks ago, at an event to encourage people to vote, one young woman spoke very eloquently about her life. She said that when someone has to worry every day about putting food on the table, paying their bills and clothing their children, they cannot worry about voting. Another young woman from Foxes of the Fold women’s group in Johnson Fold told me that she now has permanent asthma, because paying the bedroom tax meant that she could not afford to put her heating on all winter. Those are real lives.

This Government have targeted the weak and given tax breaks to the rich, and there have been tragic consequences, such as a rise in suicides. Let me tell hon. Members about one young woman whom I have known for many years; I used to be her youth worker. She has suffered from poor mental health ever since her terrible childhood, and she now lives in supported housing. She is waiting for an appointment at a pain clinic, which has been cancelled four times, and for a procedure to stop her pain, which has been cancelled twice. She was told that, owing to the cuts, her housing project would close. Unsurprisingly, she is now in hospital—she is very poorly—having tried to die. She is a victim of the cuts and of this Government’s policies. It need not be this way.

I presented apprenticeship awards at Forrest construction company in my constituency last week. The chief executive officer told me his story: from apprentice to CEO and from poverty to millionaire in 25 years. He recognises the need to put something back into the community, having benefited from careers advice and from people taking a chance on him. His company puts £1 million a year into the communities where it works. He believes that resources, play spaces, facilities and voluntary organisations make a difference to people. He says that if people’s horizons are raised, their lives will improve.

This Government offer not support but simply more cuts. Zero-hours contracts and food banks are not a legacy to be proud of. They do not understand the lives of working families, and they do not have the answers. Britain truly can do better than this, and under Labour it will.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend has presented me with a diagrammatic representation: his original version was a cross between an egg timer and a peanut, but he has now given me a more detailed one. I am aware of the situation. As he will know, the Highways Agency spent £1.5 million on the scheme. Nevertheless, I know there remain problems and I am happy for him to meet with me and the Highways Agency to see if the problems can be solved.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has said that the Pacer trains are going, but the Treasury has said it will only encourage bidders, so will the Secretary of State give a guarantee that all Pacers will be replaced and a date for when that will happen?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I am pleased that we are making progress that was not made between 1997 and 2010. We are making huge investments in trains and I am very pleased about that. The invitations to tender will be issued shortly and I hope to be able to say more about it then.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I send my regards to Mr Fenwick and everybody who took part in the Youth Parliament debate, which was an extremely encouraging spectacle, concerning the level of education and commitment of young people to political debate in this country. There are strongly held views for and against lowering the voting age to 16—including among young people, as my hon. Friend says—but I continue to encourage every possible effort to raise the level of political education and discussion, including this week at the 25th A-level politics annual student conference, which a couple of thousand students attended and I addressed.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Without youth workers, there would be no election of, or support for, members of the Youth Parliament, so will the right hon. Gentleman make representations to the Cabinet Office against the destruction of youth services nationally, so that this great fantastic institution of the UK Youth Parliament can continue?

[Mr Hague]

I am sure that this great innovation will continue, because it has real momentum, and young people are fascinated by it. Hundreds of thousands took part in the decisions about which motions should be debated. Local authorities have an important role in supporting the Youth Parliament, and it is important that they continue that support in whatever way they can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I start by thanking my hon. Friend for all the work he did in improving and getting franchises back on the road after the difficulty that we inherited when we first entered the Department two years ago. He made a great contribution to that. I completely agree with him. As I said, all the meetings I have with various local authority leaders now are about increasing capacity and providing more and better services. The train operating companies and the rolling stock leasing companies all have roles to play in doing that.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

My constituents frequently play “sardines” on Northern Rail trains, often with passengers left at stations. Was the massive increase of up to 162% in fares a perverse way of reducing demand?

[Mr McLoughlin]

As I said, it is important that we provide that extra capacity. My only regret is that the previous Government did not order enough rolling stock for us to be able to do that. We are putting that right.

Water Safety

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Hodgson]

I will come on to prevention shortly.

