High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Ellman]

I do not know to which reports my hon. Friend refers, but there have been no comprehensive reports looking at the whole scheme. Some have looked at some aspects of it, but not at the up-to-date information, which was published only this week. I am not aware of any reports that have looked at that. I am sure that the Transport Committee will look again at the information, as we have it.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the business case is not just about the financial case? Public transport is a public service, so we need to look at the need to run trains throughout the country. We should not be looking only at pound signs, but at the overall need for this service.

[Mrs Ellman]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s general point. It is important to assess individual aspects of the project, but we also need to look at the concept and what it is trying to achieve. It is about expanding essential infrastructure in this country. If we do not have vision and if we are not prepared to look ahead at the nation’s needs, we will lack the essential infrastructure needed for economic prosperity. It is essential, too, to look at the detail, which is why we called for a review of the cost-benefit ratio, for a review of the environmental and economic factors and for up-to-date information on the projections of capacity, for freight as well as passengers. The concept must not be lost in the vital necessity to look at the individual components and make an assessment of them.

Rail Franchising

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I think that that was a welcome for the new station and for the greater investment. Of course one always has to strike a balance when these cases are put forward, but I think that Ilkeston, Derbyshire county council and my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee) made a strong case for why Ilkeston should be successful. The case was judged by a panel that did not include me, and I am very pleased that Ilkeston has been successful.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

So much for the Government’s grand promises to radically change franchising—only three franchises will be let before the next election. Some of the extension periods are enormous, following the extensions that operators have already had. What guarantees has the Secretary of State had that there will be investment by those companies during the extension periods?

Local Bus Market

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

We all like to talk about trains when we discuss transport. I do not know what it is, but conversations often seem to end up focusing on them. However, the form of public transport that is most fundamental to us all is the buses. We do not usually get trains to our doors, so unless we are going to get our car out of the garage and drive to the station we need a bus to take us there. We have huge congestion on our roads, particularly in a conurbation such as Greater Manchester, and there is a great loss of money to business and industry because so many people are caught up in terrible traffic jams all the time. We also need, however, the integration of transport, with all our transport modes linking up.

If we think about who uses buses, we know that two groups of people will always have to use them if they are going to use any form of public transport: the young, before they can drive, and the old, when they reach a point at which they can no longer drive—let us hope that we all reach that point in our lives. There are also disabled people who cannot drive, and poorer people who cannot afford their own transport. We need the people who can afford to use their own transport to choose to use the buses, to make them economical, and I will talk in a bit about what happens in London. We need to make the services economical for people to run; we need to save the planet.

When we look at what people want, we see that they do not really want competition. I have never met anyone who cares about who runs their buses. What they want is a cheap and regular service that goes near their door. One of the problems with competition is that no one wants to compete for a contract on roads that do not take people into a city centre. In comparison, on the route along Oxford road in Manchester there are buses every two minutes—or is it every minute?

[Graham Stringer]

Every minute.

[Julie Hilling]

I asked a student who lived there, “Do the buses stop in the night?” and she said, “Oh yes, they stop in the middle of the night.” I then asked, “How long do they stop for?” and she replied, “For 10 minutes, at 4 am.” There are buses every minute, 24 hours a day, apart from during those 10 minutes at 4 am.

A couple of years ago in Manchester, the situation was so bad that no other vehicles could get into the city centre. All the buses were queued far back because so many people were competing to run their buses along that corridor. We can compare that with the estate I live on. The service to Hag Fold stops in the evening, and on a Sunday it does not start until midday, so no one can use the bus to go to church on a Sunday morning, or for a day out. That is the reality of our buses, and I live in an urban area; I am not even talking about a rural district. We need, therefore, planning for services across an area that is not based just on whether a route is profitable. We need a service that goes as close to people’s doors as possible, otherwise those who can drive will.

Cost is incredibly important. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), the excellent Chair of the Transport Committee, talked about the ever-increasing cost of bus travel, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer).

For the third time this week, I will talk about my neighbour, Leah, because she will be affected by the cuts to tax credits and other benefits. She is a mum of two who works 16 hours a week and earns £101. She pays £18 a week—£4.50 a day—for her travel card, which, of course, can be used only with one provider that stops serving the estate in the evening. Unless she gets home early enough, she has to pay another bus company to get her anywhere near home. Compare that with £2.80 a day in London for a service that can be used with any provider.

Travel cards are important for reducing costs and opening up integrated services. Look at the liberation of Oyster that we have had for nine years. Those of us who reside in London for a few days each week have been amazed by the Oyster card: people can go on any bus or tube by flashing the cost-effective card. Compare that with people in my area, who have to decide from which company they will buy a travel card on any given day, because a card can be used only on one service, such as First. They have to ask themselves whether the company will manage to take them on the whole of their journey, or whether they will have to buy separate fares because the company will take them on only part of the journey.

Transport for Greater Manchester is trying hard to get some sort of Oyster mark 2 for the conurbation, but there is no surprise that the operators are not co-operating. Fares in south Manchester are 15% to 20% cheaper than those in the north of the conurbation. Having different operators is the only answer, because it surely cannot be true that diesel costs more in Bolton than in Withington. Costs seem to be part of the reason why the operators are not co-operating. What will the Minister do to support areas such as Greater Manchester to introduce travel cards that will liberate services for so many people?

Running a big bus company is a licence to print money. Since deregulation, the companies are earning a profit of some 7% each year at no risk. If a service is uneconomic, the operators can cancel it and hope that the local authority will pay them to deliver it. Quality contracts would enable routes to be bundled so that operators would have to deliver all the routes in a bundle, both good and poor. They will still be able to make a profit, but they could not continue to hold transport authorities to ransom over the provision of a route.

People make choices about where they live and work, and about schools, based on public transport. What are they supposed to do when they lose the bus service that enables them to lead their life? We know of people who have had to give up their job because they have lost a bus service and can no longer get to their place of work. I have a group of women in Blackrod who can no longer go to their church, which they went to for many years, because the bus stopped running along that route. I ask the Government to use the better bus area fund to support all models of co-operation, including quality contracts. They should also do more to support passenger transport executives and local authorities that are considering quality contracts.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton mentioned earlier, we know operators have threatened a scorched earth effect by removing all buses if a transport authority wants to go the way of introducing quality contracts. Well, I do not think that a bus operator should be allowed to obstruct the implementation of Government legislation by making such threats. It would not be acceptable for other groups to threaten to thwart Government legislation, so why is it acceptable for a bus operator to do so?

Bus travel has zoomed up in London. Why has bus travel gone up so fast and so far? It is about cost, availability, the Oyster card and regulation, and it is very much about subsidy; it is about the state saying, “Public transport is a public service, not just a means to get around.” My constituents in Bolton West deserve the same sort of service as London residents, and I look to the Minister to address how he can help the Greater Manchester transport authority and my constituents get the service they deserve.

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[Norman Baker]

The Bus for Jobs initiative is being assessed by the bus companies, and I spoke about it to a leading member of the bus industry yesterday. I will be keeping in touch with the industry, to see what the initial response is and whether there is a case for extending the initiative. That would be a matter for the bus companies, but we want to see the response first—us from the Government point of view and them from a commercial point of view. If the initiative is successful in persuading people who have not considered the bus before to take the bus and then to stay with the bus, it might be a sensible commercial proposition for the bus companies.

However, I have made no secret of my belief that the bus companies need to do more to help young people, and that has formed a key part of my speech on major set-piece occasions when I have addressed the bus industry. The industry has responded sensibly and well to that challenge, and the companies know that I will continue to engage with them formally and informally. The subject is always on the agenda of the Bus Partnership Forum, which I hold with the industry six-monthly and in which young people also participate.

Overall, commercial services, which represent about 80% of bus mileage, are holding up quite well, which is good news that we should all welcome. I understand the challenges of being in opposition, but I encourage Opposition Members not to talk down the bus industry, which is easy to do—I have been in opposition myself. They should recognise what is going well, as well as not so well. Commercial services are holding up, and we should take some comfort from that.

Although there is good news on that front, I recognise—I am the first to do so—that in some areas of the country the garden is not quite so rosy. Recent statistics show that the supported service network—only 20% of overall bus mileage, but important for many people—is not as healthy as the commercial sector. The picture is not uniform, as it inevitably will not be in an era of localism, such as the one we are moving into, because the decisions are made locally by elected councillors. Some councils, such as East Riding, have prioritised bus services in setting their budgets, while others, such as Surrey, have reduced their spending but have done so creatively and carefully so as not to translate cuts into significant service reductions.

