Oral Answers to Questions

Karen Buck Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

T3. We are back in another short-term extension of the Transport for London funding deal. The Government cancelled a series of meetings to discuss it, and business leaders are pleading with them to get on and provide a long-term spending deal. There is a very simple yes or no answer to this question: will the Secretary of State meet the Mayor to sort this out?

[Grant Shapps]

There have been numerous meetings with the Mayor, and they have included our officials as well as me from time to time. The Mayor has failed to bring forward his plan for the reform of pensions, missing the deadline and causing us to have to, in part, create an additional extension for that purpose. On Thursday or Friday of last week, he stood up and made a speech saying that he would dodge the difficult issues set up by his own independent review of the pensions and that there was not even a cause for having a pensions review, which has cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds. The Mayor needs to start taking some responsibility for his own transport system in London.

Free Travel for Under-18s: London

Karen Buck Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is good to see my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) in her place, and it is a particular pleasure to see the Minister in her place and to be joined by colleagues who are concerned, like me, about the issue of children and young people’s travel in London.

I sought this debate to try to understand the Government’s decision to require Transport for London to suspend free travel for under-18s on London’s buses and trams. The removal of free travel for under-18s will impact hardest on London’s most disadvantaged young people. It is technically complex to implement and will lead to low levels of demand reduction, which is the proposal’s purported aim. I shall briefly summarise where I think we are with the issue and would then welcome clarification from the Minister on the latest position.

When the Government agreed in May to provide emergency funding to TfL—as they did to so many public services whose income streams have been decimated by the pandemic—they set a number of conditions, one of which was for TfL to suspend free travel for under-18s. The funding agreement states that the reason behind the condition was

“to optimise the use of the available safe transport capacity”—

in other words, to manage demand, especially during the morning peak.

I understand that despite many weeks of discussion between Government officials and TfL, the specific condition was raised directly with London’s deputy Mayor for transport, Heidi Alexander, only on the day the deal was agreed, 14 May. It came out of the blue without any prior assessment of its impact on London’s children or the cost and complexity of implementing it. It was the only deal that the Government offered; the Mayor of London had no choice but to accept it to keep the tubes and buses running, and if he did not, he would have been forced to issue a statutory section 114 notice—the declaration stating that TfL is no longer able to work to a balanced budget. Because the condition was imposed at the last minute, there was no time for TfL’s officers to assess the significant impact and the supposed benefit.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

My local authority, Westminster, has told me that it estimates that between 5,000 and 9,000 children in our borough alone are affected by this issue. Importantly, it says that, given the categories of children who are eligible for assistance—children who are under eight years old, living more than two miles away, on free school meals, with disabilities and so forth—all the children who currently use public transport to get to school could be eligible. Does my hon. Friend think that the Government have thought this one through?

[Ruth Cadbury]

I believe that they have not. They certainly did not discuss the implications because it came, as I said, out of the blue. It is good to know that local authorities are assessing the impact.

London is the UK’s most congested city, with the lowest levels of car ownership and the greatest numbers of families living in poverty. Free travel for under-18s was introduced by a Labour Mayor, and since 2006 subsequent Mayors, including the current Prime Minister, have retained the policy.

A38 Improvements

Karen Buck Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Murray]

I completely agree. At the moment, the entrance to Bodmin Parkway railway station prevents many people from using that vital rail link, and I agree with Cornwall Council and my hon. Friend that it urgently needs significant improvement.

The A38 in South East Cornwall has several challenges, some of which are shared with the city of Plymouth and with the Plymouth to Exeter routes. I refer to the Devon section of the A38 case for action document, as many of my constituents commute to Plymouth and beyond, for work, travel, hospital visits, regular shopping trips and leisure. Investment is crucial right along the route from Bodmin to Exeter.

The very poor accident record on the stretch of the A38 in my constituency is tragic and it must be addressed; the accident rate is nearly three times higher than the national average. In the last few years, there have been serious and even fatal accidents at Stoketon Cross, Landrake, Tideford, Trerulefoot, Menheniot and in the Glynn valley. My heart goes out to those affected, but I appreciate that what is needed is not words, but action to prevent future tragedies.

Volumes of traffic are high across the whole of the Bodmin to Exeter section of the A38. Between Bodmin and Saltash alone, there is a cumulative average daily traffic flow of more than 60,000 vehicles. Recently, I conducted a survey about traffic congestion and problems with access at peak times from side roads in Carkeel, and it had a huge response, which demonstrates how concerned my constituents are about the future viability of the A38. There are over a dozen access roads between Carkeel and Trerulefoot, with huge traffic flows that make it incredibly difficult—even dangerous—to join the A38. That is repeated along the whole of the road between Plymouth and Bodmin, and it is a constant danger in the Glynn valley, where roads wind and there is poor visibility.