The Royal Life Saving Society was, opportunely, in Parliament today, hosted by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who had hoped to attend the debate. It held a briefing session for MPs and peers on this very subject ahead of drowning prevention week, which begins on Monday 23 June and runs until 29 June. It conducted research last year that found that 68% of people said they would not know what to do if they saw someone drowning, or how to treat them even if they were able to recover them safely from the water. However, in spite of that self-awareness of lack of capability, 63% of those people said they would still jump in to try to save a family member who was drowning, and 37% said they would even do so to try to save a stranger.

Most victims of drowning are alone, but it is little wonder that the kind of selflessness and heroism that was displayed by Tonibeth can so often lead to an even deeper tragedy. In the hope of preventing such tragedies, the RLSS has made a number of demands in its “manifesto for water safety”, which I think require close consideration by the Minister and, indeed, other members of the Government.

The RLSS argues that schools should ensure that every child is taught the basic principles of water safety, and personal survival skills. That means that children should understand the risks involved in various water environments such as currents, loose banks and vegetation, and should know how best to enter and exit water, which includes what it is best for them to do if they fall in. It means that they should be able to orientate and contort their bodies in the water, especially if they are caught in a current and need to turn to face the direction in which it is taking them so that they avoid hurting themselves and do not miss opportunities to grab something. It means being familiar with the typical survival skills that would generally occur to us, such as treading water, making ourselves buoyant, and swimming in clothing. Swimming itself is, of course, a very important skill, but it is also important to be taught the techniques that make it possible to rescue other people safely, which include keeping their heads back and above water.

The current school curriculum mentions safety, but the target of being able to swim 25 metres by the end of primary school is the real priority for most schools. Being able to swim 25 metres would certainly help, but doing so in a warm, clear swimming pool with lifeguards at hand is completely different from having to swim 25 metres, or even 5 metres, in a cold lake or a river with a strong current and hidden hazards.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend was right to list all the water safety skills that children should be taught, but does she agree that every school leaver should be a life saver? Should not all young people be taught cardiopulmonary resuscitation, how to place people in the recovery position, and other ways of saving people’s lives once they have been rescued?

[Mrs Hodgson]

Yes. Those are all valuable life skills. If I had to choose an overriding priority, I would choose water safety education and survival skills.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I think I have just been setting out in the answers we have given the huge amount of investment that we are making in the new rolling stock that are coming on to our railways. I hope my hon. Friend’s frustration will not continue in the longer term.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Given the loss of nine trains already to the south of England, what steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that more trains cannot be taken from TransPennine Express or Northern Rail during the direct award period before the franchise is re-let in 2016?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I understand very much the case that the hon. Lady makes for the services in Bolton, and I am keen to see those services improved and increased. As a result of the huge amount of money we are spending on investment in the railway sector, her constituents will get a far better railway in the future than they had under the previous Government.

Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Grahame M. Morris]

I did have a debate this morning with a representative of Blueline Taxis from Newcastle. One of my hon. Friends wants to talk about some of the problems that have arisen, so I will leave them to respond on that.

There is a consequence to what we are doing. I hold taxi drivers in the highest regard. I socialise with a number of taxi drivers. I count them among my best friends, and I want to keep them. I do not want their status and prestige to be undermined by unlicensed taxis and the potential consequences of rushing this ill-thought-through legislation through Parliament.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a consensus across the trade that this piecemeal approach is not what is needed? We need to wait for the Law Commission to bring forward holistic legislation, as the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) said. Contrary to the views of the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), that holistic approach will lead to safer taxis and more jobs for people than the Government’s piecemeal approach.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend’s point. There are dangers, not only to the trade, but to the safety of the travelling public. I mentioned some of the campaigns that have been run, which I support, on alerting people to the dangers of unlicensed and unauthorised taxis. Police figures show that 214 women were sexually assaulted in London last year after getting into illegal minicabs and unlicensed taxis, and 54 were raped. My concern is that new clause 8 would increase the number of unlicensed drivers pretending to be legitimate and make the enforcement process against the illegal use of licensed vehicles almost impossible. In particular, when we factor in the subcontracting amendment, the taxi might well be from another area, if we are looking outside London.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to be able to take part in the debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) on securing one on such an important issue. I also declare that I am a proud member of Unite the union, which has an interest in the taxi trade.