Other councils, I am sorry to say, have made what appear to be arbitrary and swingeing cuts that fail to consider properly the needs of their local residents—I refer to North Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire—which can lead to people in isolated communities, particularly in rural locations, having restricted access to education, training, work, health care and other important services. We have heard about how those who use the bus tend to be at either end of the age spectrum, so young people and elderly people are especially affected if such cuts are made, because they rely more on public transport to get around.

[Julie Hilling]

While the Minister is talking about local authorities continuing to support bus services, has he investigated whether those that do not have suffered more extreme cuts from the coalition Government than others? A lot of Labour authorities, for instance, have had much higher cuts to their spending than Tory councils. I recognise that that might not be the case in the two examples he gave, but I was wondering what the correlation is with local authorities that can no longer support such services.

[Norman Baker]

The allocation of money to local councils and their predominant concerns are matters not for the Department for Transport, but for the Department for Communities and Local Government, which sets the allocation for local council funds. We do not control that, but allocate our own funds, which we are increasing through the green bus fund and the better bus areas and community transport. That is what our Department has been doing, but I am unable to answer the hon. Lady directly, because that is not my Department’s responsibility. I do not believe, however, that there is a direct correlation between the reductions in local funding from the DCLG and the cuts in bus funding.

Indeed, what is reflected—quite properly—is the exercise of local discretion. Some councils have decided to protect bus services and to make them a high priority, while others have not sought to do so, which is entirely up to them, because they consist of elected local people. I certainly encourage individual constituents in those areas where bus cuts have been significant to ask their local councils and councillors why they have decided to prioritise bus cuts, as opposed to anything else, while perhaps the councils next door have not done so. To be fair, I referred to non-Labour councils, North Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire, but I can also pick out Darlington, Stoke and such councils, which have reduced their budgets. Things are mixed throughout the country.

Overall, however, bus mileage remains broadly flat, with commercial services in many cases picking up the slack as bus companies continue to look for opportunities to grow their local markets.

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[Norman Baker]

The hon. Lady is tempting me to respond to the consultation exercise, which I will do with clarity in due course. A point about quality contracts that I made to the Select Committee in response to the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) was that they are there in law:

“They are there as part of the Local Transport Act 2008”—

I was a member of the Committee—

“They remain on the statute book.”

There is no intention of removing them from the statute book and I expect the law to be respected by all parties. I would take a dim view of any bus company or anyone else who sought to undermine the law of the land as it is on the statute book.

On resources for traffic commissioners, to which the Committee referred, the coalition Government has already given a commitment to review their role in the next financial year as part of a wider review of non-departmental public bodies. It is sensible to include a look at their public service vehicle work as part of that review.

I shall pick up individual points that hon. Members have raised this afternoon. The Chair of the Transport Committee referred to multi-operator ticketing and whether it would require new legislation. We have made it clear that we strongly support multi-operator ticketing. We believe it is important to deliver the sorts of outcomes that passengers want, and to avoid the situation to which the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) referred of passengers buying a ticket and then having to buy a further ticket to get home. That cannot be a sensible outcome for passengers, and cannot help public transport generally. We do not want that.

[Mr Peter Bone in the Chair]

We have made it clear to bus companies that we want multi-operator ticketing. We have also made it clear that we reserve the right to introduce legislation if that does not occur. We hope that it will occur—there is some evidence of that—not least because in Oxford where it is occurring, the bus companies have discovered that it is in their financial interest. I am confident that the bus industry has bought the idea of multi-operator ticketing, and that it will become increasingly common throughout the country. However, we reserve the right to take that forward in legislation if necessary.

We also believe that transparency is important. I welcome any figures that can be produced to help passengers and to give a wider perspective of how the industry is performing, and indeed how the Government is performing. Anyone who knows about my role in Parliament will know that I have been hugely committed to transparency in all sorts of areas throughout my time here. We must avoid placing huge extra burdens on industry for not much return, so we cannot require endless figures to be produced if they are of little value, but in principle we are certainly open to any suggestions for extra information that is genuinely valuable. If the Committee has particular issues in mind, I will be happy to consider them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) referred to door-to-door journeys. He called them end-to-end journeys. I have discussed with the rail and bus industry how to describe them, but I will not bore him with the nuances of that conversation. Suffice it to say that the general view was that we should call them door-to-door journeys, and that is what the Department is doing. It will shortly produce information on such journeys to aid the process. It will cover the bus and rail industries, and ensure that different modes of transport are joined up. In best practice they are, but sometimes they are not.

My hon. Friend was right to refer to the role of smart ticketing, which is key to delivering door-to-door journeys properly. He said that it is necessary for people to be confident that they will get the cheapest fare when they use a new ticket-purchasing method for their journey. I absolutely share that view. For the railways it is a key objective of the fare and ticketing review that people buy the ticket that is appropriate for their journey, and do not pay over the odds unnecessarily. Obtaining the best possible deal for rail and bus passengers, which also involves transparency, is to the fore of the Government’s thinking.

I always listen with interest to the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton when he talks about transport, because for many years he has demonstrated a genuine commitment and great knowledge. He referred to London’s upside, but he will recognise that it also has its downside. There are pros and cons with the London arrangement, and I am familiar with both. In any assessment of what is best for one area it would be wise to consider the upside and downside in London when considering arrangements for buses.

The hon. Gentleman referred to concessionary fares. There will be no change in the arrangements during this Parliament. That is what the coalition Government has said, but what individual parties do in their manifestos will be a matter for them as we approach the next general election.

The hon. Member for Bolton West raised the interesting matter of—I suppose, though she did not frame it in this way—the purpose of bus travel. What is the objective that we, or local councils, are seeking to deliver and what are bus operators delivering by running buses? There are different reasons, it seems to me, why buses are run. One is to provide a regular means of transport at a high frequency along corridors such as Oxford road, which is effective, or can be effective, in securing modal shift from the motor car, and thereby, in theory, easing congestion, reducing carbon emissions, and providing a viable public transport alternative. As we have seen in London and elsewhere, there is no question but that when we have frequent services and people turn up without having to think about the timetable, it drives passenger numbers up, creating a virtuous circle where buses become more attractive and more buses can be run. We have that in many parts of our country—not all, but in many parts—including much of London. However, it could be argued—this is one of the downsides of London, I might say—that sometimes, and it is my view, there is an over-provision of buses, which run significantly empty on occasions, back to back all the way along the road. That is a particular problem on Oxford street, as opposed to Oxford road.

It seems to me that the second purpose of a bus is to provide a social function and a necessary connection between those who are without private transport but need a bus to get to a school, a hospital, or whatever it happens to be. The hon. Member for Bolton West suggested that the answer was route-bundling, which is a perfectly legitimate philosophical view. However, I would say that route-bundling may satisfy her need for buses that go round the houses, but what is the consequence for Oxford road, or buses along high-frequency corridors? I am not sure that we can have both—perhaps we can. If we reduce high-frequency corridors to provide buses round the houses, that may meet more social needs, but it may secure less modal shift from road. I raise that philosophically to point out that such things are not perhaps as straightforward as they are sometimes presented.

[Julie Hilling]

I certainly had not taken my thoughts to the level of “Well, if you are going to provide a service here, you are taking a service off somewhere else.” For me, it is more about running the Oxford road service with that frequency, and alongside that, having another area of routes. Some will be highly lucrative and others less so. It is less about the distribution of resources, and more about saying, “Yes, we need to provide this service and those services.” It is not about taking resources away to provide them.

[Norman Baker]

Many of us, including me, would like to have our cake and eat it, would we not? “Eat our cake and have it” was, I think, the original English phrase, which makes more sense. If we can do that, fantastic, but I draw attention to the conundrum about the supply of buses and what is done with them.

The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton referred to the costs of bus services in Manchester, and the hon. Gentleman made what might be termed “uncomplimentary comments” about FirstGroup. To be fair, I understand that FirstGroup recently reduced its weekly tickets to £13 from £18 in Manchester. FirstGroup tells me that initial signs are positive, with passenger growth levels ahead of 5% in just eight weeks, meaning that, so far, more than 300,000 bus journeys have been made on the reduced fares. It tells me that that is part of a long-term plan to rebase bus passenger levels in Manchester.

Assuming all that is correct, and there is no reason to think that it is not, it is a welcome development. I have often tried to persuade public transport operators that cutting fares can be useful in driving up business, and if that is what is being demonstrated by FirstGroup in Manchester, as it appears to be, it is a welcome development. I hope everybody would agree that it could potentially lead to more buses, cheaper fares and the creation of the virtuous circle that I referred to.

[Julie Hilling]

The Minister is being extremely generous in giving way. My understanding is that that experiment is in one part of the conurbation, and it certainly does not include services to Bolton and other parts. Hopefully, if that experiment is working for FirstGroup, it might consider bringing costs down across the conurbation.