It is also important that I highlight the lack of alternative roads or other transport modes, particularly given the resilience issues with the main railway line at Dawlish. There are only three significant alternatives: the Torpoint ferry; a single-lane 16th century bridge at Gunnislake; or a very long detour to the A30 in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann). However, all three are not practical alternatives, due to limited capacity and the travelling distance involved.

Across my constituency, the road is of variable standard, with changing speed limits. There is a mixture of single-carriage sections, multiple side-road junctions, direct access roads, dual carriageways with central reserve crossings, such as that for Looe, and the severance of local communities, including Landrake and Tideford. It makes for unreliable, congested and unsafe journeys, and a general feeling of frustration among my constituents.

In addition to the severance of local communities, there is also the significant impact of poor air quality. The A38 is subject to a high level of unplanned closures, which results in poor journey time reliability when compared with that of the A30 in north Cornwall. Over the last five years, the A38 has had 1,100 more unplanned closures than the A30. That figure is not acceptable, given how many people rely on the A38 to conduct their daily lives.

The A38 case for action document clearly states the desired outcomes for our communities between now and the end of road investment strategy 3, which is 2030. However, my ask on behalf of my constituents is for the earliest possible investment. We want the highest level of safety possible, by reducing accident rates and removing accident black spots; we want air quality to be improved; we want communities to be reconnected, by reducing the impact of severance; and we want to ensure that the A38 can support planned growth, including in tourist numbers and for major events, such as Mayflower 2020, by fully utilising technology to reduce journey times, increase reliability and strengthen resilience.

We also want to encourage increased use of rail for commuting, by improving access to park and ride schemes; Bodmin Parkway station has already been mentioned, but I will also mention Menheniot station. For South East Cornwall, that means we need specific speed and safety improvements as soon as possible, including overtaking lanes, side-road junctions, speed cameras and pedestrian crossing facilities. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will hear my plea and be able to respond positively.

In the medium term—so, within RIS2, which is 2020 to 2025—I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider making a substantial commitment to improve the Menheniot /Lean Quarry junction, and to link that with work to develop park and ride facilities at Menheniot station, in order to encourage more commuting by rail. This would be a significant investment, estimated to be over £14 million. However, it would also make use of the newly improved railway station in the constituency of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard).

In the long term—so, within RIS3, which goes beyond 2025—a full upgrade of the A38 from Trerulefoot to Saltash is a priority, including dualling of the road. Of course, we would like this work to happen sooner, if possible.

The A38 case for action document shows that nearly £900 million of productivity growth and investment would be gained by improving the A38 between Bodmin and Exeter. Such an improvement would be a major opportunity for sustainable economic growth, with 52,000 additional jobs and 52,000 homes being planned by 2034, and it would also be an opportunity to strengthen the resilience of the wider transport network. However, the benefits to our respective communities would be so much greater—an improved environment, better air quality, more efficient road travel, less congestion, more jobs and, most importantly, a reduction in the number of road deaths and serious injuries. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will consider my points and the A38 case for action document carefully and positively. The proposals and outcomes set out in that document are compelling, and I look forward to hearing what he has to say.

[Ms Karen Buck (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister to respond, I will just apologise, both to the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) and the Minister, for my late arrival.

Rail Infrastructure (Train Operating Companies)

Karen Buck Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

One thing I asked Chris Gibb to do around the Southern route was to start to create the kind of partnership that I have described today. My early experience on this route—and the early experience of the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard)—was that Network Rail and the train operator were not working closely together and not addressing problems together. Sadly, the real challenge in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Nusrat Ghani) is the ongoing industrial action, which is utterly pointless. No one is losing their job, and no one is losing any money; this is all about adopting new technologies and ways of working that are already custom and practice on the same routes. The action is a tragedy, and it is unacceptable. I again call on the unions to go back to work.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

When Transport for London took over London Overground, it went from being the worst performing rail line in the country to the best performing rail line. That was why the Government signed an agreement with TfL and the London government in March for TfL to take over Southeastern when the franchise expires in 2018. What exactly has happened to make the Government break their promise to Londoners?

[Chris Grayling]

I looked very carefully at this matter. The hon. Lady needs to understand the difference between London Overground and the rest of the suburban routes. London Overground has provided a good service, which is run by Arriva—part of the German railways—and was co-run initially by MTR, the Hong Kong metro system. It is a franchise operator, like the rest. Having read the Mayor’s business case carefully, and having considered the level of change required to split the franchise in half—it would be the biggest operating change on this railway since the 1920s—and the potential disruption to passengers over a period of time, I thought, rightly or wrongly, that we could deliver the service improvement that TfL was talking about by forging a partnership. Crucially, we would involve Kent, because this is not a London issue; as this railway runs from London to the south coast, we cannot think of the railway system just in terms of London. Very many passengers and representatives in this House from further afield would take a very different view from her on what will work for the railway line.