Two weeks ago, my two Bolton colleagues and I attended a meeting in my constituency, which had been called by the National Association of Licensing and Enforcement Officers. In attendance were people from the Law Commission, the Local Government Association, the National Taxi Association, the National Private Hire Association, Unite and the GMB, the police and crime commissioner for Greater Manchester and councillors from a number of Greater Manchester authorities, including Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale, Trafford, Stockport and Salford. It was interesting that those attendees, from a vast range of different backgrounds, all spoke with one voice. They did not understand why the clauses affecting taxis were being rushed into the Deregulation Bill. They wanted them to be withdrawn, and instead wanted holistic legislation, focused on the Law Commission review. In a meeting of such a diverse group of people it is unusual for them all to speak with one voice.

We know that there are already problems in the system. For instance, in the north-west, Rossendale has licensed over 1,000 hackney carriages, most of which are being used not in Rossendale but elsewhere. Where are checks carried out, and by whom? We do not have national standards, so we could have a situation in which a taxi that is licensed in Rossendale but would not reach the standards required by authorities in Bolton is driving around in Bolton, and a passenger in Bolton who wants to complain about the taxi cannot do so to officers in Bolton, as they have no right to inspect the vehicle or check the driver.

Let us look at the situation in Sheffield. North East Derbyshire district council has licensed a Sheffield-based operator that uses hackney carriages licensed by Gedling borough council. Effectively, no council has regulatory control. Sheffield council is particularly powerless when there are complaints from Sheffield residents about taxis overcharging or poor driver behaviour.

[Rehman Chishti]

There is a similar situation in Medway in Kent. Drivers from Tonbridge and Malling are operating in Medway, which according to my local taxi drivers is exceptionally unfair. The local authority has said that it makes enforcement difficult. Does the hon. Lady agree that taxi drivers should operate in the area in which they are licensed? That makes enforcement easier and makes things easier for the people who use taxis.

[Julie Hilling]

The interesting question is why Rossendale, for example, is licensing so many taxi drivers. Why is that happening—why are firms going to Rossendale or to Gedling for licences? Is it that the regimes in those places are much easier to get through or that it is cheaper to get vehicles licensed there—what is it about the system there? When the system as a whole is fractured, there are all sorts of ways through it for disreputable drivers, disreputable companies or people who are simply trying to make the cheapest buck they can.

There is also the question of whether operators should be able to carry out journeys across local area borders. The legislation does not solve that problem. We need to look holistically at what we do about those cross-border journeys to ensure that there can be enforcement of regulations. Wherever a taxi was licensed, if is operating in Bolton why cannot Bolton enforcement officers be allowed to enforce regulations on that vehicle? I am not sure that the answer is necessarily to say that it is not possible. We need a framework in which it can happen, under which local authorities can get remuneration to enable them to carry out checks when licensing has been carried out by a different authority. The situation is complicated and is not solved by the legislation.

This issue came to my attention when the parents of a 13-year-old girl came to one of my constituency surgeries because they were concerned about a specific incident that had happened to her. She had taken a taxi. To start with, she was going into Bolton, but part of the way through the journey she received a call from her friend to say that they needed to meet elsewhere. It would appear that at some point during the journey the taxi driver turned off all his monitoring equipment—his GPS and everything else. The 13-year-old was taken to quite a remote estate in the constituency. The taxi driver parked up there and said, “I’m just waiting for a friend to bring me a phone charger—we just have to wait for them to turn up.”

The girl started to get agitated. She had told the taxi driver that she was 16, because her mum had said that she should tell people that she was a little older, thinking that that would protect her—in fact, in the circumstances it appears to have done the opposite. The girl became concerned about the questions the taxi driver was starting to ask her about her social life and so on. Fortunately, she had the nous to get out of the taxi. She played a ruse; she said, “I just want to pop to the shop over there,” got out of the taxi and ran like hell. Fortunately she met a bystander who listened to her, took her to a McDonald’s, called the police and waited with her until they turned up.