[Norman Baker]

Precisely. If it is working, and it appears to be, it would be wise commercially to see where else it might apply. Doubtless, the people at FirstGroup are listening to this debate very carefully, and they will have heard the hon. Lady’s pitch for a similar scheme for Bolton West and elsewhere, no doubt, in the conurbation.

The hon. Lady asked what we would do to roll out something like Oyster. I can assure her that we are doing a great deal of work on smart cards, or smart ticketing—it is becoming difficult to get the right form, because we talk about mobile phones and everything else, and there is no simple phrase these days to describe all that. As a Government, one of the first things that we did was give a big sum of money to the various passenger transport executives to help develop smart ticketing in their areas, and we are giving other help as well. That money is forthcoming for rail and bus.

The hon. Lady asked what we would do to help Greater Manchester. I hope that we will do a great deal. We continue to work productively with the integrated transport authority up there. I am always very happy to meet its representatives and hear any concerns that they have. We have, in fact, given a great deal of money to Manchester for transport in the past two and a half years, including the beginning of the delivery of the entire northern hub, so I hope that we are doing a good deal to help transport in that area.

I was asked about data on bus spend. I am advised that DCLG collects some of those data and they are published as part of its annual statistics—not just on supported services, but more generally. On best practice, I think it is something that has value, but it is predominantly for the local government family in this new era of localism to identify that themselves. Of course, we are interested in it, and talk regularly to our local government colleagues and to the Association of Transport Coordinating Officers, for example. However, it is broadly my view that the Local Government Association needs to do rather more to step up to the plate and identify best practice, rather than simply seeing itself as a body that lobbies Government for something. In the new era of localism, it has a different role to play, which I hope it will develop rather more than it has done. We are helping local government in many ways, including through providing guidance for local authorities on tendering.

Rising Cost of Transport

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), has made a statement on that, in which he also outlined some of the requirements we expect of London Midland. He and I will be watching the performance of that franchise very carefully. It is important that we give passengers the service they rightly expect and demand. We have put in place a number of measures that will cost London Midland considerable money to put into operation, and I expect it to do so.

I am conscious of the time—time moves on when I am continually trying to help colleagues to understand where their policies have gone wrong in the past. We are looking at ways to improve our railway services. As I have said, the Labour party, which is in control in Wales, has kept exactly the same flexibility on rail fares that the UK Government have retained.

In 10 years, the Labour Government electrified only 10 miles of railways; this Government will electrify 850 miles, including the midland main line, for which my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), the Whip, who is sitting on the Front Bench, has campaigned so hard.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I will give way only briefly, because I am conscious of the time.

[Julie Hilling]

Does the right hon. Gentleman remember the amount of money the Labour Government had to put into the railway to rebuild it after 18 years of no investment under the previous Tory Administration?

[Mr McLoughlin]

The hon. Lady is a sadly missed member of the Transport Committee, and was there when I first appeared before it. She should be careful, however, because she was probably a member of the Committee during its inquiry on “Rail 2020”, which quite clearly shows that the worst year for subsidising the railways was 2000-01. I cannot remember what party was in government at that time, but it is true that investment went up afterwards—[Interruption.] She is looking for the page number. Page 9 simply and straightforwardly sets out the record.

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[Julie Hilling]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I must press on. I am sorry I cannot give way to the hon. Lady. The facts I have pointed out are in the report. I will try to make progress and give other hon. Members the chance to contribute to the debate.

We are putting record investment into the railways. In the 19th century, our railway was a symbol of Britain’s innovation—including London’s underground, the first anywhere and 150 years old today. Now, the railway is experiencing an extraordinary renaissance. Last year, the number of passenger miles travelled was almost 50% higher than it was in 2000. More people are travelling by rail today than at any time since the 1920s, and rail freight has grown by more than 60% since privatisation. We have soaring demand, but limited space. Regular passengers on busy lines know only too well what that can mean—overcrowded carriages and uncomfortable journeys. That is not good enough and we are going to sort it out.

In July, we announced £16 billion of funding for the network between 2014 and 2019. Inter-city travellers will benefit from the completion of the northern hub in Manchester, a £240 million investment on the east coast main line and a further £300 million for high-value, small-scale schemes in other parts of the country. We approved a £4.5 billion contract to build a new generation of inter-city trains in County Durham, creating some 900 jobs, and we are procuring thousands of new carriages for Crossrail and Thameslink. We are also getting cracking with HS2, the biggest new transport scheme since the building of the motorways. Meeting demand, however, is only part of the problem.

While the previous Government blew the budget, the railway was allowed to grow wasteful—up to 40% more expensive to run than those of our European competitors. We have therefore had to take a hard look at the industry and have a rail reform programme to tackle the £3.5 billion annual efficiency gap identified by the McNulty report in his rail value-for-money study. Already, major savings are being found. Ultimately, this focus on efficiency will help us to deliver our goal and put an end to above-inflation fare increases at the earliest opportunity. A railway that is efficient and modern is a railway that is affordable to use.

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[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), has claimed that rail passengers are getting a premium service and that rail fares are not nearly as expensive as is being presented. I wonder who he is trying to kid. My constituents who are crammed like sardines into nearly 30-year-old trains do not believe that they are getting a premium service, and even McNulty acknowledged that fares overall are high relative to other countries.

Research by Passenger Focus has shown that fares in Britain are the highest in Europe, more than four times higher than the cheapest country for medium-distance journeys and nearly twice as high as the next most expensive. Granted, if someone can purchase their ticket far in advance and specify which train they want, and advance-purchase tickets are available for that service, they may be able to find a fare that is cheaper or comparable with those of our European colleagues, but for most people travelling for business that option is rarely available. Of course, if things happen and they are unable to get on a specific train at a specific time, they cannot transfer their ticket to another train, so the only way they can get the best price is to book in advance and accept zero flexibility and no refunds, which is something that the vast majority of us are unable to do.

Witnesses to the Transport Committee suggested that the way to solve overcrowding on trains was to price most people off peak times. Indeed, the Government appear to be considering super-peak tickets that would be even more expensive than peak tickets. When the former Secretary of State for Transport, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), gave evidence to the Committee, he answered a question of mine by saying that the railways are already a rich man’s toy. This Government seem to want to save some services for the super rich and price ordinary people off trains altogether. As Passenger Focus says, people should be incentivised to avoid travelling in the high peak, but not penalised even more when they cannot avoid it.

Our highly complicated fares system does not help train passengers to find the cheapest means of travel. The proposal to close ticket offices just adds to the difficulty, particularly for those who are unable to book tickets via the internet. It now costs more than £300 for my constituents to travel to London during the peak. They could get a holiday in the sun for a week, with spending money to spare, for the cost of getting to our capital city. Rail prices for long-distance travel have become obscene and mean that we are putting cars back on to roads. That surely cannot be right.

The vast majority of public transport journeys are made on buses. Since 2005, bus fares in metropolitan areas have increased by an average of twice the rate of inflation. Deregulation has produced a system where operators have been given a licence to print money at no risk to themselves. If an operator deems a service to be unprofitable, it can simply stop it and remove it from residents, unless the local authority steps in to save it. At a time when local authority budgets are being cut to the core, there is no money to support those services, and we know that services are being cut, leaving people unable to get to work and the elderly and people of limited means stranded in their homes.

Deregulation of the plethora of bus operators has also made it incredibly difficult to introduce any sort of travel card. London has had Oyster cards for nine years, but my constituents are still waiting. Although Transport for Greater Manchester is working hard to get our version of Oyster, it is finding it extremely difficult because of the various vested interests.

I spoke yesterday about my constituent Leah, who is affected by the cuts to tax credits and other benefits. Leah works 16 hours a week to earn £101, but she has to pay £18 a week for her bus fares. If she lived in London, she would pay £11.20.

The increases in train and bus fares are hitting ordinary people very hard. Wages have not kept pace with inflation and we know that people are already having to choose between heating and eating. Public transport costs are forcing many who can to travel to work in their cars and those who cannot to give up their jobs. The Government need to help local authorities to introduce quality contracts and Oyster-like travel cards and to keep bus fares down.

It seems that running our buses or trains is a licence to print money. Even though the majority of rail franchises receive large subsidies, they still take operating profits out of the industry. It is very much a case of something for nothing, which is why it was so disappointing that, after the debacle of the west coast franchise, the Government, apparently on ideological grounds, would not even consider directly operating the railway, as is the case with the east coast franchise, and putting money back into the Treasury.