Transport for London Bill [Lords]: Revival

Karen Buck Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry]

I have to say that Islington residents who are on what could be seen as high incomes are very concerned about their children, as are those who are on middle and low incomes. How will children who were born in Islington remain in Islington, given the price of housing? The Mayor of London’s answer has been to redefine affordable housing. It is a little like getting rid of child poverty by taking income out of the definition.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

People in my borough of Westminster now need an income of £77,000 to be able to afford what the Mayor of London has deemed to be an affordable property. My constituents, like those of my hon. Friend, look at the proliferation of new developments and see properties that they will never have the remotest chance of being able to afford. They want not just house building, but the building of affordable homes that they will have a chance to access.

[Emily Thornberry]

The point is this: once the land is gone, it is gone for ever. Once these luxury flats are built, Islington residents will never have a chance of being able to afford to buy them, and if no social housing or real affordable housing is built in inner London, that will be it. We need to defend very carefully the land available.

The Mayor of London has decided that affordable housing equates to 80% of market rent. That would be a laugh if it were not so tragic. It is like newspeak in “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and someone saying, “Say black is white and say it for long enough, and hopefully some fools will start to believe it.” In Islington, 80% of market rent is not affordable housing.

I read with alarm what was said in the Financial Times about housing. Transport for London is talking about affordable housing in the constituency of the hon. Member for Harrow East in outer London, but not in inner London. There are 21,000 people on the waiting list for housing in Islington. Does this Bill answer any of their problems?

[Emily Thornberry]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. It brings us back to another rumour, which is that £700 million will be taken away from Transport for London in the comprehensive spending review and Transport for London is therefore even more in desperate need of a fire sale of our land to subsidise fares. London is the greatest capital in the world, and we need a proper transport system that is appropriate and helps our city to continue to be the lifeblood of this country. It seems to me to be short-sighted to the greatest extent to take away subsidy from Transport for London, because our city will grind to a halt. Once we have sold off that land and the opportunity for my constituents to live in affordable housing has gone, for the sake of their having cheaper fares for a year or two, what do we do then, having sold off the family silver in the way that is being suggested?

[Ms Buck]

Does my hon. Friend agree that risk comes in many different forms? The Evening Standard revealed a few weeks ago that there has been £100 billion of investment in the London property market from overseas since 2008. Some of that money comes from very dodgy sources, including money laundering. That kind of investment in property—where it is not transparent and the property is not properly managed—involves a fundamental risk to the London property market and all other sources that depend on such revenue.

[Emily Thornberry]

All of us have probably been down the river and seen all the developments that are happening. Members should look for how many flats have lights on at night, because if they do not, people are not living there. It is simply that somebody in Singapore can either invest a bag of gold or they can think, “No. Let’s buy a flat in south London, on the river with a lovely view. There will be someone to look after it. We can invest in that and keep it empty for years or decades.” Those empty flats are laughing at my constituents, who are in desperate need of proper housing. It seems to me that this opportunity is being frittered away.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Buck]

I wonder whether the hon. Lady saw the Evening Standard on Wednesday of last week. It reported a list of shame of London tube stations, where passengers were often queuing for up to an hour in order to get their tickets following the closure of the ticket office. Although she is painting a rosy picture of everything being wonderful on London transport, will she reflect on the fact that not everybody is able to use Oyster ticket machines and there is still a need in some cases for ticket offices?

[Claire Perry]

I did not see that report—[Interruption.] Well, I do not read the Standard every day; I apologise. The hon. Lady says that in some stations in central London people are queueing for up to an hour to buy a ticket because they do not have an Oyster card or a contactless card. I find that absolutely astonishing. Frankly, I might have to question the veracity of the reporting.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Lavery]

That raises a whole new question that has not been discussed by anyone on either side of the House. It is a valid question that needs answers.

[Ms Buck]

I, like a number of colleagues, am keen to see land released for development, as long as it is fair and balanced, includes affordable housing and does not substitute for significant cuts in spending on services. Does my hon. Friend agree that a number of people are very jaundiced by the sale of police stations by the Mayor of London? Two police stations in my constituency were sold off, but that did not provide affordable housing; nor did it lead to an investment in front-line policing, which we were told would be a guaranteed consequence of the property sale. We are therefore very jaundiced at the idea that the experience with Transport for London will be any different.