It transpired that the taxi driver had a record of past misdemeanours. He was taken through the tribunal system and lost his licence, so is now unable to operate in Bolton. But, like me, the girl’s parents were absolutely horrified to learn that although the driver is banned in Bolton he could become a taxi driver anywhere else, depending on whether another local authority were to do a police check—and because he was not actually prosecuted, a police check may not throw up the fact that he is a danger to the travelling public and, it would appear, to young women in particular.

I asked the Department a written question on what proportion of local authorities in England and Wales require a disclosure and barring service check on applicants before issuing a taxi or private hire vehicle licence. I have received this response:

“The Department for Transport does not hold this information. Local authorities are under a statutory duty to ensure that any person to whom they grant a taxi or private hire vehicle driver’s licence is a ‘fit and proper person’. As part of this process they can undertake criminal record checks on applicants but we do not keep details of the assessment policies and procedures adopted by local authorities.”

That “can” seems inadequate. I have asked questions about whether all local authorities carry out police checks, but as nobody holds the information we do not know. That is another reason why we need holistic legislation that ensures that licensing authorities carry out proper checks on drivers. We need a system in which if a person is banned by one local authority they are banned, full stop. The changes proposed in the Deregulation Bill will make the situation worse, not better.

The hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), who is no longer in his place, asked why family members should not be allowed to use a taxi when it is off duty. I was puzzled myself about that when I met operators and others involved in the industry, and was not wholly convinced by the answers I got, so I asked about whether taxi markings could be removed. I was told, basically, that that would be extremely difficult for taxis operating in my own local authority area—I would guess that would also be the case for all those operating outside London—because they are marked clearly as taxis. Another issue raised was what would happen in areas where taxis are allowed to use bus lanes. What happens to an off-duty taxi then—how would we enforce proper use of bus lanes?

We already have a massive problem in all of our areas with unlicensed taxis touting for business, particularly late at night. I am not often in city centres late at night, but I have been there in the past, and it has to be said that one becomes quite desperate for a taxi. In particular, when young people have perhaps been drinking more than they should have, they will not be rigorous about checking the identity of the driver or the car. In those circumstances people are simply pleased to get a lift home. We should not bring in any measure that weakens regulation and makes it more likely that people will be in a vehicle that is driven by someone who is not the licensed driver.

There are real problems with the system as it is. I ask the Minister to look seriously at removing the provisions from the Bill and to make sure that we have holistic legislation based on the Law Commission report. It seems a nonsense that we are looking to pass the Bill with those provisions, and I ask him wholeheartedly to remove them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Hammond]

As I have set out, we are looking at commencement orders that will set out some details and obligations more carefully.

There has been a huge amount of talk this afternoon about the trade, which many of us rely on heavily on for our everyday lives. The sector is also made up of thousands of small businesses; indeed, the single owner-driver is a typical feature of the industry. As the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) said, these businesspeople are experts who often go the extra mile. That was something I certainly agreed with him on, although I suspect that the hon. Gentleman and I did not agree thereafter.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) made the point that it has been clear for some time that the law covering this transport mode is both archaic and complex. In many ways, it has not kept up with a number of other pieces of transport law and more importantly, it has placed a number of unnecessary burdens on small businesses. That is why the Government asked the Law Commission to carry out a comprehensive review of the law. As has rightly been pointed out, it will present its report—it will not be presenting a Bill; it will be presenting a report in the next few weeks—and at that stage, as with all reviews and reports, the Government will review the whole of those detailed findings and recommendations.

We gave the Law Commission a simple instruction, which was that it should carry out a review with a clear objective to deregulate as far as possible, and after careful consideration, should the Government decide to take forward legislation arising from the review, we will do so in a way that removes burdens and ensures that safety is still paramount. The publication of the Law Commission’s report has been delayed by several months, so there was no chance to have a dedicated Bill in the final Session in order potentially to introduce some of the wider reforms that the Law Commission will shortly recommend.