Finally, I want to challenge the notion that the previous Labour Government did nothing on rail. We inherited a railway that had been starved of investment for 18 years and we needed to do some fundamental repairs, including rebuilding the west coast main line, which was already electrified. In 2006-7, the Labour Government spent twice as much as the current Government are spending, and in each year since 2003 more money was spent on the railways under the Labour Government than this Government are spending this year.

Let us agree that public transport is also a public service. It needs subsidy and, more importantly, it needs to be affordable for all, so that it is not just a rich man’s toy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Simon Burns]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. As he will be aware, the Government place the highest priority on safety, both for passengers, and for those who fly and work on our airlines. We are playing a vigorous role in this Europe-wide initiative, and it is for the Civil Aviation Authority to lead. The Government will do nothing with which the CAA is not content, and we will continue to consider the issue as it moves forward.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

As a directly operated railway, the east coast main line returned £187 million to the taxpayer last year. How much money will Virgin pay to the taxpayer during the period of extension to its west coast main line franchise?

[Mr McLoughlin]

Negotiations are ongoing.

Select Committee Inquiry (Aviation Strategy)

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Ellman]

I welcome the Minister to his new position. My colleagues on the Transport Committee and I look forward to questioning him on this issue. He is correct to point out that the Prime Minister announced last week that an independent commission would be set up to look at these issues. However, that commission is not expected to produce its final report until 2015, so any decision based on its recommendations will be postponed until the next Parliament, at the earliest.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, as some airports have already reported that they are losing long-haul flights to hub airports on mainland Europe, there is some urgency in deciding our future aviation strategy, and that waiting until 2015 to make the decision when we know how long it takes to develop any new infrastructure seems like an enormously long time?

[Mrs Ellman]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, that is why the Transport Committee is about to launch its own inquiry.

Rail Fares

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

My hon. Friend is a tremendous advocate for the many commuters in her constituency who rely on this service. I hope they have already seen some improvements and will see further improvements as time goes on.

Electrification will not only deliver new fleets of cleaner and more environmentally friendly trains but will reduce the long-term costs of running the railways. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) was just a little ahead in the timing of his question; the next part of my speech will put the record straight. I always try to be accurate. While in 13 years the previous Government electrified just 10 miles of railway—I got the figure wrong, too!—between Crewe and Kidsgrove, which is an important part of the railway network but not too widespread, we have set out plans for over 850 miles of electrification and investment of over £1 billion. It does not stop there, as we have approved a £4.5 billion contract to build a new generation of inter-city trains at a purpose-built factory in County Durham, creating 730 skilled jobs and a further 200 during construction. We are procuring around 1,200 new railway carriages for the Thameslink line and, with Transport for London, we are working on the procurement of new trains for Crossrail.

There is a lot more to do, but let me be clear. We are able to fund this massive programme to build a railway fit for the 21st century only because we have taken tough but correct decisions to cut spending elsewhere, redirecting our resources to boost growth and to get our economy moving. Of course, when it comes to resources, when we invest in our rail network, fare revenues are crucial in helping to fund the massive upgrade programme we are delivering. In fact, the previous Government set out plans to increase the share of rail funding paid by passengers. The alternative for us in 2010 would have been to slash investment. This would have been the wrong answer for the long-term economic future of this country and, indeed, for rail users themselves.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

I join others in welcoming the right hon. Gentleman to his post. He talks about the passenger paying, but I could have a week in Benidorm with £80 spending money for the cost of my return travel between Wigan and Euston. One of the right hon. Gentleman’s predecessors, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), said he thought that the railways were already a rich man’s toy. Does the Secretary of State agree with that? If not, how is he going to enable ordinary people to use the railways—or should they just go to Benidorm instead?

[Mr McLoughlin]

It sounds as if the hon. Lady knows more about Benidorm than I do. I think there are a number of anomalies in ticket fares. I see them on the train service I use, in that it can cost £170 to use one train, but a train 20 minutes later is a lot cheaper. We need seriously to try to address a number of these problems and to look at how the fares and fare structures used by the rail industry are implemented. I do not accept that everything is fine and fair. In certain areas, consumers have strong cases to make; we should look at them, and I will do so.

Civil Aviation Bill

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Throughout the consideration of the Bill, the debate has been informed and constructive. I thank all Members who have taken part, including Opposition Front Benchers such as the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), the shadow aviation Minister. We have also been assisted by the excellent report prepared by the Select Committee on Transport. I reiterate the thanks that I have given to the Committee and its Chair for their work on pre-legislative scrutiny.

The Bill has enjoyed considerable cross-party support at every stage in its passage through the House, and its key elements have been broadly welcomed by airports, airlines and a number of other stakeholders. That reflects the efforts made not just by this Government but by our predecessors in office to listen to the industry’s concerns and respond effectively to them to put together a balanced reform package.

In the year of the London Olympics and the diamond jubilee, we are reminded once again of the crucial role that the aviation industry plays in bringing millions of tourists to this country. That is just one element of its wider contribution to the UK economy. The Bill will modernise the framework for the economic regulation of airports, greatly improve transparency and accountability and put the passenger interest right at the heart of the new regulatory system. There is widespread agreement that the current one-size-fits-all regulatory regime is inflexible and outdated. The system proposed in the Bill will deliver more effective protection for passengers and a lower regulatory cost for industry.

At the heart of our proposals is a new primary duty to further the interests of passengers and freight owners. The Bill will also enable the Civil Aviation Authority to tailor measures to each individual airport, allowing it more flexibility to target intervention in the most proportionate way.

With a strong emphasis on the price control process, the current rules leave the CAA with very limited options if problems occur between five-yearly reviews. The new licence system in the Bill will allow for real-time regulation, empowering the CAA to act swiftly if an airport is failing its customers on, for example, service quality, winter resilience, volcanic ash or any challenges that it is not yet possible to foresee.

Clause 1(3) and (4) require the CAA to carry out its economic regulation functions in a transparent, accountable, proportionate and consistent way. To respond to points made in earlier debates, we are strengthening the scrutiny to which the CAA is subject by giving a new accounting direction to the regulator, requiring it to include an efficiency statement in its annual report, which will be subject to validation by its external auditors.

The primary duty to passengers, which is so pivotal to the Bill, will provide greater certainty and clarity for airport operators, which in turn will encourage long-term investment in the improved facilities that passengers want. A shift to more independent economic regulation also removes risks associated with political interference, which is why it is a common feature of modern regulatory regimes.

The Bill will also make the CAA’s decisions more accountable than they have ever been by introducing a new appeals process. The Government worked hard with both airlines and airports to come up with an appeals system that gives effective redress to airlines without turning the new regulatory regime into a two-tier system, which would have dragged the Competition Commission or the Competition Appeal Tribunal into everyday CAA decision making. The result of that work is that the Bill provides appeal rights to both airlines and airport operators that are significantly more effective than existing remedies. However, not just businesses benefit from greater transparency and clarity. The Government believe that providing the right information for consumers can sometimes achieve better results than traditional regulatory intervention, so the Bill will give the CAA new functions on collecting and publishing information on issues such as service quality to help consumers to make informed decisions on competing operators in the aviation sector.

The Bill contains important security provisions—keeping people safe and secure when they travel is paramount. The Secretary of State is responsible for aviation security policy and for giving security directions. That will not change under the new approach we are advocating, but the Government believe that giving the experts in aviation operations a greater say in how security is delivered will improve our ability to guard against the very real threats we face.

The CAA has valuable experience not just of regulation generally, but of safety management systems that ensure that risks are controlled as effectively and efficiently as possible. We believe that that track record on safety will assist the CAA in overseeing the delivery of the new security management systems, which are an important element of the move to an outcome-focused, risk-based approach to security, which has been debated extensively during the Bill’s passage through Parliament.

I am also convinced that vesting those regulatory functions for security in the CAA will benefit the aviation industry, because it will henceforth be able to deal with a single regulatory body rather than the current two bodies. Moreover, we expect that the complementary measure—the introduction of an outcomes-focused, risk-based approach to security—will enable security checks to be integrated more closely into the general business of the airport. That should open the way to more cost-effective and more passenger-friendly ways of delivering security outcomes.

Plans for the proposed move of responsibilities in relation to security regulation to the CAA are already being developed. The Department for Transport is in discussions with the Department’s staff who are likely to be affected and with their trade union representatives, because we are keen that as many employees as possible stay in post when their jobs transfer to the CAA, taking their skills and valuable experience with them.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

The Minister said that the Department has had conversations with the staff and their representatives. Can she give us any more information about that, because—as she will be well aware—one of the concerns we raised during the passage of the Bill was about the loss of expertise if staff did not follow their jobs to the CAA?