[Ian Lavery]

Are not people right to be jaundiced? They are sick to death of austerity. When the Government close fire stations, police stations, public buildings and public toilets, they always give the excuse that it will result in a better service for the public purse, and on every occasion the opposite is the case. That is why we need to ensure that this issue is discussed and that the people involved—not just the politicians, TfL and the developers, but everybody—understand what is likely to happen if the Bill is passed.

There have been many arguments about this issue. It has been suggested that TfL should not be able to enter into these partnerships until it proves that it can manage them properly, and I think that is fair. Why should an organisation—a first-class organisation, as the Minister called it—that was created to look after transport infrastructure be allowed to go into property development without proper accountability? I think that is a fair and reasonable question. The Bill would give TfL more power to enter into speculative developments on the sites it owns. We have discussed whether the property prices for these developments are affordable. That needs to reflect what people in the city actually need.

There is also an argument about whether TfL should be getting involved in these limited partnerships, and whether it has the financial competence to do so, because the people it will be getting into bed with under clause 5 are no mice or shrinking violets; they will be used to delivering development projects not just in this country but around the globe, so they will be shrewd cookies. We want to ensure that, whatever happens, the people of London get the best deal.

Cycling

Karen Buck Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Dr Huppert]

Absolutely. There are a huge number of cycling activities to participate in. We must ensure that people are aware of them, so that we can bring more people into cycling.

On the subject of participation, the current score is that 53 Members are in Westminster Hall today for this debate, including the Minister.

As I have said, cycling is efficient, cheap, reliable, healthy and environmentally friendly—by all accounts, it is a public policy maker’s dream—and I have not even mentioned cycling as a leisure activity, including road biking or mountain biking, or as a sport. We have some of the best international cyclists in the world. We should note that just last week Great Britain came top of the medals table in the track world cup, with an outstanding five gold medals. Our national cycling team is world-renowned, but our provision for cyclists off the track is deeply inadequate.

What can the Government do to encourage our most effective yet underrated form of transport? This is not just about spending large amounts of cash. There are a lot of small and cheap changes that will make a very big difference to cycling in this country.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman join me in congratulating politicians of all parties in London who have overseen a significant rise in cycling in the capital? Does he agree that, although the number of people cycling in London has risen dramatically, car use is projected to increase at least as fast as that of bicycle use, if not faster, and therefore that how we manage the road space to accommodate the growing demand from both cyclists and drivers needs to be a critical element in planning for the future?

[Dr Huppert]

Absolutely—managing road space is key. Of course, a cyclist takes up a lot less road space than a car user, so when we move people over to bikes from cars we actually free up space, which is very valuable. I emphasise the point that the hon. Lady makes about cycling being a cross-party issue. There are differences between us in the parties, but I hope that this debate will not become a party political knockabout. I do not think that any of us wants that to happen; this issue is too important to the public.

The reforms that we need are not new. Many of the proposed reforms that we will hear about today have been called for by cyclists for years. National organisations such as CTC, which was formerly the Cyclists Touring Club, and local groups such as the Cambridge cycling campaign have worked very hard for sensible policies and support. As a party, the Liberal Democrats have been pushing for those policies for many years, and I am delighted that somebody from my party—the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes—is the Minister with responsibility for cycling now.

We have been able to make some progress. Just recently, some extra money was provided for cyclists, with £7 million going to improve cycle-rail integration, which is absolutely critical. Someone can do a huge amount with a train and a bike, and it is very important that cyclists have places to park their bike and that they can get their bike on the train. I have been working for a long time to achieve some of those things at Cambridge station.

Parking (Westminster)

Karen Buck Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise in Parliament the issue of Westminster council’s parking controls, and particularly the most recent round of proposals, which have generated more controversy than almost any local government matter in recent years. Although I am conscious that much of what is proposed and under discussion relates to the west end—it is good to see the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) here today—I make no apology for introducing the debate. I have no wish to step on the hon. Gentleman’s toes, but Westminster council’s parking policies have an impact far wider than that specific local dimension.

There are two reasons for that: one—and this is one of the themes on which I look forward to the Minister’s response—is that the issue of parking income, and how it is generated and distributed, has a wider context in relation to the agenda of revenue-raising and local taxation. Therefore, everyone in the local authority of the London borough of Westminster has a legitimate interest in how that income is generated and used. Indeed, the wider issues of congestion, displacement and road management are for everyone in the community. Secondly, what happens to the economy of central London is a legitimate matter of concern for us all, since millions of Londoners are affected in their capacity as employees, workers, shoppers, business men and women, worshippers and people who enjoy the cultural and recreational opportunities that central London offers. It is in that context that the Westminster parking proposals have generated such an exceptional level of media interest, particularly, but by no means exclusively, in the Evening Standard. The Evening Standard has, I think, grasped what the majority party on Westminster council seems not to have grasped—that Westminster’s financial problems cannot be solved by any means to hand, without a proper recognition of the impact on the wider economy of London.