[Julie Hilling]

I wonder what the point of the Law Commission report is if the clauses are put in the Deregulation Bill. What if they are contradictory and what happens to the rest of the Law Commission’s work? I would be grateful if the Minister could explain to us what will happen with the Law Commission report if it comes up with some really positive suggestions.

[Stephen Hammond]

I expect the Law Commission to come up with a lot of positive suggestions and a lot of recommendations on removing some of the more archaic aspects of the existing legislation. I do not expect any of what is being proposed to contradict in any way that report. We have had to weigh up the case for finding a suitable opportunity to look at pragmatic changes in the immediacy rather than looking at the possibility of waiting until everything is reviewed. The Government have chosen to operate and act pragmatically, and to introduce limited measures at this point, because it is clear that the care we are taking to introduce the amendments will make life easier for small businesses and allow them to remove some restrictions that are completely unnecessary. That opportunity has been presented by the Deregulation Bill. It allows us to make immediate progress to assist both taxi and private hire businesses.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

As more manufacturers produce these vehicles, they are becoming much more mainstream, and people are getting used to the issues about range anxiety. As a Yorkshireman, I was particularly pleased to hear that the new Volkswagen model is to be called the e-up!

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

12. What steps he is taking to ensure adequate supply and stability of rolling stock until 2018.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)]

The Government have embarked on a programme of rail capacity increase greater than anything seen since the Victorian age. More than 3,100 new carriages will be in service by the end of 2019. Through the franchising programme, we expect the market to deliver additional rolling stock solutions, building on the possibilities created by the rail investment strategy, electrification projects and capacity increases. I am confident that a solution will shortly be found to enable diesel trains to be released to address the capacity issues in Bolton.

[Julie Hilling]

My constituents are fed up with jam tomorrow and playing sardines today. With diesel trains in great demand but short supply for the next four or five years and with services for my constituents being some of the most overcrowded in the country, what is the Minister doing to prevent other companies from snatching more of our trains from Northern Rail and First TransPennine Express?

[Stephen Hammond]

I was pleased to meet the hon. Lady and other Members from Bolton recently. She knows that commercial leases are a matter for the operating companies, but also that, as I said a moment ago, I have worked with operating companies to reach a solution to ensure that there is extra capacity on the line in Bolton from Christmas onwards.

Rolling Stock (North of England)

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Hammond]

I will not give way, because I have only eight minutes.

Line speed improvements will be made on routes including those between Manchester and Sheffield, Manchester and Preston, and Manchester and Bradford. Whatever anyone says, that is a huge investment in the area. It is estimated that the wider economic benefits to the region will be more than £4 billion and have the potential to create 20,000 jobs. The Government are investing in the north of England. However, all those projects have an impact on rolling stock decisions and we are taking a broader look across the country to see why some of the problems—I accept that there are problems—have arisen. The significant steps that we are taking towards electrification throughout the country, including in the north, undoubtedly means that the rolling stock market is preparing to invest heavily in electric units. There is less demand for diesel units, and there is a short-term mismatch.

Everyone agrees that electrification will help to transform the railways by introducing faster, greener and more pleasant vehicles. It will also set up the opportunity for cascades of newly run-in and refurbished stock to other parts of the country to meet rising demand. Moreover, it is not just investment in infrastructure that will make a difference to services in the north. The intercity express programme is a major investment in rolling stock that will bring benefits to regions throughout the country and faster journey times both north and south. The programme will create new jobs in the north and will be fully implemented by 2020. The first trains being built at Newton Aycliffe by Agility Trains will bring about more reliable services. That context is important and shows the huge investment that is taking place.

I will now respond directly to some of the questions that have been asked today. The issue with the TransPennine rolling stock relates to nine Class 170 trains, which comprise 18 rail vehicles—not a higher number. Those vehicles are equivalent to approximately 9% of the total fleet. The lease for those trains expires in 2015, which is the end of the current franchise.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Stephen Hammond]

I will not give way, but I will come on to Bolton in a moment.