[Mrs Villiers]

We are in discussions with both the CAA about the practicalities of the move and with those Department for Transport staff whose posts we expect to move. At the moment, we are not able to give them all the answers on all the issues, partly because the Bill has not passed as yet, but also because issues such as pensions are under review both in the civil service and in the context of the CAA. But we are very conscious of the need to try to provide as much visibility and information as possible, and we are working to do that, although it will take time to work through certain issues.

On environmental matters, the Opposition tabled an amendment on Report—it was extensively debated—that would have imposed a supplementary environmental duty in relation to the CAA’s airport economic regulation functions. I understand the motivation for such an amendment, as I said on Report and in Committee, but I believe that its aim is already provided for in the Bill, which already allows the CAA to approve reasonable investment in measures that mitigate environmental impact. No doubt the discussion on whether further clarification on that point is needed on the face of the Bill will continue in the other place in the same constructive and thoughtful way that it has in this House.

I must emphasise, however, that the Bill already includes important new information provisions to help us address the environmental impact of aviation. The Bill gives the CAA powers to collect and publish information about the environmental effects of civil aviation. Not only could that be used to give more information to communities affected by aircraft noise—hon. Members know how significant an issue that is for many people—but it will ensure that passengers have better information about the environmental impact of their travel choices than is currently available. We believe that improving transparency will help us to harness consumer power in pushing for progress towards cleaner and quieter planes.

Some have called for more on the environment to be included in the Bill, but to be effective, environmental measures need to be applied proportionately across the whole sector and not just focused on those airports that happen to be subject to economic regulation. So separately from our efforts contained in the Bill to reform economic regulation, a number of initiatives are under way to deliver cross-sectoral action on the environmental impact of aviation. Adding aviation to the European emissions trading system is expected to deliver carbon savings across Europe of some 480 million tonnes in the period to 2020. Both NATS and the CAA have a strong focus on reducing fuel burn and addressing noise in their work on improving airspace management, and the Government will soon publish a consultation on a sustainable framework for aviation. We are clear that aviation should be able to grow, but it must also play its part in delivering our environmental goals and protecting the quality of life of local communities affected by aircraft noise and other local impacts.

[Julie Hilling]

The Minister said that the consultation document will be published “soon”. During the passage of the Bill, we have talked about future legislation that would enable environmental concerns to be addressed, so can she tell me what “soon” means in this context?

Civil Aviation Bill

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills]

I had not planned to speak to the new clause and amendments, but I was tempted by the exchange on border services to relive some of our Committee debates.

I cannot support the shadow Minister’s amendments. I am not convinced that the licence dealing with the economic regulation of airports is the right place to impose conditions that ought to apply to every airport. I would hope that all airports operating in the UK would recognise that all these extremely sensible and worthy things were natural obligations that they ought to fulfil anyway, and that we should not need to legislate for them. If we do, though, we should legislate for them all, not just the one, two or three airports that happen to be economically regulated.

Clause 18, to which the amendments relate, allows—possibly even instructs—the Civil Aviation Authority to include conditions it thinks

“necessary or expedient having regard to the risk that the holder of the licence may engage in conduct that amounts to an abuse of…market power”.

If it was felt that an airport such as Heathrow was giving a particularly poor passenger welfare service because it could away get with it—because it has market power and people have to fly from there on certain routes—it would be perfectly fair for the CAA, recognising that risk, to impose conditions. We would all want the CAA to do that, if it saw those risks to any part of the passenger experience.

I want to touch on the experience of getting through passport control. Having been through four UK airports this week on Northern Ireland Select Committee duties, I was obviously spared having to go through passport control both in Northern Ireland and at Gatwick on Monday evening, so I have no recent miserable experiences to recount. However, this issue is becoming a reputational risk with people arriving in the UK on holiday or business, so we need to get it right. There is no particular magic to getting it right. The airports and the UK Border Force all have a role to play. As was said, it is a matter of getting resourcing to match the volume of passengers and flights, knowing when passengers are coming from jurisdictions that could make border control more complicated, and making available all the facilities that the Border Force needs, such as rooms near the passport checking station and so on. Airports could invest in electronic scanning devices as well. We need to encourage airports and the UKBF to work together pragmatically to make the service the best it can be.

The Minister asked why no amendments were tabled on this for Report stage. I moved one in Committee, of course, and I was tempted to bring it back on Report to get the wider view of the House, but I was not sure that the Whips would welcome my being tempted down that line. Nevertheless, we need to find a way of getting the UKBF to recognise its responsibility and to publish all the data on the length of queues by airport so that passengers and airports can know what the situation is likely to be. When the transparent data are made available, all involved will have the motivation to get those queues as short as possible by making the most effective use of the resources available.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

It is interesting to follow the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills). He said that he could not support the Opposition’s amendments because airports should be doing these things anyway. If they were, we would not need the amendments, but because they are not, the amendments are important. That is particularly so for UK plc, given that, so often, the first and last impressions that overseas visitors get of the UK is of the airport.

[Nigel Mills]

For clarification, my point was that all airports should be doing this but that the amendments would apply the measure to only three UK airports.

[Julie Hilling]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his clarification. I absolutely agree that all airports should be doing it, but the Bill enables us at least to put the obligation on some; we would then hope that the others would follow. If airports want to attract business from passengers and other businesses, their standards need to be as high as those of the others. It is important, therefore, that we set down what we expect from our airports and airlines.

As we heard, the Transport Select Committee undertook the inquiry “Keeping the UK moving: The impact on transport of the winter weather in December 2010”—a very long title. That in-depth report looked into all elements of transport—not only aviation but the road network and how transport links together—and recommended that passenger welfare should be at the heart of airport operations. It also agreed with the recommendation of the Begg report that Heathrow and other airports should develop welfare plans for passengers during disruption. The report stated:

“Passenger welfare should be at the heart of airport operations. We concur with the recommendation of the Begg report that Heathrow should develop a welfare plan for passengers during periods of disruption: other airports should do the same. It is unacceptable that such plans do not already exist. If airlines fail to meet their obligations to accommodate stranded passengers, airports should be prepared to step into the breach. We would support measures by which airport operators could reclaim the costs of providing support to stranded passengers from airlines which had not discharged their legal responsibilities and we recommend that the CAA investigate how this can be achieved.”

The Government responded:

“However, the legal responsibility to provide care and assistance to passengers remains that of airlines. It is important that any initiatives to bolster the provision of passenger welfare during periods of disruption, for instance through passenger welfare plans, do not create any uncertainty in this area.”

The Committee welcomed the Bill, about which the Government response said:

“The CAA would have a new primary duty that would put the interests of passengers unambiguously at the heart of the regulatory regime.”

It is disappointing, then, that on Report we are still urging the Government to put in the Bill the obligation for airports to develop welfare plans.

[Mrs Villiers]

I hope that I can reassure the hon. Lady. Our concern is not about the amendments’ content but that we can trust the CAA to put these kinds of issues in the licence system. The best way to ensure effective regulation is to give the regulator the decision on exactly how to focus on passenger welfare. The hon. Lady can be confident that even if the amendments fall today, the CAA will ultimately put exactly this sort of thing in the licences, on which it will consult as soon as the Bill becomes law.

[Julie Hilling]

I thank the Minister for her intervention, but I have to say that I am not reassured, because if we believe that those things are fundamental, I do not see why we should not put them in the Bill. She reassures us that the regulator will ensure that those things are in place, but let us tell the regulator. Let us say, unambiguously and up front, that we expect those things to happen and that the regulator will ensure that, rather than allowing the regulator to make those decisions for itself.

I want to talk, as others have, about what happened at Heathrow in the winter disruption of 2010. The point is worth reiterating, because the Begg report made alarming reading. Let us look only at the headlines: 9,500 people sleeping in the terminal; passengers seeking refuge in subways; a lorry carrying blankets for passengers having to turn back on the M25 because of the traffic conditions; very few passengers provided with water and refreshments; absolute chaos and confusion. As the Begg report found:

“Confused and contradictory messages caused incorrect signals to go to airlines, to passengers, and from airlines to passengers”.

Passengers were given laptops to try to rebook their flights—the laptops were around the terminal. That is fine for regular travellers and regular internet users—perhaps they could find their way around the system—but many passengers would clearly not have had the first clue about what to do. There seems to have been an absolute lack of care and concern for passengers at that point. Indeed, there was no contingency plan in place to ensure that those with medical conditions, who are more vulnerable—for instance, those with diabetes—had access to food, water and other things they needed. There must be a system in place and a channel of support for those who need medical support at times of disruption.