To put my cards on the table, I entirely accept that parking income is a legitimate source of revenue-raising for local government, particularly given the severe constraints on the raising of income by other means, and the critical importance of maintaining services for residents. However, the law is clear on the issue, and the law, common sense and political calculation all demand honesty and transparency in the process, as well as that the charges should be fair and proportionate. There has not been adequate honesty and transparency about Westminster council’s financial pressures, and councillors have been found out. They have not told it straight to local people, but instead have given the impression that they have discovered the philosopher’s stone—a way to provide comprehensive, quality services without an adequate tax base.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

The hon. Lady recognises, I think, the fact that there were considerable legal constraints on the making of the proposed—now shelved—parking changes on the grounds of the finances that were required. There was a big campaign to make a case, which I think was legitimate, about congestion; but no one was fooled about an important element of the proposals being driven by the desire to raise more money in times of financial constraint. Would the hon. Lady prefer a much more transparent approach, not just in Westminster but across local government, which would allow an open debate about precisely those problems—the issue of going down the route of increased parking costs, which would affect everyone in the vicinity, or potential cuts in adult and child services, which are the sorts of things she and I know all too well affect many providers in the City of Westminster today?

[Ms Buck]

There are several issues there, and I shall return to one or two of them, but, yes, we need a broader debate about the role of charging income, property taxation and other forms of income generation by local government. There is no question but that charging has a role to play; but, as the Minister will no doubt confirm, there are particular constraints on the way parking income can be used for revenue generation. The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster has confirmed what the Secretary of State for Transport said earlier about the suspicion that the charges are being used for revenue generation, rather than parking and traffic management. That is not what parking revenue is supposed to be about.

[Mark Field]

I think that a perfectly legitimate case was made for traffic management, and concerns about congestion. However, had there not been the big financial constraints, there might not have been such a desire to proceed so quickly. The trouble was, the legislation is so prescriptive that to make the case on financial grounds would have killed it off at the outset. Therefore, much more emphasis was placed on the issue of congestion.

[Ms Buck]

The hon. Gentleman is almost making my argument for me. We should have a debate about charging income, which could include the proper role of parking income in a local authority’s tax base. That would be fine; but within the present legal constraints we are where we are, and however we approach the matter we need a mature, transparent and honest debate about services and income. That has been spectacularly missing. As I have said, the political fallout from what has happened has been catastrophic for Westminster council. Whether or not the current leader has, as I believe, been the first victim of that miscalculation—it remains to be seen whether he will be the last—a great deal of collateral damage has none the less been done to the council.

To recap on the facts, Westminster council’s plans to ban free evening and Sunday parking on single yellow lines in the west end for more than 8,400 cars have provoked an unprecedented coalition of opposition. They have united the Churches and casinos and the trade unions and big business. They have brought together local residents, visitors to the west end, and those who earn their living there, and united all the major political parties. Indeed, Westminster council has achieved the near impossible—it has found the one thing that Boris Johnson, Brian Paddick and Ken Livingstone all agree on.

The council said that the new charges and the single yellow line parking ban are designed to increase the turnover of cars parking in the area, and to make it easier for those driving into the heart of London to find a parking space; but everyone knows that the real reason is to raise the expected £7 million a year that the charges will raise for a council whose cash reserves have fallen by £60 million in the past two years, as Government cuts have bitten and reduced its room for manoeuvre. As Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, has said:

“It’s completely mad what Westminster are doing. It will be damaging to business. I’m afraid, as far as I understand the matter, there is a financial issue here for Westminster. In other words, they need the revenue.”

As I have mentioned, the Secretary of State for Transport has said—and I should be interested to have the Minister’s clarification of this—

“I’m sure when Westminster thought about what they were going to do with those parking charges they had a sense they might be able to put some extra money in their coffers that they could probably use on public services”.

As I understand that quotation, the Transport Secretary clearly accepts that the local authority was acting at least at the borders, and possibly beyond the borders, of legality. Does the Minister agree with the Mayor of London and the Transport Secretary about Westminster’s true motives, and, in view of that, what is the Department’s line on how to respond, and on what constraints there should be on the proper use of parking revenue?