As is usual in the commercial rolling stock market, the lease was offered from that point. The opportunity was taken up by Chiltern Railways, which agreed a new lease earlier this year. Hon. Members asked when the Department for Transport knew about that. It knew in October 2013 and the Secretary of State saw a lease in February. The Department was aware of the lease, but we cannot unreasonably withhold consent for it, so it was given.

Today, I have heard from many hon. Members about their concerns and I can report that the Government are well aware of the problem and will ensure that a solution is found. Discussions are taking place between Chiltern Railways and First TransPennine Express to allow the ongoing TransPennine franchise to retain the trains until May 2015. That will allow more time for a solution to be found. Discussions are taking place about how many of those trains Chiltern will need in 2015, and an opportunity will exist for TransPennine to retain some of the units until March 2016.

Commercial negotiations are taking place between the Department, Chiltern and others in the industry that will allow medium and long-term solutions to be found. The Department has made it clear that it expects train operators and rolling stock companies ultimately to resolve the situation, but it is equally clear that several possible solutions exist. By working in partnership, the Department can reach a positive outcome that will continue to provide the level of service that passengers are currently experiencing.

Comments were made about section 54 notices. They are only a one-way guarantee. Each guarantees the lease price, not that the lessee will not move the vehicles anywhere else. In addition, it is not contractually secure to transfer leases from one tenant franchise to another.

Some amusing but untrue comments and jokes were aimed at the Prime Minister. Anyone who knows the railways knows that Chiltern does not serve Witney, which is served by First Great Western. Moreover, it is important to make a point of accuracy that no one else has mentioned. Notwithstanding the issues involving TPE and the solutions the Government are putting in place, TPE is also taking delivery of 10 new Desiro EMUs immediately.

In the same vein, much has been said about Bolton and what might happen following the December timetable change. I met hon. Members from Bolton last week, and I understand the difficulties faced by passengers on that route. I am confident that an agreement will shortly be reached whereby electric rolling stock will operate on some services between Liverpool and Manchester from December 2014 and enable diesel trains to be released to address the capacity issues in Bolton and at the Todmorden curve. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) and the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge that that is not a failure of strategic planning, but will see services running on that section of track for the first time in more than 40 years.

Much has been said about the Pacer trains that were introduced in the mid-1980s and have rightly received their fair share of attention. With the introduction of new rolling stock into the region, higher quality rolling stock will be released for use across the network. In the forthcoming franchise competitions for Northern and TransPennine Express, the Department does not intend to specify the type of trains to be used. However, hon. Members will have seen the Official Journal of the European Union notice that we set out for the East Coast franchise and we expect to ask bidders for the Northern franchise to put forward proposals for the removal of Pacers from the area. Furthermore, as hon. Members will have noticed, the new franchise competition gives as much weight to quality as to price aspects of bids, so we expect bidders to take that opportunity to reflect that in their bids and operating plans.

Some hon. Members have contended that the Government favour the south over the north. [Interruption.] The reality, of course, is a completely different picture. The Department is taking a whole-network approach, investing heavily in services across the country for the better of all passengers in this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

I suspect that the hon. Gentleman should have directed that question to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who made an announcement on that matter recently. As Newquay is more than three hours from London and has a current operator, it is a potential applicant that would almost certainly be seen in a positive light.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Electrification is very welcome, but it is creating mayhem in my constituency, with cuts to services and terrible overcrowding. The Prime Minister told The Bolton News:

“I will go away and look into it.”

However, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), has washed his hands of the issue and said:

“It is for Network Rail and operators”

to solve the problem. Who is right and who will provide more rolling stock for my constituents?

[Mr McLoughlin]

If one is quoting the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State or any other Minister, it is usual to assume that the Prime Minister is right. I will look at the case. The hon. Lady is right that we cannot make such major improvements without causing inconvenience. However, at the end of the day we will get a far, far better railway. I am pleased that we are investing in the electrification of the railways, which the last Government singularly failed to do.