It is true that we all get those messages on the television or radio: “Do not travel unless your journey is absolutely essential.” Unfortunately, the vast majority of us always believe that our journey is indeed absolutely essential. People set out in their cars or other modes of transport when, if they had stopped to think about it, they would not have done so. Airports face that difficulty in dealing with us—that even when it is snowing or there is thick fog, we believe that our flight is going to take off. Airports have to accommodate themselves to the fact that we are not always sensible. Living in a country that does not often have severe weather, we are perhaps more naive about when we should travel and when we should not. However, we also have to recognise that many of those travelling to airports set out the day before or when it is not apparent that there will be bad weather later. Again, we have to consider not only human nature, but the fact that people will set out before conditions worsen. That is particularly true when we think about volcanoes erupting and other things that can happen unexpectedly.

Going back to the winter problems, particularly at Heathrow—I acknowledge that other airports dealt much better with the weather—it is unacceptable for passengers to have such an experience. It unacceptable not only for them, but for UK plc. Our airports are our gateway to the rest of the world. We need airports with first-world standards, not standards one would expect in a developing country.

There did not seem to be a huge amount of improvement at Heathrow this year. Perhaps I could be criticised for saying that not enough information was given on previous occasions, but when there was a threat of snow, a quarter of the flights were cancelled. The report states that flights should be cancelled and information given in advance if such disruption is feared. Perhaps the Minister has better information than I do and will be able to respond, but four inches of snow were threatened—the threat was of snow being dumped, rather than falling long term, over days or hours. Considering that we are supposed to have had this great investment in snow clearing and other things to keep our airports moving, cancelling a quarter of the flights feels like a knee-jerk reaction.

Yes, airlines are responsible for the treatment of passengers, but it is not good enough for different airports to have separate passenger welfare plans. A passenger needs to know what support they will get at any airport, because it is the airport, not the airline, that will be blamed if there are problems. Whether a passenger has booked with Virgin, British Airways or whoever, they will blame Heathrow, Manchester or Gatwick for their bad experience and lack of support, rather than the airline that should be providing that support. Airports clearly need the power and responsibility to have concerted passenger welfare plans, and the CAA needs the authority to ensure that that happens.

--- Later in debate ---

I and my hon. Friends are not arguing in any way for a diminution of security at our airports. As I said at the start of my speech, such security is a very important requirement, and the terrorist threat is real and apparent to us all. We are arguing for a regime that takes into account the reality of the UK today and the reality of who makes up our population. We are arguing for the UK Government to use their influence to try to convince the European Commission and other member states to look at the approach that we have adopted and, importantly, to consider the results of the trial that we have carried out. I very much hope that that trial shows that there has not been a diminution of security with the approach that the Minister has authorised in the airports. In that way, we can have security with consent and we can maintain freedom of movement for every part of our community. That is an aim that we should support, and that is precisely the aim of amendment 11.

[Julie Hilling]

I start by expressing concern about the “user pays” principle. We do not apply that to the police or other safety and security issues and services. I will expand on that in a moment, but first I want to express my concern about the outcome-focused, risk-based approach to security. The terrorist has only got to get through once; we have to be 100% successful at stopping the terrorist. I am still not convinced that a focus on outcomes will achieve the necessary ends. I therefore believe that the Government must be extremely clear about what they are saying about the risk-based focus. I am still not convinced that just specifying the end result will be adequate.

To return to the costs, the Government say that the freedom of airports to devise their own systems could lead to cost savings, and that worries me hugely. Will that mean that, potentially, airports will be looking at how they might cut costs, and therefore will cut corners? I am concerned that some airports might be less rigorous than others. Our biggest concern in the past few years has been around transatlantic services, which of course have high prestige for the terrorist. However, any attack on any airport or airliner—or, in fact, train, ship or anything else—would be significant and would produce that wonderful splash of publicity that terrorists want to see. If we do not prescribe what airports should include in their security services, is there not a risk that we shall not be able to monitor them properly? I am concerned that some of those smaller airports may then become soft targets for terrorists.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

When we are looking at security, we can take no shortcuts whatever. We say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” but terrorists spend their time trying to work the system that they are viewing, so that approach does not work in security. We have to try and change the system to throw the terrorist. I think the hon. Lady probably agrees with me on that.

[Julie Hilling]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention because I absolutely agree with him. That is why I am very concerned that if cost is a driving force within security, airports may look to see how they can reduce costs rather than, as the hon. Gentleman says, continuing to be innovative. As he so rightly says, it is not enough to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted and say, “They got through there but we can stop them next time.” We have to stop them the first time—an incredibly difficult task.

[Nigel Mills]

Will the hon. Lady join me in welcoming the full body scanners that have been installed by Manchester airport? The evidence is that not only are they cheaper to run and much preferred by the passenger for being less intrusive—there is no need for the physical pat-down—but they maintain all the security features. That is the kind of security innovation that we would like to see, and it is a crying shame that there is a threat from the European Union that the use of those scanners will not be allowed to continue.

[Julie Hilling]

Clearly, the hon. Gentleman has already seen my speech. I shall go on to talk about Manchester airport.

We have heard about the profiling of potential offenders. I am concerned that people with brown skins are more likely than others to be pulled over for more rigorous security checks, and I am not yet convinced that that will not occur. We have seen what happened with stop and search on the streets. Will that be replicated in our airports? The percentage of black and minority ethnic people who are stopped and searched by the police is much higher than that for the white population, and the police can argue, as can any security service, that certain people are more likely to be involved in street crime and gang-related violence, but the result is the capturing of everybody of a certain colour or ethnicity, which can become very worrying.

My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), who is no longer in her place, spoke about the Sikh gentleman who was asked to remove his turban. We must ensure that people will not be targeted because of the way they look or because they come from a certain background. We need to ensure that people are treated the same and that people who meet certain criteria are the ones who are picked out.

[Gavin Shuker]

My hon. Friend mentioned the statistics associated with police stop and search. I am unclear about the current statistics in relation to people subjected to personal or invasive searches in airports. Does that not support the case for a full assessment of aviation security to be carried out by the House through a further instrument?

[Julie Hilling]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and I agree with him.

We were told in the Select Committee and in the Public Bill Committee that risk-based security was based on an analysis of people’s behaviour—how they purchase tickets, what insurance policies they have, and so on—but a certain group of people are still more likely to commit an offence. I hope the Minister can reassure me and colleagues that the proposals will ensure that people are caught and are not able to commit atrocities in our skies.

Aside from the race element, there has been an increasing number of complaints from disabled people about how they have been treated at airports, especially from people with colostomy bags or other physical attributes, who have been subjected to pat-down searches. Again, we must consider how to ensure that disabled people are not discriminated against and that they are treated with no less concern for their dignity than other people, even if that means that they may have to go through another door for certain other investigations. Those investigations must not be intrusive or discriminatory or interfere with people’s dignity.

As we heard, at Manchester a scheme has been in place since 2009. Body scanners have been trialled that use backscatter X-ray technology which does not yet have EU approval. I am informed that the radiation from the body scanner is equivalent to cruising for two minutes at altitude and that the scanners have been approved by the Health Protection Agency. However, when the trial ends in October, unless there is an extension, the airport will not be able to continue using them.

The passenger approval rate is 95%. People much prefer it to the old-fashioned pat-down search, as do security staff, because it avoids the need to touch and the bending and stretching that they would otherwise have to do. Not everybody goes through the body scanner. Everybody goes through the first security phase, then a door opens and they either go through the body scanner or go straight ahead. The system has worked, but the concern is that if the EU does not approve it, the investment will have been wasted. More worryingly, what incentive will airports have to be innovative in future? As the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) suggested, we must continue to ensure that terrorists do not find any loopholes in our security system.

On the outcome-focused, risk-based approach, the Minister seems to be saying that the Bill gives airports the chance to innovate and look at other ways of reaching the same solution. That approach is not working for Manchester because it will not be able to continue using the scanners unless the Government can agree with the EU that the system should continue. Will airports be less likely to invest their own money? Even if the Government’s desired outcomes are achieved, a different input method would be used. My worry is that there is not a clear enough picture for how we achieve the outcome-focused, risk-based approach.

Of course, this is a worldwide issue. We need to ensure that passengers returning to and departing from the UK have stringent security checks. Whether across the European Union or globally, we need systems in place that we can all live and work with. I hope that the Minister will return to the issue. As I have said, I am not convinced that an outcome-focused, risk-based approach will allow innovation and ensure that our airports all have the same level of security.

Finally, I want to talk about the staff transfer issue. As hon. Friends have said, the trade unions, the Transport Committee and the Public Bill Committee have all expressed concerns about losing expertise through the transfer of staff from the Department to the CAA and fear that current employees will look for other opportunities in the civil service. The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), wrote to me on that point and stated that the Department could look at how secondments might be used but was committed to ensuring that the costs of regulation are transferred to users and away from taxpayers.