[Mark Field]

I confess I look forward to the fulsome praise that the hon. Lady will give to the words of the Mayor of London in the next 107 days, in the run-up to the mayoral election. I do not think there is any suggestion of illegality. Surely the primary purpose of the changes was related to traffic management and congestion, but the hon. Lady and the Transport Secretary are right to suggest that there was also a secondary purpose. That would not make the proposals illegal or illegitimate, but the public at large were not going to be fooled, and they felt that the wool was being pulled over their eyes when the latter priority was denied entirely.

[Ms Buck]

I will let that pass; those are the hon. Gentleman’s views.

In addition to the question about the proper role of parking income as a source of revenue, the issue that has probably generated the greatest controversy is the risk that the parking charges would present to the central London economy. The independent City forecaster, the Centre for Economics and Business Research, has estimated that the parking charges would cost the west end £800 million a year and threaten more than 5,000 jobs. It is suggested that 9% of the £9.2 billion central London night-time and Sunday economy could disappear as customers and workers are put off by the new charges. The research found that the biggest losses of turnover would be felt by restaurants, bars, pubs and cafes at £330 million, followed by theatres, cinemas, casinos and other places of entertainment at £314 million, and then retailers at £145 million. Recent research by the Society of London Theatre revealed that 16% of London theatregoers used cars to visit the theatre. For those over 55, it was more than 20%, with the reasons being more about access and security than the availability of public transport. Some 90% of London’s theatre ticket revenue was generated within the borough of Westminster. Westminster’s proposals would still, although delayed, continue to put at risk some 14.5% of total theatre income, or approximately £72 million a year.

Baroness Valentine, the chief executive of the business group London First, said:

“At a time when the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors are all suffering from the protracted slowdown and reduced consumer confidence and spending, introducing measures that will further discourage customers from coming into central London seems perverse. Westminster’s businesses should not be the unwilling guinea pigs in an experiment of which the outcome could be highly damaging to their viability.”

Mary Portas, appointed by the Government as a high street adviser, as well as being a local resident, said:

“Parking is just one of the issues that comes up time and time again. It’s one of the biggest things that stops flow, and for retailers and restaurants it stops their trade. This is just sheer madness”.

Does the Minister agree with the Prime Minister’s high street adviser?

There are of course a great many individuals, too, who are low-income employees working in the night-time economy and who have raised concerns about the impact on them at a time when night transport is by no means always available. That raises real concerns about safety, particularly for women travelling at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning.

In addition to the impact on business, the Minister will know that some 15,000 people attend churches of all denominations on a Sunday in Westminster, many of whose families used to live in the west end. They see it as part of the family tradition to worship in a west end church. Major Ray Brown of the Salvation Army in Oxford street made the case in clear and unambiguous terms. He said that

“Westminster Council have taken a very short-sighted decision to seriously damage hundreds of years of church community action and spiritual activity for the sake of a quick financial gain. For some members and volunteers at The Salvation Army, this means having to face the terrible decision of having to leave the church they have been involved in all their lives”.

Does the Minister believe that curtailing the Church’s community action is in line with the Prime Minister’s big society vision?

These new charges were originally due to be introduced in early December 2011, just weeks before Christmas, but thanks to pressure from west end retailers and Labour councillors, Westminster reluctantly agreed to postpone implementation until January. Meanwhile, west end restaurateurs, retailers, residents and Churches came together to fund legal action against the council. On 14 December, the High Court ordered Westminster council to halt plans to introduce west end parking charges until the judicial review application is heard in March. In a scathing decision, Mr Justice Collins highlighted

“substantial damage to businesses and churches”

and “far too limited” consultation as reasons why the council should not be allowed to introduce the new charges until the judicial review has been heard.

Sensing it was losing the argument, Westminster council leader Colin Barrow promised to listen more in the future and to delay implementation of the new charges until after the 2012 Olympics and the diamond jubilee celebrations. However, just nine days later, at 3.30 pm on 23 December, Councillor Barrow stopped listening and the council announced that it would be axing 1,200 single yellow line parking spaces under the guise of helping the elderly and the disabled cross the road more easily. Of course, everybody supports double yellow lines at dropped kerbs in order to make crossing the road safer for the disabled, the elderly and parents, but Westminster council’s proposals go way beyond just protecting dropped kerbs from parked cars. They were used as an excuse to remove 5 miles of safe evening parking from the west end, and were a deliberate attempt to get round the High Court ban on implementing plans to remove more than 8,400 free parking spaces on single yellow lines.

Then, just last week, Westminster council dropped another bombshell when it became clear that figures on the number of parking spaces that would be lost through the council’s plans were not accurate. Originally we were given to understand that 1,700 yellow line parking spaces would be lost through the council’s proposals, when the real figure was actually more than 8,400. That is a 500% difference. The significance of this monumental blunder is fundamental. The council had no idea how many parking spaces would be lost when it took the decision in August 2011 to ban parking on single yellow lines in the evening and on Sundays. Nor did the council have the correct figures when it consulted residents and businesses before and after the decision.

