Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Keir Mather and Steve Darling(1 week ago)
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Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)
Regional airports are vital gateways for passengers and major sources of local employment. The UK aviation sector operates in a commercial market, with airports attracting passengers and airlines responding to demand through route development. The UK Government support airport growth across the country. Through the Aviation Council, which I co-chair, and its regional connectivity working group, we are examining the challenges and opportunities facing regional airports.
Steve Darling
Regional airports, such as Exeter airport, should be engines of economic growth. However, one often sees that airport services gravitate towards larger regional airports. Will the Minister give further information on how he is seeking to ensure that more peripheral airports, such as Exeter, are strongly supported to be the engines for economic change that they could be?
Keir Mather
We need to ensure that regional airports like Exeter and Newquay have the connectivity into larger airports that they need. Through our consultation on the Heathrow expansion national policy statement, we were dedicated and focused on how to increase that connectivity via either public service obligation connections or routes into the airport through a regional fund to better facilitate those connections. More broadly, whether it be through airspace modernisations to facilitate better connectivity or by ensuring that regional airports are better protected against fluctuations in the price of jet fuel, the Government are committed to taking comprehensive action to support the sector, recognising that it can serve as a catalyst both for economic growth and for the economic connectivity for the hon. Gentleman’s constituents that he rightly points to.
Maritime and Coastguard Agency
Debate between Keir Mather and Steve Darling(3 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Keir Mather
I would be glad to speak to my hon. Friend’s constituents, and he raises an incredibly important point: very often, CROs are not only discharging the responsibilities that we would expect of coastguard rescue officers; they are increasingly filling in the gaps for other emergency blue light services that, for whatever reason, are not able to get to people in time, or are thinly stretched and require CROs to step up. That requires them to go beyond the operational requirements that we would expect of them. This process is not just about recognising the incredible service that they contribute within the envelope of what is expected of them; they go beyond that every single day. My hon. Friend explains the issue well, and I would be happy to engage with his constituents.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
In my discussions with coastguards in Torbay, they have shared the full spectrum of their activities. One of the most disturbing and harrowing is the recovery of dead bodies—not only where humans or pets may have gone over the edge of a cliff, but where people have died from drowning. That may be an accident or a suicide, and it will leave emotional scars on the officers. Does the Minister agree that choosing not to financially compensate people who undertake work that many of us would find really difficult is nothing short of an insult?
Keir Mather
The hon. Gentleman speaks powerfully about the contributions that CROs make in the most tragic and emotionally traumatic circumstances. We need to do a number of things, including building a system that allows us to retain operational capacity so that we can keep people safe in our water, and granting CROs, and the MCA more broadly, the resilience to be able to carry out their meaningful work. We also need to treat CROs with the fairness, dignity and respect that they require. He is right to say that remuneration allowed us to do that. We are now dealing with the consequences of the Court of Appeal judgment to process how we move forward, to make sure that fairness and due respect continue into the future. I hope that he can continue to hold me to account as we do so.