The Minister also said that seconding Department staff to the CAA, rather than transferring them with a function, is unlikely to help ensure that experienced staff remain with the CAA when secondments end. I feel that the Minister has missed the point. Many civil servants are seconded to outside agencies and the cost is transferred to those agencies. While the function that the civil servant fulfilled is transferred, they would stay with the agency within their role. It is not the case that they would be transferred for a fixed period of time and then come back; they are transferred with that function. That means that the individual would retain their terms and conditions and, most importantly, their pension rights. We know that that is of great concern to the employees and that that is why we are most likely to lose that expertise, because they say that they do not want to lose those things and so want to stay within the civil service to look for other opportunities. I hope that the Minister will rethink the decision and not risk the flight of staff and the loss of expertise and, with it, the resilience in our security system.

[Mr Spellar]

As a former Transport Minister, I particularly welcome amendment 11. It will also be very much welcomed by the Sikh community, especially, and fortuitously, at this time of the Sikh festival of Vaisakhi, which Members of Parliament from both sides of the House celebrated with the community last night here in the Palace of Westminster. As colleagues have said, the Sikh community has historically served this country very well and is now an enormously important and dynamic part of our community, both in business and in many of the professions.

The Sikh community have expressed their concerns, particularly about the handling of the turban at airports, but throughout these discussions—I was involved as a Minister in previous iterations—they have always made it clear that they fully accept the need for security and, therefore, ask, “How do we achieve that?” within the sensitivities of their religion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I hear what the Minister says. In our Committee discussions, those we are having today and in discussions outside, transport consistently appears as a big contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Aviation continues to grow. In a recent speech, I believe to The Times transport conference, the Minister quoted the statistics showing that transport will, year on year out to 2030 and beyond, make a bigger contribution to those emissions, simply because the sector is growing. It cannot be right not to address the question of having an environmental duty at a time when we are we are introducing the new powers and duties and the new regulatory authority through the Bill. Surely now is the appropriate time for it.

[Julie Hilling]

Does my hon. Friend agree that although the majority of the Bill deals with economic regulation of some airports, it also includes other measures, such as those on security, that affect all airports? It is thus a little disingenuous to say that the Bill cannot include environmental duties on those grounds.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I entirely agree that seeking to place an environmental duty in the Bill is in no way inappropriate. We think it is entirely in keeping with the new powers to confer on the CAA a duty to take cognisance of the environmental impact of aviation.

Concerns were raised in Committee about the inclusion of the regulatory asset base, and the Gatwick Express was mentioned, along with other aspects. The Opposition believed that stronger powers were needed—and that they were needed on the face of the Bill.

We ask the question once again: why is there no environmental duty for the CAA as a regulator? The Government say that they want to be “the greenest Government ever”—fine words. The Minister proudly says that she will “yield to no one” on environmental protection. I congratulate her on that, as these are more fine words. The Lib Dems say that we were not tough or focused enough and that our words were not appropriate—more fine words, if they mean anything. The time to take action, however, is now, because we have the opportunity to do so now.

With new clause 6 and amendment 7, we think that seeking to inform passengers about the environmental impact is wholly appropriate. The Minister agreed with the principle when she said that she shared with Opposition members of the Committee

“the goal of harnessing consumer power in our efforts to reduce the environmental impacts of aviation.”—[Official Report, Civil Aviation Public Bill Committee, 13 March 2012; c. 314.]

We all know that the tools exist commercially. Travel companies produce information on the environmental impact of different modes of transport, and this is advocated by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and by the Department of Energy and Climate Change—so why not by the Department for Transport?

We heard powerful evidence in Committee to suggest that passenger choice is based not on green issues—if that were the case, it would be welcome—but on the location of the airport, whether it serves their destination and on the convenience of getting there, as well, of course, as the cost. It is not based on the environment, but the environment does matter, and it will matter increasingly in the years ahead. Now is the time, and here is the opportunity, to encourage that type of decision making on the environment by including information about environmental impacts on ticketing and the CAA could do that. We will therefore seek to test support for new clause 6.

Yesterday my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), the shadow Secretary of State, said:

“The Government has refused to recommit to the targets on reducing emissions from aviation set by the previous Labour government and has yet to respond positively to the Committee on Climate Change’s recommendation that this should be extended to include the UK’s share of international emissions, which is explicitly covered by the amendment.”

I look forward to the Minister’s comments on that. I cannot repeat what my hon. Friend said about the Liberal Democrats, unless the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) wants me to. [Hon. Members: “Go on.”] Well, she was not very kind to the Liberal Democrats. She said that they were “meekly” following the Government in rejecting our amendments. Clearly she anticipated their exact response, which is entirely inconsistent with their pre-election stance on dealing with the environmental impact of aviation.

We think that the Government should be bolder, cleaner and greener, and should accept the principle of environmental duty. If we do not receive the reassurance that we seek from the Minister—and I do not expect that we shall—we will seek to divide the House on amendment 3 and new clause 6.

Let me end by quoting recommendation 38 of the Transport Committee’s report. I see that the highly regarded independent Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman)—for whom the whole House has regard—is present. Her Committee said:

“Without giving the CAA a supplementary duty on the environment in relation to its economic regulation role, there is some risk that airports may be reluctant to invest in improving environmental performance. Whilst, as the Minister says, there may be ‘absolutely no doubt’ about measures taken to comply with statutory environmental obligations, there remains a doubt about whether the costs of discretionary measures, such as improved public transport access, can be recovered by airports in charges to airlines.”

That is one recommendation that we solidly support, which is why we wish to press the new clause and amendment to a vote at the appropriate time.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

I wish I hadn’t bothered now! We must not go back to that level of debate. The hon. Gentleman is one of the most intelligent new Members of the House, and I have even started to read his books. We must not get dragged down into such trite debates. We will meet separately and work together to develop a strategy to enhance the economic benefits of Heathrow for both our communities, as I did with his predecessor. The debate is not about whether to close Heathrow; it is about how to strike the right balance between enhancing the employment benefits and protecting the environment, and that is all that these amendments do. They simply say to the Secretary of State and the CAA, “You need to take into account the environmental implications and the effects on local communities.”

What has happened in Sipson has not been taken into account. BAA is still buying properties and letting them out on a short-term basis. The community is therefore continuously blighted. There is no compensation for the local businesses—the butcher, the hairdresser, the local post office and pub. Their loyal clientele is now gone, and some of those businesses are closing down while the others can no longer earn a living.

We have met BAA and I have met Colin Marshall. I pushed the boat out and took him for a coffee in central Hayes. I sought to see whether at least some support could be devised for those local businesses to tide them over while they build up the loyal base again as best they can. The answer was no. Only two weeks ago, the board rejected that request. What is happening now? It is offering a small element to try to tart up the front of the shops—that is all.

That is the sort of blight that has occurred as a result of the activities of BAA—well not BAA, but Ferrovial, the Spanish company founded by a fascist under Franco that has now exploited my community to maximise its profits and ship them abroad to prop up the construction corporation, which is now having financial trouble. So I welcome the opportunity that these amendments would provide to place that duty on the CAA and the Secretary of State to ensure that the impact on local communities is taken into account. If these duties were in place now, BAA would have to introduce a compensation scheme for those local businesses in Sipson; it would have to stop blighting the overall area; it would have to introduce a scheme to compensate my constituents for the noise pollution they are experiencing; and it would have to drive down its operations that are producing such air pollution in my area.

I finish by saying that some of my local schools around Heathrow have a box into which children put their pumps when they go into class in the morning. They do so because they suffer from such a range of respiratory conditions, particularly asthma. In Hillingdon, we now specifically train our teachers on how to deal with asthma attacks in class; this is as a result of the air pollution, particularly that from the airport itself. The amendments are some of the most significant in terms of attempting to affect the environmental impact of aviation in this country that we have seen for many a year, and they should be treated seriously. New clause 6 should be treated seriously, because the noise affects not only people’s enjoyment, but their health, as has been shown in recent research. I am pleased that new clause 6 is being put to the test in the House tonight. Even if the Government cannot accept the other amendments, I would welcome it if they would think again, as we go into this consultation on aviation overall, to see how we can build in better environmental protections for the local communities against the expansion and operations of aviation overall.

[Julie Hilling]

I will not speak for long, but I wish to express the enormous disappointment, among not only the green groups, but the many people who live near airports and are affected by them, at the fact that the Government did not put an environmental duty in the Bill. I accept that the amendments that we are proposing do not go as far as we would have wanted this Bill to go. However, the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) demonstrated exactly why we need at least to include these amendments in the Bill and to continue to work for the future to ensure that those measures operate across all airports.