The leader of the Westminster Labour group, Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg, has written to the council’s director of legal services to point out the obvious implications of this admission. He said:

“At the time the Cabinet agreed the proposals in August 2011 Members were not provided with any information on the number of single yellow line parking spaces that would be lost. Cabinet members were therefore unable to give proper consideration to all the material facts. Members were not informed of a figure for lost parking spaces until nearly 2 months later…The Council’s further public consultation that ran up until early December 2011 did not provide any figures on the number of single yellow line parking places to be lost and the only figure in the public domain during the consultation period was the incorrect figure of 1,700 provided by the Council”.

Whatever happens next—it is hard to see how the proposed charges can survive the leadership contest that Councillor Barrow has unleashed—Westminster’s problems are not over. Either the highest profile charging row in recent memory will lead to reinstatement, or a financial crisis looms, to be dealt with by a council weakened in trust and credibility. I look forward to the Minister’s response, but I believe that the policy disaster that has befallen Westminster has much wider ramifications for local government finance, and those need to be addressed too.

We all believe that parking and car use in inner cities has to be controlled and managed, but any changes with impacts and ramifications such as these need to be handled on the basis of accurate data, and with effective consultation. The changes need to take with them public trust and confidence. I am sorry to say that Westminster council has lost that trust and confidence, with major implications for the wider economy, and is in danger of undermining this Government’s and future Governments’ more thoughtful approaches to traffic management and parking. If the council will not act effectively to get itself out of the hole it has dug, I look to the Minister to assure us that the Government will step in.

Rail Fares

Karen Buck Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle]

What we are not seeing from train operating companies or the Government are proposals to reduce fares. The technical position is of course that if an average cap is applied to each fare, the fare rise will apply to each fare. The Secretary of State is right about that, technically speaking.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

On the commitment to reduce fares, is my hon. Friend aware that the Labour candidate to be Mayor of London intends to bring forward a package to reduce fares, given that Boris Johnson’s increase in the cost of a zones 1 to 4 travelcard equals a 21% rise, despite the fact that Transport for London has a £729 million operating surplus? The Labour party has a commitment to cut fares.

[Maria Eagle]

I am aware of that and thank my hon. Friend for making that point. At least Labour’s candidate understands how hard it is for ordinary, hard-pressed commuters to afford the kind of fare rises that the Government are not only allowing, but promoting. It is no good Ministers hiding behind the deficit, because this is not a simple case of bringing additional money into the Treasury; it is also about bringing additional money into the profits of private train companies. The National Audit Office report on the Department for Transport’s spending settlement warned:

“There is a risk that the benefit of the resulting increase in passenger revenues will not be passed on to taxpayers fully, but will also result in increased train operating company profits.”

High fares equal increased profits in an industry that relies on subsidies of more than £4 billion of taxpayers’ money every year. It is no wonder passengers in Britain are paying three and a half times more for their rail tickets than those in France, Germany and Holland, all countries that do not have the costly and fragmented rail industry structure that is the legacy of the Tories’ botched privatisation of our railway industry. The French, German and Dutch state railways are so successful that they are now bidding for and winning franchises to run rail services in Britain. The Government are step by step nationalising our rail services—it is just that it is not our nation. The profits will be helping to keep down fares in France, Germany and Holland for their own domestic passengers. It is no wonder that fares are so high under our broken system.

Therefore, we would enforce a strict cap on fare rises, but I believe that we need to go further and make fares fairer. Because the system has lost all credibility, passengers feel ripped off and know that they are being ripped off. They feel that the system does not work in their interests and that it is designed to catch them out. That is what I have been told by passengers as I have travelled across the country over the past year. In addition to getting spiralling rail fares under control, here are five other ideas that passengers have said would make a real difference. First, why is there no single national definition of peak time? Why are train companies allowed to set different rules so that passengers have to know precisely which company they are travelling with or risk facing a fine for travelling on the right ticket at the wrong time? Why are the companies allowed to chop and change peak time, stretching it out simply to hike their profits?

--- Later in debate ---

[Justine Greening]

I do not, because I believe that the train operating companies need flexibility, so I support my predecessor’s decision. If I did agree with negotiating a further period, it would represent a spending commitment. I agree with the shadow Chancellor that now is not the time to make any further spending commitments, even if the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood does not. We can see the absolute disarray that the Labour party is now in.