There is great concern worldwide about air travel’s effect on the environment and the damage it can do to the ozone layer, but many more people are concerned about what happens day to day. They are concerned about the effect of airports on their daily lives. Noise is the most obvious issue we talk about when we debate airports and although it is, of course, a very serious issue, it affects a smaller group of people than other environmental concerns.

Similarly the actual flight makes up only a small part of the carbon footprint of any journey by air. We also need to consider: the environmental costs of getting people to the airport by road and rail; the cost of road congestion, which is a huge issue in my community in Greater Manchester; and the cost to the environment of the car parking spaces that seem to spread across the fields, particularly around Heathrow and Gatwick, where we seem to grow cars instead of crops.

Of course the industry faces competing priorities. Its main priority has to be getting passengers to their destination in the most profitable way possible. Profits—or at least costs—are even more important for regional airports, many of which are struggling to survive at the moment. For airports it is about having as many flights as possible. Airports such as Heathrow are having to work out how to squeeze them into the restricted air and ground space. It is about getting passengers to the airport in the easiest way possible because the operators need to ensure that passengers choose to travel with them in the future. To believe that operators will consider environmental issues out of the goodness of their hearts seems somewhat naive.

Manchester, my local airport, does what it can to be a good neighbour. It has invested greatly in rail links and other mitigating measures and it is now investing in Metrolink to bring more people to the airport. I do not believe, however, that a vague requirement, rather than an absolute duty, is enough.

As was discussed in Committee, I do not believe that passengers make a choice because of the green credentials of their airport. I am sure that other passengers, like me, work out where they want to go, what price it will be and how easy it will be to get to the airport. Deciding whether to fly or catch a train might be my one environmental consideration, but I do not make any further considerations in choosing where to go. Furthermore, as has been said, other regulators, such as the Office of Rail Regulation, have a duty as regards environmental concerns. It seems a bit perverse when we are considering new duties for the CAA not to say that it should have an environmental duty.

We must say to the aviation industry that the environment is a big issue, both in terms of its carbon footprint and for those who live near airports, who are extremely disappointed that the Government have not used the Bill as an opportunity to consider the problems and do something about them. Yes, the amendments are not all that we would want, but they are a start. I urge hon. Members on both sides of the House to support them, particularly those people who have argued long and hard about their environmental concerns.

[Pat Glass]

At the beginning of the debate, I said that I felt that the Bill was essentially a good one with a number of omissions, and perhaps the most glaring omission of all is the statutory environmental duty. That statutory duty was part of the Bill when it was drafted by the previous Government, and it is not clear to me why the “greenest Government ever” would remove it.

In Committee, the Minister told us that the Bill is about economic regulation and that there is therefore no room for a statutory environmental duty. However, the Bill is about much more than simply the economic regulation of the CAA. If it was just about economic regulation, it would not include safety or security or an extension of the air travel organisers’ licence. It is not a clean and simple Bill about economic regulation; it is a long overdue consolidation and updating of regulations covering a wide range of issues in which those sections dealing with a statutory duty on environmental issues should have been included but have been deliberately expunged.

I could perhaps understand the Government’s reluctance to include the environmental duty if the CAA was the only economic regulator to have such a statutory duty placed on it. We have heard the Minister say in response to that point that the Bill only covers certain airports, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) has said, in some areas, such as security, it covers all airports.

Civil Aviation Bill

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

First, I add my voice to those who have expressed concerns about the Bill having been rushed. As a member of the Transport Committee, I was part of the pre-legislative scrutiny process, but as has been said on several occasions, only tomorrow will we have our session on ATOL. The Government therefore have not had the chance to take on our concerns; even more than that, airports have expressed huge concern that they have not had time to consider the proposals and to make recommendations.

Secondly, the Government have missed an opportunity to include environmental measures in the Bill. People living near airports had been hoping for stronger regulation on noise and pollution controls, and I appreciate that the Bill’s purpose is primarily economic regulation, but it has already been widened to include ATOL and security. Aviation Bills do not arrive every day, so this one should have included environmental duties, and I really hope that it will be amended in Committee to include them.

The industry has generally welcomed the Bill, but some proposals have created much consternation. The cost of regulation is certainly a problem for airports such as Manchester. Currently, the regulation charge is 95p for every arriving passenger, but with no consultation the charge is going up in April to £1.26 per passenger. The airport expects that the additional charges for security and enforcement will be another 4p, and, although that does not sound a great deal, it estimates that it will have to find an additional £274,000.

Airports are not in a position to pass on those charges to airlines. The only way of doing so would be to increase landing charges, but because of competition between regional airports, airlines would simply go elsewhere. Airports cannot agree to fix landing charges, as they would fall foul of competition rules. I can understand why the Government believe that the user should pay, but why is the charge being levied only against the airport? Why cannot part of it be levied directly against airlines, and why can it not be phased in to give airports a chance to build it into their budgets?

The Bill also allows an airport to be compelled to hand over a terminal to another operator, but there is no industry demand for that, and it has been said that it is an “idea without merit”. I have been told that the measure has been included just in case in future someone, somewhere decides that it is a good idea, but it would only ever be a good idea if we wanted to increase the employment opportunities for accountants and solicitors.

Currently, the airport operator plans for the whole airport. It has to deal with its neighbours, take account of environmental concerns, work out how to get people to and from the airport, invest in transport infrastructure, invest in improvements to the terminal and so on. What will happen to all that if there is more than one operator? Manchester airport is investing £50 million to bring the Metrolink system to the airport, and it has recently made a large investment in the airport’s railway station. Would that have happened if there were two or more operators at the airport? What if one operator does not want to invest in infrastructure? We have only to look at what happened with rail privatisation: a huge increase in transactional costs and the use of accountants and solicitors, hours and money wasted on deciding who is to blame for any incident and who owes whom money, and a waste of taxpayers’ valuable money.

Transferring an airport terminal to another operator would hugely increase transactional costs, and a great deal of time and money would be wasted on commercial negotiations and agreements. The cost-benefits of one efficient operator would diminish, and one contract and, therefore, good deals with Smiths Group, SSP and the Compass Group and with brands such as Costa Coffee and Burger King would disappear. Bean counters would have to spend time working out how they split things such as car park fees, and each operator would have to have headroom, thereby diminishing overall capacity. The proposal makes no sense, it will not improve the passenger experience and it should be removed from the Bill—or, at the very least, apply only to regulated airports.

I have some concerns about security transferring to the CAA and regulations now being based on an outcome-focused security regime. I accept that it is unnecessary to insist on screening by a certain machine at every airport, but as we know, terrorists only have to be lucky once, and we must ensure that we have no weak links in our airport security. It was also worrying when the trade unions reported to the Transport Committee that many people would not want to transfer from the civil service to the CAA and, therefore, that expertise would be lost.

A major issue was pensions. The Minister of State told the Committee that the CAA and civil service pensions are under review, but will transferring staff be given an equivalent pension? Have Ministers also considered other employment models, such as staff remaining employed as civil servants but seconded to the CAA? Security is not an area where we can take risks, and we must not lose the expertise of current staff, so do the Government have any proposals for retaining them?

ATOL reforms are badly needed, as the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) said just a moment ago, but I am frustrated that the Transport Committee is going to look at the details of such reform only after Second Reading. Most people believe that they are already ATOL-protected when they book a holiday, and that if the operator goes bust someone will get them home or, if they have not yet travelled, refund the cost of their holiday. It is ludicrous that a holiday booked through an airline—a holiday that looks and feels like a package holiday—is not treated as one. I welcome the inclusion of such holidays in the ATOL scheme, and the removal of the distinction between travel agents acting as agents for suppliers and as agents for consumers—a definition so unclear that even travel companies are confused about the distinction. I welcome also the proposal that customers be issued with a certificate to inform them that they are ATOL-protected, but as the legislation will not protect everyone, customers should be issued with a certificate that makes it clear when they are not protected, just as they are issued with one when they are protected.

The time frame for buying components of a holiday in order to qualify for protection is too short, as customers will be protected only if they buy the components within 24 hours. There are situations in which people book flights immediately to ensure that they reserve a seat but agree the rest of the package only later, when the travel agent has sorted out their itinerary. A package is still a package, and therefore the time limit should be longer than 24 hours. In 1997, 97% of all leisure flights were ATOL-protected; now it is less than 50%. This new legislation is timely, but let us use the opportunity to ensure that it protects the maximum number of people.

I look forward to further discussion on the Bill and hope that this time the Government will be open to amendments to improve it.