I find it incredibly frustrating and galling, as I think many other people do, to hear on one day the leader of the Labour party—the party that left this country in a worse financial state than any other Government ever have—profess that we must be responsible, even though Labour was irresponsible and did not have the custodian values that it needed in looking after our public finances, then the day after, to hear Labour talk about more spending and more debt in the middle of a debt crisis. The very people who let this country down the most and left our public finances in their worst state ever are now the ones talking about responsibility. Most people outside will see that for exactly what it is—absolute political gibberish.

[Ms Buck]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Justine Greening]

No, I am going to make some more progress now.

I ask the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, or perhaps the shadow Minister who winds up the debate, to come clean and talk about how their spending commitment would be funded. If the hon. Lady wants to go against what the shadow Chancellor is saying about there being no more spending, she must accept that her suggestion represents a spending commitment. It is time to talk about how she would fund it, otherwise she has to accept that it would lead to more debt at a time when we are right in the middle of a debt crisis. There is no point in the Leader of the Opposition promoting responsibility when his own party continues to show absolutely none.

The hon. Lady also has to admit that the flexibility that she wants to take away from train operating companies has meant some passengers benefiting from lower increases or decreases. For instance, passengers on the Birmingham to London route via High Wycombe have seen their annual season ticket price reduced by 7%, and the Gatwick to Bournemouth saver return has been reduced by 28%. She is proposing to raise the cost of those passengers’ travel. Presumably she is quite happy to confirm that—she can intervene if she wants.

The bottom line is that for all the bluster that we heard from the hon. Lady, she would abandon the long-term investment in capacity improvements that depends on continued funding from both the taxpayer and the fare payer. She talks about 11% fare increases, but the last Government also allowed such increases. It is worth reminding ourselves of their record on rail fares and value for money. The Labour-led Transport Committee in the last Parliament stated:

“Neither passengers nor tax payers are getting value for their money…The value for money of rail travel has deteriorated by most yardsticks over the past decade.”

I have listened carefully to the comments of the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, and I hope that we both accept that the real driver of rising costs for fare payers and taxpayers is the inefficiency of the rail system that we inherited from the Opposition. She mentioned other European railways, and Sir Roy McNulty’s independent review of our railway network found that the system that we inherited from the previous Government is 40% less efficient than those of our best European comparators. Taxpayers and fare payers must shoulder that huge cost burden because of the previous Government’s failure to reform our railways.

Unless we are prepared to get to grips with the underlying causes of the inefficiencies, we will never make the progress that I am so passionate about achieving. That means getting different parts of the industry to work more effectively together, as we are doing through the rail delivery group, which has been set up, as Roy McNulty proposed. It means aligning incentives better and increasing transparency—I absolutely agree with that. However, it also means tackling some of the work-force issues, which, we must all accept, have driven up costs. When we reach those difficult discussions in the coming weeks, months and years to tackle rail industry costs that are too high, I hope that the Labour party will step up to the plate and join us in making the necessary decisions to bring rail costs down for the longer term and relieve the fare rise pressures that we have experienced year after year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justine Greening]

That is what I mean when I talk about the need to align financial incentives better so that people are pulling in the right direction and so that, when performance is not good enough, it costs the people who cause the inefficiency in the first place.

I want to move on to the second aspect of the comments of the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood —bus fares. Although every sector and Department have had to play their part in deficit reduction, the Labour party still does not accept that, even after yesterday’s speech by the Leader of the Opposition. Nevertheless, we are determined that, even in the difficult economic conditions that we face, buses will continue to receive their fair share of funding. Yes, it is constrained by the terrible legacy that the Labour party left us, but we are determined to encourage more people on to buses and to make bus travel more attractive. That is why we set out in a spending review our commitment to continuing our financial subsidy of bus operators. The bus service operators grant remains untouched for this financial year, with savings to be introduced only from April, alongside others that we have had to make across Government as part of tackling the deficit that the Labour party left us.

[Ms Buck]

Does the Secretary of State therefore think that the Mayor of London was wrong to raise a single bus fare by 50% since 2009?

[Justine Greening]

Many Londoners will not forget that the current Labour candidate for Mayor increased bus fares in 2004 by a huge amount. I simply do not accept that his proposals for London will mean anything other than catastrophically undermining the essential investment, on which so many Londoners count, in the transport system. It is financial jiggery-pokery, and it does not add up. I believe that Londoners will see right through it in May.

We must tackle the deficit, but we continue to ensure that funding goes into our bus services. Indeed, we spoke to the industry as part of the spending review about how we could get more out of the bus service operators grant. After difficult spending decisions, the industry said that it felt able to absorb the reduction without raising fares or cutting services. Nevertheless, we are protecting the concessionary bus travel scheme.